The Jewels of the Madonna
My family had a large collection of old 78 rpm records, mostly of old popular songs from the thirties and forties - I knew the song Ali Baba's Camel long before the Bonzos recorded it - but one of them, which I knew only as The Jewels of the Madonna, was classical music, although I probably wouldn't have made that distinction at the time. If it wasn't the first piece of classical music I heard, it was certainly the first piece I obsessed over, listening to it over and over again. As music is such a large part of my life now, that makes it quite significant in my life. I can't remember when I first heard it, but I think it was before we moved from London at the very end of 1957, when I was four.
And then, some time in the early sixties, I came home to see the record in pieces. My sister had dropped it.
Well, at the end of the sixties I discovered Radio 3. (I often joke that I started listening to classical music in 1968 because popular music was so terrible then. Getting a pocket radio that got good reception only on Radio 3 may have helped.) When I was at university in the early seventies I noticed in the Radio 3 listings in the Radio Times the entry "Wolf-Ferrari: Suite from The Jewels of the Madonna". I still remembered the name and as the piece was being played at a time I could listen - I think it was on the morning concert just before I had to head into the university for my first lecture - I tuned in to see if I recognised it.
I did. The bit I was fond off was the third of four movements, a serenade. The record we had was, I think, sides 2 and 3 of a two-disc set. Multi-disc sets were often set up for use in auto-changers, so you'd put a stack on the spindle and it would play sides 1 to n, turn the stack over and play sides n+1 to 2n. I never did discover what happened to sides 1 and 4; smashed before I was born, I suspect.
I also had a composer's name to go with the piece, although the musical reference books I had available told me little about him. Born in Venice in 1876 to a German father and Italian mother, he died in 1948. I gathered The Jewels of the Madonna was an opera, and the suite was a set of orchestral interludes.
In the seventies and eighties, I started recording works of Radio 3, especially if they were hard to find on disc, and I think in the early eighties I heard the suite again and recorded it, getting to know the piece again. Finally, I found a CD of the suite, along with music from other operas by Wolf-Ferrari. I have that CD on my iPod now.
A few months ago I was having a discussion on an opera forum about operatic rarities you'd like to see staged and I mentioned The Jewels of the Madonna. It's being performed by Holland Park Opera this summer, I was told. And I went to see it on Saturday night. Turns out it was the first staging in this country since 1926, which is before my parents were born. Can't think why, as musically it is a fun piece, but I suppose I'm biased after all these years. I don't think I've even seen the suite performed in concert.
It's a style of Italian opera called verismo, which means it's all about the common people falling in love and murdering each other, only there isn't actually a murder here. An orphan girl drives her adoptive brother wild with lust and also comes to the attention of the local crime boss. The brother, to prove himself, steals the jewels from a statue of the Madonna and then dresses his sister in them and has sex with her. The crime boss tells him he is now cursed, so he returns the jewels and commits suicide. I can't help thinking that if my parents knew the plot, they would have been less happy about me listening to it. The serenade I knew first appears as an actual sung serenade by the crime boss and in this production his henchmen were making rude gestures in the background about their boss's sexual prowess. (The action was updated to the post-war period, so he turned up riding a Vespa scooter.)
The only downside to the experience is that Holland Park is an open-air theatre in a large tent and there was a huge thunderstorm on Saturday night. The rain on the roof of the tent drowned out the quiet passages (not that many, as it happened) and there were frequent flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder. Even worse, the percussionist was sitting near the edge of the awning and they had to hold an umbrella over him during the performance, and wipe the xylophone dry during the interval. And the only loos were portaloos out in the park, so it was a dash in the interval.
Still, after over fifty years, it was a joy to hear and see the whole thing. I hope some other company takes it up.
And then, some time in the early sixties, I came home to see the record in pieces. My sister had dropped it.
Well, at the end of the sixties I discovered Radio 3. (I often joke that I started listening to classical music in 1968 because popular music was so terrible then. Getting a pocket radio that got good reception only on Radio 3 may have helped.) When I was at university in the early seventies I noticed in the Radio 3 listings in the Radio Times the entry "Wolf-Ferrari: Suite from The Jewels of the Madonna". I still remembered the name and as the piece was being played at a time I could listen - I think it was on the morning concert just before I had to head into the university for my first lecture - I tuned in to see if I recognised it.
I did. The bit I was fond off was the third of four movements, a serenade. The record we had was, I think, sides 2 and 3 of a two-disc set. Multi-disc sets were often set up for use in auto-changers, so you'd put a stack on the spindle and it would play sides 1 to n, turn the stack over and play sides n+1 to 2n. I never did discover what happened to sides 1 and 4; smashed before I was born, I suspect.
I also had a composer's name to go with the piece, although the musical reference books I had available told me little about him. Born in Venice in 1876 to a German father and Italian mother, he died in 1948. I gathered The Jewels of the Madonna was an opera, and the suite was a set of orchestral interludes.
In the seventies and eighties, I started recording works of Radio 3, especially if they were hard to find on disc, and I think in the early eighties I heard the suite again and recorded it, getting to know the piece again. Finally, I found a CD of the suite, along with music from other operas by Wolf-Ferrari. I have that CD on my iPod now.
A few months ago I was having a discussion on an opera forum about operatic rarities you'd like to see staged and I mentioned The Jewels of the Madonna. It's being performed by Holland Park Opera this summer, I was told. And I went to see it on Saturday night. Turns out it was the first staging in this country since 1926, which is before my parents were born. Can't think why, as musically it is a fun piece, but I suppose I'm biased after all these years. I don't think I've even seen the suite performed in concert.
It's a style of Italian opera called verismo, which means it's all about the common people falling in love and murdering each other, only there isn't actually a murder here. An orphan girl drives her adoptive brother wild with lust and also comes to the attention of the local crime boss. The brother, to prove himself, steals the jewels from a statue of the Madonna and then dresses his sister in them and has sex with her. The crime boss tells him he is now cursed, so he returns the jewels and commits suicide. I can't help thinking that if my parents knew the plot, they would have been less happy about me listening to it. The serenade I knew first appears as an actual sung serenade by the crime boss and in this production his henchmen were making rude gestures in the background about their boss's sexual prowess. (The action was updated to the post-war period, so he turned up riding a Vespa scooter.)
The only downside to the experience is that Holland Park is an open-air theatre in a large tent and there was a huge thunderstorm on Saturday night. The rain on the roof of the tent drowned out the quiet passages (not that many, as it happened) and there were frequent flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder. Even worse, the percussionist was sitting near the edge of the awning and they had to hold an umbrella over him during the performance, and wipe the xylophone dry during the interval. And the only loos were portaloos out in the park, so it was a dash in the interval.
Still, after over fifty years, it was a joy to hear and see the whole thing. I hope some other company takes it up.