Ben White and Eileen Simpson, the artistic powerhouses behind the Open Music Archive have been looking at the libretto from the 1969 opera The Brilliant and the Dark.
The opera was commissioned by the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, under the leadership of Sylvia Gray, and was performed in the Royal Albert Hall.
These photos are just some of those in our collection, and capture perfectly the stark and thrilling feel of the production. The libretto, which was written by Ursula Vaughan Williams, with score by Malcolm Williamson, travels through a history of women’s experience and observation. Nuns, cooks, peasants, teachers, campaigners and many more took to the stage, to form an enormous spectrum of female voices.
Eileen and Ben are planning on re-staging the libretto as a live performance, held in the exhibition space of The Women’s Library as part of the exhibition. Told you it was Brilliant.
I was at one of the performances of The Brilliant and the Dark in the Albert Hall in 1969 – and it was brilliant! There were only 4 performances.
Did you know that there are a few of the costumes from the original production at The Women’s Library? They are still uncatalogued – some of the sequences were very colourful, though there are few colour photographs in the archives.
I will certainly be coming to the performace if I can.
Anne Stamper
Hon archivist NFWI
I was in a girls school choir aged 12-16 which performed ost of ‘Brilliant and the Dark’ at the Hampton Court Festival in 1977 with Malcolm Williamson sitting at the front (looking a bit uncomfortable as I recall). I would love to find a recording (not of us!!)
Kate Hardy
I’d love a recording too – there is a recording of us singing it I’m afraid Kate – not the Hampton Court Palace perfomance, but rather at the farewell concert for Harold Britten, it’s on a casette (that makes me feel old) Twickenham Girls singing it on one one side, Mr H paying a Rachmaninov concerto on the other.
I’d love to hear it sung again, some of the themes still play in my head sometimes – I remember some of the phrases that the ones the needle women sang like “Blue threads and green alternately” It made quite an impression on me, my first taste of more modern music, it was feindishly hard for us to sing, time changes sometimes every bar, key changes constantly! It also changed my whole perspective of history, making me think about it from a women’s perspective.
Please let me know when the performance is etc – a very unusual work.
There is a recording of The Brilliant and the Dark made by WI choirs, I have a copy and there are others about – I will try to get hold of one for the NFWI archives at TWL. It is of course on an old 78 and will need someone to convert it.
Anne Stamper
Hon Archivist NFWI