Conducted by PERCY PITT
OWEN BRYNGWYN (Baritone)
THE last of Puccini's operas, Turandot, was left unfinished at his death. It was completed by Alfano, an operatic composer himself, who is less well known in this country than in Italy, and the opera was triumphantly produced at Milan in 1926. It had been intended to have the first performance on the anniversary of Puccini's death, which would have been December 1, 1925, but Toscanini, the conductor, did not think it sufficiently well rehearsed by that time, and various other obstacles combined to delay the production. Already, in Madame Butterfly, Puccini had made some use of ' local colour,' having gramophone records of Japanese music beside him while he composed it. For Turandot he was even more anxious that something genuinely Chinese should be embodied in the score, and actual records of Chinese music, made by native performers, were furnished to him. Many of these melodies are actually incorporated in the score, and the music as a whole does have genuinely Chinese atmosphere.
ONE of the few modern Russian operas with which music lovers in this country have had chances of becoming familiar, Coq d'Or is a very good example of its composer's delight in fantastic subjects. The opera is throughout a bizarre and often mirth-provoking fairy tale. As the Introduction tells us, ' the story is not true, but there is a moral in it.' Even these short extracts from it can give a very good idea of Rimsky-Korsakov's powers of orchestration, of his skill in lending a sense of brilliance and gorgeous colouring to even slight subjects. His gift of ironic humour, too, is evident in the Wedding March from the Third Act. It is a delightful blend of pomp and satiric mockery, suggesting the very ill-assorted pair, the feeble old king, and his handsome bride. On the stage it is presented as a scene of great splendour, with a procession of dwarfs and other grotesque people following the King and Queen.