Grace Williams (1906-1977)
The Parlour (1960/61) Opera in one Act
Grandmama: Edith Coates (mezzo)
Papa: Edward Byles (tenor)
Mama: Noreen Berry (mezzo)
Welsh National Opera Chorus
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Brian Balkwill
rec. live, 18 August 1966, Odeon Theatre, Llandudno, North Wales
Texts provided (download option – notes only)
Reviewed as a lossless download
Lyrita REAM1147 [80]

The week before I wrote this review, BBC Radio 3 devoted some of their afternoon programme to the music of Grace Williams. I was particularly interested, as they showcased some of her music, hitherto unrecorded, but covered in the last couple of seasons by the wonderful BBC National Orchestra of Wales in live concerts. Those performances of the Sinfonia Concertante for piano and orchestra and the Symphony No. 1 will likely have disappeared from the BBC Sounds app by the time this review is published. If you’re, quick, though, you may be able to still catch her on “Composer of the Week”, scheduled for the second week of July as I write.

Grace Williams was born within a year of fellow trailblazers Elizabeth Maconchy, Imogen Holst and Elisabeth Lutyens. They all went through the Royal College of Music. Williams took further studies in Europe with Egon Wellesz from whom she developed an objective, analytical approach to her work. She was close to Britten in the 1930s and her music, although completely original, is influenced by him and others. Post war, she based herself in her beloved South Wales. Her compositional output in the late 40s and throughout the 50s flowed freely and she wrote her only opera, the one act The Parlour in 1960/61. At the time, it was hoped the commission which also went to Daniel Jones would result in a kind-of Welsh Cav and Pag. In the end it took over five years for The Parlour to reach performance. Jones’ The Knife was launched sooner (Sadler’s Wells, 1963) and the two one-acters never did share the same stage.

Many believe the 1960s was a slow time for new opera. I think the art form was definitely in a transitional phase. Let us perhaps consider some of the English language works performed in those years (with a special guest thrown is as well):

Williams’ The Parlour does not probe the intellectual heights nor the emotional depths of some of the works above. It is definitely a piece of its time, though, and in this rescued recording issued by Lyrita we get to eavesdrop on one of its first performances. The story is based on “A Family Affair” by Guy de Maupassant and Williams crafted the libretto herself. It is very like Gianni Schicchi in plot. The stern matriarchal Grandmama of a reasonably comfortable middle-class family apparently dies. The family fuss around and manoeuvre for the money. Mourners and more distant family arrive, she is pronounced deceased by the local GP who goes off to summon the undertaker, but then, yes you guessed it, Grandma awakens. She has heard it all! In another link to Puccini’s Il trittico, The Parlour was coupled with Il tabarro at its premiere in Cardiff in May 1966. The initial run was well received and Welsh National Opera returned to it immediately after their summer holidays. It featured in their Autumn season of 1966, and I believe came back again (briefly) in Autumn 1967.

The booklet notes are expertly written by Paul Conway. His essay gives a superb assessment of the work and how it fits into Williams’ output. Lyrita are not completely clear about the exact provenance of the recording. It is a BBC radio production, and I believe it is from the Llandudno performance (Odeon Theatre) in August 1966. I have managed to ascertain this from old Radio Times listings and the fact that the orchestra is the CBSO. I am pretty sure that for the Cardiff performances in 1966/67, Welsh National Opera would have employed the Bournemouth SO as they usually did. At any rate the performance did not go out live on the radio. Rather it was recorded and transmitted on the afternoon of 6 November 1966. It is a mono recording, and the sound does leave something to be desired. Nonetheless it is a gem of a record and captures some notable singing in a highly interesting work.

As Grandmama we hear the veteran mezzo, Edith Coates. She would have been sixty-one years of age at that time. She had sung at Sadler’s Wells from their beginnings in 1931 and was a notable Eboli, Dalila, Amneris and Ortrud for the company. She was experienced with English opera, too, having sung roles in Vaughan Williams’ Hugh the Drover and Smyth’s The Wreckers on Rosebury Avenue. When Covent Garden re-opened after the war in 1947, she was Carmen. Post-war she could be heard in roles like Azucena, Ulrica, Amneris, even Herodias and Klytaemnestra for the company. One may read that long list and rightly note there aren’t too many laughs therein! You would be wrong however to assume that Edith Coates could not do comedy and satire. By all accounts, she had the audience in stitches as Grace Williams’ Grandma, playing the formidable old battle-axe for all, she was worth. Like all the cast and most singers of that epoch her diction is superb.

Her first phrases, declamatory and sung with vehemence to her long-suffering neighbours require her to scoop her lines, rather showing off the harsher edges of her instrument. I was expecting this to moderate a little in later scenes, but in truth it doesn’t. On coming down the stairs to eerie nocturnal tones after her near-death coma-like experience she surveys the sorry scene grandly. The swooping pattern of the vocal line and her harshness with the family is unabated. The only time she warms in bloom and colour is when she sings to Genevieve, her lately arrived daughter, who she leads back up the stairs arm-in-arm and invites back the day after, much to the consternation of Mama. Coates plays Grandma as tyrannical, and she can fairly spit out the insults when required. As a role it is one-dimensional, however. I assume Williams would have had Edith Coates in mind as she wrote the music. I would just urge listeners who find her harsh and old-sounding to listen to her in some of her finest roles. She was a very great artist with a fine voice.

Grandmama’s son Papa is very well sung by former miner Edward Byles and his wife, the important role of Mama by Noreen Berry. Their scene together at the end of part one: “Tell me, did your mother make a will?” is pivotal. Here we hear Mama asserting herself on her poor, vulnerable husband. They begin to swap their threadbare furniture with Grandma’s, before the other relations arrive to survey the property. Most unsavoury, but compelling to listen to. Williams’ music is gripping. Their devastation at the opera’s end: “There’s no justice” is numbing. “Desolation” sings Mama. Papa is more concerned with going back to work the following day and explaining the previous afternoon’s absence.

Their two daughters, close relations of Auntie’s nieces, resident at The Boar (Britten’s Peter Grimes), are taken here by Janet Hughes and Anne Pashley – who, incidentally, was a former GB Olympian in the 1956 Games. They both do a great job with their parts, playing them like a couple of St. Trinian’s schoolgirls and creating a splash on the night. My favourite of their contributions is when they admit to their macabre trip with their friends into Grandmama’s room to see the corpse. They sing in tandem and sound adorable. Mama scolds them for their naughtiness, nonetheless. They take another telling-off nearer the end from Grandmama herself.

Doctor Charlton is baritone John Gibbs who is fresh of voice in the role of this silly man whose initial botched examination of the “body” sets the events in motion. The final singer I want to mention is the great Jean Allister of the D’Oyly Carte, known for her roles in the canon of Gilbert and Sullivan operas. She is predictably wonderful as Genevieve, the Queen of Idleness (as Mama calls her).

There are countless places in the score where I caught myself smiling at the little turns of phrase in the orchestra and the themes Williams constructs to introduce a character or set a scene here and there. There are several little interludes dotted around the piece where you will notice her ability to paint masterfully with tone colour and melody. Her skills in orchestration at this time were well known. She also writes very effectively for the chorus, notably at the start of scene 2 although by the time the production made it back to Cardiff, I am sure their ensemble was a little tighter than it was here on the North Wales coast.

The opera is fast moving and strongly formed thematically. It moves lightly and there is plenty of variety. I enjoyed the rhyming libretto too, very much of its period. When I look at that list again of 1960s hit operas, I have to say The Parlour seems to breathe the air of a slightly earlier age, maybe more akin to the works of that new Elizabethan era that glowed in the England of the mid-1950s. I was sincerely glad to hear it though and believe I would have relished it at the time, not least as I would have got to hear Marie Collier as Giorgetta in the accompanying Il tabarro.

When The Parlour made it to Cardiff in September 1966 for its second showing there, the houses were not quite so full as the previous May. That September, the big draw was Geraint Evans in Don Pasquale. Grace Williams didn’t write another opera and this one deserves revival. A nice new recording would be lovely to supplement this treasure, too. Might I suggest John Andrews, who recorded a splendid Williams disc recently (review) might be prevailed upon?

Philip Harrison

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Other cast members
Louisa: Anne Pashley (soprano)
Augusta: Janet Hughes (soprano)
Aunt Genevieve: Jane Allister (mezzo)
Uncle Steve: David Lennox (tenor)
Doctor Charlton: John Gibbs (baritone)
Rosalie: Marian Evans (soprano)