The Sargent/Glyndebourne Ruddigore (1963)

Cast Robin Oakapple George Baker Richard Dauntless Richard Lewis Sir Despard Owen Brannigan Old Adam Harold Blackburn Rose Maybud Elsie Morison Mad Margaret Pamela Bowden Dame Hannah Monica Sinclair Zorah Elizabeth Harwood Sir Roderic Joseph Rouleau Pro Arte Orchestra Glyndebourne Festival Chorus Conductor: Sir Malcolm Sargent Recorded 3 November 1960 (Overture) & 11-14 December 1962

EMI CDS 7477878

This was the final entry in the series of G&S recordings that Sir Malcolm Sargent made for EMI between 1957 and 1963. Of the operas then in the D'Oyly Carte repertory, only Princess Ida was not included in the series (but Sargent would lead D'Oyly Carte's stereo Ida in 1965).

Ruddigore was an opera that Sir Malcolm evidently held in high esteem. He led some of the early performances after the opera re-entered the repertory in the 1920s, and many of the effects heard today in the "standard" orchestration were in fact Sargent's invention (e.g., the tubular bells in the "ghosts' high noon.") George Baker, nearly eighty years old when this recording was made, is anything but the "young farmer" of Gilbert's libretto, but this is otherwise an excellent performance of the opera.