The Violins of Saint-Jacques

The Violins of Saint-Jacques is an opera in three acts by Malcolm Williamson to an English libretto by William Chappell after the 1953 novel by Patrick Leigh Fermor.

It was first performed at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London on 29 November 1966 by Sadler's Wells Opera in a production by Chappell and was revived there and at the London Coliseum in the years immediately following.

Although the opera depicts spectacular scenes on the ocean, a creole carnival and an exploding volcano, the plot is essentially "an intimate romantic drama about young people in love, all the more poignant because of its pointlessness". Musical highlights include the quartet in Act 1, Berthe's aria 'Each afternoon when the swooning breezes' (recorded by Cheryl Barker), Josephine's 'Let me one day return' in Act 2, and the waltzes of the Mardi gras party. The libretto provides an opposition of two groups of characters: three basically serious ones (Berthe, Sosthène, Josephine) and another basically comic group (Agenor, Mathilde, Joubert), which gave Williamson ample scope for musical portraiture.

The opera was commissioned in association with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

The work, the fifth opera by the composer, was successful during its opening Sadler's Wells production and a revival at the London Coliseum and national UK tour. A BBC radio relay was broadcast on 8 December 1966 and a performance of December 1968 was broadcast on 5 June 1969.

The critical reception was mixed. Opera magazine commented that the opera "seems to have split critical opinion more sharply than any modern work in the past few years".The Spectator defended the composer against those who criticised him for writing in part tunes in a "Strauss-Puccini idiom", also praising Williamson's character music, the dances and for having "an accent and palmprint of his own". The Musical Times expressed disappointment and likened its "romantic panache" to The Sound of Music, and criticised the authors for aiming too low. Grove dubs the work Williamson's "most impressive operatic achievement". Stephen Walsh believed that the second act was the best, because the composer had succeeded well in integrating the set numbers within his "dynamic overall design".

...
Wikipedia