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Solomon & Burnand www.retrospectopera.org.uk Registered Charity no. 1164150 Newsletter # 2 , September 201 6

We ’ re r ecording next week , at the National Opera Studio, Wandsworth , London !

It seems a long time, in many ways, since historic release, is warmly invited to we started fundraising for Pickwick back up grade . For supporters outside in January and we’ve certainly had our Britain, the pound is now very cheap! ups and downs since then. But August has been a particularly good month: whereas our first Pickwick newsletter, in To donate to Pickwick : June, reported over 9 0 donations, this www.retrospectopera.org.uk/Donate.html second one now reports over 130 ! We are especially grateful for large donations from the Pickwick Pubs chain in Switzerland and the City Pickwick Club in Many of you have a particular interest in London, which have taken us to 90% of Dickens and/or our funding target. We feel we’re on the legacy and we’ve been promoting home st raight! Pickwick as “the first great musical.” Some of you have In our optimistic early days we hoped it been asking what happened to the might be practical to put on a semi - staged Dickens musical after Pickwick , which performance of Pickwick in London. It ’ s pred ates Lionel Bart’s celebrated Oliver! loo king unlikely, but we haven ’ t totally given by some eight decades. up on the idea. However, do remember that Pickwick Club members and Friends are The short answer is: not that much . warmly invited to the recording sessions in

London on 1 2 th and 1 3 th September ( really A longer answer could begin by pointing out soon! ). This will be a wonderful opportunity that in the nineteenth century Pickwick to see the music performed and to meet the Papers inspired more music than any other cast. Anyone who has donated £100 or more Dickens novel. Burnand and Solomon’s is eligible and other supporters are most Pickwick was not so much a starting point as wel come to upgrade for what promises to be the conclusion of a process of trying to a fascinating and enjoyable experience! reduce the encyclopaedic expanse of the Similarly , anyone who has donated novel to a manageable size for stage representation. We j udge them to have less than £50, but now feels they succeeded exceptionally well! would like to have their name displayed in the booklet of this

Retrospect Opera : Pickwick Newsletter # 2 , September 201 6 [email protected] 1 1954 Christmas Carol there is nothing of comparable quality in the musical tradition, though several good Dickens operas appeared in these decades.

Solomon (left) and Burnand

Burnand and Solomon did not want to stop here, though. The published libretto of Pickwick hints unmistakeably at a planned sequel, featuring other characters from The Pick wick Papers , and Burnand and Solomon and company in the 1963 actually commenced work on a musical Pickwick version of Dickens’s “Christmas book,” The Cricket on the Hearth . Sadly, these projects Momentum shifted firmly ba ck to Britain were aborted after the tragically early death with the appearance of Oliver! in 1960. One of Solomon on 22 January 1895. Had he lived, of the immediate fruits was Pickwick of 1963, it seems likely he and Burnand would have a large - scale musical with book by Wolf founded a distinctive “school” of operetta Mankowitz, music by , and versions of Dickens’s stories. So when you lyrics by . In this version, Mr listen to Pickwick , keep in mind that its Pickwick was sung by Harry Secombe who creators were trying to develop a style of became, for a generation, by far the best popular musical theatre that could be known embodiment of Dickens’s comic employed for other Dickens stories too. hero on stage.

Pickwick did inspire some copycat works developed from episodes in Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist , but none of these On 13 August Retrospect Opera were remotely as successful as their model. maintained a stall at the G& S And with these, British attempts at musical versions of Dickens largely ran out of steam. Memorabilia Fair, part of the wonderful annual Festival at In the first half of the twentieth century, the Harrogate. We sold CDs of our first CD, Dickens musical effectively emigrated to Ethel Smyth’s The Boatswain’s Mate , and America and the preferred text for musical promoted interest in Edward Solomon treatment changed to A Christmas Carol . The and Pickwick . This gave us a chance to first of these musical Carol s was by Sarah meet a number of our supporters an d we Grames Clark and Bryceson Treharne and had some great conversations. Many of published in 1936. Given the long the other people who came by the stall chronological gap, and the fact that Grames had not heard of Solomon, despite Clark and Treharne almost certainly knew having spent (in some cases) decades nothing of the nineteenth - century British listening to Gilbert and Sullivan. This was efforts, this rather feeble Christmas Caro l has a claim to be the first “modern” Dickens a powerful reminder of how far Solomon musical. The first important American has fallen into obsc urity – in his own time Dickens musicals, however, were the he was judged second only to Sullivan in Maxwell Anderson / Bernard Herrmann the realm of English comic opera. The Christmas Carol of 1954 and the Janice Torre onus is very much on us to make a case / Fred Spielman The Stingiest Man in Town for him! of 1956. Bet ween Pickwick of 1889 and the 2 Retrospect Opera : Pickwick Newsletter # 2 , September 201 6 [email protected] sterling, drawn on a British bank please) We can now announce that , having are v ery acceptable! auditioned several boys, all of whom were excellent , we’ve invited Ales sandro There ’ s a small piece about the recording MacKinnon to sing the rôle of Mrs in the latest BBC M u sic Magazine . Bardell’s son. Sales are already proving steady, which is However, we ’ re ve ry sorry to say that really encouraging. We ’ re hoping to Pamela Helen Stephen is ill and unable to make it available through Amazon.com sing Mrs Bardell – but Gaynor Keeble has and some of the European Amazons , but stepped in at short notice and says she ’ s Amazon don ’ t make it easy to do things really looking forward to it . Gaynor has like that , and we may not be able to. But sung rôles with Welsh National Opera, it ’ s still possible to buy through English Touring Op era, D’Oyly Carte, the Amazon .co.uk wherever you are in the Royal O pera House, and many others. world , and we can of course ship She has a wide repertoire, with a anywhere, no ma t ter how you wish to particular affinity for comic rôles. purchase .

Apart from our own recording projects, we’re interested in publicising all efforts to develop appreciation of British opera and operetta. We were excited to hear recently We are extending into the world of social of plans to record John Joubert’s Jane Eyre – media ! W e ’ re now on Tw itter an opera composed in the 1980s – this @RetrospectOpera – if you do such O ctober. There is a Just Giving page set up for this and contributions , however small , things (and we know that many of you are warmly solicited: see do) please ‘ follow ’ us . We ’ re already on https://campaign.justgiving.com/charity/eso2 Facebook. We find that some sales have 006/janeeyre come through such routes, so it ’ s clearly useful. ‘ Re - tweet ’ and ‘ like ’ us as m uch as you want!

Finally, Retros pect Opera is delighted to welcome Christopher Wiley as our new It ’ ll be clear from the note about Publicity Officer. Chris is a senior Harrogate that our first CD, Smyth ’ s The lecturer in Music at the University of Boatswain ’ s Mate , is out – it w as released Surrey, and an acknowledged expert on on August 1. It ’ s available for purchase Ethel Smyth. He wrote one of the essays either direct through our website , in the booklet for our CD of Smyth’s T he www.retrospectopera.org.uk/CD_Sales.html , Boatswain ’s Mate and is very much (£14.95, post free in the UK) , or through look ing forward to becoming more Am azon UK involved . ( www.amazon.co.uk/Boatswains - Mate - Ethel - Smyth/dp/B01HIJX83Q or search for Smyth + Boatswain ’ s Mate) , at £15.95 . You can also write to us at Retrospect Opera, 82 Queens Road, Cheadle Hul me, With thanks from the team at Cheshire SK8 5HH, UK – cheques (in Retrospect Opera : David, Andy, Valerie and Chris

Retrospect Opera : Pickwick Newsletter # 2 , September 201 6 [email protected] 3