I saw the EOG Proms Burning Fiery Furnace there in the 60s, Mary: they used the Arena, and did it in the round.
I've just looked that one up. A cast and set of instrumentalists to die for, Ron. Oddly there is no conductor mentioned, at least in the prospectus, though Britten himself was conducting a St John Passion a couple of days later. Can the Church Parables be done without one? I see that Philip Ledger was playing the organ part so maybe he was doing the nodding when necessary? (Also Brian Wilson on harp, pre-Beach Boys?)
And the Schubert Octet in the first half
. Also played in the middle of the Arena perhaps?
Yes, GG, the Schubert was done in the Arena, too. The
BFF cast was as per the first performance apart from Kenneth MacDonald taking over the Pears role. I mentioned this wonderful tenor only recently: he died in his forties, though he can be heard on a couple of recordings, particularly in another Pears part: Flute in
MND on the composer's recording, where Pears moves instead to the role of Lysander, working with a Hermia who had sung Oberon in the opera house (Josephine Veasey, who been given the role at Covent Garden in the mid 60s after their first performer - the American Russell Oberlin - proved all but inaudible in the house: I can still recall the review headline, in the
Mail of all places; "Oh Oberon, your voice was too fairy-like!". To complete this Proms circle, he was the other reciter with Hermione Gingold in that Walton-led
Façade we mentioned earlier.)
