New London Opera Group

This year's Autumn production will be a semi-staged concert performance of the comic opera Merrie England, composed by Edward German to a libretto by Basil Hood.

Merrie England is a rollicking tale of love, betrayal, loyalty and superstition, set in Windsor during the reign of Elizabeth I. It features several famous faces from the period, including the Queen herself, Sir Walter Raleigh, Bessie Throckmorton and the Earl of Essex, as well as a host of fictional characters, led by the hapless thespian Walter Wilkins.

Musically, the opera is firmly in the Savoy style developed by Sullivan (German was very much Sullivan's designated successor, having completed the opera The Emerald Isle after Sullivan's death in 1900), but with a distinctly "bright and breezy" Edwardian edge. It contains moments of great patriotic grandeur, such as the Queen's entrance and aria ("Long Live Elizabeth" …. "O peaceful England"), as well as pastoral duets, mock-Tudor madrigals and fiendish patter-songs.

This production by the New London Opera Group will perform the opera largely complete in semi-staged concert format, including abridged dialogue and with full orchestra.