Merrie England Bessie I, Said His Bride, I’Ll Dance by Thy Side, Quoth Marion to Robin Hood, at Robin Hood’S Wedding
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
At Robin Hood’s wedding. Raleigh Who’ll dance with Robin Hood At Robin Hood’s wedding? Merrie England Bessie I, said his bride, I’ll dance by thy side, Quoth Marion to Robin Hood, At Robin Hood’s wedding. Operetta in 2 acts All Libretto by Basil Hood Then God save the King! Music by Edward German And God save the Queen! And let us all sing And dance on the green In memory of Robin Hood, In memory of Marion, Who danced at their wedding. First performance : April 2, 1902. Savoy Theatre, London. With a hey, jolly Robin, etc. (A dance. Queen Elizabeth and Essex enter on high ground at back, led on by the Fool. He points out to the Queen the group of “Robin Hood’s Wedding,” similar to that formed by the Morris Dancers in Act 1, in which Raleigh and Bessie are now the central figures.) Curtain 27th May 2018 Page 40 Elizabeth Raleigh Roles I have changed my mind. With all my heart! (Alarm bell heard in distance. A Messenger enters The Earl Of Essex (Mr. Henry A. Lytton.) Baritone breathlessly.) All Sir Walter Raleigh (Mr. Robert Evett) Tenor Aye! At Robin Hood’s Wedding! Walter Wilkins, a Player in Shakespeare’s Company (Mr. Walter Passmore) Ben Silas Simkins, another Player (Mr. Mark Kinghorne) The prisoners have escaped, madam Mistress 11 Finale Royal Foresters : Throckmorton and the witch girl. Long Tom (Mr. C. Torrence) ; Raleigh Big Ben (Mr. R. Crompton) Elizabeth Who’ll come, said Robin Hood, The Queen’s Fool (Mr. George Mudie, Jun.) Let them go! They are pardoned! Who’ll come to my wedding? A Butcher (Mr. Powis Pinder) A Baker (Mr. J. Boddy) Jill. A Tinker (Mr. Rudolf Lewis) Jill God save the Queen! A Tailor (Mr. Robert Rows) All those who love A Lord (Mr. C. Childerstone) The blue sky above, A Soldier (Mr. Lewis Campion) Elizabeth And the green grass to lie upon First Royal Page (Master Roy Lorraine) Ah! ‘Tis better than bedding! Second Royal Page (Miss Ela Q. May) The witch! Queen Elizabeth (Miss Rosina Brandram) Contralto (Jill runs off) All Miss Bessie Throckmorton (Miss Agnes Fraser) Soprano All such are welcome “Jill-All-Alone” (Miss Louie Pounds) All At Robin Hood’s wedding. The May Queen (Miss Joan Keddie) The witch! She’s a witch! Marjory (Miss W. Hart Dyke) Raleigh. Kate (Miss Alice Coleman) Essex Who’ll tie the lovers’ knot Lady-in-Waiting (Miss Rose Rosslyn) The Queen has pronounced her innocent. She is At Robin Hood’s wedding? Lords, Ladies, Townsfolk, Soldiers, &c. pardoned once for all, like the other. Who’ll go back on the Queen’s word? Sim Scenes : (Exit with Elizabeth) I, said the Friar, (Act I.) And I’ll lead the choir, (Act II.) (Jill brings on Bessie and Raleigh) Quoth Friar Tuck to Robin Hood, At Robin Hood’s wedding. Synopsis Jill Come you are safe. Raleigh. Two versions of the plot exist: Hood’s original from 1902 and a revised one by Dennis Arundell presented at Who’ll be the groom, his man, Sadler’s Wells in 1960. The opera is set in Windsor Town and makes frequent reference to mythology and Bessie At Robin Hood’s wedding? folklore (Robin Hood, King Neptune, St. George and the Dragon and witchcraft). Safe? Tom Act One: The Bank of the Thames.s Raleigh I, said Big John. The opera starts during the May Day festival with the crowning of the May Queen with “roses white and roses They are ringing the alarm. My Lincoln I’ll don, red ... the flowers of Merrie England”. Her two guards are introduced - Long Tom and Big Ben - who are Quoth Little John to Robin Hood, brothers identical in all but one thing. The “little difference between them” is that Big Ben (like the other men Bessie. At Robin Hood’s wedding. in Windsor) loves the May Queen, while Long Tom loves Jill (known as Jill-All-Alone). Jill is accused of ‘Tis our death bell! being a witch by the jealous May Queen and is shunned by the townsfolk. Raleigh Wilkins Who’ll give the bride away Bessie Throckmorton, one of Queen Elizabeth’s Ladies in Waiting, and Sir Walter Raleigh are in love though Nay, nay your wedding bell. The Queen has At Robin Hood’s wedding? they must keep their love a secret as the Queen is also in love with Raleigh. Bessie sings of how she carelessly pardoned you, as I planned as I planned! Take lost a love letter from Raleigh in the beautiful aria She lost the letter from her love. She worries that the letter your Maid Marion, sir, and we’ll play a Robin Wilkins may have fallen into Queen Elizabeth’s hands and thus reveal their secret love. Hood’s Wedding, in which I’ll play King Richard I, said the King, the Lionheart. What say you? My Queen too I bring, The Earl of Essex (Raleigh’s rival for the affection of the Queen) is handed the love letter (an acrostic on the Quoth Richard unto Robin Hood, name Bessie) by Jill-All-Alone and plans to use it to dispose of Raleigh. Walter Wilkins, a travelling actor, appears and argues that any play can be vastly improved by the addition of song (”if it’s played on a big brass Page 39 I do. My hetid, and answer (To Essex) band”) and claims that “that’s where [he] and Shakespeare disagree.” Do you hear that? Essex (A hunting horn is heard.) Queen Elizabeth then enters with much ceremony. Long Tom pleads for the Queen’s protection of Jill-All- What is it you do to your head? Alone from the townsfolk’s persecution. Asking her whether she believes she is a witch, she replies with the Essex paradox that if she were a witch she must know more than the townfolk, therefore she can’t be a witch as she Wilkins I hear nothing. would know (as the townsfolk seem to) that she is a witch if she were. She goes on to sing: I put dust upon it, sir as a sign of sorrow. ‘Tis an Elizabeth I know that love is far above all jewels that are seen, Oriental custom A hunting horn faint and ghostly! Look! And I do know that, being so, ‘tis wanted by a Queen; (She points to back, where Tom rises from the But love, I we’en, must pass her by Elizabeth bracken, dressed as Herne the Hunter, against the red This insult angers the Queen, and she joins with the villagers in condemning Jill as a witch, locking her away Then suit the action to the words, and the words to of the sunset.) in the Tower of London for witchcraft. the action. Essex Essex hands the Queen Raleigh’s love letter which she initially mistakes to be meant for her. Raleigh gallantly Princess. I see nothing! (To others) admits that the letter is in fact meant for Bessie Throckmorton. The Queen is so incensed that she imprisons Oh, father, father, father, father dost Raleigh in the Tower of London. Thou say that I must die to-day? Do you? Ben Act Two: Windsor Forest. Wilkins Jill has managed to escape with Raleigh using a secret passage out of the tower. I dust No! My head, and answer, “Yes, my child, thou must!” Simkins The majority of act two concerns the staging of a play for Queen Elizabeth. Wilkins works on a version of the story of St. George and the Dragon which does not go down well when presented to the Queen and Essex. Det. Nor I! Wilkins and Princess. Eventually the Queen is convinced to allow Raleigh and Bessie to love each other, choosing Essex instead for Wilkins herself. 10 Nor I! Princess (Giving broad wink at Essex) The opera ends with everyone taking part in a reenactment of Robin Hood’s wedding to Maid Marian. Oh, here’s a to-do to die to-day But if it were Herne the Hunter himself. Everyone takes roles closely related to their part in the opera (Raleigh becomes Robin to Bessie’s Marian). At a minute or two to two, A thing distinctly hard to say, Elizabeth But a harder thing to do. Peace, I say! ACT I. Two men of Windsor born and bred (To Essex) For they’ll beat a tattoo at two to two, SCENE. The Bank of the Thames, opposite Who wear her badges of white and red, You see nothing there? A rat-a-tattoo at two Boohoo! Windsor. The flowers of Merrie England. And the Dragon will come Clowns enter. When it hears the drum Essex (The May Queen has entered, attended, and takes At a minute or two to two to-day, Nothing but a gnarled tree against the sun. 1 Chorus her place on throne.) At a minute or two to two! Elizabeth with May Queen and Butcher Sing down, a down, a down, May Queen Wilkins Then the sun has blinded me. I see red all red. Give Who comes this way? Now choose me two men, Why hullabaloo? You die to-day me your hand, Essex. The May Queen comes, let her path be spread Good men and true men, At a minute or two to two, With roses white and with roses red, Who’ll stoutly stand A thing distinctly hard to say Essex The flowers of Merrie England! On either hand But an easy thing to do! With all my heart.