An operetta in one act
Words by Eleanor Farjeon
and Herbert Farjeon
Music by Geoffrey Wright
Produced by Mark H. Lubbock
(Continued at top of next column)
The Judges: George Chitty , Dennis Stephenson , James Topping , Gordon Clinton , Murray Davies , Ernest Frank
A section of the New London Orchestra
(Leader, Reginald Morley )
Conducted by Stanford Robinson
Scene: Athens, about 400 B.C.
The Arraignment of Phryne was originally intended as part of a complete entertainment that Herbert Farjeon was devising in 1944. Wishing to include a short opera, classical in theme but modern in treatment, he and his sister. Eleanor, looked about for a suitable subject. They finally selected the trial of Phryne, the beautiful Boeotion courtesan. Phryne was brought to trial by a discarded lover, and charged with corrupting Athenian morals. The eloquent defence of her current beau failed to convince the judges, and things looked black indeed. Gambling desperately, Phryne decided to stake everything on a last chance-and won.
The libretto complete, Herbert and Eleanor Farjeon invited Geoffrey Wright to set it to music. The finished version was played over to Herbert Farjeon shortly before his death in 1945 and is now presented for the first time. l. david Harris