Malcolm Arnold's The Dancing Master, Op. 34, was published but turned down for broadcast on BBC television on the ludicrous grounds that it was too risqué. Incredibly, it was not premiered until 2020, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama; this recording shares a conductor, John Andrews, with that premiere. The opera was adapted by Joe Mendoza from a Restoration-era comedy, transferring the action to contemporary Britain. The tale involves the craziness that ensued when a young woman escapes the attentions of one ...
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Malcolm Arnold's The Dancing Master, Op. 34, was published but turned down for broadcast on BBC television on the ludicrous grounds that it was too risqué. Incredibly, it was not premiered until 2020, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama; this recording shares a conductor, John Andrews, with that premiere. The opera was adapted by Joe Mendoza from a Restoration-era comedy, transferring the action to contemporary Britain. The tale involves the craziness that ensued when a young woman escapes the attentions of one suitor, disguised as a dance teacher, by climbing out a window, only to encounter another on a ladder. The opera opens in the middle of the action and buttresses the main tale with a variety of satirical characters that keep things moving along. Arnold sets sharp orchestral commentary against a sequence of tunes of which Arthur Sullivan would have been proud, and the cast does right by them, with clear diction and the right sparkling mood. The BBC Concert Orchestra picks up the small...
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