# A Village Romeo and Juliet

A Village Romeo and Juliet is an opera by Frederick Delius, the fourth of his six operas. The composer himself, with his wife Jelka, wrote the English-language libretto based on the short story "Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe" by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller. The first performance was at the Komische Oper Berlin on 21 February 1907, as Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe. Thomas Beecham conducted the British premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London on 22 February 1910. The US premiere was on 26 April 1972 in Washington, D.C.
The New York City Opera (NYCO) staged the work in 1973 for the opera's New York City premiere with Richard T. Gill as Marti, June Angela as the child Vreli, Patricia Wells as the adult Vreli, John Stewart as Sali, David Holloway as the Dark Fiddler, and Thomas Jamerson as the Three Barge Men. In his review of the NYCO production, music critic Allen Hughes wrote, "This piece has had few productions in the 72 years of its existence, and the reasons for that are not hard to find. To begin, it is, essentially, two hours of mood music for orchestra with secondary parts for singers, and the orchestra envisioned by Delius was so vast as to be impractical for conventional opera presentation. Furthermore, the staging implications were such that they could not be realized adequately in a theater depending upon physical sets and for effects."
While the opera has rarely been staged, the orchestral interlude between Scenes 5 and 6, "The Walk to the Paradise Garden", is heard separately in concerts and has been recorded many times.

## Roles

| Role | Voice type | Premiere cast, 21 February 1907 (Conductor: Fritz Cassirer) |
| Manz | baritone | |
| Marti | baritone | |
| Sali, son of Manz as a child | soprano | |
| Sali, son of Manz as a man | tenor | Willi Merkel |
| Vreli, daughter of Marti | soprano | Lola Artôt de Padilla |
| The dark fiddler | baritone | Desider Zádor |
| Two peasant men | baritones | |
| Three peasant women | sopranos | |
| Gingerbread woman | soprano | Minnie Egener |
| Wheel of fortune woman | soprano | |
| Cheap jewellery woman | mezzo-soprano | |
| Merry-go-round man | baritone | |
| Slim girl | soprano | |
| Wild girl | mezzo-soprano | |
| Poor horn player | tenor | |
| Hunchbacked bass player | bass | |
The premiere of the English version featured Walter Hyde as Sali; Ruth Vincent as Vrenchen (Vreli); Robert Maitland as the Black Fiddler (sic); Harry Dearth as Manz; Dillon Shallard as Marti; Muriel Terry as the young Sali and the Wild Girl; Betty Booker as the young Vrenchen and the Slim Girl; Arthur Royd as the Poor Horn Player; and Albert Archdeacon as the Hunchback Bass Player.

## Recordings

| Year | Cast | Conductor, Opera house and orchestra | Label |
| 1948 | Rene Soames, Vera Terry, Gordon Clinton, Denis Dowling, Frederick Sharp | Sir Thomas Beecham, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus | Audio CD: EMI Classics, Cat: ?? Audio CD: Naxos, Cat: 8.110982-83 |
| 1971 | Robert Tear, Elizabeth Harwood, John Shirley-Quirk, Benjamin Luxon | Meredith Davies, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra John Alldis Choir | Audio CD: EMI Classics, Cat: ? |
| 1989 | Arthur Davies, Helen Field, Thomas Hampson, Stafford Dean, Barry Mora | Sir Charles Mackerras, ORF Symphony Orchestra Arnold Schönberg Choir | Audio CD: Decca, Cat: 430 275-2 |
| 1991 1992 | Dana Moravkova, Michel Dlouhy, Thomas Hampson, Katerina Svobodova, Jan Kalous | Petr Weigl movie (Video recording, using the Mackerras recording for its soundtrack) | DVD Video: Decca, Cat: B-0000-838-09 |
| 1995 | Eva-Christine Reimer, Karsten Russ, Klaus Wallprecht, David Midboe, Attila Kovacs | Klauspeter Seibel, Kiel orchestra, Kiel chorus (Recording of a performance in Kiel, Germany, sung in German) | Audio CD: company?? Cat: CPO 999 328-2 |