Day 20: Favorite Act I finale

The Act I finale from The Yeomen of the Guard has two key moments that I find particularly memorable. Well, three if you count a certain bit of backstage mischief that happened in the production I was in last winter.

1. “The prisoner comes to meet his doom” gives me chills every time I hear it. Something about the abrupt mood shift right before it, the tolling bell, and those harmonies.

2. That rapid sequence near the end with seven different characters reacting to the prisoner’s escape could be described as meticulously choreographed chaos. If you look at the libretto, you’ll see that Gilbert simply gave each character a couplet of the same meter (plus a few more lines for Jack). Sullivan’s setting is ingenious. Each couplet is set differently, and some repeat and overlap with each other. I can think of other examples where Sullivan takes a series of identically-structured verses and sets them uniquely to illustrate characters’ differing states of mind: “I am so proud” (Mikado), “How say you, maiden” (Yeomen), “When a wooer goes a-wooing” (Yeomen). But the seven-character exchange in the Yeomen Act I finale is definitely one of the most interesting instances.

3. At every dress rehearsal and performance, while Wilfred was commending Phoebe to her “brother” and Fairfax was agreeing to undertake this task, our headsman was backstage miming an epic guitar solo on his ax. It got more epic each time, and by the end townsfolk were joining in as additional band members and groupies. Our Cholmondeley even made commemorative shirts with a picture of this and the slogan “A HEART OF MASSIVE ROCK”. And now I can’t listen to this part of the music without imagining the headsman rocking out in the background.