The Parlour (1960-61)

Comic Opera in One Act (two scenes)
Libretto and music by Grace Williams, after En Famille by Guy de Maupassant

Grandmama – Edith Coates (contralto)
Papa – Edward Byles (tenor)
Mama – Noreen Berry (mezzo-soprano)
Louisa – Anne Pashley (soprano)
Augusta – Janet Hughes (soprano)
Aunt Genevieve – Jean Allister (mezzo-soprano)
Uncle Steve – David Lennox (tenor)
Doctor Charlton – John Gibbs (baritone)
Rosalie – Marian Evans (soprano)
Welsh National Opera Company, Welsh National Opera Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Bryan Balkwill

Lyrita REAM.1147 [79’32”, Mono/ADD] Producer John Moody
Broadcast performance from Odeon Theatre, Llandudno on 18 August 1966

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Lyrita continues its coverage of Grace Williams with this first commercial release of her only opera, taken from its first run by Welsh National Opera and so adding another major work to the discography of one who, almost half a century after her death, is finally receiving her due.

What’s the music like?

Although she was, by her own admission, brought up in a ‘singing tradition’ and experienced opera from an early age, it was only in 1959 that Williams was approached with a commission for one. Written to her own libretto, after the short story by Guy de Maupassant, The Parlour was completed two years later but not premiered until May 1966 – a subsequent performance being broadcast and heard here. There have since been semi-professional stagings in London (1974) and Cardiff (1993), but no further production from one of the main British companies.

Relocating this story away from Paris to an unspecified Victorian seaside town, Williams was mindful to maintain the petit-bourgeois conservatism and mendacity from that original setting. As a narrative it makes for pretty dispiriting reading, but the liveliness and wit of her libretto is rarely less than engaging, while her music hardly falters in bringing out the essence of the situation at hand. Eight out of nine singing roles get a turn in the spotlight, and though their profiles might not be sharply drawn, the interplay of characters as of voice-types is astutely managed. Orchestrally the score may lack the intensity of Williams’ other large-scale works, but its dextrousness and intricacy seem ideally suited to a domestic drama; with that pathos which frequently surfaces in her music being no less evident during the opera’s final stages.

Vocally there are strong contributions by Edith Coates as the implacable grandmother, from Edward Byles as her always put-upon son and from Noreen Berry as her perennially hapless (and luckless!) daughter-in-law. Anne Pashley and Janet Hughes become one as her witless grand-daughters, with Jean Allister and David Lennox ideally cast as her favoured daughter and her wheedling son-in-law. John Gibbs makes the most of her doctor in all his contrived bluffness or feigned disinterest, and Marian Evans chips in as the dim-witted family servant. The Welsh National Opera Company and Chorus betray occasional tentativeness, but swift-moving passages for the neighbours lack little of focus or discipline – from a time when this organization was in the process of making its transition from amateur to professional status.

Does it all work?

It does, not least owing to the excellence of this performance. WNO did not then have its own orchestra, but the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is more than equal to the task of projecting Williams’s eventful score with the necessary clarity and verve, while it responds with alacrity to the direction of the company’s then music director Bryan Balkwill. The mono broadcast has come up more than adequately in its remastering, and this set comes with the full libretto and insightful annotations from Paul Conway in what is a typically excellent Lyrita presentation.

Is it recommended?

It is. The Parlour is unlikely to have a professional staging any time soon, making this release of more than archival interest. Could Lyrita acquire the 1963 broadcast of Daniel Jones’s The Knife, intended to be staged with the Williams in what would have been a weighty double-bill.

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Published post no.2,626 – Thursday 14 August 2025