Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Shakespeare: The Winter's Tale

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Christmas has come and gone, and with the passage of the Winter solstice on the 21st we embark upon the Winter season in earnest. So, put another log on the fire, draw closer to the hearth with its flickering light, and listen to The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare, recorded complete and uncut in the text of The New Shakespeare, edited by the renowned Shakespeare scholar, John Dover Wilson.

The Winter's Tale (1611) is one of the Bard's late tragicomedies. The paranoia of King Leontes sets off a chain of events, the results of which stretch out over sixteen years. As the Bard works it out on stage, what was sown in sorrow and discord is eventually reaped in joy and reconciliation.

The Argo Records complete series of Shakespeare's plays and poems on stereo LP vinyl discs, recorded in studio between 1957 and 1964, has long been out of print. British Decca launched this monumental recording project to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. During that same period Decca was also recording Wagner's Ring cycle complete for the first time in stereo sound. The Decca Solti Ring cycle cycle has subsequently gone from vinyl disc to CD reissue.

In 2016, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death, Decca finally reissued the entire Argo Shakespeare project on silver disc in a deluxe 100 CD boxed set. I have broadcast The Winter's Tale on LP on two previous Sundays in January of 1993 and 2005. Hear it again today as presented in the silver disc reissue. George Rylands directs the voices of the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players. The voice of Britain's veteran Shakespearean actor Ian McKellen is heard at the start of his career in two small roles.