|
''The Mountain Sylph'' is an opera in two acts by John Barnett to a libretto by Thomas James Thackeray, after ''Trilby, ou le lutin d'Argail'' by Charles Nodier. It was first produced in London at the Lyceum Theatre in 1834 with great success. Often (mistakenly) cited as the first through-composed English opera of the 19th century,〔e.g. in Oxford Music Online, ''Barnett, John''〕 it was Barnett's only great success on the stage out of some 30 operas and operettas, and was perhaps the most effective work by an English composer in the style of Carl Maria von Weber. Rarely (if ever) performed in the last century, its plot was parodied by W. S. Gilbert in his libretto for the Savoy Opera ''Iolanthe'' (1882).〔Oxford Music Online, ''The Mountain Sylph''〕 ==Background== The story-line of ''The Mountain Sylph'', based on Nodier's tale, had already been adapted in 1832 by the singer Adolphe Nourrit as the basis of the ballet ''La Sylphide'', and it was probably the success of the ballet in Paris, where the cast included the famous ballerina, Marie Taglioni, which brought the subject to Barnett's attention. In any case, the opera more closely follows the story of the ballet than that of Nodier's story.〔Edgecombe, pp. 25-27.〕 Before ''The Mountain Sylph'', Barnett had mainly written comic operettas, incidental music and songs for plays, and burlesques and adaptations of popular foreign works, including the opera ''Robert le diable'' by his distant cousin Giacomo Meyerbeer. ''The Mountain Sylph'' owes its larger scale to a fortunate accident. As Barnett wrote in a note to the published score: The following (my first attempt at legitimate Opera), was, in its original form, intended as a Musical Drama for the Victoria Theatre, and written for an incomplete band; but, finding the difficulty of producing it at that theatre insurmountable, owing to the want of numbers, both on stage and in the orchestra, I was obliged to abandon my project; and this difficulty first suggested the idea of heightening it to an opera for the New Lyceum.〔Barnett, 1834, p. 1.〕 Barnett's opera was the second production at the Lyceum, following Edward Loder's ''Nourjahad''. The proprietor of the Lyceum, Samuel James Arnold (to whom Barnett had been articled at the age of 11), had specifically relaunched the theatre as the 'English Opera House', and the ''Sylph'' provided him with a useful hit. On the hundredth performance, Arnold gave a large banquet for the composer, cast, musicians and production team.〔Salaman, p. 213.〕 Although Barnett made extended use in the opera of recitative, it has been shown that there was also spoken dialogue, and the palm for being the first through-composed opera of the period must go to Charles Horn's ''Dirce'' of 1823, which was unsuccessful and sank without trace.〔Carr, Bruce, "The first all-sung English 19th-century opera", in ''Musical Times'', vol. 115, pp. 125-27 (1974).〕 In ''The Mountain Sylph'', the rich scoring and use of recurring motifs to suggest elements of the supernatural showed that the composer had well learnt the lessons of Weber, whose ''Oberon'' and ''Der Freischütz'' had been popular in London from the 1820s. Barnett's contemporaries were aware of the opera's qualities; George Alexander Macfarren wrote that "its production opened a new period for music in this country, from which is to be dated the establishment of an English dramatic school".〔Oxford Music Online, ''Barnett, John''〕 However by 1949, the musicologist Edward J. Dent opined that "the libretto is ludicrously awkward" and "the construction is very amateurish and the music is always coming to a dead stop when it ought to go on".〔Dent, p. 170.〕 A 2002 assessment was that the music of the opera "is patchy, but often rather good, and well deserves a revival in an age interested in novelty and engaged (rather than rendered apoplectic) by lightweight prettiness.... where he lets us down, and lets us down consistently, is in the comparative flatness and sameness of his solo arias and in his frequent failure to inflect them with any kind of dramatic urgency.... But when he is able to get his teeth into the few big ensembles and scenas that Thackeray gave him, Barnett does evolve dynamic musical textures that glow, even if their fire is very pale."〔Edgecombe, pp. 27 and 38.〕 In 1837 ''The Mountain Sylph'' was presented as a "grand melodramatic spectacle" at the National Theatre in Washington, DC, with Annette Nelson in the role of Aeolia. In the audience were a number of Native American chiefs, who presented Miss Nelson with traditional headwear in appreciation.〔(Past Shows – 1835 to 1864 ) at the National Theatre website. A contemporary newspaper account of this performance can be found (here )〕 ''The Mountain Sylph'' was Barnett's only major operatic success. His other large scale operas (''Fair Rosamond'' (1837) and ''Farinelli'' (1839)) flourished only briefly. ''The Mountain Sylph'' does not seem to have been revived since the early 20th century; the last known performance was in 1906 at the Guildhall School of Music.〔Oxford Music Online, ''The Mountain Sylph''〕 Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera ''Iolanthe'' (1882) parodies themes from ''The Mountain Sylph''. In that work, for the love of a mortal, the fairy Iolanthe is banished from fairy society with the consent of her Queen. Typically Gilbertian absurdities are introduced to fairyland: the shepherd, who is the son of Iolanthe and her mortal husband, turns out to be "half a fairy". That is, his body and brain are fairy, but his legs are mortal. Furthermore, the magical fairies are contrasted with the prosaic House of Lords, and ultimately they all fall in love.〔(''Iolanthe'' ) at The Gilbert & Sullivan Archive, accessed 18 July 2009〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Mountain Sylph」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|