This is a rare chance to hear At the Boar's Head. Holst wrote several operas, but none, except Savatri, have found much of an audience. At the Boar's Head is no exception. Why is up for debate - it seems a natural pairing of a great English composer with England's great playwright. But languish it has - undeservedly.
Holst called it not an opera but a "melodic interlude", though scholars still labor to discover just what it was an interlude for. Holst wrote his own libretto, assembling the story and dialogue from episodes set at the Boar's Head Inn from the two parts of Shakespeare's Henry IV. He drew mostly from English folk songs for the music but added some of his own original music as well. It dates from 1924 when he was 50 years old, 8 years after he completed his best known work, The Planets.
The action centers around Prince Hal and Falstaff, with other characters from Shakespeare such as Pistol and Doll Tearsheet.
Tune in Sunday night at 8!