Charles Dibdin - Table Entertainments - Christmas Gambols

[piano888]

Retrospect Opera have just released a CD of music by Charles Dibdin, two of his theatrical 'Table Entertainments', The Musical Tour of Mr Dibdin and Christmas Gambols. It looks unusual and interesting.

The Amazon entry reads:
Charles Dibdin (1745-1814) was the leading British singer-songwriter of his age; this is the first album devoted to his songs. Having written and composed the most successful English operas of the 1770s, and achieved fame as an actor and singer, Dibdin developed his own one-man show, allowing him to display all his talents. He called these shows, in which he stood or sat at a piano, 'Table Entertainments'. His songs were written to be presented dramatically in these shows, and Retrospect Opera have recorded the songs as they were originally meant to be heard, in the first ever recreation of the Table Entertainments. The Musical Tour of Mr Dibdin is a shortened version of Dibdin's first Table Entertainment, from 1787, while the main piece, Christmas Gambols, is a complete Christmas show from 1795. Christmas Gambols, a celebration of traditional Christmas games and festivity, offers the fullest picture of an eighteenth-century English Christmas available anywhere. Dibdin's performing voice is brilliantly brought to life by the versatile talents of Simon Butteriss, and he is accompanied on a replica eighteenth-century fortepiano by Stephen Higgins. Full texts of the Table Entertainments are included in the booklet, along with introductory essays by Simon Butteriss, David Chandler and Jeremy Barlow.

There's a special offer on if you go direct to their website, www.retrospectopera.org.uk.

[Jimfin]

This is very exciting, though earlier than my usual period. Anyone who could write "Tom Bowling" must be worth exploring.

Retrospect Opera are a really interesting new set-up: they gave us the Boatswain's Mate and I know they are planning another Smyth opera (Fete Galante) and also Loder's Raymond and Agnes (already in the "can", I think).