Sullivan: FORESTERS fairy chorus, a verse play by Tennyson

Sings a new song to the new year...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYby51uohIE

Sullivan: FORESTERS fairy chorus G&S Soc NY 1992

From the concert marking Arthur Sullivan's 150th birthday at the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of New York. The fairy chorus from THE FORESTERS, a verse play by Tennyson, with songs and incidental music by Sullivan.

Everyman's Library

2016年1月1日下午9:30 · 

"Be a good glad thing, why should we make us merry
Because a year of it is gone? but Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come
Whispering ‘It will be happier;’ and old faces
Press round us, and warm hands close with warm hands,
And thro’ the blood the wine leaps to the brain
Like April sap to the topmost tree, that shoots
New buds to heaven, whereon the throstle rock’d
Sings a new song to the new year—and you,
Strike up a song, my friends, and then to bed."
― from "The Foresters" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson wrote his verse play about the famous English outlaw, and his last book in his lifetime, The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian, at the request of the America theatre manager Augustin Daly in 1892, when he was 82 years old. Daly, who had met Arthur Sullivan in California, asked him to write the music and Sullivan composed the nine short numbers which comprise the score.Sullivan probably undertook the work out of regard for Tennyson rather than any real enthusiasm for the play itself and tried to persuade Tennyson to make changes. He objected strongly to the title of the play, finding it colourless, and urged Tennyson to change it to Maid Marian, but the elderly poet refused.

...

No. 32 [41KB, 4' 52"]

First Fairy.

Evil Fairy! do you hear?
So she said who lieth here.

Titania.

We be fairies of the wood.
We be neither bad nor good.

First Fairy.

Back and side and hip and rib,
Nip her, nip her for her fib.

Titania.

Nip her not, but let her snore.
We must flit for evermore.

First Fairy.

Tit, my queen, must it be so?
Wherefore, wherefore should we go?

Titania.

I Titania bid you flit,
And you dare to call me Tit.

First Fairy.

Tit, for love and brevity,
Not for love and levity.

Titania.

Tit for love, thou naughty lob,
Wouldst thou call my Oberon Ob?

First Fairy.

Nay, an please your Elfin Grace,
Never Ob before his face.

Titania.

Fairy realm is breaking down
When the fairy slights the crown.

First Fairy.

No, by wisp and glowworm, no!
Only wherefore should we go?

Titania.

We must fly from Robin Hood
And this new queen of the wood.

First Fairy.

True, she is a goodly thing.
Jealousy, jealousy of the King!

Chorus (First Half)

Killed the sward where ever they sat, Queen

Chorus (Second Half)

Bursting bracken beaten flat, Queen

Chorus (First Half)

Honest daisy deadly bruised, Queen

Chorus (Second Half)

Modest maiden lily abused, Queen

Chorus (First Half)

Beetle's jewel armour cracked, Queen

Chorus (Second Half)

Reeds we rocked on broken backed, Queen

Full Chorus.

We be scared with song and shout,
Arrows whistle all about.
All our games be put to rout.
All our rings be trampled out.
Lead us thou to some deep glen,
Far from solid foot of men,
Never to return again,
Never to return again,
Queen,

Titania.

Elf, with spiteful heart and eye,
Talk of jealousy? You see why
We must leave the wood and fly.
Up with you, out of the forest and over the hills and away,

Chorus.

Up with you, out of the forest and over the hills and away,

Titania.

And over this Robin Hood's bay!
Up thro' the light of the seas by the moon's long-silvering ray!

First Fairy & Chorus

To a land where the fay,
Not an eye to survey,
In the night, in the day,
Can have frolic and play.

Titania.

Lady lying here alone,
Moody creature,
Of a nature
Stronger, sadder than my own,
Were I human, were I human,
I could love you like a woman,

Titania.	Chorus.
	To a land where the fay,
	Not an eye to
I could love	survey, In the night ,
you like a woman.	in the day, Can have frolic and play.

Titania, First Fairy & Chorus.

Soon, soon you shall have you honeymoon,
He shall wed you, Marian,
He shall wed you, Marian,
For you love him, and he loves you
Both be happy, and adieu forever and forever more adieu.

Marian. (half waking - speaking) Shall I be happy? Happy vision, stay. Fairies. Up with you, all of you, off with you, out of it, Over the woods and away! https://gsarchive.net/sullivan/foresters/act3.html#no32