Comic opera in three acts
Libretto by WILHELM ANDERSEN after HOLBERG
English version by DUDLEY GLASS Music by Nielsen
(first performance in this country)
Masquerade is to the Danes what The Bartered Bride is to the Czechs - at once a characteristically national product and a sparkling comedy. Holberg's amusing play is an affair of mistaken identities; Nielsen's music considerably enlarges its humorous and emotional range. And, witty as Holberg is (he was not for nothing called the Danish Moliere), the musician is constantly surpassing him, both in colour and richness of comic invention and in poetry. Holberg had nothing to compare with the beautiful moon-lit atmosphere that opens Act 2. for instance.
This ojpera' is naturally a national institution in Denmark. but there is no reason to suppose that it will not travel now that an excellent English translation has been made. ROBERT SIMPSON
Cast in order of singing:
ProfessorNORMAN LUMSDEN
Chorus of students, officers and young girls
BBC NORTHERN SFNGERS chorus-master
STEPHEN WILKINSON
BBC NORTHERN SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA leader REGINALD STEAD conductor BRYDEN THOMSON Repetiteur RICHARD NUNN
Producer ERNEST WARBURTON
The opera is set in Copenhagen in the spring of 1723. Act 1 A room in the house of Jeronimus
9.55* Nielsen as Musical Dramatist
A talk by DUDLEY GLASS
10.15* Masquerade
Act 2 Outside the Playhouse
Act 3 The large hall of the Playhouse