The Lodger is an opera

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...

 in two acts composed by Phyllis Tate

Phyllis Tate

Phyllis Tate was an English composer known for forming unusual instrumentations in her compositions. Her musical style has been called avant-garde and she is recognized for appealing to amateur performers and children....

. The 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...

 is by David Franklin

David Franklin (broadcaster)

David Franklin was a British opera singer and broadcaster.Born in London in 1908, David Franklin originally trained as a schoolteacher. A bass singing in amateur productions, he was discovered in 1934 by John Christie, the founder of the Glyndebourne festival...

, after the 1913 novel of the same name by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

Marie Adelaïde Lowndes, née Belloc , was a prolific English novelist.Active from 1904 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incident with psychological interest...

. The opera was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

, and the premiere took place there on 16 July, 1960.

Writing history

The opera took three years to write, and the planning and libretto-writing took longer than the composing. Tate started with a synopsis, and after Franklin had turned it into a libretto, she acknowledged that "his great experience as a singer at Glyndebourne and Covent Garden has been of enormous help to me." Originally, the first scene would have lasted for eight hours, but "we managed to whittle it down so that the whole opera lasts a mere two and a quarter hours now."

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 16 July, 1960 (Conductor: Myers Foggin Myers Foggin Myers Foggin was an English concert pianist and conductor. Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1927-1932... )
George Bunting	bass	William McCue
Paper Boy	treble or 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...
Emma Bunting	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Jean Evans
Policeman	bass-baritone Bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...
Daisy	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...
Three cockneys	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... , mezzo-soprano, bass
The Lodger	high baritone	David Bowman
Joel Chandler	tenor	John Wakefield
Chorus (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, bass)

Synopsis

Emma Bunting, a poverty-stricken landlady in Victorian London, takes in a gentlemanly lodger who gives financial help to her and her husband George. Slowly it emerges that the lodger is not what he seems, and his religious mania indicates mental and other problems. As the tension mounts and the atmosphere becomes more sinister, Emma agonises over whether to report him to the authorities. The lodger's identity is revealed as Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

.

Performance history

After the premiere at the RAM, the opera was broadcast on the BBC Third Programme

BBC Third Programme

The BBC Third Programme was a national radio network broadcast by the BBC. The network first went on air on 29 September 1946 and became one of the leading cultural and intellectual forces in Britain, playing a crucial role in disseminating the arts...

 on 2 February, 1964, with Johanna Peters (Emma), Joseph Ward (the Lodger), Alexander Young

Alexander Young (tenor)

Alexander Basil Young was an English tenor who had an active career performing in concerts and operas from the late 1940s through the early 1970s. He was particularly admired for his performances in the operas of Handel, Mozart, and Rossini.In 1953 he performed the role of Tom Rakewell in the...

 (Joel Chandler), Owen Brannigan

Owen Brannigan

Owen Brannigan OBE was an English bass, known in opera for buffo roles and in concert for a wide range of solo parts in music ranging from Henry Purcell to Michael Tippett...

 (George), conducted by Charles Groves

Charles Groves

Sir Charles Barnard Groves CBE was an English conductor. He was known for the breadth of his repertoire and for encouraging contemporary composers and young conductors....

. The first professional performance took place on 10 March 1965 at the St Pancras Festival

Camden Festival

Camdem Festival was an annual spring festival held in London, England, of which opera was the central feature.Founded in 1954 and continuing until 1987, it was originally called the St Pancras Festival until 1965. It specialised in the revival of long-forgotten operas, some of which subsequently...

. The Royal Northern College of Music

Royal Northern College of Music

The Royal Northern College of Music is a music school in Manchester, England. It is located on Oxford Road in Chorlton on Medlock, at the western edge of the campus of the University of Manchester and is one of four conservatories associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music...

 performed the opera in 1970.

Critical opinion

Lewis Foreman describes the opera as dramatically effective, "with its fog-and-gaslight atmosphere, and a divided set showing two rooms simultaneously. All this is lightened by a series of jolly choruses and the idiosyncratic use of polka

Polka

The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...

s and waltz

Waltz

The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...

es. It remains the composer's most considerable operatic achievement."