John Barnett’s The Mountain Sylph

A broader look at its social, political and cultural background

R. Burdekin, April 20131

John Barnett’s The Mountain Sylph was said by George Alexander Macfarren to have “opened a new period for music in this country, from which is to be dated the establishment of an English dramatic school”. 2 The statement raises many questions: Why a new period?, Why at this time?, What was new about the ?, Why was it seen as laying the foundation of an English dramatic school? Some of the answers lie more generally within English opera as a genre while some are specific to the opera.

English opera, i.e. opera written to an original English libretto, has had a chequered career, and in the early 18th century disappeared completely under the weight of Italian opera. However, this dominance produced a reaction, the highly popular Beggar’s Opera of 1728, that combined dialogue with topical songs based on popular tunes. This model of dialogue and songs, either to borrowed or to original music, was used for more than a century and increasingly continental were adapted, sometimes quite outrageously, to a similar format for performance in English in London3 with the result that, by the 1820’s, there was once again little original English opera being staged. Aside from The Beggar’s Opera, over the previous century there had been only two operas of any lasting importance. Arne’s Artaxerxes (1762) was through composed but, although still staged well into the 19th century, the idea was not repeated. Weber’s (1826) used the usual model, which he described as “more a drama with songs” than an opera.4 Its superior musical content and the growing prestige of German music meant that it was to provide a beacon for the next generation of English operas including The Mountain Sylph.

Samuel J. Arnold’s English Opera House5 had a licence to stage English Opera, although, shortly before burning down in 1830, it was hosting a season of French plays showing how far it had strayed from that intention. On its reopening in 1834, Arnold announced that it would be for ‘the presentation of English operas and the encouragement of indigenous

1 An earlier version of this article was submitted as part of the degree of M.A in Music at Oxford Brookes University 2 George A. Macfarren, “Barnett, John”, in ed. John F. Waller, The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography, Vol. 1 (London: William Mackenzie, 1863), p.389. 3 Michael Burden, “Opera in the London Theatres”, in Jane Moody and Daniel O’Quinn (eds.), British Theatre 1730-1830, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp.208-209 give some examples 4 Letter to Planché, the librettist, 19 February 1825, quoted in Richard Wigmore, An unlikely English swansong, booklet to , Oberon, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner, Philips 4756365, CD. 5 Now the Lyceum musical talent’. 6 A similar statement had been made about his original 1816 theatre7 but that had led nowhere. However, the differing conditions of the 1830’s probably encouraged him to fulfil his commitment.

The 1830’s were a decade of great tumult, a culmination of forces that had been at work over the last half century, with rapid industrialisation, population growth and urbanisation8 happening at the same time as a “quickening social awareness…coupled to a revival of moral earnestness and fervour”9 associated with the burgeoning middle class and the rise of non-conformist religion. “Mass involvement in the [Napoleonic Wars was] followed by mass excursions into post war politics”10, often with a strong radical element. Under these pressures, the Tory party, which had held power for 40 years, split in 1829 over Catholic Emancipation enabling the Whigs to take over the following year and to instigate a series of liberalising measures, most notably the Reform Act of 1832, a measure often seen as staving off the possibility of the revolutions that were once again impacting Europe. These political responses instigated and were instigated by many cultural changes.11

The century before the 1830’s has been held as nurturing the birth of both English12 and British13 nationalism. Whichever view one takes, there was manifestly a growth in the idea of Englishness with books such as Edward Bulmer’s England and the English (1833)14 and thus the idea of reviving English opera would have found a sympathetic audience, as also in the contemporary founding of The Society of British Musicians.15 Further, the visit in 1832 and 1833 of a German opera company to the King’s Theatre had shown that a successful, non-Italian, national opera was possible.

More parochially, the Royal Academy of Music, founded in 1822, had started to produce professional musicians who found it difficult to gain a reasonable living. They blamed this

6 Leanne Langley, “Arnold, Samuel James”, Grove Music Online, (http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/), [accessed on 24 April, 2013]. In the Report from the Select Committee on Dramatic Literature, (London: House of Common, 1832), paragraph 797, he had stated that “my object has been (and I hope to accomplish it) to establish something like a national school of music; that has been my object from the beginning” 7 Arnold’s wife at the laying of the foundation stone spoke of the “laudable endeavour to encourage native talent and advance the School of British Music”, Anonymous, “New English Opera House”, Morning Post, 23 January, 1816. 8 For example, London’s population virtually doubled in 30 years, Anonymous, Routledge’s Guide to London and its Suburbs (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1880), p.17 9 Michael Reed, The Georgian Triumph 1700-1830, (London: Paladin Books, 1984), p.289 10 Linda Colley, Britons, (London: Vintage, 1994), p.384 11 Jacky Bratton, New Readings in Theatre History, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.10 notes this for the theatre, Jennifer Hall-Witt, Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London, 1780-1880, (Durham, USA: University of New Hampshire Press, 2007) traces the changes within Italian opera in London. Ben Wilson, The Making of Victorian Values, (New York, The Penguin Press, 2007) describes the wider societal shifts. 12 Gerald Newman, The Rise of English Nationalism, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987). 13 Linda Colley, Britons, (London: Vintage, 1994). 14 Edward Lytton Bulwer, England and the English, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970) originally published in 1833. A list of other publications can be found in Peter Mandler, The English National Character, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), p.41 15 Simon McVeigh, “The Society for British Musicians” in Christina Bashford and Leanne Langley, eds., Music and British Culture, 1785-1914, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 151 wrote that “the awakening of national consciousness is clearly intrinsic to [The Society for British Musicians’] foundation”. on the favour shown to foreign works and performers, best encapsulated in George Rodwell’s polemic16 of 1833, which included a proposal for a national opera, but the reasons were more complex. Despite the success of The Mountain Sylph, Arnold paid Barnett nothing claiming that the composer was remunerated through the sales of published items from the score, a rather disingenuous attitude as many past composers had been salaried musical directors and overlooked the uncertain state of the publishing industry with copyright still a weakly enforced idea. It was also short sighted for it hardly encouraged composers to spend the effort composing new works.17 More profoundly, music and musicians, with their supposed intimations of effeminacy, were not seen as truly English but rather a foreign commodity to be bought in as and when required.18

Unfortunately for Arnold, this was the time when “English drama [had] reached its literary nadir”.19 Instead, melodrama filled the vacuum, widely criticised, then as now, for its shallowness and lack of nuance.20 Plays, always seen as the premier dramatic form, took what writing talent there was, which, together with the lack of recent English opera, meant that there was a dearth of experienced librettists.

The Mountain Sylph, first given on 25 August 1834, was the second of the four operas that Arnold staged and was by far the most successful. Two of them: Edward Loder’s Nourjahad and Charles Packer’s Sadak and Kalasrade, were based on mid-18th century works while John Thomson’s Hermann used a melodramatic plot typical of the spoken theatre.21 This usage of familiar material played into notions of Englishness, but, at first sight, The Mountain Sylph appeared to subvert them by being based upon the contemporary French Adolphe Nourrit’s scenario for the ballet . However, the librettist, Thomas J. Thackeray, added a happy ending, which moved it towards melodrama, while its debt to Weber’s Oberon and its use of the dialogue and song model would have reinforced its Englishness.22

16 George Rodwell, Letter to the Musicians of Great Britain; Containing a Prospectus of Proposed Plans for the Better encouragement of Native Musical Talent, and for the Erection and Management of a Grand National Opera in London, (London: James Fraser, 1833). Deborah Rohr, The Careers of British Musicians, 1750-1850, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) goes into their plight in some detail, while Christina Bashford, The Pursuit of High Culture, (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2007), Chapter 2 follows the particular struggles of John Ella. 17 There was a spat between Barnett and Arnold in the letter pages of The Times. J. Barnett, “To the Editor of the Times”, The Times, 16 May 1835 and S.J.Arnold, “To the Editor of the Times”, The Times, 18 May 1835 18 Deborah Rohr, The Careers of British Musicians, 1750-1850, pp. 15-21. 19 Joseph Donohue, Theatre in the Age of Kean, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975), p. 106. George Rowell, The Victorian Theatre, 1792-1914, 2nd edition, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 31- 51 described the period as caught between the end of Classicism and the onset of Victorianism with the Romantics contributing comparatively little to drama . 20 For example, the discussion in Jacky Bratton, “Romantic Melodrama” in Jane Moody and Daniel O’Quinn (eds.), British Theatre 1730-1830, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 115-128 or Joseph Donohue, Theatre in the Age of Kean, p.105-126. 21 Hermann’s non-English setting was a typical feature of that style. George Rowell, The Victorian Theatre, 1792-1914, p.47 22 For many years and even now, e.g, Derek B. Scott, “English Opera”, Chapter 1b, The Victorian Web, (http://www.victorianweb.org/mt/ dbscott/1b.html) [accessed 26 May 2013], the opera was claimed to be through composed While the conservative nature of these operas can be seen as asserting their Englishness, there were two further considerations. The use of old or accepted plots would have minimised problems with the censor, whereas, for example, a year later, Macfarren’s Caractacus, a subject with potentially political connotations, was banned.23 Secondly, the English Opera House was dependent solely on the box office and with it the pressures to give people what they were familiar with.

The use of a recent French work as the basis was almost certainly down to the librettist Thackeray, who lived in France for much of his life and who even wrote French plays, although this was his only libretto. Donald, a Scottish farmer betrothed to Jessie, has become enamoured of Eolia, the mountain sylph. He attempts to resist her but, as he is about to be married to Jessie, Eolia appears and Donald chases after her leaving Jessie bereft. We are then introduced to Hela, a wizard and agent of Astaroth (a demonic figure of Middle Eastern origin), who seeks to kill the sylph. Donald has tried in vain to capture the sylph and Hela offers to help by giving him a magic scarf, which, unbeknown to Donald, will cause her wings to fall off. In the ballet she then dies but in the opera she is captured and abducted to Hela’s cave. Etheria, the Queen of the sylphs, now appears and gives Donald a magic rose that will render him invisible. He then goes off with his friend Christie to rescue Eolia, which, after various tribulations, they manage to do. The whole business ends happily with Donald and the now mortal Eolia and Christie and Jessie married.

Thackeray’s happy ending uses a familiar trope, that of the quest for the beloved and the overcoming of apparently insurmountable obstacles to achieve it, e.g in the many Orpheus operas, Die Zauberflöte and Oberon, the elements of magic and the sylphs also echoing that opera and its elf king. At the time, the opera was assumed to be a “well-known German story” with Hela seen as a parallel to Caspar in Der Freischütz24 but Rodney Edgecombe claims that German elements are minimal in the piece.25

One interesting comparison is with Wagner’s Die Feen, also completed in 1834. The fairy queen, Ada, wants to marry the mortal, King Arindal, but the fairies are not happy about it and attempt to thwart him leading eventually to him going on a similar search to release her. Arindal is then made immortal in order that the pair might marry. Michael von Soden has interpreted this in terms of the fairies, representing the aristocracy, attempting to repel Arindal, the bourgeoisie, but eventually accepting him into their ranks and thus negating the challenge and with the bourgeoisie willing to sell out to achieve such status.26 The possible use of allegory in English opera is not unknown, e.g. in Purcell’s Dido and

23 The censor banned the libretto on the grounds of historical inaccuracy, Henry C. Banister, George Alexander Macfarren: his life, works and influence (London: George Bell and Sons, 1891), p. 37 24 Anonymous, “The English Opera House”, Morning Chronicle, 26 August, 1834 25 Rodney S. Edgecombe, “The Mountain Sylph: A Forgotten Exemplar of English Romantic Opera”, The Opera Quarterly, Volume 18, No.1, (Winter, 2002), p.26. In particular, he sees the sylphs as a benign amalgamation from various sources rather than being based on the vindictive “wilis” of German folklore 26 Egon Vos,“’Die Feen’ an opera for Wagner’s Family”, booklet for Richard Wagner, Die Feen, Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Wolfgang Sawallisch, (Orfeo S062-833F, 1984), LP. p.8 Aeneas27, but it would be difficult to make a similar coherent interpretation here. The most obvious, given that Donald is Scottish, would be to see Eolia as English with their union as Britain eventually being achieved after great upheavals but the detail would not support such a view and anyway the union was over a century before. Certainly, there was no contemporary suggestion to read more into it, the text exciting few comments except for the lack of motivation for some of the action, e.g. Hela’s hatred of the sylphs, a typical weakness of melodrama, and the poor quality of the verse.28

Reviews of the music included statements along the lines of it containing “nothing to startle or surprise”29 and “free from those crude and rugged instrumental passages”30 thus again looking backwards, this time to more sedate musical times. Edgecombe’s extensive analysis of the music concluded that “it is patchy, but often rather good, and well deserves a revival”.31 Certainly the sprightly, if hardly memorable, overture, the only part of the opera on record32, underlines that verdict. There is little that is obviously English about the music although some Scottish flavours, such as the snap, are included.33 Weber was the main model and, as Temperley pointed out, the opera was “admired not because it was more English, but because its models were German rather than Italian of French”.34

The implicit appeal to German musical authority together with the noted presence of many “scientific men” 35 (presumably acknowledged musicians of skill and learning) in the enthusiastic audience underlined that the opera was a critical as well as a popular success. The Times also claimed that “an air of originality is to be found in every part of the work” and several papers went to some pains to refute plagiarism on any sizeable scale36 so boosting claims to the opera’s artistic integrity and worth at a time when originality was becoming a defining attribute of great music.37

With the Italian opera at the King’s Theatre operating largely as an aristocratic club, the attempt to champion The Mountain Sylph and the English Opera House was not just a

27 Luke Swartz, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Virgil’s Aeneid: Roman Mythology Seen Through an English Restoration Lens (http://xenon.stanford.edu/~lswartz/ dido_and_aeneas_aeneid.pdf), [accessed on 24 April, 2013] 28 Anonymous, “The English Opera House”, Morning Chronicle, 26 August, 1834. Rodney S. Edgecombe, “The Mountain Sylph: A Forgotten Exemplar of English Romantic Opera” , p.27 quotes lines such as ‘Your scorn of Christie tremble, fear’. 29 Anonymous, “Lyceum Theatre”, Standard, 26 August 1834 30 Anonymous, “The English Opera House”, Morning Chronicle, 26 August, 1834. 31 Rodney S. Edgecombe, “The Mountain Sylph: A Forgotten Exemplar of English Romantic Opera” , p.28 32 British Opera Overtures, Victorian Opera Orchestra, Richard Bonynge, (SOMMCD 0123, 2013), CD 33 Anonymous, “The English Opera House”, Morning Chronicle, 26 August, 1834 claimed that it used the Scottish (presumably pentatonic) scale and Scottish rhythms, although Edgecombe does not go that far. 34 Nicholas Temperley, “Musical Nationalism in English Romantic Opera”, in Nicholas Temperley, (ed.), The Lost Chord, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989), p.146 35 Anonymous, “English Opera House”, The Times, 26 August, 1834. The reviewer may well have been J.W.Davison who was well known for his English music sympathies and support. The use of the word “scientific” is interesting and typical of a time when many arts aspired to the apparent rationality and certainty of science. 36 For example, Anonymous, “Lyceum and English Opera House”, Morning Post, 26 August 1834 wrote that “We do not pretend to state that it is perfectly divested of plagiarism” before praising the music. 37 For example, the discussion in Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, 1st edn., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 220-223 political statement but potentially a social one in providing the bourgeoisie with a venue in which to parade their new found wealth but this did not happen. Notwithstanding Ronald Pearsall’s assertion38, the upper classes did not seem to have ignored English opera, for example, Queen Adelaide is said to have attended the première39, and, although the middle classes were more supportive, the moral seriousness of many of them precluded visits to any type of theatre and some that did go also now started to gain access to the King’s Theatre.40 In practice, the audience seemed to be quite widely drawn but shallow in its loyalty, largely driven by the apparent success of a piece. Thus The Mountain Sylph, “a very pretty opera, and well performed”, was the only English opera that the middle class Horsley family attended over the course of three years.41 They did not even try to see Thomson’s Hermann although they knew him well.

The Mountain Sylph, even if still based very much on the old format, proved the viability of an English opera style based on original librettos, which, even if not very good, showed some dramatic focus not least by omitting the distraction of non-singing actors that had so upset Weber, and were dressed, for the most part, in original music. Both aspects marked a notable change from much of English opera’s previous history and thus justified Macfarren’s talk of a new English dramatic school. Given the relatively inauspicious state of continental opera in the later 1830’s and 1840’s, English opera looked a comparatively worthy rival but poor theatre management, fickle audiences, the indifferent librettos with their insistence on the happy ending that weakened dramatic possibilities and the reliance on the traditional model with its awkward shifts between song and speech, meant that it was shortly to sink without much trace within a couple of years of Macfarren making his statement.

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38 Ronald Pearsall, Victorian Popular Music, (Newton Abbot, UK: David & Charles, 1973), p.160 states that the upper classes ignored English opera, while upper middles, especially the women, supported it. 39 Edward Ellsworth Hipsher, American Opera and its composers, (Philadelphia: Theodore Presser Co., 1927), p.36. British reviews do not mention this but in later years Queen Victoria did occasionally visit 40 This change is the thrust of much of Jennifer Hall-Witt, Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London, 1780-1880 41 Rosamund Brunel Gotch, Mendelssohn and his Friends in Kensington, (London: Oxford University Press, 1934) , p.128. William Horsley was a composer and organist and the family were friends of Mendelssohn. The letters from Fanny and Sophy, William’s daughters, give a lively coverage of the family’s activities between 1833 and 1836. Anonymous, Routledge’s Guide to London and its Suburbs (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1880)

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Recordings

British Opera Overtures, Victorian Opera Orchestra, Richard Bonynge (SOMMCD 0123, 2013), CD

Wagner, Richard, Die Feen, Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Wolfgang Sawallisch (Orfeo S062-833F, 1984), LP

Weber, Carl Maria von, Oberon, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner, Philips 4756365, CD.