Richings English Opera: The Rose of Castille

Part of review of entire season. See 01/28/67, Article on success of Richings English Opera.

“‘The Rose of Castille,’ an opera of Balfe’s, very seldom performed in this country, will be produced this evening by the Richings Opera Company.”

“The commencement of the last week of the Richings English Opera troupe at the Olympic theatre showed no diminution in the attendance or the hearty support given it by the public. The opera was Balfe’s Rose of Castile, a work which we criticised at length last summer. With all its extravagances and puerilities there are some of the most beautiful gems of melody and harmony in this opera that can be found in the whole range of English opera. The finale of the first act glows with warm, breathing harmony, and the brindisi, the comic duet, &c., are real pearls. Miss Richings, the charming Mrs. Seguin, Castle, Campbell and Wylie were all satisfactory in their rôles. There is one actor in the troupe who deserves especial mention—Mr. Edward Seguin seems to have inherited the abilities of his father to considerable extent, and his acting would do credit to any stage.”

“English opera still keeps the metropolitan stage with a scarcely varying success, though the French and Germans have, for a time, made exits more abrupt than becoming. The Germans offered, as usual, the most generous and sterling repertoire, and this with a well-meant effort which contrasts reproachfully with discord behind the scenes and poverty of management—too frequent accompaniments of the German fortunes in competitive wars of music. After so brilliant a production as that of Offenbach’s Orephus, it is a wonder that the French Opera Comique, with its wine-like spirit, and half-inspired artificiality—should have so suddenly bubbled out. We had reason to expect more from both these schools of music; study and enthusiasm from the one, spite of mediocre singers, and wit and gaiety from the other. As it is, these more experienced and characteristic operas have gone out of business for the time being and English opera, with its able-bodied commonplaces, rules as it never ruled before.

The ‘Rose of Castile,’ as given last night at the Olympic Theater, is almost a novelty. It is one of Balfe’s later works, as may perhaps be judged from its choruses and instrumentation. These show a confirmed style and considerable vigor. The plot of the opera may be suggested in a few words. The Queen or ‘Rose’ of Castile takes the disguise of a peasant girl to meet her royal fiancé, Don Sebastian of Portugal, who, in the character of a muleteer, seeks to discover his mistress without himself being known. Incidentally he overhears a conspiracy against the throne, and this piece of news lends interest to his encounter with the royal peasant-girl. Certain traitor nobles, with Don Pedro at their head, appear on the scene, and propose that the supposed peasant, by reason of her great resemblance to the Queen, shall be placed on the throne, while the true Queens is carried away to a convent, the conspirators meanwhile making their own terms with the impostor. The royal muleteer reënters in time to confound the conspirators, and, of course, marries the Queen. The plot is somewhat absurd, but it affords excellent situations for the music. The libretto contains, of course, the usual sentimental word-rations for popular composers—songs about wine, castanets, memory, convent bells, grief, and so forth. There is no ambition in the composer to express more than a popular and conventional sentimentality in his melody, and the libretto is, of course, adapted to this fact. There is nothing in the opera which can lay claim to very high regard in a melodic respect; but it is to the composer’s credit that his concerted music is so ably sustained. While his airs and and ballads are evidently poor in invention, as compared with the morceaux of ‘The Bohemian Girl,’ his few trios and quartets are strikingly well-managed. The solo music, with the exception of perhaps a baritone passage, does not impress us as new or very remarkable, and yet we must regard the work, upon the whole, as a success. This success is altogether due to its well worked out duets, trios, quartets, and finales—the latter especially. Though little of Balfe’s concerted music approaches real breadth of character or depth of invention, the composer must be credited with eclectic talent and dramatic good sense. Auber and Flotow have been his operatic models, if indeed he resembles either of these except occasionally in their forms of movement. The music of Balfe is much his own, qualified by the French opera, the English concert room and the Irish melodies. We make particular mention of the Scherzo in the first act as something unusual to English operatic writing—a brilliant piece of vocal difficulty, and interesting for that reason and no more. The trio and quartet in the same act, and the laughing trio in the second, are among the best compositions of Balfe. Further, we have only to say that with Miss Richings, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Castle and Miss Zelda Harrison, and a fairly drilled chorus, the opera is creditably rendered.”

“‘The Rose of Castile’ attracted a crowded house on Jan. 28th, and was repeated to a good house on the 31st.”