Lucky-Peter's Journey is a 1969 opera, also called "a comedy with music,"Jacobs, Arthur, "Lucky Peter's Journey," Opera, February 1970 in three acts by Malcolm Williamson to an English libretto by Edmund Tracey (director for the English National Opera, formerly Sadler's Wells Opera) after the 1883 fairy-tale play Lycko-Pers Resa by August Strindberg.
Background
The opera's commission is mentioned in the Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Arts Council of Great Britain: "Sadler's Wells Opera revived Monteverdi's Orfeo (in Italian) and presented new productions of Berlioz' Damnation of Faust, Gilbert & Sullivan's Patience, Malcolm Williamson's Lucky Peter's Journey (commissioned under the Gulbenkian Foundation's scheme), Wagner's Valkyrie and, to mark the bicentenary, Beethoven's Leonora - hardly a routine list ."
Both the composer Williamson and the librettist Tracey wrote articles about the opera's development, the composer in The Musical TimesWilliamson, Malcolm, Lucky-Peter's Journey, The Musical Times, Vol. 110, No. 1522 (Dec., 1969), pp. 1227-1231, URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/954517 and librettist in OperaTracey, Edmund, "'Lucky Peter's Journey': Words for Music," Opera, December, 1969, pp. 1016-1021
Tracey worked as a director for Sadler's Wells Opera. He and Stephen Arlen in planning for the 1967 season at Sadler's Wells considered what work they might present in operetta, a form that was successful with "both company and its audience." They thought about "commissioning a lightweight work from a living composer--something unpretentious, which could be easily learnt and performed by the company and which might have a wide appeal."
Williamson writes that "the directorate of Sadler's Wells" asked for a new opera at the conclusion of performances of another of his operas by that company. They gave specific direction for both Williamson and librettist Tracey: "the more palatable elements of The Violins, a number opera, possibly with spoken dialogue ... a piece to show off the company's spectacular talents; a phrase, is in the end, a hybrid, as much pantomime as opera." Williamson and Tracey struggled with how pantomime should be melded with opera to form a coherent work: "an opera it had to be, but with elements of the pantomime form built into the operatic structure."
Tracey confirms this approach writing "we eventually proposed to Stephen Arlen that we should try to produce an operatic variant on a pantomime theme, write a piece rather of the weight of Hansel and Gretel, with its wide variety of audience-appeal, and put it on for the Christmas season."
At Williamson's suggestion Tracey read Strindberg's Lycko-Pers Resa and was "immediately captivated by it, and excited to find that it contained features that I had included in [his first libretto for the commission] Dick Whittington: various rapid and virtually unexplained changes in scene, vivid contrasts of physical temperature--the whole action begins on a midwinter night and moves through spring into high summer--plenty of interesting small parts for the company, and above all the theme of a young hero questing for truth and happiness, rather like Tamino in The Magic Flute."
Aspects of pantomime were already in Lycko-Pers Resa, specifically two comedic parts that they gave to two women as a "sister act," rather than the two male clowns traditionally found in pantomime, "April Cantelo and Jennifer Vyvyan, for whom the composer wanted to write large parts ... the two sopranos are required to be two rats in the church tower, two birds in the forest, two gold diggers in the pleasure-dome and two martyred saints in the last act by the sea-shore."
The composer describes the opera, saying "... we have, to put it at its simplest, a pair of lovers (mezzo-soprano and baritone, contrary to the usual procedure). They meet, fall in love, are parted and reunited. The two male comics who permeate the panto are realized by two coloratura sopranos who are constantly reappearing as different characters. A good fairy and a gnome are the magic collaborators who propel the machinery of the narrative, and there is Peter's guide who indulges him, advises him, and leads him through the Land of Pleasure."
This hybrid work was designed by the Sadler's Wells' production team of John Cox, Dacre Punt, Francis Reid, and Talley Beatty to create an "interdependence between director, designer, lighting designer and choreographer, which goes far beyond what is normally asked for in the compartmentalized preparation of an opera. This interaction of dance and song is carried much further in Lucky-Peter's Journey."
Performance history
The opera was premièred by Sadler's Wells Opera at the London Coliseum on 18 December 1969, conducted by John Barker. The opera had a planned run of fourteen performances through 26 February 1970,Sadler's Wells Opera Magazine, Winter 1969/70 (London Coliseum), The Magazine of the Opera Club, (Winter 1969/70, Vol.2 No.4), p. 2; from the Rob Wilton Theatricali Collection which production run was cut short. The performance on 5 February 1970 was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Roles
RoleVoice typePremiere cast, 18 December 1969(Conductor: John Barker)Lisamezzo-sopranoShirley ChapmanPeterbaritoneGeoffrey ChardFirst Lady (Nisse, The Robin, First Friend, First Saint)sopranoApril CanteloSecond Lady (Nilla, Spring Bird, Second Friend, Second Saint)sopranoJennifer VyvyanOld ManbaritoneHarold BlackburnGood Fairymezzo-sopranoAilene FischerLokitenorJohn DelaneySteward/DeathtenorEmile BelcourtFirst ClerktenorPeter BamberSecond ClerkbassIan ComboyThird ClerkbassRobert LloydChorus: Chorus and Ballet of townspeople, monks, starboys, animals, trees, flowers, servants, beggars, camel-drivers, land monsters, sea monsters, pilgrims, ocean waves.
Synopsis Lucky-Peter's Journey is about a boy's journey of discovery that begins on Christmas Eve, the day he turns 15, when a Good Fairy grants him a wish for anything he desires.Griffel, Margaret Ross, Adrienne Fried Block, Operas in English (Greenwood Press, 1999), p. 290 Peter had "been locked in a church tower by his father to protect him from the disappointments of life. He escapes on Christmas Eve and starts the process of discovering hard truths about power, corruption, vulnerability ... finding redemption in the end, through selfless love." This 'journey' has some aspects of a Hero's Journey.
Librettist Edmund Tracey describes the story he wrote and its characters: "The story of Lucky Peter's Journey starts on Christmas Eve ... in the course of the action [Peter] meets the girl, Lisa, without being able to express selfless emotion for her; acquires great wealth and political power; is offered spurious love and friendship by two professional vamps; tries to give himself up to nature; and finally has recourse to organized religion. At no point do these experiences bring him any lasting pleasure and he is reduced, in the last act, to total despair ... At this point, when he has experienced everything and found nothing that he values, he has another encounter with Lisa who explains to him 'In this life we receive only what we give' ... He suddenly sees clearly the state of his own heart, and is able to express his genuine need for Lisa's love and thus to express his own love for her."
Detailed Synopsis
Act I - A medieval church tower, dissolving into a forest
Christmas Eve. Peter and Staffan are heard singing the final hymn at the end of a Christmas Eve service. Two rats are a part of the scene along with Staffan and they eat porridge brought into the room by Staffan for the gnome. When they exit the gnome Loki materializes and finds the porridge bowl empty. Loki decides to punish Staffan for his missed porridge meal by helping Peter escape and he calls the Good Fairy who appears.Williamson, Malcolm, Lucky-Peter's Journey, Josef Reinberger Ltd, London, 1969
Loki asks if the Good Fairy can entice Peter their godson and lure Peter away from the tower. The Good Fairy says it is indeed time to send Peter out into the world where he will meet with trouble, and the suggestion is that this trouble will be a woman who at that moment can be seen and heard singing in the window of her house off in the distance. They decide Peter should go into the world with a companion, a girl his own age.
Peter enters and in conversation with the Good Fairy explains his longing to go out into the world. Staffan re-enters the room but is powerless to prevent Peter's escape when the Good Fairy beams a path of light from the tower window to the horizon which Peter uses to set out on his journey. The Good Fairy and Loki disappear.
Time passes.
On a brilliant icy morning in a forest, Peter lies by a frozen brook, asleep. Lisa enters and sees and wishes it were spring to unlock the prison snow of winter. Magically the whole scene transforms to spring. The frozen stream melts and the sky gives way to a warm spring-like glow. Peter slowly wakes up and looks into the clear water of the brook where he sees Lisa's reflection. Then she calls to him and they meet. He asks her to go with him to the Land of Pleasure and they kiss. Suddenly shy she runs off and disappears among the forest trees. Peter tries to pursue her but the trees block him. The act concludes with Peter deciding that gold will bring Lisa back to him and he leaves to obtain it.
Act II - Sc.1 - The Palace of Pleasure
Time has passed. Peter is now King in a golden Palace of Pleasure. In the dining hall of the palace, servants scurry about preparing a banquet, under the supervision of the Steward. When Peter enters, two servants clothe him in a long gold robe. The Steward and Three Clerks reveal that Peter is quite wealthy. Peter's wealth, however, means nothing to him if he cannot eat a meal when he wishes rather than be stifled by decorum.
An oriental reclining room appears and beyond this room is heard and eventually seen a caravan coming to rest with the camel-drivers and others singing. Peter is told to say farewell to his love (meaning Lisa). The scene continues with the First Friend and Second Friend, beautiful women who attempt to win Peter with flattery, attention, and affection while arguing between themselves about who is the best (the "professional vamps" or "golddiggers" of Tracey's description). Peter senses the presence of Lisa, who is briefly seen in the distance, and is disturbed. Inexplicably, Peter suffers a severe toothache. Peter's wealth is nationalized and the two ladies prepare to leave as the caravan reassembles. They then disappear into the desert night.
Peter now realizes that gold and power are useless in returning Lisa to him. In conversation with his Steward he learns of a greater power where corruption and poverty fight and the Steward will guide Peter through the land of pleasure to a brighter day. But first Peter must lead the poor and unemployed, the rich man's victims, as their Caliph, which he does, claiming to be the enemy of corruption, a reformer who will sweep the land clean.
Act II - Sc.2 - A dark wood
A black forest in a starless night with old bare trees moving in the dark. Lisa moves in a beam of light across the stage singing of Peter and his search. The Good Fairy and Loki emerge from the darkness and they tell Lisa she must wait until Peter needs her.
Act II - Sc.3 - A village square
A town square dismal with early morning autumn rain and thunder. The Three Clerks from the Golden Palace of Pleasure have braved the weather. They carry the bust of a corrupt and forgotten hero of bureaucracy, which they set on a pedestal. The Three Clerks represent the bureaucratic order that Peter, in Act II, Sc.1, has declared he will reform.