The Travelling Companion Programme The Travelling Companion Opera in Four Acts by Charles Villiers Stanford Portrait by William Orpen, Trinity College Cambridge Portrait by William Orpen, after a story by Hans Christian Andersen libretto by Henry Newbolt First performance: David Lewis Theatre, Liverpool 30 April 1925 First performance of this production: Lewes Town Hall 21 November 2018 then at Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne; Cadogan Hall, London; Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden (the final performance will be recorded live for release by SOMM, the first recording of any of Stanford’s nine operas) Production supported by The Stanford Society, John Lewis and Partners, The Behrens Foundation, Lewes Town Council www.newsussexopera.org NSO 1978—2018 “One of the UK’s most enterprising small opera Fidelio companies, New Sussex Opera constantly surprises Venus and Adonis Boris Godunov with its ambition and the quality of its fully staged The Fairy Queen Opera Now September 2018 –Autumn highlights Peter Grimes productions.” The Queen of Spades NSO presents Stanford’s The Travelling important as we use a variety of venues and The Threepenny Opera Companion, a rare opportunity to hear would like to keep you in touch with our news. Il trittico a fascinating work which has not had a Opera is the most expensive of art forms Andrea Chénier professional production for over eighty and for forty years NSO has survived Benvenuto Cellini years. We welcome our new conductor without subsidy. If you like what we do, and Aida Toby Purser and director Paul Higgins. would like to see more of it, please help us A Masked Ball We warmly thank John Covell and the The Flying Dutchman achieve even more. See the Easyfundraising Stanford Society for their support for this Faust scheme on the next page, or see our production. Tannhäuser website about donations. * Lost in the Stars NSO is extending its tour this year to include The Rake’s Progress We do need your help, and never more so a performance at Saffron Hall. This is only Count Ory than in the current financial and political Euryanthe our second venture into East Anglia (we climate. To keep in touch with our plans via * The Enchantress took Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress to Snape our email list, to become a supporter, or *Danton’s Death Maltings in 1996). This performance is to to become actively involved, please email Boris Godunov be recorded live for release by SOMM — us. We won’t pass on you details to any Cav & Pag NSO’s first recording and also the first ever other organisation or bombard you with L’elisir d’amore recording of any of Stanford’s nine operas — too frequent emails: we would simply like Lucia di Lammermoor a historic double! to keep you informed of our forthcoming Falstaff Tobias and the Angel Now in its fortieth year, NSO was founded by events and productions. Idomeneo a group of Sussex opera lovers. The heart of Finally, advance news that the London The Poisoned Kiss this community-based company is its chorus performance of our major production * The Rhine Fairies and the expert but unpaid team who do in 2019 will be at the newly renovated Hugh the Drover the administration and behind-the-scenes Bloomsbury Theatre on Thursday 5th. Mireille work. Professionals and enthusiasts work * Edgar (4 act version) December. While Cadogan Hall has worked L’ Étoile together to present imaginative, high-quality well for us for a number of years, it is The Beggar’s Opera productions, often of unjustly neglected essentially a concert hall, and using the Oberon or lesser-known works, including five UK Bloomsbury with its large pit and fine The Indian Queen premières so far. acoustic will give our production team more Mignon scope, as it will not be necessary for the King Arthur We aim to link our projects with educational orchestra to be on stage. A Village Romeo and Juliet workshops, for which we also seek funding. Orfeo ed Euridice Watch our website for news, follow us What that production will be has not yet The Elixir of Love on social media, and please do sign up to been announced, but be sure it will be The Travelling Companion receive news by email. This is especially something unusual. (* UK première) Easyfundraising Coming next... A great way of supporting NSO which While with NSO’s major productions costs you absolutely nothing. Please it is a case of “always expect the join, and support our fund-raising unexpected”, our Chorus productions efforts. do not neglect more familiar repertoire. Next spring brings an Every time you shop online with innovative new production of one of thousands of retailers, they pay a small the most popular of all operas — percentage of your purchase price to La traviata. NSO. It couldn’t be simpler. The NSO Orchestra and Chorus will The system is supported by most of the be conducted by Ben Knowles and big names (John Lewis, M & S, Amazon, directed by Cate Couch. eBay, Tesco, Argos, Boots, Currys and A Village Romeo and Juliet 2017 many more) as well as travel agents, airlines, rail ticket sites, stationery suppliers – pretty well every sort of company from which you can buy online. The instructions are extremely easy to follow: see www.easyfundraising. org.uk and if you download the Easyfundraising Donation Reminder too, it will remind you every time you shop online to click the EF option.There are also apps for Apple and Android. It is safe and you will not receive a flood of advertising. So please, help us Orfeo ed Euridice 2017 by going online and registering now. Saturday June 1 All Saints, Lewes www.newussexopera.org Sunday June 2 (4pm) [email protected] Birley Centre, Eastbourne Saturday June 8 The Old Stables, Chequer Mead, East Grinstead 5 De Warrenne Road, Saturday June 15 Lewes BN7 1BP St George’s, Kemp Town, Brighton phone +44 (0)1273 471851 Sunday June 16 (4pm) The Elixir of Love 2018 All Saints, Lewes A Fairy-tale Swan Song boasted one of Germany’s best opera threatening to destroy what is inherent companies, Dresden was home to the in opera and which, properly used, Stanford and Opera famous Semper Opera, and Berlin, is essential to characterisation and to From his time as a schoolboy in Dublin the state capital, was increasingly situation. Piled in as they are in the in the 1850s and 1860s, Charles important as a cultural centre. Add to “Nibelungen” they may give satisfaction Villiers Stanford imbibed the genre this Stanford’s attendance of the second to the curious porers over the score, of opera with a special alacrity. The cycle of Wagner’s Ring cycle at the but they fail to grip the listener, and Italian opera companies from London Festspielhaus in Bayreuth in 1876 and often to attract his attention, or to give would make annual tours to the Irish the young Irishman’s mind was full, characterisation when it is most needed. capital, to venues such as Dublin’s not only of the classics, but of the most In smaller quantities, as Wagner used Theatre Royal, allowing Stanford to contemporary of operatic methods. The them in the “Dutchman,” and even in feast on the established repertoire of seeds planted by this eclectic array of the “Meistersinger,” they carry a fuller 1 Rossini, Verdi and Donizetti along with experiences led to the conception of conviction to the hearer.” Stanford’s first opera, The Veiled Prophet Mozart’s operas, and, for a time, the Stanford’s indebtedness to Wagnerian of Khorassan, in 1879, barely three years Pyne Harrison Company would also operatic procedures was selective. after he had finished his musical studies visit Dublin with the additional novelty The love duet in The Veiled Prophet and abroad. With a subject taken from of repertoire sung in English; this also the tragic love music of Francesca and Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rhookh, and based included works by William Wallace, Clarice in Savonarola, his second opera, on a true story, it revealed the kind of Julius Benedict and William Balfe. A written for the theatre in Hamburg in operatic techniques Stanford was keen scrapbook constructed by Stanford 1884 have Wagnerian parallels, and the to adopt in the light of so much change which survives in the archives of the prominent place of the orchestra, often in European opera of the late nineteenth Royal College of Music shows an array (though not exclusively) symphonic century. Though he had been impressed of signatures he garnered from the in its supporting role, clearly suggests by Wagner’s concept of Gesamtkunstwerk in operatic stars of the time, an experience that Stanford had learned his lessons works such as Die Walküre, Die Meistersinger corroborated by his accounts of their from a study of Wagner’s operatic works. and Parsifal (works he often conducted performances in his autobiography However, he was also drawn to those as concert pieces), the idea of unifying of 1914, Pages from an Unwritten Diary, evolving continuities which were being the various dimensions of scene, recollected from the time he spent in explored in French and Italian opera of costume, poetry, drama and symphonic the wings of the Theatre Royal. the time in which the more select use music into an organic whole held less of representative themes played a more The chance to hear more opera fascination for him, particularly in important role in a flexible canvas of came with his studying in Germany Wagner’s studious manipulation of recitative, declamation and set numbers. during 1974, 1875 and 1876. Leipzig leitmotivs: This was put to deft use in his third “The theory of leit-motives was, opera, The Canterbury Pilgrims, a work to my mind, carried too far, even more classically Mozartian in style to to annoyance.