Arthur Benjamin's Operas

Abstract

Ever since the seventeenth century composers of English operas have been handicapped by the snob-preference for foreign works irrespective of their merits. In Purcell's day a second-rate French composer, whose past is still shrouded in Continental mystery, was so boosted in London even by Dryden that it was only through an open-air performance by Mr. Priest's school-girls at Chelsea that Dido and Aeneas convinced both London theatre managers and eventually Dryden himself that Purcell was “equal with the best abroad.” In this century, when the usual opera favourites were established, it has been even more difficult for English opera-composers to get a showing (at one time it had not been unheard of for English operas to be translated into Italian or German for production in this country): but twenty-five years ago the Royal College of Music followed the example of Mr. Priest by producing for the first time Vaughan Williams' Hugh the Drover, which was afterwards given publicly by the British National Opera Company, and in 1931 under the auspices of the Ernest Palmer Opera Fund, introduced The Devil Take Her, the first opera by the Australian composer Arthur Benjamin. The enthusiasm of the singers, headed by Sarah Fischer and Trefor Jones, the cunning skill of the conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham and the practical knowledge of the producer, John B. Gordon, who had had so much experience at Cologne and who was at the time doing such good work for opera at the Old Vic, all combined to make the performance outstanding.