A TALE OF TWO OPERAS: STANFORD'S 'SAVONAROLA' AND 'THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS' FROM GESTATION TO PRODUCTION

Abstract

FEW NINETEENTH-CENTURY COMPOSERS had the pleasure of having two operas premiered within two weeks of each other. Charles Villiers Stanford is the only British member of this group, the operas in question being Savonarola (Hamburg, Stadttheater, 18April 1884) and The Canterbury Pilgrims (London, Drury Lane, 28 April 1884), both with librettos by Gilbert A'Beckett.1 Although the two works, the second and third of Stanford's nine completed operas, were acclaimed when first seen, they soon sank into the obscurity common to all British operas of this period (with the possible exception of Sullivan's Ivanhoe). They are good examples of the fledgling school of British opera which emerged in the 1880s, and the events surrounding them demonstrate the tribulations faced by an opera composer trying to establish himself in late Victorian England. British opera had been in the doldrums since the early 1860s. At that time the Pyne-Harrison Opera Company had built its success through performing British works in the vernacular. They had given many premieres, including works by Balfe, Macfarren, Wallace and Benedict. The company's collapse in 1864 and the lack of any replacement had predictable results. Few British works were premiered between 1865 and 1882, and the exceptions were all operettas, for instance the earlier works of Sullivan and Cowen's Pauline (1876). Interest in British opera was revived, perhaps on the back of Sullivan's success, by Carl Rosa, who encouraged several young British composers to write works for his company. The first fruits of this support to appear on the stage were Mackenzie's Colomba and Goring Thomas's Esmeralda, both of which Rosa produced in 1883.2 Stanford was fortunate in being in the right place at the right time. After going up to Cambridge in 1870, he had established a reputation among the cognoscenti of the British musical world through his work as conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society. He staged several important performances, the most notable being the British premiere of Brahms's First Symphony in 1877. He was also gaining a reputation as a composer, notably of songs (e.g. Eight Songs from 'The Spanish Gypsy', Op. 1 (1877)) and church music (e.g. the Service in B flat, Op. 10 (1879)). Stanford's great passion, however, was opera: it was in this field that he longed to excel. His first opera, The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan (1877-9) was premiered at the Hoftheater, Hanover, on 2 February 1881.3 The work was produced enthusiastically