GUSTAV HOLST (1874-1934): The Perfect Fool.
Catalogue Number: 09X007
Label: Lyrita
Reference: REAM.1143
Format: CD
Price: $18.98
Description: Perhaps the best short summary of this one-act fairy-tale opera from 1923 which seemed to dumbfound both critics and the public came from a review in The Radio Times after a BBC broadcast of the work the next year: “… a fantastic entertainment .... largely .... a skit on operatic weaknesses, and with unmistakable parodies of the florid Italian operatic style and of Wagner ...” Imogen Holst, always a clear-eyed critic of her father’s work, wrote that “There is a lot of good music locked up in this impossible framework.” No libretto. Margaret Neville (soprano), John Mitchinson (tenor), Pamela Bowden (contralto), Richard Golding (bass), BBC Northern Singers, BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra; Charles Groves (broadcast May 7, 1967 - mono).