If Walton's sense of humour was firmly established from the start in Facade, his one-acter, The Bear, among his later works brings out very clearly how strong that quality remained throughout his life. It was commissioned for Benjamin Britten's Aldeburgh Festival, in a sense a peace-offering on both sides between rivals. It was Sir Peter Pears who suggested the subject, and happily Walton found an ideal collaborator in Paul Dehn, who provided wittily rhymed verses for some of the set-numbers at melodramatic high-points. Otherwise Walton and Dehn together deftly slimmed down the Chekhov text. The composition was held up by the serious cancer operation which Walton underwent in 1966, but he completed the score in time for the piece to be given its premiere at the twentieth Aldeburgh Festival in June 1967. It was recorded for HMV (12/67) soon after with the original cast—Monica Sinclair, John Shaw and Norman Lumsden with James Lockhart conducting the English Chamber Orchestra—but sadly that fine recording has long been unavailable.
Happily this new version in the Chandos Walton series is even finer, and I only hope it will encourage more performances of one of the wittiest operas in the repertory, and one which requires minimal forces. Walton used to complain how hard it was to use the Britten chamber layout with only single woodwind, but amazingly his textures have a Waltonian lushness rather than a Britten-like spareness. Walton times the melodramatic moments marvellously—notably the climactic duel between the mourning widow and her husband's creditor (the bear of the title) and Hickox here, more flexible than Lockhart was, brings that out most effectively. Walton also deftly heightens the farcical element in the Chekhov by introducing dozens of parodies and tongue-in-cheek musical references, starting cheekily with echoes of Britten's own Midsummer Night's Dream. There are so many such references and echoes that Christopher Palmer in his excellent note refuses to specify them, challenging listeners to draw up their own lists, which, as he says, are all bound to be different.
Hickox brings out the richness of the piece as well as its wit, helped by the opulent Chandos recording which still allows words to be heard clearly. The casting of the three characters is as near ideal as could be. Della Jones is even more commanding as the affronted widow than Monica Sinclair was before, with words much clearer, consistently relishing the melodrama like a young Edith Evans. Alan Opie far outshines his predecessor, John Shaw, as Smirnov, 'the bear'. His singing is clean-cut and incisive, powerfully bringing out the irate creditor's changing emotions, while John Shirley-Quirk, not quite so firm as he once was but still rich and resonant, is very well cast as the old retainer, Luka. With the duel scene leading delectably to an amorous coup de foudre—The Bear in many ways comes off even better on disc than on stage.
Similarly the power and passion of Troilus and Cressida, the grandly tragic opera which Walton wrote for Covent Garden, has never come over more tellingly than in the fine collection of excerpts recorded in 1955 only five months after the premiere in the previous December. Sadly Walter Legge advised his wife, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, not to sing the work on stage, and her heartfelt performance on this recording makes one regret that all the more. Richard Lewis as Troilus was at his peak too, strong and clear. With the excerpts rightly concentrating on high-points in the lovers' music, one marvels how rich Walton's invention is, with Cressida in particular inspiring melodies of Puccinian memorability. It is a pity that the big sextet near the end of Act 3 had to be omitted, but this CD reissue happily adds to the original EMI selection a tiny fragment originally recorded by Decca for an album celebrating Covent Garden. That allows one to sample the incomparable characterization which Peter Pears brought to the comically camp role of Pandarus, but (with Marie Collier as Cressida) the excerpt is so short that it leaves one longing for more. Even in the roles which Britten wrote for him Pears rarely seemed to enjoy himself quite so much as here as Pandarus. The CD transfer of the EMI mono sound is first-rate, with the voices given fine presence, so that the contrast with the Decca stereo is not obtrusive.'