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THE MAID OF THE MOUNTAINS (Hyperion CDA67190)

- for the first time, a full account of Harold Fraser-Simpson's most well-known score, with sympathetic performances and fine orchestral playing
 
A musical play in three acts. Book by Frederick Lonsdale. Lyrics by Harry Graham. Music by Harold Fraser-Simpson. Additional lyrics by F. Clifford Harris and 'Valentine'. Additional music by James W. Tate.
 
Cast: Janis Kelly (Teresa), Christopher Maltman (Beppo), Michael George (Baldassare), Richard Suart (Tonio), Sally Burgess (Vittoria), Donald Maxwell (General Malona), Joanna Gamble (Angela), Jeanette Ager (Gianetta), Michael Bundy (Pietro), Tom Taylor (The Mayor of Santo), with the New London Light Opera Chorus and the New London Orchestra conducted by Ronald Corp.
 
Order The Maid of the Mountains Today!
 
Friends Have To Part; Live For Today; My Life Is Love; Nocturne; Farewell; Dividing The Spoil; Though Curs May Quail; We're Gathered Here; Love Will Find A Way; Save Us; Dirty Work; A Paradise For Two; Husbands And Wives; A Bachelor Gay; I Understood; Finale: So That's It; When Each Day The Tides Are Ebbing And Flowing; Good People, Gather Round; When You're In Love; Over Here And Over There; Finale: When Each Day The Tides
 
José Collins, the first Maid of the Mountains, lost her voice completely on the last night of the original production - not surprising after 1,352 performances. Opening at Daly's Theatre in February 1917, this romantic adventure found a ready response in Londoners wearied by the increasing horrors of the Great War, and eager to escape into a world of warm-hearted bandits and steamy but faithful maids who insist living in mountains. The show's success was tremendous. At one time 14 touring companies were travelling the country.
 
For Collins, a dark-haired beauty with a background in music-hall and the Ziegfeld Follies, The Maid brought outstanding personal success, and a role in which she passed into legend. She followed it with a string of other successes, but eventually fell into bankruptcy. Her moving memorial in the actors' church in Covent Garden is from Shelley: 'Sing again with your dear voice recalling a tone of some world far from ours. Where music and moonlight and feeling are one.' Indeed, in her recordings of the Maid's songs there is through the static a real impression of a great star at work.
 
The Maid of the Mountains remains the only one of Harold Fraser-Simpson's scores remembered today (just as, almost a century on, Julian Slade and Sandy Wilson are identified with one show) and it deserves to be heard still. Although the piece flopped badly in America, West End revivals were seen in 1921 (again with Collins), 1930 (Anne Croft) and 1942 (Sylvia Cecil). In 1971 it was staged at the Palace Theatre in a shoddy revival starring Lynn Kennington, Jimmy Edwards and Jimmy Thompson. On that occasion, attempts at gilding the lily were particularly unnecessary, with Harry Parr Davies's 'Pedro the Fisherman' slipped in to provide a diversion. In fact, Fraser-Simpson's music needs little gilding, being melodically resourceful, tasteful, even at times thrilling, and it miraculously succeeds in provoking the necessary heroic atmosphere. The composer's standout hit is the immortal 'Love Will Find A Way' (his melody formed by doubling up the notes of Franz Lehar's Merry Widow Waltz), penned by The Maid's capable lyricist Harry Graham.
 
But this score owes a considerable debt to the interpolated music of J. W. Tate, who contributes two of the most well known of the songs, 'A Paradise For Two' and 'A Bachelor Gay', written with two other lyricists, F. Clifford Harris and 'Valentine' (in reality the father of Fanny Craddock). It may be that by contributing four important numbers Tate was indeed gilding the lily of The Maid's central score. The elder brother of Maggie Teyte (she rightly thought the French spelling would enhance a serious musical career), Tate had married Collins's mother, Lottie Collins, whose claim to fame was the song 'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay'. He wrote countless music-hall songs, many of which he performed with his second wife, Clarice Mayne, in an eccentric double act entitled 'Clarice Mayne and "That"'. Tate's facility for melody is one of the glories of the British music hall, and his deftness is further proved in the other songs he wrote for The Maid - the eloquent 'My Life Is Love' and the delightful 'When You're In Love', a fascinating duet delivered in perfect style by Kelly and Maxwell. But the less well remembered of the songs by Fraser-Simpson also include some real treasures. Who could resist the two playful duets for Vittoria and Tonio (beautifully done here) 'Husbands And Wives' and 'Over Here And Over There'?
 
We are not likely to have a better or fuller account of the amiable period piece than in this fine performance from Hyperion. Ronald Corp conducts the excellent New London Orchestra as if he knows exactly how this music should be performed, and he has exemplary, characterful assistance from the New London Light Orchestra Chorus. In general, Corp successfully treads the fine line between presenting the piece as an archive document and attempting any sort of modern interpretation of this now possibly unfashionable score. Fortunately, his principals stand firmly by the music. As Beppo, Christopher Maltman gives a happier performance than on Hyperion's earlier issue The Geisha, and holds nothing back in ardour. His is a voice that yields to operetta, and he manages to be manly without seeming ludicrous.
 
Most of the rest of the company seem ideally cast. Richard Suart, who has almost taken up residence in the comic roles of Gilbert and Sullivan, has his work cut out with the sometimes wearisome comedy role of Tonio, but he makes the best of the dated - and protracted - humour of 'I Understood' (a number that shows up The Maid's often rather thin orchestration). He brings terrific agility to a duet with the brigand chief Baldassare, 'Dirty Work', and in his duets with Vittoria he is at his sunniest. Sally Burgess makes her a spiky, determined soubrette, one of the best reasons for hearing this recording. Donald Maxwell's General Malona is as finely sung as we have come to expect from this highly dependable performer. The one weakness seems to me to be Michael George's Baldassare. He sings well enough, but emotional constipation sets in when it comes to the spoken passages. His last ringing affirmation of his love for the Maid is delivered with all the passion of a man announcing that the time is up for a three-minute egg. Sadly, such stunted playing only accentuates the fustian elements of the play's many charms.
 
At the centre of the enterprise must be the Maid herself, with her final declaration that she will leave Baldassare. 'I'm going back to the mountains - they understand me,' she cries, forestalling Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music by half a century. With the original Teresa passed into legend, we perhaps expect too much of any subsequent actress coming to the role. We look for something out of the ordinary, good singing with that little extra called stardom. Alas, there is no recording of Margaret Burton singing a role in which, at least according to her own programme biography, she was compared with Collins herself. For Hyperion, Janis Kelly has the dramatic sweep and sureness of voice that are essential to her attractive songs, and if she does not suggest the tempestuous side of Teresa's character, vocally she is on radiant form, soaring above the chorus to brilliant effect in 'My Life Is Love'. She bends to the demands of the score with style and sensitivity. Listen to her participation in the lovely 'A Paradise For Two' in which the voice almost melts away before rising to a glorious climax against some lovely orchestral playing. Listen to the decisive way she deals with Teresa's main aria, and you will be in no doubt that here is a woman who will not be shifted in her conviction that 'there's honour among thieves'.
 
At 80 minutes, and of the principal musical numbers lacking only the Overture, we have at last the definitive recording of this friendly old show, with the guarantee of much pleasure. The result confirms Hyperion's belief in the material, and the splendid resources it has brought to the project can only convince us. May we now look forward to this company turning its attention to other gems of the 'light' repertoire, confident that they will be heard in sound as resplendent as this?
 

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