NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...
NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...
NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...
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choruses from ‘The Messiah’ and ‘Elijah’ as well as choral numbers by Elgar,<br />
Parry, Villiers and Stanford plus, in what was billed as a Grand Orchestral<br />
Programme.<br />
Immediately following the Armistice the town, musically speaking, was soon<br />
back in business, especially the theatres that had helped keep up spirits during<br />
the darker times. The local theatres enjoyed great success featuring London<br />
touring musical productions, which were very much in vogue in the 1920s. The<br />
Theatre Royal, the Empire and the Hippodrome presented continuous runs of<br />
musical plays, song and dance shows and musical comedy reviews. The music<br />
from many of these shows is still as popular today, whilst their original stars are<br />
shadowy figures of the past known only to a handful of musical theatre buffs.<br />
Titles such as ‘Madame Pompadour’, ‘Lilac Time’ and ‘The Merry Widow’ graced<br />
the bill boards of the Theatre Royal, whilst the Empire Theatre competed with,<br />
‘Mr Tower of London’, a musical review and The Hippodrome on Northumberland<br />
Road attracted the crowds with, ‘Our Nell’ a musical play with Jose Collins, ‘Little<br />
Nelly Kelly’, a song and dance show, ‘Hollywood Follies’, an American musical<br />
burlesque, ‘The Arcadians’ with its ‘Merry Merry Pipes of Pan’, so beloved of<br />
Drawing Room sopranos, and the spectacular musical success of its day,<br />
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane’s production of ‘Rose Marie’. However it was not all<br />
froth and treacle at the Royal and the Hippodrome and opera in English was also<br />
in vogue.<br />
Opera in English, as distinct from English opera had been attempted with a<br />
degree of success before the British National Opera Company was formed in the<br />
1920s. There was Moody-Manners and the Quinlan Company, who had mounted<br />
Wagner’s ‘Ring’ cycle in 1913. There was also The Carl Rosa Opera that toured<br />
opera in English around the provinces for best part of the 20 th century,<br />
introducing me, and I am sure a whole generation of budding opera lovers, to live<br />
performances of the popular operas, and at gallery prices we could afford. But<br />
the BNOC, as it became known, was on a much higher artistic level. It had been<br />
founded by the conductor, Thomas Beecham, after his earlier successful<br />
ventures into opera in English in 1909. The company engaged the finest British<br />
singers of the time and the performances were conducted by Barbirolli, Boult,<br />
Sargent or Beecham, himself. The repertoire was adventurous for the time and<br />
the Hippodrome saw performances of ‘Otello’ by Verdi, ‘The Golden Cockerill’ by<br />
Rimsky-Korsakov, with double bills comprising ‘Cav’ and ‘Pag’ and ‘Coffee &<br />
Cupid’ by Bach with ‘Hugh The Drover’ by Vaughan Williams. In 1926 the<br />
company brought Wagner's ‘Parsifal’ and Gounod’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to<br />
Newcastle. The town relied on visiting opera companies, local opera enterprises<br />
never met with any success, and even the BNOC was eventually forced into<br />
liquidation by the want of official help, which prior to WWII was not forthcoming.<br />
In addition to opera there was the occasional visiting celebrity and the Newcastle<br />
Philharmonic continued to give concerts at the Palace Theatre. The Musical<br />
Times reported that it ‘Simply rained performances of ‘The Messiah’ in Newcastle<br />
as though no other Christmas music had ever been written’ and again lamented<br />
92