8.111362 bk DeBanfield_EU:8.111362 bk DeBanfield_EU 21-11-2010 14:35 Pagina 8 Raffaello DE BANFIELD Lord Byron’s Love Letter Also available ID VAR TR NA AS Y 1 g 958 Recordin 8.112023-24 8.111360-61 Astrid Varnay • Gertrude Ribla Nicoletta Carruba • Mario Carlin Academy Symphony Orchestra of Rome Nicola Rescigno 8.111362 8 8.111362 bk DeBanfield_EU:8.111362 bk DeBanfield_EU 21-11-2010 14:35 Pagina 2 GREAT OPERA RECORDINGS Appendix at night, reads to herself from the Bible. She cries out Berg: Three scenes from Wozzeck, Op. 7 that she wants forgiveness, as she is haunted by her infidelity to Wozzeck. ! After the interlude which links the second scene of the first act, in which Wozzeck experiences frightening # Wozzeck has killed Marie, and drowned himself. visions, and the third scene, a military parade passes by After an intense interlude, which starts by depicting the outside the room of Marie, Wozzeck’s mistress. Marie, rising water that leads to Wozzeck’s death, children are after singing along to the military music, shuts the seen playing in the sunshine. Hearing that Marie’s window and proceeds to sing a lullaby to her son by body has been found, the children run off to see it, Raffaello Wozzeck. except for her little boy, who after an oblivious moment, follows the others. DE BANFIELD @ At the beginning of the third act, Marie, in her room David Patmore (1922–2008) Lord Byron’s Love Letter Also available Opera in One Act Libretto by Tennessee Williams The Old Woman . Astrid Varnay (soprano) The Spinster (Ariadne) . Gertrude Ribla (soprano) The Matron . Nicoletta Carruba (contralto) The Husband . Mario Carlin (tenor) Academy Symphony Orchestra of Rome Nicola Rescigno Recorded in Rome in 1958 First issued on RCA Victor LM-2258 Reissue Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn Special thanks to Maynard F. Bertolet and James Miller for providing source material 8.110308-10 8.111362 27 8.111362 8.111362 bk DeBanfield_EU:8.111362 bk DeBanfield_EU 21-11-2010 14:35 Pagina 6 Synopsis 6 While they speak an image of the Acropolis may be Total time 50:51 Scene 5 seen with a young girl and her middle-aged companion 0 Canaille! Canaille! Canaille! 4:26 The setting is the parlour of a faded house in the present. The companion leaves the young girl on her Scene 1 (Spinster, Old Woman) French Quarter of New Orleans. The time is the late own. The Old Woman speaks of the scene as if in a 1 When are you going to learn nineteenth century. The noise of the Mardi Gras trance. The Spinster describes the presence of Byron. how to play that piece? 6:34 Appendix 15:45 festivities may be heard from outside. Set stage left On stage a handsome young man can be seen watching (Old Woman, Spinster) there is a marble mantelpiece, and beyond it there is a the young girl. She drops her glove, which the young Scene 2 Gertrude Ribla in three scenes thick, dark and dusty curtain. Stage right a high door man returns to her. The Spinster reads how the young 2 opens onto a cavernous hall. The furnishings are heavy girl recognizes Byron, while the Old Woman relives Won’t you come in? 6:13 from Berg’s Wozzeck Victorian in style. Beside a rose shaded lamp a woman the scene. (Spinster, Matron, Old Woman) 3 of forty, the Spinster, is playing an upright piano, 7 The Old Woman tells the Spinster to stop reading. Also he swam the Hellespont 3:34 Alban BERG (1885–1935): faultily. In the opposite corner, the Old Woman, in a The Matron asks if there is any more. The Old Woman (Old Woman, Spinster, Matron) Wozzeck, Op. 7 black silk dress, sits motionless. replies that there is, and the Spinster offers to show the Scene 3 1 The Old Woman asks the Spinster when she is Matron the letter. As the Matron starts to open it, the 4 Ah! Winston! Remove that silly hat! 5:43 ! Soldaten, Soldaten sind schöner Burschen! 5:41 going to be able to play the piece of piano music Old Woman says she cannot do this. The Spinster (Matron, Spinster, Old Woman, Husband) (Interlude, Military Music and Cradle Song, Act 1) correctly. The Spinster stops, distressed, and opens the explains that shortly afterwards Byron was killed; Scene 4 @ Aber die Pharisäer brachten ein Weib zu ihm 3:53 window, swaying slightly to the sound of the music when her grandmother heard this she retired from the 5 “We set out in the early morning (Marie’s Bible Reading, Act 3)) outside. She returns to her sewing. A knock is heard world. The Matron comments that this was foolish, for the Acropolis” 3:47 # Ringel, Ringel, Rosenkranz 6:11 from the hall. The Old Woman conceals herself behind which provokes reactions from both the Old Woman (Spinster, Old Woman) (Death of Wozzeck and Final Scene, Act 3) the curtain while the Spinster goes out to open the and the Spinster. The Spinster offers to read a sonnet 6 Do you mind if I don’t climb any higher? 9:07 door. which the young lady wrote to Byron’s memory, 2 (Old Woman, Spinster, Matron) Gertrude Ribla, soprano The Spinster invites the Matron in. The latter entitled ‘Enchantment’. 7 explains that she and her husband are visiting New 8 The Spinster starts to read the sonnet. As she does Stop there! It’s quite enough 5:18 The Philadelphia Orchestra • Eugene Ormandy Orleans from Milwaukee for the Mardi Gras. She asks (Old Woman, Spinster, Matron, Husband) so the Old Woman starts to accompany her, becoming 8 to see the letter of Lord Byron advertised on the door. more intense as she does so. At the climax she enters “Une saison enchantée! I mused. Beguiled 4:35 Recorded in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, The Spinster explains that it was written to her the room from behind the curtain. (Spinster, Old Woman) 1st November, 1947 • Matrix nos.: XCO-39256/9 grandmother, who had met Byron in Greece. The Old 9 As the music from outside also gets louder, the 9 Mama, mama – you’ll miss it! 1:32 First issued on Columbia 13117/8-D Woman keeps up a laconic commentary while the Husband rushes out. The Spinster requests some (Husband, Matron, Spinster, Old Woman) in album MX-347 Matron and the Spinster talk about Byron’s exploits. money. Distracted by her Husband’s departure, the 3 The Matron, interested, goes out to fetch her Matron herself leaves hurriedly. husband. 0 The Spinster bitterly calls after the departing 4 The Matron returns with her Husband. He is couple. At the door she is momentarily held by a figure Producer’s Note wearing a paper cap sprinkled with confetti. The in a grotesque mask. She yields but the figure rushes Matron explains to her Husband that the Spinster’s out, slamming the door. The Old Woman points to the grandmother met Byron. The Old Woman asks the letter from the Spinster’s grandfather which the The sources for the transfer of the de Banfield were first edition red “Shaded Dog” label American RCA pressings. Spinster to read a passage from the journal recording Spinster has dropped on the floor. The Spinster gives Although taped a year after RCA began recording complete operas in stereo in Rome, this disc was only ever the encounter. The Old Woman comments that the the letter to the Old Woman, as the noise of the Mardi released in mono. A rarity, it did not remain long in the catalogue, and has never been reissued. There is a Husband has been drinking. Gras festivities outside grows louder. momentary pitch fluctuation at 3:09 in Track 2 which is present in the LP master tape. The “Academy Symphony 5 The Spinster starts to read from the journal while Orchestra of Rome” is most likely a nom de disque for the orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. the Old Woman repeats and comments upon passages Since Astrid Varnay is already well represented on compact disc, I have chosen to fill out this release with one from it. of the few recordings made by her Lord Byron co-star, Gertrude Ribla, again heard in twentieth-century opera. The Wozzeck scenes were transferred from the early 10-inch LP (ML-2140) which was its only previous reissue and was itself transferred from Columbia’s wide-frequency range 33 1/3 rpm master lacquer discs. Mark Obert-Thorn 8.111362 63 8.111362 8.111362 bk DeBanfield_EU:8.111362 bk DeBanfield_EU 21-11-2010 14:35 Pagina 4 Raffaello de Banfield (1922–2008) the original Broadway production of Rodgers and made her last appearance in Munich in 1995, almost Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, for which she fifty-five years after her Metropolitan début. Her Lord Byron’s Love Letter received a Tony Award. The present recording of Lord brilliant career is well documented in both commercial Byron’s Love Letter was made in Rome by RCA three and unofficial sound recordings. The composer Raffaello de Banfield was born in 1922 comprehensively renovated and modernised. In year’s after the work’s première, with the soprano Gertrude Ribla (1919–1980) was born in New York in the English city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the addition from 1978 to 1986 he was director of the Gertrude Ribla taking over the part of The Spinster, and and studied singing with Frances Alda. She won an Austrian flying ace Gottfried von Banfield (the last Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, which had the distinguished American-Italian musician, Nicola amateur singing competition in 1936 and made her first Knight of the Military Order of Maria Theresa) and the been founded in 1958 by the composer Gian Carlo Rescigno, conducting.