Lady Jane's Recit & Aria from Act 2 of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Patience"
Vložit
- čas přidán 19. 12. 2010
- The great British contralto Anne Collins ( 1943-2009 ) captured here giving her last performance of a role she truly made her own . A tribute to a wonderful artist and a lovely lady.
The production was specially devised to re-open the stage of the historic Nomansfield Theatre, Teddington. Directed and devised by Tony Baker and produced in collaboration with Carl Rosa Opera in January 2007 - Zábava
How I dearly love this show, and Lady Jane's lament hits me doubly strong at my age (don't ask!) This is a great performance with all its notes hit with comic perfection, the lyrics crystal clear.
By turns, I was laughing and dumbstruck all the way through, what a performance! I first thought she could just barely play her part on the cello, but the artlessness was so artful that by halfway through I felt sure it was just a brilliant act. Looking it up of course I found she had studied cello at the Royal College of Music before concentrating on voice. So wonderful to get a chance to see this!
Anne Collins absolutely OWNS this role.
I have never seen anyone, yet, who matches her rich voice and impeccable comic interpretation. Her gloating satisfaction after she fiercely criticizes Bunthorne to the other esthetes is still one of my favorite "hidden gems" of this production. ("BAH! But yesterday I caught him in her dairy, eating fresh butter with a tablespoon. Today, he is not well.")
I dearly wish someone would upload an HD version of this full production - it was one of the best of the series - in large part (no pun intended) due to Anne!
I grew up with the whole box set of the Bent Walker 1982 "Opera World" films, and even as a little kid, Anne Collins was always my favourite. Her beautiful voice, comedy, elegance, and poise always shone. I wish there were more videos of her roles out there.
A late comment, but I absolutely agree with you. As you know, she played number of roles in that series, and she was always one of the 'stars'. I especially loved her role as Lady Blanche in 'Princess Ida'. Hope you're well!!
Anne Collins voice was a pure contralto glory. Her sense of fun inimitable. A sad loss to the world of music.
Lady Jane is my favorite G & S role and no one sings her like Ms. Collins. She sounds fabulous here. RIP
I have just seen this remarkable singer/actor as the Fairy Queen in the 1982 Iolanthe. In addition to her fine contralto voice, she had comedy skills to rival Patricia Routledge or Dawn French. A sad loss.
Anne collins was absolutely a genius.
I just adore Lady Jane! She's one of my favorite G&S characters!
A wonderful singer and a very good actor. I remember her in many of the G&S operas produced by Judith de Paul for TV in the early 1980s. She could make a song like this, probably politically incorrect these days, funny in a baroque and fulsome way. I love her.
Anne Collin's masterstroke is to actually play her cello, while few "Lady Jane's" can do more than mime. Anne had already honed this song in the Brent Walker production of "Patience" in 1982 (as well as being a memorable Fairy Queen in "Iolanthe"). Today we have Jennifer Bermingham in the Australian Opera production of 1995.
She started as a cellist at the RCM before switching to singing.
Felicity Palmer also played her own cello in the semi-staged Proms performance a few years ago.
hilarious and what a voice!
By far the best performance I have ever seen.
Ah, the comedy is brilliant.
Wonderful! I've wanted to see more of this since seeing a brief excerpt of it in Simon's G&S documentary. What a comedienne Anne was ! Much missed.
Fabulous... I aspire to this performance BIG TIME!!!
Quite superb!
I love this song. I did this for my voice class recital last year. I hope I did some justice to it
Let's not forget Gilbert had this peculiar mean streak toward middle-aged women. As the Pirate King said, "we (can) look over it" because all the other stuff is too good.
I absolutely agree. It makes his surprisingly sensitive characterization of Katisha that much more sad, somehow.
But Sullivan was kinder and gave them beautiful arias
Check out Heather Begg in this role in the Australian opera 1995 production
She was as great in the low voice Wagner parts as she was in the G&S ones. Singers like her are getting scarer each year.
Your comment about Anne Collins is interesting. I think the first time I heard her live at the ENO it was as Third Lady in The Magic Flute with a superb cast including David Rendall as Tamino. I also heard her do Fairy Queen in Iolanthe there. There is a fine recording of her singing Brahms' Sappphic Ode on You tube. She tackled a wide range of works.
As an aspiring teenage singer I took some coaching from William Cowley, Associate Musical Director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera. Will told me that he accompanied Anne's audition for the company and they were naturally very keen to take her, but by then Sadlers Wells / ENO wanted her. That was the right career move for her. She certainly wasn't going to lack offers of work with a wonderful voice like that.
There is something of a revival of the contralto voice at the moment - Stutzman, Summers, Lemieux etc During the 1990's Contraltos were encouraged to try to extend themselves into Mezzo repertory, but more repertoire is now being programmed particularly in the baroque for the true alto voice and some contemporary composers are writing roles in operas for them.