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
DAVID Webster was impressed by Goodall's Walküre. “Reg,” he said, “I think we’ll ask you to do a Ring cycle next season.” It did not materialise. Both cycles in the 1954–55 season were given to Rudolf Kempe, Generalmusikdirektor of the Bavarian State Opera, who was being wooed by Webster – fruitlessly, as it turned out – to be musical director at Covent Garden. Goodall assisted Kempe on The Ring, but did not share the general enthusiasm for his Wagner conducting:
For me, it was cold, detached and without depth, but they were mad about him at Covent Garden. Some think [Bernard] Haitink is a bit like Kempe, but his conducting is much warmer. Kempe's was very efficient, but it had no weight or power. He didn't pull you out of your seat.
Kempe soon realised that Goodall was out of sympathy with his approach and for one production had him replaced by an assistant brought over specially from East Germany. Goodall, full of disdain (and jealousy), christened the newcomer Herr Liebfraumilch.
Goodall may not have been given a Ring, but that season he did conduct revivals of Wozzeck, La Bohème, Turandot, Manon and Walton's Troilus and Cressida. His handling of Troilus was widely held to be an improvement on that of Sir Malcolm Sargent, who had conducted its premiere at Covent Garden seven months earlier: to the composer's chagrin, Sargent had not learned the score properly. Goodall considered Manon something of a retrograde step. Adele Leigh, who sang the title-role, remembered him arriving for the first rehearsal, banging the score down on the piano and saying crossly, “They’ve given me this!” The highpoint of the season for him was Wozzeck. Audiences were thin, but it was a critical success. William Mann reviewed the first night for Opera:
This was the tenth performance of Wozzeck at Covent Garden … and the first which Erich Kleiber has not conducted.
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- Information
- The Genius of ValhallaThe Life of Reginald Goodall, pp. 124 - 139Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009