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The Little Sweep
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The Little Sweep
The Little Sweep, Op. 45, is an opera for children in three scenes by the English composer Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Eric Crozier.
The Little Sweep is the second part of a stage production entitled Let's Make an Opera!. The first part takes the form of a play in which the cast portray contemporary amateur performers conceiving, creating and rehearsing the opera. Intended as an introduction to and demystification of the operatic genre, the play also provides an opportunity to rehearse the audience in the four "Audience Songs" they will sing after the interval.
The format of the play altered radically in the early months of its existence, passing through at least three versions (including one specially written for radio) utilising different approaches to the exposition. An initial version set "on the stage of any village hall" during an open dress-rehearsal for an already-written work morphs into one where the "Little Sweep" narrative is related by Gladys (Mrs. Parworthy) as a true story which happened to her grandmother, Juliet Brook, when Juliet was a fourteen-year-old in 1809 or 1810. In this telling the long-term happy ending is revealed, that Juliet's uncle (the father of the visiting Crome children) took Sammy the rescued sweep-boy on as a gardener's boy. Gladys's mother remembered him as "old Samuel Sparrow, the head gardener", who used to give her apricots on her birthday. The group of six adults (including the conductor) and six children choose this as the subject of their home-made opera, libretto by Anne Dougall, a young Scottish bank clerk, and music by Norman Chaffinch, an enthusiastic amateur. The opera is written, composed, cast, produced and rehearsed in the space of less than an hour.
The adult characters in the play were given the cast members' own first names and invented surnames, while the children originally had the first names of the children in the opera. For these, Britten used the names of the children and nephews of Fidelity Cranbrook, (wife of John Gathorne-Hardy, 4th Earl of Cranbrook), a personal friend of the composer's, whose family seat Glemham House lies a few miles inland from Aldeburgh, in Great Glemham close to Snape. In later versions of the play the children also acquired the names of the respective cast members, and Elisabeth Parrish became Pamela, to reflect the part of Rowan having been taken over by Pamela Woolmore, who originally understudied the role.
Britten and Crozier had been thinking about a children's opera for some years, but only began to put the concept into practice in the autumn of 1948 when planning the programme for the second Aldeburgh Festival. One afternoon Britten suggested two Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake, entitled "The Chimney Sweeper", and as Crozier relates, "by that evening we had planned the structure, action and characters of a short opera in three scenes."
As with Albert Herring, the opera which had opened the first Aldeburgh Festival, the action was to be set locally in Suffolk, this time in Iken Hall, a large rambling farmhouse on the banks of the river Alde, the home of Margery Spring Rice. The child characters were transplanted from a nearby country house, Glemham House in Great Glemham, which in the late eighteenth century had been the home of George Crabbe, the author of the poem The Borough which had formed the basis of Britten's 1945 masterpiece Peter Grimes. Glemham House was the home of Fidelity and Jock, Countess and Lord Cranbrook, personal friends of the composer's. Fidelity was at that time Chairman of the Aldeburgh Festival. Britten and Crozier adopted the names and personas of her children and nephews for the opera (although the children themselves were not involved in the production), and the opera is "affectionately dedicated to the real Gay, Juliet, Sophie, Tina, Hughie, Jonny and Sammy – the Gathorne-Hardy family of Great Glemham, Suffolk."
Vocal
The enthusiastic response of the audience to the congregational hymns incorporated in the cantata Saint Nicolas encouraged Britten and Crozier to build on this concept, and rely on the audience themselves to provide the chorus. The five adult parts (including that of Juliet, the eldest girl) were written for five members of the English Opera Group, and the remaining six children's parts were filled by boys and girls from the Ipswich Co-operative Society Choir.
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The Little Sweep
The Little Sweep, Op. 45, is an opera for children in three scenes by the English composer Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Eric Crozier.
The Little Sweep is the second part of a stage production entitled Let's Make an Opera!. The first part takes the form of a play in which the cast portray contemporary amateur performers conceiving, creating and rehearsing the opera. Intended as an introduction to and demystification of the operatic genre, the play also provides an opportunity to rehearse the audience in the four "Audience Songs" they will sing after the interval.
The format of the play altered radically in the early months of its existence, passing through at least three versions (including one specially written for radio) utilising different approaches to the exposition. An initial version set "on the stage of any village hall" during an open dress-rehearsal for an already-written work morphs into one where the "Little Sweep" narrative is related by Gladys (Mrs. Parworthy) as a true story which happened to her grandmother, Juliet Brook, when Juliet was a fourteen-year-old in 1809 or 1810. In this telling the long-term happy ending is revealed, that Juliet's uncle (the father of the visiting Crome children) took Sammy the rescued sweep-boy on as a gardener's boy. Gladys's mother remembered him as "old Samuel Sparrow, the head gardener", who used to give her apricots on her birthday. The group of six adults (including the conductor) and six children choose this as the subject of their home-made opera, libretto by Anne Dougall, a young Scottish bank clerk, and music by Norman Chaffinch, an enthusiastic amateur. The opera is written, composed, cast, produced and rehearsed in the space of less than an hour.
The adult characters in the play were given the cast members' own first names and invented surnames, while the children originally had the first names of the children in the opera. For these, Britten used the names of the children and nephews of Fidelity Cranbrook, (wife of John Gathorne-Hardy, 4th Earl of Cranbrook), a personal friend of the composer's, whose family seat Glemham House lies a few miles inland from Aldeburgh, in Great Glemham close to Snape. In later versions of the play the children also acquired the names of the respective cast members, and Elisabeth Parrish became Pamela, to reflect the part of Rowan having been taken over by Pamela Woolmore, who originally understudied the role.
Britten and Crozier had been thinking about a children's opera for some years, but only began to put the concept into practice in the autumn of 1948 when planning the programme for the second Aldeburgh Festival. One afternoon Britten suggested two Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake, entitled "The Chimney Sweeper", and as Crozier relates, "by that evening we had planned the structure, action and characters of a short opera in three scenes."
As with Albert Herring, the opera which had opened the first Aldeburgh Festival, the action was to be set locally in Suffolk, this time in Iken Hall, a large rambling farmhouse on the banks of the river Alde, the home of Margery Spring Rice. The child characters were transplanted from a nearby country house, Glemham House in Great Glemham, which in the late eighteenth century had been the home of George Crabbe, the author of the poem The Borough which had formed the basis of Britten's 1945 masterpiece Peter Grimes. Glemham House was the home of Fidelity and Jock, Countess and Lord Cranbrook, personal friends of the composer's. Fidelity was at that time Chairman of the Aldeburgh Festival. Britten and Crozier adopted the names and personas of her children and nephews for the opera (although the children themselves were not involved in the production), and the opera is "affectionately dedicated to the real Gay, Juliet, Sophie, Tina, Hughie, Jonny and Sammy – the Gathorne-Hardy family of Great Glemham, Suffolk."
Vocal
The enthusiastic response of the audience to the congregational hymns incorporated in the cantata Saint Nicolas encouraged Britten and Crozier to build on this concept, and rely on the audience themselves to provide the chorus. The five adult parts (including that of Juliet, the eldest girl) were written for five members of the English Opera Group, and the remaining six children's parts were filled by boys and girls from the Ipswich Co-operative Society Choir.
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