The Amber Witch (opera)
Encyclopedia
The Amber Witch is an opera
four acts composed by William Vincent Wallace
to an English libretto
by Henry Fothergill Chorley
, after Lady Duff-Gordon
's translation of Meinold's Maria Schweidler: Die Bernsteinhexe
.
It premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre
, London on 28 February 1861 conducted by Charles Hallé
with Helen Lemmens-Sherrington
in the title role.
and published in 1844 as The Amber Witch
. The work was very popular in Victorian England and had gone through several editions by the time Wallace chose it as the subject for his fourth and most ambitious opera. The novel, unlike the opera is on which it was based, retained its popularity and continued to be published both on its own and in anthologies into the 21st century. It was a favourite of Oscar Wilde
's when he was a boy, and in 1895 it was published in a luxury edition illustrated by Philip Burne-Jones
.
Wallace had sketched out most of the opera in 1860, and it premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre
on 28 February 1861 with Charles Hallé
conducting. The Times
reported that the first night's performance was a success and that "the music is almost as complicated as it is beautiful". Wallace considered it his best opera, and Queen Victoria attended one of the early performances, but it met with only mixed success with audiences. After its run at Her Majesty's Theatre, it transferred to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane with most of the original cast, including Charles Santley
. (Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa
replaced Helen Lemmens-Sherrington in the title role.) Santley recalled in his memoirs that although The Amber Witch contained some fine music, it played to nearly empty houses at Drury Lane.
In 1866 at a concert to raise funds for Wallace's widow and children, two members of the original cast, Helen Lemmens-Sherrington and John Patey, sang three pieces from the Amber Witch – "Hark! How the chimes", "When the elves at dawn do pass" and "My Long Hair Is Braided".
The opera was revived in London in the 1880s and again in 1899 by the Moody-Manners touring company. Like most of Wallace's operas, it then sank into obscurity, although Mary's aria was a popular concert piece for a time and selections from the opera (arranged for organ) were played at New York's Chickering Hall in December 1886.
in the mountains outside her village. She uses it to buy food and clothes for the starving villagers, but tells no one of the source of her apparent wealth.
Count Rudiger of Ravenstein falls in love with her and woos her disguised as a peasant. However, the local Commandant is also in love with her. When Mary spurns his affections for Rudiger, he contrives with the aid of his jealous servant Elsie to have Mary accused of witchcraft and imprisoned. After many vicissitudes, Count Rudiger rescues Mary as she is about to be burnt at the stake, Elsie dies after taking poison, and the Commandant is banished.
, The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, Richard Bonynge
, conductor)
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
four acts composed by William Vincent Wallace
William Vincent Wallace
William Vincent Wallace was an Irish composer and musician.-Early life:Wallace was born at Colbeck Street, Waterford, Ireland. Both parents were Irish, his father, of County Mayo, was a regimental bandmaster....
to an English libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Henry Fothergill Chorley
Henry Fothergill Chorley
Henry Fothergill Chorley was an English literary, art and music critic and editor. He was also an author of novels, drama, poetry and lyrics....
, after Lady Duff-Gordon
Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon
Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon was an English writer. She is best known for her Letters from Egypt and Letters from the Cape. She had TB and in 1851 went to South Africa for the 'climate' which she hoped would help her health, living near the Cape of Good Hope for several years before travelling to Egypt...
's translation of Meinold's Maria Schweidler: Die Bernsteinhexe
The Amber Witch
The Amber Witch is a Gothic novel and literary hoax written in 1839 by Johannes Wilhelm Meinhold and originally published in German as Maria Schweidler: Die Bernsteinhexe. In 1844 it was published in Britain as The Amber Witch in two English translations, one by E. A. Friedlander and another and...
.
It premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
, London on 28 February 1861 conducted by Charles Hallé
Charles Hallé
Sir Charles Hallé was an Anglo-German pianist and conductor, and founder of The Hallé orchestra in 1858.-Life:Hallé was born in Hagen, Westphalia, Germany who after settling in England changed his name from Karl Halle...
with Helen Lemmens-Sherrington
Helen Lemmens-Sherrington
Helen Lemmens-Sherrington was the leading English concert and operatic soprano of the 1860s.- Early life :Born in Preston, England, in 1834, Helen Sherrington studied singing at Rotterdam and Brussels...
in the title role.
Background and performance history
The libretto was based on a Gothic novel by Johann Wilhelm Meinhold, Maria Schweidler die Bernsteinhexe, which had been translated into English by Lady Duff-GordonLucie, Lady Duff-Gordon
Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon was an English writer. She is best known for her Letters from Egypt and Letters from the Cape. She had TB and in 1851 went to South Africa for the 'climate' which she hoped would help her health, living near the Cape of Good Hope for several years before travelling to Egypt...
and published in 1844 as The Amber Witch
The Amber Witch
The Amber Witch is a Gothic novel and literary hoax written in 1839 by Johannes Wilhelm Meinhold and originally published in German as Maria Schweidler: Die Bernsteinhexe. In 1844 it was published in Britain as The Amber Witch in two English translations, one by E. A. Friedlander and another and...
. The work was very popular in Victorian England and had gone through several editions by the time Wallace chose it as the subject for his fourth and most ambitious opera. The novel, unlike the opera is on which it was based, retained its popularity and continued to be published both on its own and in anthologies into the 21st century. It was a favourite of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's when he was a boy, and in 1895 it was published in a luxury edition illustrated by Philip Burne-Jones
Philip Burne-Jones
Sir Philip Burne-Jones, 2nd Baronet was the first child of the British Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones. He became a well-known painter in his own right, producing more than 60 paintings, including portraits, landscapes, and poetic fantasies.-Life and career:He was born in London,...
.
Wallace had sketched out most of the opera in 1860, and it premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
on 28 February 1861 with Charles Hallé
Charles Hallé
Sir Charles Hallé was an Anglo-German pianist and conductor, and founder of The Hallé orchestra in 1858.-Life:Hallé was born in Hagen, Westphalia, Germany who after settling in England changed his name from Karl Halle...
conducting. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
reported that the first night's performance was a success and that "the music is almost as complicated as it is beautiful". Wallace considered it his best opera, and Queen Victoria attended one of the early performances, but it met with only mixed success with audiences. After its run at Her Majesty's Theatre, it transferred to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane with most of the original cast, including Charles Santley
Charles Santley
Sir Charles Santley was an English-born opera and oratorio star with a bravuraFrom the Italian verb bravare, to show off. A florid, ostentatious style or a passage of music requiring technical skill technique who became the most eminent English baritone and male concert singer of the Victorian era...
. (Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa
Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa
Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa was a British operatic soprano who established the Carl Rosa Opera Company together with second husband Carl Rosa...
replaced Helen Lemmens-Sherrington in the title role.) Santley recalled in his memoirs that although The Amber Witch contained some fine music, it played to nearly empty houses at Drury Lane.
In 1866 at a concert to raise funds for Wallace's widow and children, two members of the original cast, Helen Lemmens-Sherrington and John Patey, sang three pieces from the Amber Witch – "Hark! How the chimes", "When the elves at dawn do pass" and "My Long Hair Is Braided".
The opera was revived in London in the 1880s and again in 1899 by the Moody-Manners touring company. Like most of Wallace's operas, it then sank into obscurity, although Mary's aria was a popular concert piece for a time and selections from the opera (arranged for organ) were played at New York's Chickering Hall in December 1886.
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, 28 February 1861 (Conductor: Charles Hallé) |
|---|---|---|
| Mary | soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody... |
Helen Lemmens-Sherrington Helen Lemmens-Sherrington Helen Lemmens-Sherrington was the leading English concert and operatic soprano of the 1860s.- Early life :Born in Preston, England, in 1834, Helen Sherrington studied singing at Rotterdam and Brussels... |
| Elsie | Fanny Huddart | |
| Count Rudiger of Ravenstein | tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2... |
Sims Reeves Sims Reeves John Sims Reeves , usually called simply Sims Reeves, was the foremost English operatic, oratorio and ballad tenor vocalist of the mid-Victorian era.... |
| Commandant | baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or... |
Charles Santley Charles Santley Sir Charles Santley was an English-born opera and oratorio star with a bravuraFrom the Italian verb bravare, to show off. A florid, ostentatious style or a passage of music requiring technical skill technique who became the most eminent English baritone and male concert singer of the Victorian era... |
| Pastor | John Patey | |
| Claus | William Terrott | |
| King | Thomas Bartleman | |
Synopsis
The opera is set in 17th century Germany during The Thirty Years War and tells the story of Mary, the "Amber Witch" of the title, and the daughter of the local pastor. She has discovered a vein of amberAmber
Amber is fossilized tree resin , which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Amber is used as an ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents...
in the mountains outside her village. She uses it to buy food and clothes for the starving villagers, but tells no one of the source of her apparent wealth.
Count Rudiger of Ravenstein falls in love with her and woos her disguised as a peasant. However, the local Commandant is also in love with her. When Mary spurns his affections for Rudiger, he contrives with the aid of his jealous servant Elsie to have Mary accused of witchcraft and imprisoned. After many vicissitudes, Count Rudiger rescues Mary as she is about to be burnt at the stake, Elsie dies after taking poison, and the Commandant is banished.
Main arias and ensembles
- 'Good eve, my gentle father' (Mary, Count Rudiger, and the pastor)
- 'O never laugh, Sir Knight' (Mary)
- 'Hark! How the chimes' (Mary, Count Rudiger, and the pastor)
- 'Do you want a letter?' – (Claus)
- 'A soldier must forever war be waging' (The commandant)
- 'Haughty maid' (The commandant)
- 'O bright is the palace dome' (Count Rudiger)
- 'Go sing how our troup was the first in war' (Count Rudiger and chorus)
- 'My long hair is braided' (Mary)
- 'O Lady Moon! on silver clouds reclining' (Mary and Count Rudiger)
- 'Love me and fear not I fail thee' (Count Rudiger)
- ' 'Til life at last be over' (Mary and Count Rudiger)
- 'The pain of Earth's most cruel wrong' (The commandant and the pastor)
- 'When the elves at dawn do pass' ((Mary)
- 'Lone, oppressed, in prison lying' (Count Rudiger)
- 'Come away, come away' (Count Rudiger and chorus)
- 'Paid, paid, too long delay'd?' (Elsie and the commandant)
- 'Flos perpetuus rosarum' (Latin hymn) (Mary)
- 'I Stand Beside My Grave (Mary)
- 'O am I dreaming still?' (Mary)
Recordings
The aria, "My Long Hair Is Braided", can be heard on the 1999 recording Power of Love: British Opera Arias (Deborah RiedelDeborah Riedel
Deborah Riedel was an Australian operatic soprano. Hers is generally regarded as one of the greatest voices ever produced in Australia. She died of cancer at the height of her career, at the age of 50....
, The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, Richard Bonynge
Richard Bonynge
Richard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...
, conductor)
Sources
- Arundale, David, Recording Review: Power of Love: British Opera Arias, MusicWeb International, October 2002.
- Beale, Robert, Charles Hallé: a musical life, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007, p. 126. ISBN 0754661377
- Bleiler, Everett Franklin (ed.), Five Victorian Ghost Novels, Courier Dover Publications, 1971. ISBN 0486225585
- Dwight, John Sullivan, Dwight's Journal of Music, 13 April 1861, p. 13.
- Flood, W. H. Grattan, William Vincent Wallace: A Memoir, Published at the offices of The Waterford News, 1912.
- Krehbiel, Henry Edward, Review of the New York Musical Season 1886-1887, originally published in 1887 and published in a facsimile edition by BiblioBazaar, 2008, p. 60. ISBN 0559655606
- Mapleson, James Henry, The Mapleson Memoirs, 1848-1888, Belford, Clarke & Co., 1888
- The Musical World, "Wallace Memorial Fund", 6 January 1866, p. 12.
- New York Times, "An old and famous story", 17 March 1895, p. 31.
- The Players, A Dramatic, Musical and Literary Journal, 9 March 1861, p. 283.
- Santley, Charles, Student and Singer: The Reminiscences of Charles Santley, originally published in 1892 and published in a facsimile edition by BiblioBazaar, 2008, p. 189. ISBN 0559008562
- Wilde, Oscar Complete shorter fiction with notes and introduction by Isobel Murray, Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0192833766
External links
- Detailed plot description of The Amber Witch from Gladys Davidson, Two Hundred Opera Plots, ISBN 0554532557