Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>By the time of the opera The Perfect Fool (1920-22), Holst could look
>back on his early Wagnerisms and, as the title suggests, kid himself
>about them.  The ballet music has proved far more popular than the
>opera itself. I wonder how many people still alive have ever heard the
>complete opera. I certainly haven't.

We BBC R3 listeners have had the pleasure, in an excellent complete
broadcast of the opera under Vernon Handley a few years ago. It's something
like a masterpiece, in the mould of "Le Coc d'Or" (Rimsky) or "Love for
Three Oranges" (Prokoviev) but much more compressed and distressing in
its blend of Holstian fairy-tale, satire and parody than either of its
Russian cousins. Hearing the "water" theme from the opening elemental
ballet transmuted into the Water Princess's lapidary aria is one of
several, sensual highlights in the work.

It is yet another of the British National Music Shames that this key
work in Holst's output - and a very theatrical piece to boot - awaits
its second professional staging (the first was at Covent Garden in 1922).
There was a good pocket guide devoted to it by A. Corbett-Smith (No.11
in the National Opera Handbook series published in 1923 by Grant Richards)
which it's still possible to run across in 2nd-hand bookshops.

Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK
http://www.zarzuela.net
"ZARZUELA!" The Spanish Music Site