Tantivy Towers

"Tantivy Towers" is a three-act light opera, written by A. P. Herbert and with music composed by Thomas Frederick Dunhill.

It premiered on 16th January 1931 at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and later transferred to the New Theatre. [http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/newsletters/gossip/no42/gg42_21.html Gilbertian Gossip No. 42 - Summer 1994 ] ] The play ran for six months, later touring England and being staged in Australia and America. Some critics rated it among the best of the interwar period. [ [http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/May01/Dunhill.htm Dunhill, Stanford, Bantock Violin Sonatas [RB: Classical CD Reviews- May 2001 MusicWeb(UK) ] ] The music was originally intended to be composed by Alfred Reynolds, who would later collaborate with Herbert on "Derby Day", but Dunhill was chosen as the preferred composer after Reynolds had begun work.

It is set in the present day (the early 1930s), and plays on the contrasts and conflicts between the rural aristocracy and urban bohemians, between the hunting set and the artists - as one song describes it, "between Orpheus and Hercules".

The work is unusual in that it has no prose speech; all speech is written in verse and intended to be sung.

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