G&S: The Ghosts’ High-Noon from Ruddigore

Ruddigore was the very first Gilbert and Sullivan opera I heard. That would be in 1968. It was the annual production of a Savoy Opera by the pupils at Coatbridge High School. Sadly, this venerable tradition was discontinued many years ago in favour of something less niche and dumbed down.

The plot of Ruddigore (without spoilers) takes place in a quaint Cornish fishing village, young Rose Maybud - prim, poetic, and governed by etiquette books - finds herself courted by the bashful Robin Oakapple, who harbours a dark secret: he is actually Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, rightful heir to the cursed title of Baronet of Ruddigore. This ancestral burden demands that each successor commit a daily crime - or face torment from the ghostly gallery of former baronets. As identities unravel and obligations mount, the tale spirals into a gothic romp of mistaken identities, melodramatic villains, haunted portraits, and moral conundrums.

I can still recall the dramatic effect of this music on me, especially the ghosty elements. The song that remained in my mind was The Ghosts’ High Noon:

When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls, and the bat in the moonlight flies,

And inky clouds, like funeral shrouds, sail over the midnight skies -

When the footpads quail at the night-bird's wail, and black dogs bay the moon,

Then is the spectres' holiday - then is the ghosts' high noon!

As the sob of the breeze sweeps over the trees, and the mists lie low on the fen,

From grey tombstones are gathered the bones that once were women

and men,

And away they go, with a mop and a mow, to the revel that ends too

soon,

For cockcrow limits our holiday - the dead of the night's high

noon!

And then each ghost with his ladye-toast to their churchyard beds

take flight,

With a kiss, perhaps, on her lantern chaps, and a grisly grim "good

night";

Till the welcome knell of the midnight bell rings forth its

jolliest tune,

And ushers our next high holiday - the dead of the night's high

noon!

Ghosts rise at midnight for eerie revels, dancing from tomb to fen, then vanish at cockcrow - awaiting the next spectral fête beneath moonlit skies.

Listen to Thomas Lawlow and the New Sadlers Wells Opera Chorus and Orchestra on YouTube, here. The conductor is Simon Phipps.