The Mountain Sylph
Encyclopedia
The Mountain Sylph is an opera
in two acts by John Barnett
to a libretto by Thomas James Thackeray, after Trilby, ou le lutin d'Argail by Charles Nodier
. It was first produced in London at the Lyceum Theatre in 1834 with great success.
Often (mistakenly) cited as the first thorough-composed English opera of the 19th century, it was Barnett's only great success on the stage out of some 30 operas and operettas, and was perhaps the most effective work by an English composer in the style of Carl Maria von Weber
. Rarely (if ever) performed in the last century, its plot was parodied by W. S. Gilbert
in his libretto for the Savoy Opera
Iolanthe
(1882).
as the basis of the ballet
La Sylphide
, and it was probably the success of the ballet in Paris
, where the cast included the famous ballerina
, Marie Taglioni
, which brought the subject to Barnett's attention. In any case, the opera more closely follows the story of the ballet than that of Nodier's story.
Before The Mountain Sylph, Barnett had mainly written comic operettas, incidental music
and songs for plays, and burlesques and adaptations of popular foreign works, including the opera Robert le diable
by his distant cousin Giacomo Meyerbeer
. The Mountain Sylph owes its larger scale to a fortunate accident. As Barnett wrote in a note to the published score:
Barnett's opera was the second production at the Lyceum, following Edward Loder
's Nourjahad. The proprietor of the Lyceum, S. J. Arnold (to whom Barnett had been articled at the age of 11), had specifically relaunched the theatre as the 'English Opera House', and the Sylph provided him with a useful hit. On the hundredth performance, Arnold gave a large banquet for the composer, cast, musicians and production team.
Although Barnett made extended use in the opera of recitative
, it has been shown that there was also spoken dialogue, and the palm for being the first thorough-composed opera of the period must go to Charles Horn
's Dirce of 1823, which was unsuccessful and sank without trace. In The Mountain Sylph, the rich scoring
and use of recurring motifs to suggest elements of the supernatural showed that the composer had well learnt the lessons of Weber, whose Oberon
and Der Freischütz
had been popular in London from the 1820s.
Barnett's contemporaries were aware of the opera's qualities; George Alexander Macfarren
wrote that "its production opened a new period for music in this country, from which is to be dated the establishment of an English dramatic school". However by 1949, the musicologist Edward J. Dent
opined that "the libretto is ludicrously awkward" and "the construction is very amateurish and the music is always coming to a dead stop when it ought to go on". A 2002 assessment was that the music of the opera "is patchy, but often rather good, and well deserves a revival in an age interested in novelty and engaged (rather than rendered apoplectic) by lightweight prettiness.... where he lets us down, and lets us down consistently, is in the comparative flatness and sameness of his solo arias and in his frequent failure to inflect them with any kind of dramatic urgency.... But when he is able to get his teeth into the few big ensembles and scenas that Thackeray gave him, Barnett does evolve dynamic musical textures that glow, even if their fire is very pale."
In 1837 The Mountain Sylph was presented as a "grand melodramatic spectacle" at the National Theatre in Washington, DC, with Annette Nelson in the role of Aeolia. In the audience were a number of Native American
chiefs, who presented Miss Nelson with traditional headwear in appreciation.
The Mountain Sylph was Barnett's only major operatic success. His other large scale operas (Fair Rosamond (1837) and Farinelli
(1839)) flourished only briefly. The Mountain Sylph does not seem to have been revived since the early 20th century; the last known performance was in 1906 at the Guildhall School of Music. Gilbert and Sullivan
's comic opera Iolanthe
(1882) parodies themes from The Mountain Sylph. In that work, for the love of a mortal, the fairy Iolanthe is banished from fairy society with the consent of her Queen. Typically Gilbertian
absurdities are introduced to fairyland: the shepherd, who is the son of Iolanthe and her mortal husband, turns out to be "half a fairy". That is, his body and brain are fairy, but his legs are mortal. Furthermore, the magical fairies are contrasted with the prosaic House of Lords
, and ultimately they all fall in love.
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 by John Barnett
John Barnett
John Barnett was an English composer and writer on music.-Life:Barnett was the eldest son of a Prussian Jew named Bernhard Beer, who changed his surname on settling in England as a jeweller. According to some he was a cousin of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer...
to a libretto by Thomas James Thackeray, after Trilby, ou le lutin d'Argail by Charles Nodier
Charles Nodier
Jean Charles Emmanuel Nodier , was a French author who introduced a younger generation of Romanticists to the conte fantastique, gothic literature, vampire tales, and the importance of dreams as part of literary creation, and whose career as a librarian is often underestimated by literary...
. It was first produced in London at the Lyceum Theatre in 1834 with great success.
Often (mistakenly) cited as the first thorough-composed English opera of the 19th century, it was Barnett's only great success on the stage out of some 30 operas and operettas, and was perhaps the most effective work by an English composer in the style of Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
. Rarely (if ever) performed in the last century, its plot was parodied by W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
in his libretto for the Savoy Opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
(1882).
Background
The story-line of The Mountain Sylph, based on Nodier's tale, had already been adapted in 1832 by the singer Adolphe NourritAdolphe Nourrit
Adolphe Nourrit was a French operatic tenor, librettist, and composer. One of the most esteemed opera singers of the 1820s and 1830s, he was particularly associated with the works of Gioachino Rossini....
as the basis of the ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
La Sylphide
La Sylphide
La Sylphide is one of the world's oldest surviving romantic ballets. There were two versions of the ballet; the version choreographed by the Danish balletmaster August Bournonville is the only version known to have survived....
, and it was probably the success of the ballet in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where the cast included the famous ballerina
Ballerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
, Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni was a famous Italian/Swedish ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.-Biography:...
, which brought the subject to Barnett's attention. In any case, the opera more closely follows the story of the ballet than that of Nodier's story.
Before The Mountain Sylph, Barnett had mainly written comic operettas, incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
and songs for plays, and burlesques and adaptations of popular foreign works, including the opera Robert le diable
Robert le diable (opera)
Robert le diable is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, often regarded as the first grand opera. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Casimir Delavigne and has little connection to the medieval legend of Robert the Devil. Originally planned as a three-act opéra comique, "Meyerbeer persuaded...
by his distant cousin Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
. The Mountain Sylph owes its larger scale to a fortunate accident. As Barnett wrote in a note to the published score:
The following (my first attempt at legitimate Opera), was, in its original form, intended as a Musical Drama for the Victoria TheatreOld VicThe Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
, and written for an incomplete band; but, finding the difficulty of producing it at that theatre insurmountable, owing to the want of numbers, both on stage and in the orchestra, I was obliged to abandon my project; and this difficulty first suggested the idea of heightening it to an opera for the New Lyceum.
Barnett's opera was the second production at the Lyceum, following Edward Loder
Edward Loder
Edward James Loder was an English composer and conductor. His best remembered work is the 1855 opera Raymond and Agnes.-Biography:...
's Nourjahad. The proprietor of the Lyceum, S. J. Arnold (to whom Barnett had been articled at the age of 11), had specifically relaunched the theatre as the 'English Opera House', and the Sylph provided him with a useful hit. On the hundredth performance, Arnold gave a large banquet for the composer, cast, musicians and production team.
Although Barnett made extended use in the opera of recitative
Recitative
Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
, it has been shown that there was also spoken dialogue, and the palm for being the first thorough-composed opera of the period must go to Charles Horn
Charles Edward Horn
Charles Edward Horn was an English composer and singer. He was born in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London to Charles Frederick Horn and his wife, Diana Dupont. He was the eldest of their seven children. His father taught him music; he also took music lessons briefly in 1808 from singer Venanzio...
's Dirce of 1823, which was unsuccessful and sank without trace. In The Mountain Sylph, the rich scoring
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
and use of recurring motifs to suggest elements of the supernatural showed that the composer had well learnt the lessons of Weber, whose Oberon
Oberon (opera)
Oberon, or The Elf King's Oath is a 3-act romantic opera in English with spoken dialogue and music by Carl Maria von Weber. The libretto by James Robinson Planche was based on a German poem, Oberon, by Christoph Martin Wieland, which itself was based on the epic romance Huon de Bordeaux, a French...
and Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
had been popular in London from the 1820s.
Barnett's contemporaries were aware of the opera's qualities; George Alexander Macfarren
George Alexander Macfarren
Sir George Alexander Macfarren was an English composer.-Life:George Alexander Macfarren was born in London on 2 March 1813 to George Macfarren, a dancing-master, dramatic author, and journalist, and Elizabeth Macfarren, née Jackson. At the age of seven, Macfarren was sent to Dr...
wrote that "its production opened a new period for music in this country, from which is to be dated the establishment of an English dramatic school". However by 1949, the musicologist Edward J. Dent
Edward Joseph Dent
Edward Joseph Dent, generally known by his initials as E. J. Dent was a British writer on music....
opined that "the libretto is ludicrously awkward" and "the construction is very amateurish and the music is always coming to a dead stop when it ought to go on". A 2002 assessment was that the music of the opera "is patchy, but often rather good, and well deserves a revival in an age interested in novelty and engaged (rather than rendered apoplectic) by lightweight prettiness.... where he lets us down, and lets us down consistently, is in the comparative flatness and sameness of his solo arias and in his frequent failure to inflect them with any kind of dramatic urgency.... But when he is able to get his teeth into the few big ensembles and scenas that Thackeray gave him, Barnett does evolve dynamic musical textures that glow, even if their fire is very pale."
In 1837 The Mountain Sylph was presented as a "grand melodramatic spectacle" at the National Theatre in Washington, DC, with Annette Nelson in the role of Aeolia. In the audience were a number of Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
chiefs, who presented Miss Nelson with traditional headwear in appreciation.
The Mountain Sylph was Barnett's only major operatic success. His other large scale operas (Fair Rosamond (1837) and Farinelli
Farinelli (opera)
Farinelli is an opera in two acts, described as 'serio-comic', by John Barnett, to a libretto by his brother Charles Zachary Barnett. Produced in 1839, it is the third of the composer's large-scale operas, and was the last to reach the stage...
(1839)) flourished only briefly. The Mountain Sylph does not seem to have been revived since the early 20th century; the last known performance was in 1906 at the Guildhall School of Music. Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's comic opera Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
(1882) parodies themes from The Mountain Sylph. In that work, for the love of a mortal, the fairy Iolanthe is banished from fairy society with the consent of her Queen. Typically Gilbertian
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
absurdities are introduced to fairyland: the shepherd, who is the son of Iolanthe and her mortal husband, turns out to be "half a fairy". That is, his body and brain are fairy, but his legs are mortal. Furthermore, the magical fairies are contrasted with the prosaic House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
, and ultimately they all fall in love.
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, August 25, 1834 (Conductor: Mr. Hawes) |
|---|---|---|
| Donald, a shepherd, engaged to Jessie | 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... |
John Wilson |
| Hela, the Wizard of the Glen Glen A glen is a valley, typically one that is long, deep, and often glacially U-shaped; or one with a watercourse running through such a valley. Whittow defines it as a "Scottish term for a deep valley in the Highlands" that is "narrower than a strath."... |
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... |
Henry Phillips |
| Christie, Donald's rival for Jessie | tenor | |
| Bailie McWhapple, a lawyer | baritone | |
| Ashtaroth, Lord of the Underworld | baritone | |
| Aeolia, the Mountain Sylph | 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... |
Emma Romer |
| Etheria, Queen of the Sylphs | soprano | |
| Jessie | soprano | |
| Dame Gourlie, Jessie's mother | contralto Contralto Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above... |
|
| Chorus: sylphs, peasants, witches, salamander Salamander Salamander is a common name of approximately 500 species of amphibians. They are typically characterized by a superficially lizard-like appearance, with their slender bodies, short noses, and long tails. All known fossils and extinct species fall under the order Caudata, while sometimes the extant... s, spirits, etc. |
||