“SAMUEL PEPYS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 914, 6 March 1930, Page 18

“SAMUEL PEPYS”

English Opera by Albert Coates PRODUCED AT MUNICH "Samuel Pepys,” a new opera by a ■British composer, Albert Coates, the famous conductor, was produced at the Munich Opera House recently for the first time on any stage. The Bavarian audience which filled the great theatre received the piece with immense enthusiasm, and when the curtain fell the singers were called before It ten times. It seems an extraordinary thing that an English composer had to go to Bavaria to get an English opera dealing with an English historical character put on the stage. The reason is, of course, that in Munich there is an excellent opera handsomely supported by the State, with it 3 permanent orchestra and company, while In London there is no national opera. Coates calls his opera a comedy in one act with music. The libretto is by. Richard Price and Peter Drury, and the German version was made by Herr Meyerfelt. The story is of Pepys’s deception of his jealous wife. He takes advantage of her absence to give a merry supper party, at which the chief guest is Mistress Knipe, a young and pretty actress. Mistress Pepys returns unexpectedly when the merriment is at its height, and her arrival creates the utmost dismay and confusion. To hoodwink her. Mistress Knipe dresses in man’s clothes and appears as Charles 11. The jealous wife is completely deceived and treats the supposed king with profund respect. When the danger is over and the company gone, Samuel Pepys can sit down quietly and write his diary. Coates's music is spontaneous, brilliant, and sparkling, and, when necessary, full. The style Is classical, but the treatment of the music is modern, although free from extravagance.