Performances of THE MOUNTEBANKS are reasonably rare these days.  Although the opera clocked up a very respectable initial run at the Lyric Theatre in 1892, and despite subsequent amateur productions, with the destruction of much of the performance material in the fire at Chappell's warehouse in 1964, the ability to stage the opera was compromised.

Initially this seemed to be not too serious as there were enough vocal scores and libretti in libraries and in private hands, and there was also a set of band parts with D'Oyly Carte - although no one seems quite sure why as the work was never a D'Oyly Carte piece.

However, in 1964 the Lyric Theater of Washington hired the band parts to stage a production and when the parts were sent back one of the packages went missing, never to reappear, effectively rendering what remained as useless. 

Thankfully, the Lyric Theater went into the recording studio before the parts were returned.

This 2 CD set has been reissued by the American company House of Opera and may be ordered via the internet.  Click here.  The set is currently priced at USD 9.25 plus International First Class postage - the sterling price varies in accordance with the exchange rate, but this is an incredibly attractive price for such a rarity.  There is no tracklisting provided with these CD's so we have provided one at the bottom of this review.

It has to be said that the performance is characterised by some strong American accents and a rather laboured, stilted style of dialogue which many will find hard to listent to, however, the dialogue is tracked  separately and may be programmed out or skipped as desired.  Musically this is an acceptable performance and does go to show that there is an enjoyable work here which would be well worth the effort of revival.

Musical highlghts have to be the "Put a penny in the slot" duet for Nita (a dancer) and Bartolo (a clown) who have been transformed into life-size automated figures of Ophelia and Hamlet.  Their trio later in Act Two, "Ophelia was a dainty little maid", sung with Pietro (the chief mountebank) is also a delightful number.

Certainly with the resources of the internet (you will find both the original Chappell vocal score and a newly typeset combined score and libretto in the Resources area of this web site) and the recent creation of a new set of band parts, performances of this delightful work are, once more, a possibility.

To listen to "Put a penny in the slot", click here.

To listen to "Ophelia was a dainty little maid", click here.

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This page was last modified on: 25 July, 2010 19:46