Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Walllace: Maritana

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Beyond Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, little is remembered today about English opera in general in the Victorian era. First, you need to know there was a wealth of it. One good example of it is Wallace's Maritana (1845), enormously popular in its time, now completely forgotten. Even the tunes from Maritana were popular on their own, like "There Is A Flower That Bloometh" or "Let Me Like A Soldier Fall."

William Vincent Wallace (1812-65) was Irish by birth, spent a lot of time in London creating a series of English operas and ultimately became an American citizen. After Maritana Wallace went on to write Lurline (1860), his third opera, conceived in the spirit of Weber's Der Freischütz, about a Lorelei-like figure. The Naxos studio recording of Lurline, with legendary opera conductor Richard Bonynge in charge, went over the air on Sunday, June 12, 2011.

The plot of Maritana is ridiculous. It concerns an alluring Spanish Gypsy street singer and her dalliances with the nobility of Spain. In 2011 Naxos reissued on two CDs the original 1996 Marco Polo release of Maritana recorded from a 1995 concert production by RTE Radio Ireland. Proinnsías Ó Duinn directed the RTE Concert Orchestra and RTE Philharmonic Choir, with a cast of Irish singers.