Not until the 20th century was a permanent English opera company
established and the long-held prejudice against English singers
and composers dispelled. This resulted not from national policy
but from the passionate conviction of one woman, Lilian Baylis
at the Old Vic.
Baylis brought opera to a new audience who came to hear the
operas rather than to be seen. Many of the audience were clerical
and white-collar workers who
had benefited from the new education systems, and who were
eager to explore
literature, music and theatre.
Baylis provided theatre at affordable prices, firstly at the
Old Vic and then at Sadler’s Wells.
Baylis had first managed the Old Vic theatre for her aunt,
Emma
Cons who was a social reformer and had opened the Royal Victoria
Coffee Music Hall as a temperance theatre where
she presented lectures and music concerts.
In 1912 Baylis applied for a full theatrical licence so that
people could see what she considered to be the best entertainment
– Shakespeare and opera. She had no money to mount grand
productions and until the 1930s, the productions were visually
impoverished and the singing only adequate.
In the 1930s Baylis moved the opera and ballet to Sadler’s Wells theatre. There was now time for adequate rehearsals and with three performances a week standards
improved. The repertory was based on well-loved operas by Rossini, Verdi and Wagner.
Baylis also introduced the audience to Russian opera, like Mussorgsky’s Boris
Godunov, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and
Rimsky-Korsakov’s The
Snow Maiden and Tsar Sultan, most of which had only been
heard occasionally in visiting Russian productions.
Introduction
