Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Introduction and Acknowledgments
- CHAPTER 1 Lincoln
- CHAPTER 2 Exile
- CHAPTER 3 Sacred and Profane
- CHAPTER 4 High Holborn
- CHAPTER 5 Young Britten
- CHAPTER 6 Amateur Nights
- CHAPTER 7 Bournemouth at War
- CHAPTER 8 Private’s Progress
- CHAPTER 9 Enter Grimes
- CHAPTER 10 From Berlin to Lucretia
- CHAPTER 11 Covent Garden
- CHAPTER 12 Galley Years
- CHAPTER 13 Triumph
- CHAPTER 14 Resounding Ring
- CHAPTER 15 Tristan
- CHAPTER 16 The Final Years
- Notes
- APPENDIX I Discography
- APPENDIX II Choir repertory of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, 1926–1936
- APPENDIX III Works conducted by Goodall with the Wessex Philharmonic Orchestra
- APPENDIX IV Selected Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Introduction and Acknowledgments
- CHAPTER 1 Lincoln
- CHAPTER 2 Exile
- CHAPTER 3 Sacred and Profane
- CHAPTER 4 High Holborn
- CHAPTER 5 Young Britten
- CHAPTER 6 Amateur Nights
- CHAPTER 7 Bournemouth at War
- CHAPTER 8 Private’s Progress
- CHAPTER 9 Enter Grimes
- CHAPTER 10 From Berlin to Lucretia
- CHAPTER 11 Covent Garden
- CHAPTER 12 Galley Years
- CHAPTER 13 Triumph
- CHAPTER 14 Resounding Ring
- CHAPTER 15 Tristan
- CHAPTER 16 The Final Years
- Notes
- APPENDIX I Discography
- APPENDIX II Choir repertory of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, 1926–1936
- APPENDIX III Works conducted by Goodall with the Wessex Philharmonic Orchestra
- APPENDIX IV Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
IN MAY 1966 A Mr Christopher Foss of London NW11 wrote to Sadler's Wells Opera, asking if it would mount a production of The Mastersingers in 1968 to mark the centenary of the work's first performance. The managing director, Stephen Arlen, replied that the company had indeed considered putting on The Mastersingers, but that it was “chorally slightly out of our scope at the moment.” Wagner's opera, he said, had been performed at Sadler's Wells before the war with a chorus of around 30 and an orchestra of 36. The most the current company could field was an orchestra of 56 and a chorus of 48. Arlen doubted if even that number of performers would be considered adequate in the mid-1960s.
In fact the Sadler's Wells Opera consisted of two companies, known for administrative purposes as “S” and “W”. Each one had an orchestra of 56 and a chorus of 48, as well as its own musical director. While one company played in London at Sadler's Wells Theatre, the other toured. Then they swapped over. It was a complicated arrangement – principal singers were shared by both companies – but Arlen accepted the necessity for it, because at the time Sadler's Wells bore the main responsibility for opera touring in Britain. The Carl Rosa company had collapsed and Covent Garden no longer visited the provinces. The Scottish and Welsh National Operas were in no position to plug the gaps: the former put on only five weeks of opera in 1966, the latter nine. Glyndebourne Touring Opera was not to start for another two years, the now defunct Kent Opera for three. The founding of Opera North was still eleven years away.
It was customary for the “S” company to play a four-week Christmas season at Stratford-upon-Avon, but there were indications that the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre would not be available to the company for much longer.
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- The Genius of ValhallaThe Life of Reginald Goodall, pp. 140 - 157Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009