w21355
| Title | Wager, The: Opera in One Act [version for four soloists and piano] |
| Contributors |
Buxton Orr (composer) Hamilton Johnston (author) |
| Composition date | 1961 |
| Duration (mins) | 0 |
| Category | theatre |
| Instrumentation | S T Bar B Pf |
| Commissioned by | |
| Key signature | |
| First line | |
| First performed | 11 06 1961 Park Lane Opera Group: Audrey Deakin (Myra), Dennis Butcher (Shrimp), Niven Miller (Beam), David Hartley (Gunk), Courtney Kenny (piano) Arts Council Drawing Room, St James Square, London |
| Notes | Written for, and dedicated to the Park Lane Opera Group. Chamber version for four soloists and piano, suitable for intimate theatre or concert performance. Libretto in English and German. |
| Programme Note | The action takes place in a market town where two sharp practitioners - Shrimp, a fortune-telling quack, and Gunk, a junk-merchant - plot against a blind beggar called Beam, a rival claimant on the market people's spare cash. Beam's appeals for alms owe their success not so much to his own helpless condition as to the beauty of his young daughter Myra, who begs with him, and Shrimp and Gunk decide that the surest method of destroying their rival is to take Myra way from him. They have a wager on it. First Gunk tries to make the girl love him and clumsily fails, but Shrimp's more subtle approach very nearly succeeds. Beam meanwhile awakes to find himself alone; he remembers the time when Myra's mother led him 'to a place of stone and sand. "Walk on" she said, "straight on" she said ... and far below I heard the waves beating on the shore, the savage rocks, the cliff's edge....' It was the child, Myra that saved him from this fate and ever since she has been by his side. It is at the climax of his terrified recollection that Myra returns but in his relief, Beam greets her not with love, but with blows and curses. The sun sets, the market closes, and in a nocturnal interlude Beam dreams of the colours he will never see, and voices whisper of sensuality he has never experienced. He is awakened by Gunk who offers to buy the money, and is scornfully rejected, but Shrimp's offer of a wax doll so beguiles the old man that, in a frenzy of desire he clinches the deal and coarsely repudiates his daughter. Myra goes off calling 'Love for Sale' and Beam is left with the Helen of his dreams. Gunk, having lost the wager, now taunts Beam, who believes the doll to be real, and in trying to make it respond, beats it as he beat his daughter. The doll breaks. Day dawns and Beam, alone with the broken doll, sings 'We who were from Paradise turned away strike out in fear, destroying those we love.' Shrimp and Gunk move off to fresh markets and their off-stage voices sound as at the opening of the opera, but this time a third market-cry can be heard - that of Myra. Beam, alone, calls 'Blind, help the Blind.' |
This work is associated with the following collection items:
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