Organization

Admin

Dorset Opera Festival

Conductor

Jeremy Carnall

Stage director

Paul Carr

English

Under The Greenwood Tree

Blandford Forum

United Kingdom

Bryanston School

Coade Theatre

Public

Joshua Dos

Approved

Fancy Day returns to the Dorset village of Mellstock to take on the post of schoolmistress. She is a breath of fresh air to the local community - which includes the wealthy Farmer Shiner, the Reverend Maybold and young Dick Dewy. All three become her suitors… Hardy wrote the novel at his family home in Higher Bockhampton - which along with Lower Bockhampton and Stinsford, became his fictional parish of Mellstock. the book was initially entitled the Mellstock Quire, which alluded to the country ways that provided music for church services at that time. Local amateur musicians (which included Hardy’s father) would gather together as a scratch band for weddings, funerals, dances and whenever some form of music was required by the community. Hardy himself was, apparently, a talented violinist and singer. It is through the members of the Mellstock Quire that Hardy re-lived his family’s musical exploits but the Quire is ‘put out of business’ by the arrival of that dreadful ‘modern’ invention, the harmonium! the person who is recruited by the Reverend Maybold to play the wretched instrument, is none other than Fancy Day. But it is not her fault that the Quire has outlived its purpose. that is down to their 
‘propensity to alcohol’, as Hardy would have put it. the opera, like the novel, is set in four seasons - beginning 
with Winter: specifically, the rituals of the Quire visiting every house in the parish beginning on Christmas Eve and continuing until 6.00a.m., or later, on Christmas Day itself! It is quite ironic that a recent composition by Paul Carr is his re-working of the Vivaldi favourite Four Seasons… Paul’s work is called Four New Seasons

Under The Greenwood Tree by Carr, P., From (2024/2024), Directed by Paul Carr,, Conductor Jeremy Carnall, Bryanston School, Blandford Forum, United Kingdom

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