I must beware of this medium.
Long playing records can spell tedium.
(The Prologue)
Noel Coward was dizzyingly prolific across a range of forms. He’s most famous for his plays but he wrote reviews and sketches, operettas and musicals, short stories, a novel, as well as screenplays for movies.
‘Conversation Piece’ from 1933 is an old-fashioned musical, more like an operetta. This raises the problem of how to review an essentially musical form in a blog devoted to texts. Which is exacerbated because, as far as I can see, unlike all his early plays, you can’t access the text or ‘book’ online, and neither is it included in the collected editions of his works, which include all the plays, a lot of the poetry, many of the revues – but not the musicals.
So as far as I can tell, all the humble reviewer has to go on is this 1951 recording, made as a boxed set of LPs featuring Noël himself, Lily Pons and a young Richard Burton, with Lehman Engel conducting.
Conversation Piece Part 1 (44 minutes)
Conversation Piece Part 2 (38 minutes)
Coward describes it as a musical but it might be more accurate to class it as an operetta. The English National Opera website explains:
An operetta falls somewhere between an opera and a musical – like a musical, an operetta (most often) contains spoken dialogue, as well as song. Operettas are often satirical and witty, and tend to be much shorter and less complex than traditional operas.
So: short, witty, combining spoken dialogue with songs.
PAUL: How can I make you realise life is serious.
MELANIE: Because it’s not.
Rationale
In his introduction to Play Parade Volume II, Coward writes:
‘Conversation Piece was conceived, written and composed as a vehicle for Yvonne Printemps, and as such I must proudly say it was a success. She being a fine actress in addition to having one of the loveliest voices it has ever been my privilege to hear, endowed the play with a special magic and, in spite of the fact that her English began and ended with ‘Good Morning’, ‘Yes’, and ‘No’, she contrived to enchant the public, the critics, the supporting cast, the orchestra and even the stage hands. It is also an undoubted tribute to her that, by the end of the London and New York runs, most of the company spoke French fluently.’
Plot summary
We are in Regency Brighton in 1811, although the two leads are both French.
Paul, the Duc de Chaucigny-Varennes, is an émigré from the terrors of the French Revolution. With him is Melanie, a beautiful young girl he is passing off as his ward and the daughter of an executed friend, the Marquis de Tramont. In fact, Melanie is a dance hall singer.
Paul’s plan is to marry Melanie to a rich husband such as Edward, Marquis of Sheere, who seeks her hand.
Edward is supported in her suit by the rich Lady Julia Charteris, who is herself in love with Paul and woos him, offering the prize of her great fortune to the penniless refugee.
But there’s a simple complication/problem: all along Melanie has secretly loved Paul (her supposed guardian). In a last gamble to turn him away from Lady Julia, Melanie feigns a departure for France, leaving no forwarding address.
Her trick works: Paul realises the depth of his feelings for her and there is a romantic happy ending.
‘I’ll follow my secret heart’
The fact that Melanie is concealing her real feelings for Paul explains: 1) why she is anxious and off-putting to keen young Edward, and 2) the emotion described in the show’s big number, ‘I’ll Follow My Secret Heart’, her secret being her secret love for Paul. Here it is in a spectacular performance by the opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland.
What is a conversation piece?
It’s a genre of classical painting. Wikipedia explains:
A conversation piece refers to a group portrait in a domestic or landscape setting depicting persons chatting or otherwise socializing with each other. The persons depicted may be members of a family as well as friends, members of a society or hunt, or some other grouping who are shown sharing common activities such as hunts, meals, or musical parties.
It was an especially popular genre in 18th-century England, beginning from the 1720s, largely due to the influence of William Hogarth. Similar paintings can also be found in other periods and outside of England.
The setting of various figures ‘conversing’ in an intimate setting appears to call for small-scale paintings, but some artists treated this subject manner in the Grand Manner, with almost life-size figures.
Musical numbers
- Brighton Parade
- Danser, Danser
- I’ll Follow My Secret Heart
- Regency Rakes
- There’s Always Something Fishy About the French
- Nevermore
- Dear Little Soldiers
- The English Lesson
- Lady Julia’s Theme
- Melanie’s Aria
Thoughts
It’s so far out of my zone of familiarity that it’s hard to know how to comment. The music feels like a very long bubble bath, punctuated by sudden shrieks by the soprano which made me jump.
On one view, the best thing about it is the spoken prologue and chorus in rhymed verse. Much of this was genuinely witty and funny in a way most Coward simply isn’t.
What elegant language they discoursed in.
If you’re in doubt, just read Jane Austen.
(The Prologue)
And it betrays the issue which has become a bugbear with me which is that, although all Coward’s fans claim his plays and musicals are witty and funny, they often really aren’t. More than that, rather than the genuinely witty repartee of an Oscar Wilde, many of them rely on the clash of character which is, allegedly, the core of drama, coming out as arguing and bickering. In this musical it stood out to me when Paul repeatedly told Melanie to shut up, be quiet, not to be so stupid etc. This isn’t repartee it’s just shutting down and cancelling your interlocutor.
But that’s too take it too seriously. It is designed to be entertainment and so I tried to relax and enjoy the witty chorus, to let myself be carried away by the soaring strings, and – simply because it is repeated so many times – developed a fondness for the show’s big number, I’ll Follow My Secret Heart.
Books & Boots 