GEORGE ALEXANDER MACFARREN (1813-1887): Robin Hood.

Catalogue Number: 11N039
Label: Naxos
Reference: 8.660306-07
Format: CD
Price: $35.98
Description: Reconstructed entirely from the manuscript held at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, this work of 1860 is generally acclaimed as Macfarren's best opera and the musicologist and opera scholar Edward Dent described it in the 1940s as "very full of good fun and on the way to Sullivan", meaning, surely, Ivanhoe and not H.M.S. Pinafore. Macfarren treats the Robin Hood myth with patriotic jollity and a big helping of romance, skillfully using the melodic and harmonic aspects of English folk-song language in his music without making up phony folk songs. The orchestration is very detailed without resorting to the ophicleide, serpent and bass clarinet which such rivals as Balfe and Wallace used. Notes have separate sections on Macfarren, English opera in general and this opera in particular. This would have been fun to have in Opera Rara extravagance but one mustn't get greedy... 2 CDs. Libretto available on-line. Nicky Spence (tenor), George Hulbert (baritone), John Molloy (bass), Kay Jordan (soprano), John Powell Singers, Victorian Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Ronald Corp.