NEWCASTLE'S MUSICAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION By ...

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