Anthony Gishford: Grand Opera (1972)

Abstract

Abstract I was most interested to learn that my friend Anthony Gishford was producing a book on opera, in the context of the great Opera Houses of the world.1 His knowledge of the subject is wide, for he has been a keen amateur of opera all his life, and for the last twenty years or so he has actively taken part in its administration, encouraging those who perform and create it.I am interested in the book because for thirty years writing operas has been my main musical occupation. Many complain about this, those who do not like the medium, who distrust it (‘impure!’), would rather I wrote more symphonies, quartets, concertos, song cycles and cello suites. Be that as it may, ever since those fruitless struggles with Paul Bunyan up to the immediate struggles with the problems of Death in Venice I have been fascinated by the most powerful medium of musical communication that I know.2There have always been Cassandras.3 Before Peter Grimes there was no future for an English opera. In spite of its favourable reception in 1945 those responsible for its production were all summarily removed from Sadlers Wells.4 There was no money (there never is) for opera, so a group of friends and I tried to devise a cheaper form of it-no chorus, tiny cast, an orchestra of twelve. After a successful opening of The Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne and an encouraging visit abroad, a dismal tour of the English provinces followed-’casts must be international’-and so we were compelled to start our own opera group, and our own Aldeburgh Festival.