A voice from the Pit: Reminiscences of an Orchestral Musician

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

154-155

text excerpt

"The Trojans" is in two parts - the Fall of Troy and the Trojans at Carthage. In Paris often the first part was performed on it own and never previously had the work been given in its entirety in one evening. It was performed virtually without cuts except for some of the dance music and a portion of the last act. I also remember having to condense the two stage bands into one and they had to play up in the paint frame, backstage. We still had no closed-circuit television, only a loud-speaker so that John Matheson who was conducting the stage band, knew when to come in. On the first night the loud speaker broke down just before their entry and all John Matheson could do was count and hope it would work out all right - which it did. The press had become very enthusiastic about the Dido, an American called Blanche Thebom. In the final immolation scene, the public were told, her long hair would be worm loose and would reach well below her waist. It proved to be rather a disappointment; it was long, certainly, but did not look very luxuriant and the chorus ladies went about telling people that it was full of additional false switches. She was not a particularly memorable singer; the touching song of the young sailor, Hylas, longing for his homeland, sung by Dermot Troy who died tragically young, is perhaps what lingered longest in my mind. There was also the most moving mime by a young dancer, Wishmary Hunt, as the widowed Andromache silently mourning the loss of Hector, to the accompaniment of a very long clarinet solo...

excerpt from 'A Voice from the Pit: Reminiscences of an Orchestral Musician' pp. 154-155 (278 words)

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1434908653151