Soloists - Gilbert & Sullivan: Yeomen of the Guard [CD]

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William Schwenk Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Sullivan(1842-1900)The Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and his MaidChronologically the eleventh Gilbert and Sullivan opera, ifwe number Trial By Jury as their first, and the sixth of the Savoy Operaproductions, The Yeomen of the Guard was first given at the London Savoy on 3rdOctober, 1888. It ran there for 423 performances and during its first two yearsof life its name became established on a par with The Mikado and TheGondoliers. A success in the English provinces, it was welcomed overseas inproductions by J.C. Williamson in Australia and a hundred-performance run onBroadway, not to mention in certain bowdlerised versions in Vienna and Budapestin 1890 which earned the composer's disapproval. Having previously mocked time-honoured British institutions,the Navy in HMS Pinafore and the judicature in Trial By Jury, not to mentionthe newly-ordained Aesthetic Movement in Patience, in The Yeomen of the GuardGilbert poked gentle fun at the Sovereign's personal Guard. While Yeomen markeda sudden departure from the opera-bouffe style most recently heard in their1887 'melodrama burlesque' Ruddigore, towards the more dazzling operetta idiomof The Gondoliers (1889), in dramatic terms it was the team's furthestgravitation towards 'serious' opera. The work has since stayed the course asone of Sullivan's finest scores. A standard in the repertoire of the originalD'Oyly Carte Company, it enjoyed frequent revivals during the first half of thelast century and was restored to the repertoire by the new Company in 1989. Onfour separate occasions it was staged within the Tower of London itself, mostrecently during the Tower's Ninth Centenary celebrations in 1978.SynopsisCD 1Act 1 The tuneful Overture [1] partly compensates for the lack ofan opening chorus (this is the only G & S opera without one) and thecurtain rises on Tower Green. Working at her spinnin-wheel, Phoebe, thedaughter of Sergeant Meryll of the Yeomen of the Guard, sings a doleful lay.She is hopelessly in love with the dashing Colonel Fairfax, a man of sciencewho was formerly a soldier of great bravery and who awaits execution in theTower on a false charge of sorcery [2]. She weeps as Wilfred Shadbolt, HeadJailer and Assistant Tormentor, enters. Phoebe berates him on the cruelty ofhis profession and as he takes his exit, dejected (for he, too, loves Phoebeand is jealous of Fairfax) a crowd of villagers, followed by the yeomen onduty, enters [3]. Phoebe protests to Dame Carruthers, the Tower's 'dragonesque'housekeeper, that Fairfax, while admittedly a student of alchemy, is innocentof sorcery, but the Dame, who believes Fairfax guilty, hastens to defend theTower's bloodthirsty practises [4]. Phoebe and Sergeant Meryll await the arrivalof Meryll's son Leonard, whose gallant service has earned him an appointment asa yeoman. Phoebe hopes he will bring a reprieve for Fairfax, but he comes withonly a routine dispatch to the Tower's Lieutenant. Meryll recount

Overture

Night Has Spread Her Pall Once More

When Maiden Loves

Oh! A Private Buffoon Is A Lighthearted Loon

When Maiden Loves

Hereupon We're Both Agreed

Tower Warders, Under Orders

Free From His Fetters Grim

Alas! I Waiver To And Fro

Stranger Adventure

Is Life A Boon?

Hark! What Was That, Sir?

Here's A Man To Sing Jollity

Like A Ghost His Vigil Keeping

I Have A Song To Sing, O

A Man Who Would Woo A Fair Maid

How Say You Maiden

When A Wooer Goes A-wooing

I've Jibe And Joke

Finale

'Tis Done! I Am A Bride

Were I Thy Bride