THE BOHEMIAN GIRL – BALFE
Presented on Nov 23, 27 [Centenary Performance] at the Gaiety Theatre Dublin as part of the Dublin Grand Opera Society’s Winter Season
Rita Lynch – Arline
James Johnston – Thaddeus
Patricia Black – Gypsy Queen
J C Browner – Devilshoof
Seán Mooney – Arnheim
Joseph Flood – Florestein
Una Bodie – Buda
Commdt J M Doyle – Conductor
Sydney Russell – Producer
The society planned a centenary performance of William Balfe’s “Bohemian Girl” for November 27, exactly one hundred years since the opera was first staged at the Drury Lane Theatre, London. The work held a special place in the hearts of Irish music lovers. Born in the city on May 15th 1808 the son of a dancing master, young Balfe was a child prodigy, composing a polacca for a band at the age of seven and giving a violin recital at the age of nine. He went to London in 1823 to learn the violin and later obtained a post as violinist in the orchestra at Drury Lane Theatre. After a short spell in Italy, he settled in Paris where he met Rossini who offered him an engagement with the Italian Opera, as a baritone. He made an acclaimed debut there as Figaro in “The Barber of Seville” in 1827. Following an engagement in Palermo, he composed his first opera “I Rivalli di se Stessi”, and also met and married a Hungarian singer, Lina Roser. His first English opera was “The Siege of Rochelle” but few of his remaining operas ever achieved the same popularity as “The Bohemian Girl”. He made the journey to London for its premiere which turned out to be a huge success. Subsequently the libretto was translated into Italian (“La Zingara”), German, French, Swedish and Russian. Later it was given in Paris as “La Bohemienne” in a French version.
The opera’s storyline is dramatic, if sentimental, and is woven around ayoung girl Arline, daughter of Count Arnheim, who is kidnapped as a child and taken to a gypsies’ encampment and brought up by them. But twelve years later, through an odd twist of fate, she is reunited with her father and he agrees to give her in marriage to the Polish nobleman Thaddeus, despite the fact that he is a political exile.
“The Bo Girl”, as it came to be affectionately called, is Balfe’s best known opera and was undoubtedly the most popular English opera of the nineteenth century and the only one to win universal acclaim abroad. Its melodic arias such as “I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls” – recorded by Margaret Burke Sheridan – “When other lips” a great favourite of Co. John McCormack and “The heart bowed down” contributed to the work’s popularity, and it was not unknown for characters in the Gaiety ‘gods’ up to 1955 to belt out one of the arias during an interval of a performance.
The DGOS assembled an all Irish cast for the centenary celebrations, with James Johnston singing Thaddeus, Patricia Black the Gypsy Queen and J C Browner as Devilshoof, Sean Mooney was given the role of Count Arnheim. Rita Lynch appeared the natural choice to sing Arline and it came as no surprise when Comdt. O’Kelly offered her the plum part. The soprano’s puriry of voice and look of vulnerability fitted the character and at the time it was not unusual for her to sing “I dreamt I dwelt” at concerts. She deemed it an honour to be asked to sing on this auspicious occasion for the society.
‘I worked hard with Julia Gray and producer Sydney Russell’, she recalls, ‘and I had no fears about singing the part, I knew that every soprano in Ireland would have given the world to sing in the opera, and here I was, the girl from Macroom, being cast in the leading role, I remember how thrilled I was and could not wait to tell my family and friends.’
Prior to the opening performance, Dublin’s Lord Mayor Ald. Martin O’Sullivan unveiled a marble plaque in the Green Room as a tribute to Balfe in the presence of a gathering that included Dr Vincent O’Brien, Louis Elliman, the Gaiety Theatre’s managing director, and the officers of the Dublin Grand Opera Society, Dr Larchet (president), Comdt. O’Kelly (chairman) and A E (Bertie) Timlin (hon.Secretary). Indeed, the theatre was celebrating a double event as on that day seventy-two years before it had first opened its doors to the public.
There was also a buzz in the rest of the theatre on that November evening. Chorus members Aileen Walsh and Florrie Draper recalled the ‘definite air of expectancy’ that prevailed, mainly because it was an all-Irish cast. According to Miss Walsh, this fact ‘had gone down well’ in the society served by Irish singers. To Florrie Draper it was about the best cast that could be got. ‘I remember we were all looking forward to Jimmy Johnston singing Thaddeus. The rehearsals had gone very well and I’d say that producer Sydney Russell was happy, as was Comdt. Doyle.’
For the occasion, Comdt. O’Kelly and Bertie Timlin joined the chorus ranks. The theatre was packed when Comdt. Doyle took his place on the podium. For many old timers in the audience it was an evening of nostalgia as they remembered perhaps pre-war performances by cross-Channel touring companies, and this would be evident in their subsequent enthusiastic applause for the big arias.
Rita Lynch became upset though in the second scene of act two, which takes place in a street in Presburg, when some of the scenery above her began to creak and were it not for the quick intervention of the backstage hands she feared the worst. ‘I remember Jimmy Johnston whispering to me, “You’ll he alright, you’re singing like a trooper, girl.” I felt nervous at the time and was afraid my voice would he affected. Thankfully, I got through it and in the final scenes I can still hear the lovely applause.’
James Brittain, an aspiring young tenor, played the small part of a peasant and was particularly impressed by Johnston’s voice and musicianship, ‘I used to love the way he sang and how he made it look so easy. You could hear every word he sang and never forced the voice. You knew he had got a good vocal training and as a tenor myself, hoping to go places, I studied his technique. His Thaddeus was a first-class interpretation, and for that matter, so was Sean Mooney’s Count Arnheim. Sean had a natural baritone voice and a good stage presence. With proper coaching he would have gone further in his career.
(Extracted from “Love and Music: The Glorious History of the Dublin Grand Opera Society” by Gus Smith, 1998)
Opera in Ireland 