Sunday 7 April 2013

A Comic Charmer

So completely neglected that only 2 studio recordings have ever been made (and one of those incomplete),  Flotow's comic opera Martha has acquired a reputation among many musicians as a dated piece of frippery, unworthy of serious attention.

How wrong can people get?

This opera, premiered in 1847, is actually a very good example of a true comedy, a piece that invites you to laugh at the follies of the characters while at the same time ruefully recognizing aspects of yourself in them.  Yet the characters at all times remain true to themselves and to the society in which the story is set -- England in the early 1700s, a period when marriage below one's station was a cardinal social sin.

The comic devices of concealed identities which drive the plot are common ones, but what is uncommon is the idea of an aristocratic, titled lady concealing herself as a young woman of the lower class.  Lady Harriet does this out of sheer boredom with the pointless life of her own circle, an attitude which brings her surprisingly close to modern social mores.  She and her lady's maid, Nancy, go to the Richmond Fair dressed as peasant girls (named Martha and Julia) and hire themselves out as domestic servants to two landowners, Plumkett and his foster-brother Lyonel.

The entire plot revolves around this quartet of characters, with Queen Anne as an unseen dea ex machina to help untangle the resulting complications.  In order of voice type, Lady Harriet is the star soprano, Nancy the mezzo-soprano second lead, Lyonel the leading tenor and Plumkett the comic bass-baritone.

Also uncommon for the times is Harriet's forward approach to wooing the man of her heart in the last act, rather than waiting for him to make the move as might have been considered conventional in the mid-1800s.

Musically, what makes Martha so rewarding?  For starters, it's brim-full of memorable melodies of one kind or another.  Harriet and Lyonel in particular both get their share of soaring melodic lines that show off the voice without ever deteriorating into mere vocal gymnastics.  Nancy and Plunkett are given earthier, more rustic music, but always interesting to the ear.  There are also numerous rewarding passages for the chorus, and many of these are set in 3/4 or 6/8 time, a feature which encourages a light-hearted, humorous, bubbly character to the work.  Speaking of bubbles, Plunkett's ode to the joys of porter beer gets the third act off to an appropriately lurching, drunken start.

At the same time, Flotow's skill ensures that the whole does not deteriorate into a mere operetta.  The injured pride of Lyonel as he rejects Harriet's pleas in Act III is as heartfelt as his own declaration of love in Act II.  Equally real is the humility in Harriet's request to Plunkett to help her change Lyonel's mind in the final act.  The serious music really is serious in tone, thus creating marvellous contrast with the comic moments.  And when Flotow wants to be really romantic, that strain comes to him readily as well.  One listening to the beautiful Midnight Quartet and the following brief nocturne for horn which concludes Act II drives the point home.

The two most famous excerpts are the famous Irish song, "The Last Rose of Summer", sung first by "Martha" and later adopted as a motif of Lyonel's love, and Lyonel's own marvellous aria, "Ach, so fromm" (more often recorded in aria recitals in the Italian translation as "M'appari").  But if you only know Martha from these two famous highlights, that is about the same as knowing Canada by the Anne of Green Gables house and the Banff Springs Hotel -- fine as far as it goes, but so much more is being missed.

The most recent recording I have been able to find out about is also the one I own.  It was recorded in Munich by Heinz Wallberg for the Eurodisc label in 1978, and later re-released on RCA.  It features an all-star cast of Lucia Popp as Lady Harriet, Doris Soffel as Nancy, Siegfried Jerusalem as Lyonel, and Karl Ridderbusch as Plunkett, with Siegmund Nimsgern in the relatively ungrateful baritone role of Sir Tristan Mickleford, Lady Harriet's cousin.  If you can find this one, don't hesitate, as Wallberg totally captures the fizzing fun of the comic moments alongside the deeper emotions of the more serious passages.  It's also unlikely that any newer contender could better this beautifully-matched ensemble of voices.