Stanford | Much Ado About Nothing

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About the recording

Project

After our success with an acclaimed recording of Charles Villiers Stanford’s most popular opera, Shamus O’Brien (1896), we want to record what is arguably his greatest opera: Much Ado About Nothing (1901). This brilliant adaptation of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy was undertaken by Julian Sturgis (the librettist of Sullivan’s Ivanhoe) and is unprecedentedly faithful to the original play, reproducing much of it intact. “Not even in the Falstaff of Boito and Verdi…[has] the ripe and pungent individuality of the original comedy been more sedulously preserved,” judged the Manchester Guardian. Stanford, clearly intent on creating a truly ‘English’ opera after the success of the ‘Irish’ Shamus, responded with some of his most glorious and individual music. The result is the first great Shakespeare opera to use the author’s own words.

Unlike Shamus, with its use of spoken dialogue, the four-act Much Ado About Nothing is through-composed. Stanford beautifully captures the emotional complexity of his characters and their shifting relationships, effortlessly managing the tonal shifts between sparkling comedy and darker intrigue, and between prose and verse. For the first time he employs Wagner’s leitmotif technique to real dramatic effect, Don John’s subtly menacing ‘curse’ motif contrasting strikingly with the delicate recurring motif representing Hero’s innocence. Another delectable feature of the score is Stanford’s inspired staccato depiction of the witty banter between Beatrice and Benedick, cleverly referencing Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict.

When Much Ado About Nothing was first staged at the Royal Opera House in 1901, The Times enthused that it “beyond question … reaches a higher degree of beauty, of sustained dramatic interest, and of real distinction of style than any of his [Stanford’s] former operas. The action is carried on with very great skill in a flowing and really vocal style and with such rich and individual orchestration as is most rare.” The opera’s musical requirements, and the general prejudice against all English operas from this period, have worked against revivals, but when it has been revived, as for example at the Wexford Festival in 1964, by Opera Viva in 1985, and in a semi-staged festival performance in 2019, it has always been enthusiastically acclaimed.

Sadly, though, most opera lovers have never had a chance to hear Much Ado About Nothing. Our goal is to change that by making available a high-quality professional recording of this neglected masterpiece. We warmly invite your support.

(c) David Chandler

Much Ado About Nothing

Charles Villiers Stanford’s opera Much Ado About Nothing (Op. 76a), with libretto by Julian Sturgis, is a faithful adaptation of Shakespeare’s great romantic comedy. The action centres on two contrasting romantic pairs in the Sicilian town of Messina. Claudio – a young Florentine nobleman – falls for Hero – the daughter of Messina’s governor, Leonato. The scheming Don John, the illegitimate brother of Don Pedro, jeopardises their swift engagement. Don John orchestrates a deceitful plot, making it appear that Hero has been unfaithful. At their wedding, Claudio publicly shames Hero, seemingly leading to her death from grief.

The sharp-tongued Beatrice and the bachelor Benedick are tricked, meanwhile, by their friends into confessing their mutual affection. The truth about Hero’s innocence emerges thanks to the bumbling yet effective constable Dogberry and his watchmen. Claudio is remorseful and believes Hero to be dead; he agrees to marry her ‘cousin.’ She is, in fact, Hero in disguise all along, and the opera ends with the joyful reunification of both couples!

Charles Villiers Stanford

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 to 29 March 1924) was a central figure in the late 19th-century British musical renaissance, known as a composer, conductor, and one of the most influential music educators of his time. Born in Dublin to wealthy, musically gifted parents, Stanford displayed musical talent from an early age. He was educated at Cambridge and then pursued further training in Leipzig and Berlin, where his admiration for the classical German tradition – especially Brahms and Schumann – began.

While still an undergraduate, Stanford was appointed organist of Trinity College, Cambridge, and later returned to the University as a Professor of Music in 1887. His talent for teaching was noticed whilst a student at Cambridge, and in 1882, aged 29, he was appointed a founding Professor of the Royal College of Music. A charismatic yet exacting teacher, he taught composition there for the rest of his life, shaping an entire generation of British composers including Holst, Vaughan Williams, Coleridge-Taylor, Bliss, Ireland, Bridge, and Clarke.

Best known for his sacred choral music – a cornerstone of Anglican church music – his orchestral and chamber works are increasingly revived. Opera, however, was a lifelong pursuit despite initial rejections, the inevitable financial risks of the genre and the popularity of lighter works by Sullivan. Stanford’s operatic ambition – unlike that of his contemporary Hubert Parry, who gave up on the genre after only one attempt – was consistent and deeply felt. Indeed, he composed nine operas over 45 years, from The Veiled Prophet (1877–81) to The Travelling Companion (1916–22). His works never entered the standard operatic repertoire. However, he enjoyed considerable success with Shamus O’Brien (1896), and Much Ado About Nothing (1901) – his clearest attempt to balance his more serious musical idiom with the wit and theatricality he admired in Sullivan – was favourably received.

Perhaps his absence from the repertory is due to changing fashions at the turn of the century. Despite his popularity and significant role in the British musical renaissance of the final two decades of the 19th century, his fame was somewhat overshadowed in the 20th century by Elgar and, indeed, many of his own pupils. Having said which, his stature has grown again in recent years, thanks to scholarship (including that of the Stanford Society), recordings (such as our own Shamus O’Brien, nominated for a Gramophone opera award), and a wider reassessment of his music beyond the cathedral setting. His technical assurance and command of orchestral and vocal forces are nowhere more evident than in Much Ado About Nothing, a work of lyricism, intelligence, and Shakespearean vitality deserving of the renewed attention this recording will hopefully provide.

(c) Benjamin Hamilton