IN COLLABORATION WITH THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL GILBERT & SULLIVAN HMS PINAFORE SCOTTISH OPERA RICHARD EGARR CONDUCTOR TIM BROOKE-TAYLOR NARRATOR JOHN MARK AINSLEY • ELIZABETH WATTS • TOBY SPENCE • HILARY SUMMERS NEAL DAVIES • ANDREW FOSTER-WILLIAMS • GAVAN RING • BARNABY REA • KITTY WHATELY HMS Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor Operetta in two acts by Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) Libretto by W.S. Gilbert (1836–1911) Scottish Opera | Richard Egarr conductor Disc 1 Act I 1 Overture ............................................................................................................................................... 5:18 2 Chorus: We sail the ocean blue ..............................................................................................2:02 3 Recitative & Song: Hail, men-o’-war’s men (Buttercup) .............................................. 3:12 4 Recitative: But, tell me (Buttercup, Boatswain) .............................................................. 0:31 5 Scena: The Nightingale sighed (Ralph, Chorus, Buttercup) .................................... 5:17 6 Recitative & Song: My gallant crew, good morning (Captain, Chorus) ........... 2:17 7 Recitative: Sir, you are sad! (Buttercup, Captain) .......................................................... 1:41 8 Song: Sorry her lot (Josephine) .............................................................................................. 3:55 9 Chorus of Women: Over the bright blue sea ............................................................... 0:48 10 Chorus of Sailors & Relatives: We sail the ocean blue ............................................ 2:02 11 Recitative, Song & Chorus: I am the monarch of the sea (Sir Joseph, Hebe, Chorus) ......................................................................................................... 1:23 12 Song: When I was a lad (Sir Joseph, Chorus) .................................................................2:50 13 Exit for Ladies: For I hold that on the seas (Sir Joseph, Hebe, Chorus) ....... 0:50 14 Trio: A British tar (Ralph, Boatswain, Boatswain’s Mate, Chorus) ...................... 2:40 15 Duet: Refrain, audacious tar (Josephine, Ralph, Chorus) ........................................ 3:44 16 Finale: Can I survive this overbearing (Ralph, Chorus, Dick, Josephine, Hebe, Boatswain) .................................................. 9:59 2 Disc 2 Act II 1 Entr’acte ................................................................................................................................................. 1:37 2 Song: Fair moon, to thee I sing (Captain) ....................................................................... 3:04 3 Duet: Things are seldom what they seem (Buttercup, Captain) ........................ 3:39 4 Scena: The hours creep on apace (Josephine) ............................................................ 5:08 5 Trio: Never mind the why and wherefore (Captain, Sir Joseph, Josephine, Chorus) ........................................................................ 2:54 6 Duet: Kind Captain (Dick, Captain) ......................................................................................... 2:11 7 Soli: Carefully on tiptoe stealing (Chorus, Dick, Captain) ....................................... 1:45 8 Scena: Pretty daughter of mine (Captain, Chorus, Ralph, Josephine, Boatswain, Dick, Hebe, Sir Joseph) .... 6:22 9 Octet: Farewell, my own (Ralph, Josephine, Sir Joseph, Boatswain, Dick, Hebe, Buttercup, Chorus) .. 2:51 10 Legend: A many years ago (Buttercup, Chorus) ........................................................... 3:27 11 Finale: Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen (Josephine, Hebe, Ralph, Dick, Captain, Chorus, Buttercup, Sir Joseph) ..... 3:26 Total Running Time: 85 minutes To download the libretto and biographies for free, visit http://www.linnrecords.com/recording-hms-pinafore.aspx 3 Tim Brooke-Taylor Neal Davies narrator Dick Deadeye, able seaman John Mark Ainsley Andrew Foster- The Rt Hon. Sir Joseph Williams Porter, KCB, First Lord Captain Corcoran, of the Admiralty commanding HMS Pinafore Elizabeth Watts Gavan Ring Josephine, the Bill Bobstay, Captain’s daughter boatswain Toby Spence Barnaby Rea Ralph Rackstraw, Bob Becket, able seaman boatswain’s mate/ carpenter Hilary Summers Kitty Whately Little Buttercup [Mrs Hebe, Sir Joseph’s Cripps], a Portsmouth first cousin bumboat woman 4 Recorded at Usher Hall, Edinburgh, UK, 23 August 2015 Produced and recorded by Philip Hobbs Assistant engineering by Robert Cammidge Post-production by Julia Thomas Design by gmtoucari.com Recorded in co-operation with BBC Radio 3, with particular thanks to Lindsay Pell and Hywel Jones. This live recording from the Edinburgh International Festival was made possible by Capital Document Solutions. The booklet material was commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival. 5 Our Saucy Ship’s A Beauty n the summer heat of 1878 not even W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s brilliant new comic opera could tempt Londoners into a hot and airless Itheatre. Launched to great acclaim at the Opera Comique in London on 25 May, HMS Pinafore was well and truly languishing in the doldrums by mid- summer. Then fate took a hand. Sullivan, who was appearing as conductor of the popular Covent Garden promenade concerts, included a selection for orchestra and band of numbers from his new opera in one of his programmes. People loved it. This – according to the composer, at least – had them flocking to the Opera Comique. Word got about, and soon the theatre was full again. HMS Pinafore became a sensation. ‘What, never? – Well, hardly ever!’ was on everyone’s lips. ‘Pinafore Mania!’ shouted the headline. The production went on to hold the stage for almost two years. Towards the end of the run there was even a children’s HMS Pinafore, in which all the parts were taken by young girls and boys, that played for several of the matinees each week. (The ‘damme’ interjections coming from the lips of innocent youngsters caused such pain to Lewis Carroll that he never forgave the composer.) Sullivan had already collaborated with the writer Gilbert on Thespis (1871), Trial by Jury (1875) and The Sorcerer (1877). It was a heaven-made partnership. Temperamentally different – they were never even on Christian-name terms – the two men were like chalk and cheese. Yet their talents complemented each other in the most uncanny way. Sullivan, the first holder of the Mendelssohn Scholarship, had progressed from the Royal Academy of Music to study 6 in Leipzig. On his return, his brilliant score for Shakespeare’s Tempest caused a sensation when it was performed at the Crystal Palace in 1861, and marked the 19-year-old composer out as the new hope of British music. Gradually consolidating his position, he began composing comic operas – or operettas – almost by chance. But it was a fortunate chance, and one by which he discovered the perfect outlet for his astonishing genius and very particular gifts. Gilbert’s creative career began in less stellar fashion than Sullivan’s. An unsuccessful barrister, he soon left the law to concentrate on writing: jobbing work as a translator of librettos, writing comic plays and pantomimes and contributing regularly to popular light-hearted journals. His celebrated Bab Ballads are mostly products of those early years. When he first worked with Sullivan on Thespis, a piece for which most of the music is now lost, he was certainly one of the rising men in the literary and theatrical world of London. Riding the success of the early Gilbert and Sullivan collaborations, the manager Richard D’Oyly Carte established the Comedy Opera Company with the two men, primarily to stage their joint works. They were now tied into a contract that required them to write new operas virtually on demand, so when something was needed to follow The Sorcerer they simply had to get on with the task. Gilbert’s idea was inspired: a skit on the Royal Navy and the British class system. Like several of his scenarios, it drew on his Bab Ballads, in particular ‘The Bumboat Woman’s Story’, whose Pineapple Poll (the heroine of the Sadler’s Wells ballet for which Charles Mackerras produced his brilliant Sullivan arrangements) became HMS Pinafore’s Little Buttercup. Sullivan was on the French Riviera for Christmas of 1877 when he received Gilbert’s outline for the new opera. As usual, he put off making a start until 7 pressures became irresistible; but in mid-April he was able to write to his mother, telling her ‘[I am] in the full swing of my new work’. For the five weeks from then until opening night he composed under tremendous pressure, battling with a kidney complaint that often left him insensible with pain. Understandably, he offloaded the task of arranging the Entr’acte to the conductor, Alfred Cellier. The Overture was also entrusted to Cellier, a fine composer in his own right; but it is uncertain whether this was heard at the first performance or introduced a little later. With HMS Pinafore successfully set on course and the heatwave-induced false start over, fresh troubles began. Some of the backers had fallen out with D’Oyly Carte and they staged a rival production, and even had the audacity to move it to a theatre virtually next door to D’Oyly Carte’s. Across the Atlantic, too, serious mischief was afoot. In New York the opera was filling several theatres, but with questionable productions by unauthorized companies that did not pay a cent in royalties. The London opposition soon wilted (an attempt to make