Continuo Connect — Recording // John Frederick Lampe: The Dragon of Wantley

A rapacious dragon has been terrorising a Yorkshire village. Gubbins and his daughter Margery, together with Mauxalinda, decide to seek the help of Moore of Moore Hall. Moore needs persuading away from his beer but succumbs to Margery’s pleading, and her promises of love. Unfortunately, he had already promised to marry Mauxalinda, and so the love triangle has to be resolved in dramatic fashion before Moore heads out and defeats the dragon, restoring harmony and prosperity to the village.

Conductor John Andrews’s recording of John Frederick Lampe’s ballad opera The Dragon of Wantley - with the Brook Street Band and a cast of outstanding soloists - for Resonus Classics won the BBC Music Magazine Opera Award 2023. Lampe combines a first-rate score with a quintessentially English plot, told in a tone of earthy satire by librettist Henry Carey who pokes fun at opera’s conventions with skill and affection, but also a razor wit.

The Guardian:

“It’s full of lively dances and arias and a few noisy, lip-smacking kisses…it fills a gap for students of the 18th-century English stage, but the commitment of these performers creates its own, wider pleasure.”

Find out more about The Dragon of Wantley and buy a copy on the Brook Street Band's website shop.