British opera in the long nineteenth century encompasses a rich and varied repertory, one filled with gems that delighted throngs of audiences at the time, but which, with a handful of exceptions, fell into obscurity between the two World Wars. While many readers may recognize the titles and perhaps even heard music from Michael Balfe's The Bohemian Girl (1843), William Vincent Wallace's Maritana (1845), or Julius Benedict's The Lily of Killarney (1862), full performances of these works remain few and far between. Fortunately, an increasing number of British operas are finding their way to the recording studio. Naxos, for example, has released several recordings featuring the Manchester-based Victorian Opera Chorus and Orchestra under the direction of Richard Bonynge, including William Vincent Wallace's Lurline (1860) in 2010 and Alfred Cellier's Dorothy (1866) in 2019.Footnote ¹

One organization, though, was created with the specific intent to record and thus make available this repertory and, when needed, to prepare editions that could subsequently be used in live performance. That entity is Retrospect Opera. According to its website: ‘Our vision is very simple – to allow people to hear great British operas that they may only have read about, by recording them, to the highest standards possible’.Footnote ² The two releases under review most certainly reflect this ideal. One offers the first complete recording of Ethel Smyth's most popular opera, The Boatswain's Mate (1916), while the other features the premiere recordings of two smaller works, F.C. Burnand and Edward Solomon's Pickwick (1889) and George Grossmith's Cups and Saucers (1876). The first-rate performances captured on disc reveal three different approaches to what may be considered under the umbrella term of ‘opera’. To add to the impressive nature of this endeavour, the performance materials for The Boatswain's Mate were not previously published, meaning that editions had to be diligently prepared from manuscripts and the published vocal score in order to make the recording possible.

The three works featured here are all comic in nature, and as such, they all include spoken dialogue, which thankfully is preserved on these recordings. The plot of The Boatswain's Mate concerns a man's scheme to impress a woman that goes terribly awry. Its largely folk-inspired music and jovial atmosphere run parallel to a second, more serious social concern, especially during World War I. Would a widow be happier living on her own or should she remarry? Pickwick is a one-act operetta – a popular mid-century genre – that is based on an episode in Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, while Cups and Saucers originated as the final skit in a larger programme of assorted offerings. As the initial two releases from the independent label, it is significant that all three works feature strong female protagonists, women who forge their own destinies.

One woman who certainly forged her own destiny was Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944).Footnote ³ A victim of neglect from the white male-dominated musical establishment during her lifetime, today her music is finally getting the attention it has so richly deserved for more than a century. This comes in large part from an increased interest in researching, publishing, performing, and recording music by women. Smyth identified closely with the operatic genre, and her fame came largely through her six operas. Curiously it is these very works that remain in comparative obscurity when compared to her other output. Indeed, it was Smyth's Der Wald (The Forest) that was the first opera by a woman to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and that was in 1903 on a double billing with Verdi's Il trovatore. Six years later, Sir Thomas Beecham included The Wreckers on his first season at the Royal Opera House. As of January 2021, only three of Smyth's operas are available on CD, all from Retrospect Opera. In addition to The Boatswain's Mate, the label reissued the 2007 Conifer recording of The Wreckers (captured live at the BBC Proms in 1994) in 2018 (as RO004) and paired Fête Galante with Liza Lehmann's The Happy Prince in a 2019 release (RO007).

The Boatswain's Mate, for which Smyth also crafted the libretto after the one-act play and short story by W.W. Jacobs, concerns the widowed Mrs Waters and her two suitors, the former boatswain Harry Benn and his mate, the dashing Ned Travers. In the single-act two-part opera, Benn hires his friend Travers to pretend to burgle Mrs Waters's boarding house so that when she calls out in distress, he can come to ‘rescue’ her. Of course, things do not go as planned, and Travers and the widow come up with a plan to hoodwink Benn. Mrs Waters tells the former boatswain that she fatally shot the intruder, and in a delectable waltz that foreshadows Sondheim's macabre ‘A Little Priest’ from Sweeney Todd, tells him of her plans to bury the corpse. After Benn races away only to return with a policeman, Travers enters and the entire mixed-up affair is blamed on Benn's drink. Furthermore, Mrs Waters decides it is better to take a new mate rather than remain alone. The score boasts a veritable variety of delights. In addition to the above-mentioned waltz, where the musical style and the subject matter are at clear odds with each other, the opera includes numbers that evoke sea shanties, befitting its nautical theme, such as Travers's ‘A Rickety Stair Can be Scaled without Noise’. Other highlights include the lively folk-infused finale to part 1 that features an on-stage ensemble of harmonium, concertina, and banjo; Mrs Waters's deeply emotive ballad ‘What If I Were Young Again’; and rapturous duets such as ‘When the Sun is Setting’. Sir Thomas Beecham's newly formed opera company gave the work's premiere at London's Shaftesbury's Theatre on 28 January 1916, conducted by the composer.

Smyth prepared multiple orchestrations for the opera, one for a larger ensemble and two for smaller ones. The smaller of the smaller versions is recorded here. These different scorings attest to Smyth's desire that the work be performable in assorted venues and by companies of various sizes. With the smaller orchestration, Smyth's gifts at creating a wide sound palette are immediately evident. The solo wind writing is particularly exquisite, and the members of Lontano certainly do it justice. The instrumental introduction to scene 3 is especially lovely in this regard.

To fill the second CD of the set, which includes the opera's shorter part 2, the producers decided to present historic recordings of Smyth's operas conducted by the composer. This audiophile treasure trove includes excerpts from The Boatswain's Mate recorded in 1916 with the original cast, followed by a 1930 recording of the overture to The Wreckers. One of the highlights is being able to hear the tonal clarity of Courtice Pounds, the famous tenor who created Benn in The Boatswain's Mate as well as Colonel Fairfax in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeoman of the Guard (1888) and Ali Baba in Oscar Asche's long-running World War I hit Chu Chin Chow (1916). Pounds's performance also reflects the fluidity between musical theatre genres at the time; here was a tenor equally at home on stage at the Savoy Theatre, in Smyth's opera, or in Asche's Orientalist musical fantasy.

While the new recording of Smyth's opera features the delights of a small orchestra, the second release offers an aural realization of an important way in which nineteenth-century English opera was consumed, namely in performances not with orchestra but rather with piano. These ‘domestic’Footnote ⁴ versions of Pickwick and Cups and Saucers, published with the drawing room in mind, allow listeners in the twenty-first century the opportunity to hear these works, should they choose to do so, in a venue familiar to nineteenth-century audiences, private residences. Operas, especially those on a smaller scale, formed a significant part of nineteenth-century domestic music making, and these recordings offer a sense of the intimacy that defined such performances. The original orchestral scores and parts to both works are lost. Retrospect Opera turned what some may consider a stumbling block in the absence of original orchestrations into the opportunity to hear opera in the context of a Victorian home with its obligatory piano.

Long before Oliver! (1960), The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1985), and Scrooge (1992), there was Pickwick. Pickwick holds a special place in musical theatre history as the first successful musical stage adaptation of a work by Charles Dickens. Earlier musical theatrical versions of Dickens were basically plays with some interspersed songs, and Pickwick was the first to be envisioned as a primarily musical work. The creators wisely chose to musicalize only one part of Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, rather than attempt to stage the entire novel.Footnote ⁵ They did plan a possible sequel, according to David Chandler's highly informative liner notes, but it never materialized.

Pickwick is the result of a partnership between librettist F.C. Burnand (1836–1917) and composer Edward Solomon (1855–1895); both were extremely prolific and the latter was considered a rival to Sir Arthur Sullivan. The show, which its creators dubbed a ‘dramatic cantata’, opened at the Comedy Theatre in London on 7 February 1889. In the highly praised production, the comedian, actor, playwright, and theatrical manager Arthur Cecil played the title character. Cecil was already known to the librettist, for he had originated the role of Box in Cox and Box, written by Burnand with Sullivan in 1866. Mrs Bardell was played by Lottie Venne, one of the most respected actors of the time whose fame and popularity came mainly through her appearances in Burnand's plays. She later created matronly roles in Sidney Jones's musical comedies A Gaiety Girl (1893) and An Artist's Model (1895) to which she brought a careful balance of snobbery and worldliness. Appearing as the Baker was Rutland Barrington, a highly esteemed actor known for originating the male authority parts in many works by Gilbert and Sullivan. Among these are Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance (1879), and Pooh Bah in The Mikado (1885). Barrington later went on to create similar characters in musical comedies by Sidney Jones at Daly's Theatre, including the Marquis Imari in The Geisha (1896), Marcus Pomponius in A Greek Slave (1898), and the Mandarin Yen How in San Toy (1899).

Burnand's creative rendering of Dickens concerns the widowed Mrs Bardell, who longs for a second marriage. Mr Pickwick and the Baker vie for her affection, but it is the Baker who proposes first – and invites her to join him in the delightful ‘Baker-roll’ – who wins her hand. The ‘Baker-Roll’, an obvious parody of Jacques Offenbach's famous barcarolle from Tales of Hoffman, is the score's outstanding song, and as such, Solomon reprises it several times. Though the Baker (Barrington) gets the big song, Pickwick (Cecil) is certainly not short changed, for Solomon and Burnand provide him with a short recital of sorts, three numbers separated by brief spoken passages in which he expresses his need for a valet. ‘The Pickwick Portmanteau’, ‘The Boy and the Borough’, and ‘The Happy Valley’ are all in the parlour song vein, with the third featuring clever fast-paced patter.

Boosey published the version recorded here in 1889, as part of its series ‘Operettas for the Drawing-Room’; it follows what appeared on stage. A new edition was released the following year. This one was tailored to the amateur market, so some of the more difficult songs were cut and the overall order of the numbers was subsequently changed, perhaps so as not to fatigue the less-experienced singers. Just as Smyth sanctioned multiple versions of The Boatswain's Mate to increase its performance possibilities, so did Boosey when it came to Pickwick. Here, though, the choice was made not on the availability of orchestral resources but rather on the intended consumer.

The creator of the second piece on the disc, George Grossmith (1847–1912), is perhaps best known to musical theatre aficionados for originating the famous Gilbert and Sullivan patter roles, including Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore, Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance, and Ko-Ko in The Mikado. For literary fans, he is the coauthor, with his brother Weeden, of the quintessential comic novel of social insecurity, The Diary of a Nobody (1892). Before taking on both of these legacy-defining projects, Grossmith enjoyed a highly successful career as a touring comedian famed for performing his own musical sketches. One of these was the two-person farce Cups and Saucers. This delightful gem was originally part of a larger piece, Entre Nous, which Grossmith performed with the noted author, spiritualist, actor and reciter Florence Marryat (1833–1899).

Cups and Saucers is Grossmith's spoof on the British fascination with all things Japanese at the time. (One must wonder how much of his experience creating and performing Japanese artifice in Cups and Saucers Grossmith took with him to The Mikado nine years later.) The widowed Mrs Worcester and the suave General Deelah both collect ‘old’ Japanese porcelain, and the merry widow hopes that she can entice the general to marry her: she owns a chipped saucer that she hopes will interest him, since she thinks it once belonged to Julius Caesar. Deelah wants to marry Mrs Worcester so that he can sell her prized saucer, but it turns out that he himself manufactured not only said saucer but also his own entire (forged) collection! The enterprising couple decides to move to Japan to continue manufacturing porcelain for export to England. Obviously, to them, the market for such goods is so intense that the Japanese cannot possibly keep up with the demand. While the story reeks of Imperialism and Orientalism,Footnote ⁶ it also brings to bear the lengths at which people will go to acquire Orientalist objects d'art. Footnote ⁷

The score includes multiple Orientalist monikers. Deelah, in the patter song ‘Foo Choo Chan’, tells of a Japanese merchant who wishes he had been born English (and therefore, through the lens of Orientalism, ‘better’). Mrs Worcester joins him in the overtly racist refrain ‘Ching-a-ring China’ not only singing but also clinking together a china cup and saucer.Footnote ⁸ The final duet, ‘We'll Give Up Old China’, includes pentatonic motifs and overt repetition, both of which are hallmarks of Orientalist musical discourse.

Though Grossmith didn't appear in Cups and Saucers during his years performing Gilbert and Sullivan, the short work and Grossmith continued their own trajectories during this time. In 1878, Cups and Saucers was featured as a curtain raiserFootnote ⁹ for H.M.S. Pinafore, though without Grossmith. Later in the evening, audiences would have had their chance to applaud Cups and Saucers's composer and original star following his delightful patter song, ‘I am the Monarch of the Sea’.

Unfortunately, no recordings of Grossmith are known to exist. From reading what others had to say about him, and listening to performance styles of the time, it is possible to get an idea of what made Grossmith's art so distinctive. Baritone Simon Butteriss, who is featured in the Grossmith role, uncannily captures the spirit of what made a performer like Grossmith so unforgettable. Butteriss's impeccable diction, an essential component of the fast-paced patter songs, along with an innate sense of comic timing and adroit vocal inflections, infuse the recordings with captivating elan. It is clear why Butteriss has been so successful in performing the Gilbert and Sullivan patter roles as well as Grossmith himself. Butteriss is similarly convincing as Pickwick, a role created by another noted performer of a bygone era, Arthur Cecil.

Gaynor Keeble is likewise entrancing in her portrayals of two very different widows looking to remarry, Mrs Bardell in Pickwick and Mrs Worcester in Cups and Saucers. She uses her richly timbred mezzo-soprano to accentuate the particular emotional state of her characters, whether they are experiencing moments of emotional pathos, enjoying a bit of devious scheming, or relishing in the glories of love.

The CDs are handsomely produced and packaged in trifold cases. The liner booklets contain exceptionally informative essays as well as the slightly abridged libretti featured on the recordings. Of special note is Kurt Gänzl's extended biographical essay on Edward Solomon, for this – surprisingly – is the first commercial recording of any of the composer's stage works.

Such critical commentary comes not only in the words contained in the liner booklets but also in the preparation of the new edition used for the recording of The Boatswain's Mate. According to Mark Clague, a former executive editor of Music in the United States of America,Footnote ¹⁰ editing constitutes a form of music criticism, and ‘editions argue for the cultural legitimacy’ of a particular work.Footnote ¹¹ In preparing an edition, the editor must consult all known sources, usually manuscripts, compare them, discern errors – an especially tricky aspect, for editors may try to ‘fix’ what is particularly distinctive about a certain musical passage to make it fit predictable norms – and nowadays input the score into a music software program to create legible scores and parts that can be used in performance. It is far from a mechanical process, and instead one that requires a tremendous amount of familiarity with the specific musical language at hand and a healthy dose of what Clague calls ‘editorial creativity’Footnote ¹² when it comes to dealing with inherent dilemmas.

While Clague's remarks about preparing printed musical editions as critical acts were intended in the context of music from the United States, they apply equally well to recordings of British opera from the long nineteenth century, the repertory championed by Retrospect Opera. Having recordings of these works allows them to stand resolutely alongside their contemporaries from Germany, Italy and France. The works themselves, through these recordings, provide first-hand evidence as to their validity and merits. The three operas featured on these two initial releases offer a fine introduction into how comedic plots and music could be realized in different ways in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Whether the works were experienced in an opera house, as with The Boatswain's Mate, or in domestic performances, as with the versions featuring piano of Pickwick and Cups and Saucers, these recordings illuminate salient aspects of nineteenth-century British musical life. They not only document works well worth hearing but also demonstrate how opera, broadly defined, could be consumed in various ways and formed a constituent part of Britain's commercial musical marketplace.