Holst: The Perfect Fool

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Very much a radio adaptation, this 1967 BBC broadcast includes a personable narrator explaining the stage action. Allowing for this and the mono sound, this is a highly engaging production with... — BBC Music Magazine, March 2022, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 3rd Sep 2021
Catalogue No: REAM1143
Label: Lyrita
Length: 62 minutes

BBC Music Magazine

March 2022

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Holst: The Perfect Fool, Op. 39

Work length1:02:31

$15.00

$19.50

Richard Golding (bass), Pamela Bowden (contralto), Alison Hargan (soprano), Barbara Platt (soprano), Lesley Rooke (soprano), Stephen Wilkinson, Margaret Neville (soprano), John Mitchinson (tenor), David Read (bass), Ronald Harvi, Walter Plinge
BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra, BBC Northern Singers
Sir Charles Groves

Once Upon a Time, a Wizard

Track length0:21

$1.00

$1.30

Spirits of the Earth

Track length4:08

$1.00

$1.30

Spirits of the Water

Track length3:13

$1.00

$1.30

Spirits of Fire

Track length2:58

$1.00

$1.30

The Spell Is Cast

Track length4:56

$1.00

$1.30

And Now I Remember That I Haven't Drunk the Potion

Track length4:34

$1.00

$1.30

I Need Practice in Politeness

Track length3:30

$1.00

$1.30

She Looks from One Sleeper to Another

Track length4:18

$1.00

$1.30

The Sound of a Trumpet

Track length2:40

$1.00

$1.30

Lady You Seek a Husband

Track length6:09

$1.00

$1.30

Look!

Track length6:42

$1.00

$1.30

The Traveler Has Stumbled Over the Fool

Track length8:00

$2.00

$2.60

She Is Bewitched

Track length4:39

$1.00

$1.30

And All That the Flames Left of the Wizard Was His Hat

Track length6:23

$1.00

$1.30

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About

The opera opens with a Wizard working his mystical ways and summoning the spirits of air, fire and water in the form of a brilliant ballet. His plan is to wed the Princess who is destined to select a husband that very day. An older Mother enters with a drowsy sleep-prone son in tow. The Mother is obsessed with a prophecy her son will woo and win the Princess. There is an elixir of course and once drained the man who does so will be loved by the Princess. The Wizard tries some of this on the Princess. The Mother has already switched it for pure water while administering the elixir to her yawning son. The Wizard flies into a fury promising to bring death and destruction on everyone. He departs. A troubadour and a wanderer have appeared and pay songful court to the Princess which she is having none of. When the Princess sees the Fool she falls in love with him and asks him to marry her. He answers with the word ‘No’ but the whole scenario leaves you wondering about their future. The Wizard returns with his horrors but after some stern and encouraging words from the Mother all the Wizard’s fell crew are burnt to a crisp.

Reviews

March 2022

Very much a radio adaptation, this 1967 BBC broadcast includes a personable narrator explaining the stage action. Allowing for this and the mono sound, this is a highly engaging production with a superb cast – with rich-toned bass-baritone Richard Golding especially compelling as the comically malevolent Wizard...this is a vibrant account, vividly characterised, with truly spellbinding music.

March/April 2022

The singers are uniformly excellent, and Groves’s conducting keeps things moving.

August 2022

Charles Groves’s conducting has a tender warmth that rescues The Perfect Fool from any suspicion of dryness. The singing is good too, with plenty of ‘face’...We’d be perfect fools indeed to miss out on a feast of musical and theatrical magic that fully deserves a place in our national repertoire.

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