From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Re: Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 14:59:18 GMT

In article <8464@public.BTR.COM> midkiff@public.BTR.COM (Neil E. Midkiff  midkiff@btr.com) writes:

>...the closing performance of this opera in San Francisco's current
>season, last night (12/12/92).  Even from the standing-room space at the
>back of the top balcony, it was a superb musical experience!  Particular
>standouts were Sylvia McNair as Tytania [sic, from Britten and Pears'
>libretto], 

It's an authentically Shakespearean spelling, "regularized" out of the
modern texts.  Britten and Pears were smart to incorporate the desired
pronunciation into the spelling in this way, as operatic singers are
amazing in their determination to mispronounce names onstage (a pet
peeve is the bogus Italianization of such names as Aeneas and Galatea in
English-language works).

>Susan Patterson as Helena, and Donald Adams as Bottom.

>Yes, Donald Adams, formerly of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (the
>Gilbert & Sullivan "mother church" until its demise in the 1980s).
>Those who know his G&S performances won't be surprised to learn that
>his comic acting and his impeccable diction weren't obscured by the
>ass's head that Puck places on Bottom.  And his singing voice is still
>of topnotch operatic quality, at whatever age he may be by now.

After the D'Oyly Carte disbanded a while back, Adams surprised everyone
by becoming a "house singer" at Covent Garden and turning in fine
performances of (supporting) operatic bass roles.

>I was curious about a couple of things that I couldn't answer from the
>program or from Kobbe'/Harewood, which lists the original cast but not
>the roles they took.  Clearly, Deller must have been Oberon, as in the
>recording Jon mentions.  What part did Peter Pears sing?  He's listed 
>after Deller, George Maran, Thomas Hemsley, and Owen Brannigan among
>the men.

In the original production he sang the supporting comic-tenor role of
Flute, thus also undertaking Thisbe in the opera-within-the-opera.
Apparently his mad scene with flute obbligato was quite something.  For
the recording (made 5 or 6 years later), he moved up to the more 
prominent role of Lysander.  I've heard that he felt he no longer had
the easy top range for the buffo stuff.

>And surely this means that Brannigan played Bottom; at least, I'm guessing
>this by analogy, since I know Brannigan only as the Sergeant of Police
>on both the Sir Malcolm Sargent 1961 recording of THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE
>and the 1968 Isidore Godfrey/D'Oyly Carte recording of the same.
>If this is so, Donald Adams is following in a fine tradition of G&S-trained
>Bottoms.

Not really "trained"; actually I don't know that Brannigan ever did G&S
onstage.  His career was all "classical" as far as I know, though in
comic roles a great deal of the time, and he was simply asked to do the 
G&S recordings, like the other opera singers in the casts, because
Malcolm Sargent thought he'd be well suited.  Brannigan's other
recordings include Polyphemus in ACIS AND GALATEA (with Sutherland and
Pears), a great many Britten operas, and I think some Handel operas.

You're right, though, that Brannigan played Bottom, both in the original
production and for Britten's recording.  A classic portrayal (though
Geraint Evans, who did the part at Covent Garden, recorded "Bottom's
Awakening" on a recital disc and suggested an interestingly different
interpretation).

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical