''The Bear'' is the second of the two

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

s by

William Walton Sir William Turner Walton (29 March 19028 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include ''Façade'', the cantat ...

, described in publication as an "Extravaganza in One Act". The libretto was written by

Paul Dehn Paul Edward Dehn (pronounced "Dain"; 5 November 1912 – 30 September 1976) was a British screenwriter, best known for '' Goldfinger'', '' The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'', ''Planet of the Apes'' sequels and ''Murder on the Orient Express''. ...

and Walton,Holden, p. 1050 based on the play of the same title by Anton Chekhov (which is also sometimes translated into English as ''The Boor''). Walton received a commission from the Koussevitzsky Foundation in 1958, and he dedicated the opera "to the memory of

Serge Serge may refer to: *Serge (fabric), a type of twill fabric *Serge (llama) (born 2005), a llama in the Cirque Franco-Italien and internet meme *Serge (name), a masculine given name (includes a list of people with this name) *Serge (post), a hitchi ...

and Natalie Koussevitzky". He began composing in 1965 when the

Aldeburgh Festival The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall. History of the Aldeburgh Festival Th ...

in England requested an opera from him. ''The Bear'' was first performed at the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh on 3 June 1967. The opera is regarded as having "enjoyed more success and popularity than its larger-scale predecessor, ''

Troilus and Cressida ''Troilus and Cressida'' ( or ) is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1602. At Troy during the Trojan War, Troilus and Cressida begin a love affair. Cressida is forced to leave Troy to join her father in the Greek camp. Meanwh ...

'' .....because its witty parodies are in the manner of alton's 1922'' Facade''" and the librettists' ability "to emulate Chekhov's caricatures of the three main characters" are also successful.

Synopsis

:Place: The drawing room of Yelena Ivanovna Popova’s country house :Time: Around 1888 Popova is a widow, remaining faithful to the memory of her late husband, Popov. Her servant, Luka, remarks upon her affected sorrow. Smirnov, one of Popov's creditors, appears. During the course of the story, it becomes clear that Popov was promiscuous and unfaithful to his wife. Smirnov and Popova begin to quarrel, to the point where both aim loaded pistols at each other. However, neither can fire, as they have fallen in love. As the opera ends, Luka looks on in disbelief at the new lovers.

Roles

In contrast with Walton's previous opera ''

'', which used a large cast, full orchestra and chorus, ''The Bear'' is deliberately minimal in its vocal and instrumental forces. The opera uses 3 singers and a chamber orchestra.

Instrumentation

* Woodwind ** flute (doubling piccolo) **

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. ...

(doubling English horn) ** clarinet ** bassoon * Brass **

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

* Percussion **

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

side drum The snare (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used in ...

tenor drum A tenor drum is a membranophone without a snare. There are several types of tenor drums. Early music Early music tenor drums, or long drums, are cylindrical membranophone without snare used in Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music. They consi ...

, bass drum,

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

, cymbals,

suspended cymbal Classical suspended cymbal A suspended cymbal is any single cymbal played with a stick or beater rather than struck against another cymbal. Common abbreviations used are "sus. cym.," or "sus. cymb." (with or without the period). Most drum kit ...

gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

jingles A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...

, 3 wood blocks, whip, rattle,

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...

vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist ...

tubular bells Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...

(in F-sharp and C),

crotales Crotales (, ), sometimes called antique cymbals, are percussion instruments consisting of small, tuned bronze or brass disks. Each is about in diameter with a flat top surface and a nipple on the base. They are commonly played by being struck ...

bongos Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The ...

* Keyboard **

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

* Strings ** first

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

, second violin,

viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

(parts may be doubled) ** harp

Recordings

*1967: Monica Sinclair, John Shaw, Norman Lumsden;

English Chamber Orchestra The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationall ...

; James Lockhart, conductor. Audio CD: EMI Classics, Cat: ?? . Original cast recording. * 1982: Daphne Harris, Gregory Yurisich, Noël Mangin; Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Vanco Cavdarski, conductor (analogue recording) Audio CD: Chandos, Cat: ABR 1052.Anderson, Robert, "''The Bear''", ''The Musical Times'', 123(1676), 699 (1982) Review of the 1982 Chandos recording. *1993:

Della Jones Della Jones is a Welsh mezzo-soprano, particularly well known for her interpretations of works by Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, and Britten. Early life Jones was born in Tonna, near Neath, Wales. She attended Neath Grammar School for Girl ...

, Alan Opie,

John Shirley-Quirk John Stanton Shirley-Quirk CBE (28 August 19317 April 2014) was an English bass-baritone. A member of the English Opera Group during 1964–76, he gave premiere performances of several operatic and vocal works by Benjamin Britten, recording thes ...

;

Northern Sinfonia Royal Northern Sinfonia is a British chamber orchestra, founded in Newcastle upon Tyne and currently based in Gateshead. For the first 46 years of its history, the orchestra gave most of its concerts at the Newcastle City Hall. Since 2004, the ...

;

Richard Hickox Richard Sidney Hickox (5 March 1948 – 23 November 2008) was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music. Early life Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family. After attending the Royal Gram ...

, conductor. Audio CD: Chandos, Cat: #9245

Editions

*2010: A new edition of the opera was prepared by

Michael Burden Michael Burden, FAHA, (born 14 March 1960) is an Australian musicologist, working in the United Kingdom. He was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2018. Life Born in Adelaide, South Australia, he was ...

for the Collected Walton Edition

References

Notes Sources *Holden, Amanda, (ed.), ''The New Penguin Opera Guide'', New York: Penguin Putnam, Inc., 2001 *Kennedy, Michael, "Walton, Sir William", in Stanley Sadie, (ed.), ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', Vol. 4. London: Macmillan Publishers, Inc. 1998 *Kennedy, Michael, "''Bear, The''" in Stanley Sadie, (Ed.), ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', Vol. 1. London: Macmillan Publishers, Inc. 1998

External links

Oxford University Press "Programme Notes"
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