''The Lodger'' is an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

in two acts composed by

Phyllis Tate Phyllis Tate (6 April 1911 – 29 May 1987) was an English composer known for forming unusual instrumental combinations in her output. Much of her work was written for the use of amateur performers and children. Biography Phyllis Margaret Duncan ...

. The libretto is by David Franklin, after the 1913 novel of the same name by

Marie Belloc Lowndes Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Lowndes (née Belloc; 5 August 1868 – 14 November 1947), who wrote as Marie Belloc Lowndes, was a prolific English novelist, and sister of author Hilaire Belloc. Active from 1898 until her death, she had a li ...

. The opera was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Music, with a grant from the William Manson Fund, and the premiere took place there on 16 July 1960.

Writing history

The opera took three years to write, and the planning and libretto-writing took longer than the composing. Tate started with a synopsis, and after Franklin had turned it into a libretto, she acknowledged that "his great experience as a singer at

Glyndebourne Glyndebourne () is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hun ...

and Covent Garden has been of enormous help to me." Originally, the first scene would have lasted for eight hours, but "we managed to whittle it down so that the whole opera lasts a mere two and a quarter hours now.""Phyllis Tate's Opera: Psychology and Murder in the 1880s": excerpt from ''The Times'', 23 June 1960, in ''Casebook: Jack the Ripper'')
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Roles

Synopsis

Emma Bunting, a poverty-stricken landlady in Victorian London, takes in a gentlemanly lodger who gives financial help to her and her husband George. Slowly it emerges that the lodger is not what he seems, and his religious mania indicates mental and other problems. As the tension mounts and the atmosphere becomes more sinister, Emma agonises over whether to report him to the authorities. The lodger's identity is revealed as

Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer w ...

Performance history

After the premiere at the Royal Academy of Music, the opera was broadcast on the

BBC Third Programme The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and quickly became one of the leading cultural and intellectual f ...

on 2 February 1964, with Johanna Peters (Emma),

Joseph Ward Sir Joseph George Ward, 1st Baronet, (26 April 1856 – 8 July 1930) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 17th prime minister of New Zealand from 1906 to 1912 and from 1928 to 1930. He was a dominant figure in the Liberal and Unit ...

(the Lodger),

Alexander Young Alexander Young may refer to: * Alexander Young (bishop) (died 1684), 17th century Scottish prelate *Alexander Young (engineer) (1833–1910), Scottish engineer and businessman who became a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii *Alexander Young (musicia ...

(Joel Chandler), Owen Brannigan (George), conducted by Charles Groves. The broadcast was recorded at home on professional equipment by Richard Itter of Lyrita Records for his private archive, and released on CD in 2015. The first professional performance took place on 10 March 1965 at the St Pancras Festival. The Royal Northern College of Music performed the opera in 1970. The first German performance took place at the

Stadttheater Bremerhaven The Stadttheater Bremerhaven (Bremerhaven municipal theatre) is a theatre in Bremerhaven, Germany. Founded in 1867, it serves three genres: opera and other musical theatre, spoken plays, and dance. A theatre built on the present site in 1911 was la ...

in June 2018 in a German translation by Steffan Piontek and staged by Sam Brown, conducted by Ektoras Tartanis.Denker, Wolfgang. Report from Bremerhaven, Germany. ''

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

'', Vol. 69, No. 9, September 2018, pp. 1087–1088.

Critical opinion

After the premiere, the editor of ''Opera'' magazine noted the "highly competent professionalism and the natural feel for the stage that the composer displays" with the composer able "to write music that can create both atmosphere and tension; how to write music that can be sung (though some of the conversational passages could have moved at a slightly faster pace): how to use her orchestra both economically and effectively". He also praised "the very adroit libretto provided by David Franklin". Lewis Foreman describes the opera as dramatically effective, "with its fog-and-gaslight atmosphere, and a divided set showing two rooms simultaneously. All this is lightened by a series of jolly choruses and the idiosyncratic use of polkas and

waltz The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position. History There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the w ...

es. It remains the composer's most considerable operatic achievement."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lodger, The Operas 1960 operas Operas set in London Operas by Phyllis Tate English-language operas Operas based on novels Cultural depictions of Jack the Ripper