The Midsummer Marriage (1955)
Opera in three acts, text of the composer
Mark Alberto Remedios
Jenifer Joan Carlyle
King Fisher Raimund Herincx
Bella Elizabeth Harwood
Jack Stuart Burrows
Sosotris Helen Watts
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Sir Colin Davis
Recorded 1970 by Philips
Lyrita 1995
Wilfrid Meyers wrote a few years ago: Tippett's "search" opera, written on the conscious influence of T. S. Eliot's verse drama (he corresponded with Eliot to get him to write the libretto), is of course a comedy, and deals with, as he tells himself "unexpected obstacles to a possible marriage"; these obstacles are above all "our own ignorance, or our illusions in our own".
Mark and Jenifer are young lovers and we are witnesses of their incomprehension, of their clashes, of the changes they brings to their own personalities, of their reactions to contradiction. The opera is above all the story of their interior development. The "social" element in The Midsummer Marriage resides in the place rather than the time - as one critic saw it during the revival in Covent Garden in 1968: "The glade on top of a hill in a wood, the buds of summer, the feeling of the past, the presence of England (and in particular the west of the country), of which libretto and music are saturated ". (Lord Harewood)
Digital download, cover and booklet with full libretto (and awkward layout)
As a bonus I have included the recording of the premiere:
Jenifer Joan Sutherland
King Fisher Otokar Kraus
Bella Adele Leigh
Jack John Lanigan
Sosotris Oralia Dominguez
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
John Pritchard
Recorded 1955
Unchained Melodie 2014
Digital download with cover
And last but no least a comment by the innefable David Hurwitz: "It’s a little-known fact that Joan Sutherland created the role of Jennifer in Michael Tippett’s masterpiece THE MIDSUMMER MARRIAGE at its World Premiere, Covent Garden, 27 Jan., 1955. However splendid the music, given the composer’s famously awkward style of vocal writing I’m not at all surprised that the soprano was not anxious to reprise the role in a studio recording. The opera itself came in for a good bit of ridicule too, but compared to Tippett’s later efforts this updating of THE MAGIC FLUTE is the very soul of normalcy.”