The history of WFO. The early days 1951-1959. Part 1.

Following on from the recent post regarding the birth of Wexford Festival Opera, over the coming weeks, as we build up to this year's event, I am going to present a brief history of the festival through the decades. Wexford Festival archival material will be used to illustrate the various posts.

Dr T.J. Walsh, Eva Cousins, Compton Mackenzie, Erskine Childers

Above we see a photograph taken on the opening night of the festival back in 1951. In the earlier post, we heard why Dr. Tom chose The Rose Of Castille by Balfe to be the first opera. Casting for the piece was a mixture of amateur and professional. The chorus was made up entirely of local singers. The two leading roles were take by professionals, with Maureen Springer as Elvira, and Murray Dickie as Manuel. The remaining principal roles were all sung by local artists. In fact, the very first voice ever heard at a Wexford Festival was that of Nellie Walsh, who was Dr.Tom's sister. Nellie remained a stalwart of the chorus until the 1990s !

While the initial response to the festival of 1951 was positive, Dr. Tom believed the festival would only survive by presenting little known operas, so for 1952, L'Elisir d'Amore by Donizetti, which was then scarcely known in Ireland was the chosen work. It was to be performed in Italian. As production time approached, public reaction had polarised; it neither wanted unknown operas, nor did it want any opera in a foreign language. At a public talk he gave in April 1986, Dr.Tom recalled that shortly before the festival of 1952 began, only 701 tickets had been sold for the four scheduled performances. Something needed to be done, so good friends of the festival got in their cars and went out to sell seats as far away as Carlow, Kilkenny and Waterford. For his part, Dr.Tom walked Wexford town accompanied by a local Franciscan friar, Fr. Enda, who was the festival's chorus master, calling on people and frankly asking them if they would save the festival the humiliation of having good Italian artists sing to almost empty houses. To their credit and Wexford's credit, they did. The theatre wasn't packed on the first night but was well filled. On the following day the press notices were universally good, but Dr.Tom always believed that the festival was saved by the tenor singing Nemorino, Nicola Monti. The second performance was not as well filled as the first, but the third on Saturday evening surprisingly had improved. In 1952 Saturday night was a very bad theatre night in Wexford. Obviously word of Monti's fabulous singing has got around. There was little doubt that consequently the final performance would be filled. Dr.Tom recalled being in Whites Hotel, then the festival headquarters, on that Sunday morning when the last ticket was sold. On Sunday night as he came to the theatre, Dr.Tom was amazed to find a queue stretching from the theatre into Rowe St. Nobody knows how it was done, but everybody in that queue got into the tiny theatre for the final performance.  

The festival chorus is a scene from L'Elisir d'Amore

Joining Nicola Monti in the cast of L'Elisir d'Amore were his fellow Italians, the soprano Elvina Ramella and baritone Gino Vanelli, and the Greek bass Cristino Dalamangas. All of these singers were well established in the major Italian theatres, including La Scala. The engagement of these singers immediately set a precedent, that Wexford would present lesser known operas with top class artists.

Donizetti was again the featured composer for 1953, when his comic masterpiece Don Pasquale was performed. Monti, Ramella and Dalamangas returned that year,and they were joined by the very famous Italian baritone Afro Poli. Poli was a leading baritone at La Scala Milan, and a major recording artist. His role in Wexford was Dr. Malatesta, one he had sung many times in various theatres, and had recorded in 1932 with Tito Schipa. Unfortunately, Signor Poli was a little taken aback when he entered the tiny Theatre Royal for the first time. He walked onto the stage, looked into the auditorium, and exclaimed "surely the great Signor Poli has not come to this".  Such was his chagrin, he refused to wear his costume at the public dress rehearsal, appearing instead in an evening suit. 

Afro Poli, Elvina Ramella, Nicola Monti, Cristiano Dalamangas in Don Pasquale

Nicola Monti returned to Wexford once again in 1954 to sing the principal tenor role of Elvino in La Sonnambula by Bellini. By now Monti was a firm favourite in Wexford, and even today, his name is frequently mentioned as one of the great Wexford stars of the past. Elvino was a role he was familiar with having sung it at La Scala with Maria Callas. He also made two complete recordings of this opera, the first with Callas, the second with Joan Sutherland. The lead role of Amina was taken by the American soprano, Marilyn Cotlow, who had already sung leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and created the role of Lucy in The Telephone by Menotti. Italian bass Franco Calabrese took the role of Count Rodolfo. Calabrese was another regular at La Scala, and featured on many of the HMV classic recordings from the 1950's including Tosca with Callas. The remaining roles were taken by Thetis Blacker. Halinka de Tarczynska and Gwyn Griffiths.

 Esther Rethy and Salvatore Puma

In 1955 it was decided that two operas should be presented. This was a major milestone in the continuing development of the festival, and was also confirmation, if it were needed,  that the core values of top class opera with top class singers would prove a success. With regard to singers, Dr.Tom resolved very early on, that only the use of the leading vocal agents would guarantee the quality of voices he wanted for Wexford, and I think that you will agree, that the singers whom we have mentioned so far, all met with Dr. Tom's exacting standards. Manon Lescaut by Puccini and Der Wildschutz by Lortzing were given in 1955. Vocal standards were  as good as ever in this year. British singers Heather Harpur and Thomas Helmsley lead the cast of Der Wildschutz.

For Manon Lescaut Esther Rethy, a star and Kammersangerin from the Vienna State Opera, sang the title role. The role of Lescaut, her brother, was taken by Marko Rothmueller, a Croatian baritone who was a regular at Covent Garden and Glyndebourne at that time. Italian tenor Salvatore Puma was Des Grieux, and there is very interesting story about his engagement for Wexford.  

   

As mentioned earlier, Dr. Tom was very meticulous is selecting singers. Besides using only the best agents, he would never engage a singer without having heard them himself. Prior to the festival in 1955, the tenor who had been contracted for the role of Des Grieux cancelled. Unfortunately, Dr. Tom was unable to travel to Milan to find a replacement. In his place he sent Mr Seamus O'Dwyer, a local postman, and festival volunteer. Seamus and Dr Tom were firm friends and avid collectors of 78's, and were understood to have had two of the finest collections of vocal recordings in Ireland at that time. Seamus was the only other person Dr. Tom would ask for an opinion of a singer. Every night Seamus attended La Scala, and every morning at 11am, the postman from Wexford auditioned singers at the Piccolo Scala, until he found the exact voice that he wanted, and that is how Salvatore Puma was engaged for Wexford.   

Following his death in 1977, Dr Tom wrote the following appreciation of Seamus;



Seamus O'Dwyer

 IT WAS typical of our 27 years old friendship that two days before he died (the last time I saw him) we should still be exchanging information about singers who had made gramophone records. (Could it be possible that a Mlle Ellen who sang in Monte Carlo in 1901 was in fact the famous American soprano, Ellen Beach Yaw, making her debut in opera?). But our friendship went far deeper than that. For 27 years he was my right arm. During our time in the Wexford Festival he endured me in our disappointments, suffered with me in our anxieties and rejoiced with me in our successes.
It is no great compliment to him to say that he was unrivalled in his knowledge of old gramophones and old records in Ireland, since the field is so limited. More significant was his knowledge of singing and of opera. Those who did not know him will find it difficult to understand how extensive this was. How unerring his judgement in distinguishing the great from the merely very good singer.
I believe it was Scott Fitzgerald who wrote - 'ln a small way, I was an original.' In a small way Seamus O'Dwyer was a phenomenon.

At this point I think it appropriate to take a short detour away from the operas and singers and look at some of the other areas involved with staging an opera. Since 1951, the RELO (Radio Eireann Light Orchestra) had been the festival's orchestra, and they would go on to play at every festival up to 1959. In those early days, there was no orchestra pit in the Theatre Royal, so the orchestra was placed between the front of the stage and the stalls seating. This meant that maintaining a suitable balance between singers and orchestra was always going to be a challenge for conductors. Of the 14 operas performed in Wexford between 1951 and 1959, Bryan Balkwill conducted nine of them. This close association with the orchestra and theatre meant that he was well able to keep everything under control. Dermot O'Hara, Hans Gierster, John Pritchard and Charles Mackerras were the other conductors to appear. An impressive list indeed !

The stage in the Theatre Royal was tiny as can be seen in the photo of L'Elisir d'Amore above. Stage facilities in these early years were almost non-existent, but nonetheless, Dr. Tom applied the same high standard to the visual side as he did to the vocal. To that end, top rank directors and designers were always employed. During this time, Peter Ebert, son of the famous German director Carl Ebert, directed the majority of the operas, with Anthony Besch and Peter Potter also taking charge of some productions. All three were well respected and established directors. Design duty for the most part fell to Joseph Carl who had much experience in opera design, especially with Glyndebourne. Osbert Lancaster, Reginal Woolley and Michael Mac Liammoir also contributed designs during that first decade.

Naturally we cannot forget the volunteers; that mini-army of locals who sang in the chorus, worked backstage making and moving scenery,sewing costumes, applying make-up, selling programs, ushering, transporting singers, in fact, working in every possible discipline needed to make the festival a success. Those early volunteers set very high standards which are still being maintained today.

To be continued........