- Opera in 1 act
- Composer: Harold Noble
- Libretto: David Harris
- First performed: BBC Radio 3, 13th August 1967, conducted by Leon Lovett
Characters
| AMATA | Soprano | Elizabeth Robson |
| GRAHAME, the Master of Menteith | Tenor | Lloyd Strauss-Smith |
| Rival Clansman Chief | Baritone | Bryan Drake |
| The Mother Superior | Contralto | Monica Sinclair |
| Boatsman | Tenor | Leslie Fyson |
| A Nun | Soprano | Barbara Platt |
SETTING: Scotland, “many years ago, when the grass of Scotland’s hills ran red from the blood of the fighting clansmen”.
A ‘radio opera’ first broadcast on the BBC in 1967, The Lake of Menteith is well worth hearing: a 50-minute Scottish tragedy involving clan warfare and forbidden love for a nun. The melancholy opera has almost the feel of a ghost story.
The Lake of Menteith is Scotland’s only lake (not a loch); a priory stands on Inchmahome, the largest of the lake’s three islands, and nearby stands Nun’s Hill, where, according to legend, an erring nun was buried upright, with a stone placed over her grave.
A nun, who having fallen in love with a son of one of the first Earls of Menteith, resolved to throw aside the veil, break her vow, and leave the dungeons of Cambuskenneth for the sweets of Talla. A meeting had been arranged on this particular spot, and a boat provided on the eastern shore to take the nun to Inchmahome. But alas for love! a neighbouring clan invaded the Earl’s domain, and leading his father’s clansmen against the foe, the brave youth fell on the dark braes of Mondhuie. In his last moments, the youth unconsciously divulged to his confessor his meeting with the nun. Enraged at the insult offered to his church, the cruel monk resolved to be revenged. Disguised as the young nobleman, he watched the arrival of the runaway nun. Well, ’twas a clear moonlight night when the monk threw aside the gown and cowl for a warrior’s dress, and took his place on the appointed spot. By-and-by a small black speck is seen on the Inchie shore; ’twas the nun in her lover’s boat. She, footsore and weary, had trod the plain from Stirling to the lake, and was now pushing her scallop over the tiny waves. Shortly the boat touched the sand, and the fair lady sprang into her supposed lover’s arms; but, alas! it was only to be hurled back to perish in the blue waters. Next day the monks on the island had the body taken from the lake, and interred in an upright posture on the knoll — hence the “Nun’s Hill”. A large stone near the top of the hill marks the supposed spot. At a certain hour in the evening, tradition says, a dark figure may yet be seen treading the “Nuns’ Hill”.
P. Dun, Summer at the Lake of Monteith, Glasgow: J. Hedderwick, 1866, pp. 11–12.
Harold Noble (1903–98), a self-taught musician and son of a Blackpool butcher, was a BBC staffer, professor of singing at the London College of Music, and taught orchestration in London conservatories. Despite the late date, those wary of twentieth century opera should not be deterred. As the Independent obituary states1, Noble “empathised with [Sir Thomas] Beecham’s disdain for the 12-tone school of composition”, and his approach is lyrical. The music is in a late-Romantic idiom, and Amata’s aria and the chorus of the clan marauders are distinct and attractive. More ‘advanced’ techniques are reserved for scenes of tension, like the nun awaiting her lover. The penultimate scene (ending in a scream) is quite intense.
The opera is available to listen here: Harold Noble – The Lake of Menteith (BBC Network Three, 1967) (mediafire.com). Monica Sinclair, who sings the Mother Superior, was a stalwart of Malcolm Sargent’s Gilbert and Sullivan recordings – a memorable Lady Jane!
Photo: Aerial view of Inchmahome Priory, Inchmahome Island, Lake of Menteith, near Stirling, Scotland. Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia, 2016.
- Tim Bullamore, “Obituary: Harold Noble”, The Independent, 6 November 1998. ↩︎
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