OTD in early British television: The whole of the afternoon schedule on Monday 24 January 1938 was occupied by a presentation of act 2 of Richard Wagner’s music drama Tristan and Isolde. www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/otd-in-early... - ThreadSky

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illuminations.bsky.social • 36 days ago

OTD in early British television:
The whole of the afternoon schedule on Monday 24 January 1938 was occupied by a presentation of act 2 of Richard Wagner’s music drama Tristan and Isolde.

https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/otd-in-early-british-television-24-january-1938/

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illuminations.bsky.social•36 days ago

In the evening this was played again, in perhaps the most uncompromising cultural transmission of the pre-war period. Inevitably, the producer responsible was the innovative and uncompromising modernist Dallas Bower. The reaction was, well, mixed.

illuminations.bsky.social•36 days ago

Encouraged by the response to Stephen Thomas’ broadcast shortly before Christmas of Hansel and Gretel, Bower applied the mime technique that Thomas had pioneered in what is essentially an extended love duet, sung in Frederick Jameson’s English translation.

illuminations.bsky.social•36 days ago

Four years before he had written in Cinema Quarterly about ‘the obvious association of Wagnerian music-drama theory and sound film,’ and arguing for its adaptation ‘into the medium that fits it best’.

illuminations.bsky.social•36 days ago

Now, for television rather than the cinema, he first created short film sequences of crashing waves and a hunting party, and then worked with his regular collaborator Antony Tudor on the actors’ movements. Basil Bartlett, Oriel Ross and others performed in one studio in front of three cameras.

illuminations.bsky.social•36 days ago

A fourth camera was next door, with the unseen singers and the orchestra under Hyam Greenbaum. In-house designer Peter Bax created the decor and costumes.

illuminations.bsky.social•36 days ago

The casting of singers was strong, with the great Isobel Baillie, known primarily for oratorios, giving voice to Isolde, and Wagnerian tenor Walter Widdop as Tristan. ‘The musical part of the performance was on the whole good,’ admitted ‘G.G.W.’ in The Listener:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobel_Baillie

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