Rumpole of the Opera

How an English television show hooked me on opera.

The opening title-card of Rumpole of the Bailey, with Leo McKern (l.) and the Statue of Justice.
© 1977 Thames Television.

For as long as I can remember, the British television series Rumpole of the Bailey (and the accompanying novels and short stories by John Mortimer) were a fixture in my life.

I first saw Rumpole in 1983 on Mystery! a still-running PBS series that airs British television mysteries. (The show was produced in the U.K. by Thames Television.) For those of you who are unfamiliar with the character, Horace Rumpole is a portly, curmudgeonly British criminal barrister who "never pleads guilty", lives on his wits, cheap red wine and smelly small cigars, and refers to his wife Hilda as "She Who Must Be Obeyed."

Here's the show's theme, featuring a memorable bassoon part. It was written by composer Joseph Horovitz:

Rumpole of The Bailey Theme Song

Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, Barrister-at-Law.
Probably from Rumpole's Return.

While Rumpole himself is not a tremendous lover of music, (he has an affinity for vaudeville shows and songs like "Roll Out the Barrel" and "My Little Sister") the opera plays an important part in the series. Some episodes incorporate excerpts from Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (Rumpole and the Bright Seraphim) and Schubert's chamber music (Rumpole and the Eternal Triangle.) But the most frequently heard composer on Rumpole is Richard Wagner.

Claude Erskine Brown Q.C. (that's "Queen's Counsel") is the resident Wagnerian of No. 3 Equity Court. He's a hopeless prosecutor with an almost masochistic affinity for music drama, referred to in one episode as the man "who can sit through Tannhäuser without laughing." He's married to the busy Phillida Erskine-Brown Q.C., (the "Portia" of Chambers--she later becomes a judge), and they have two children: Tristan and the younger Isolde.

Feeling ignored by his busy wife, Claude makes repeated efforts to take another barrister to Covent Garden. This is "Mizz" Liz Probert, a fierce left-wing radical feminist who does her best to quash Claude's romantic ambitions. In one episode, he tells his wife that his guest for the opera was an elderly barrister, Thomas C. "Uncle Tom" Rowley. Uncle Tom claimed he enjoyed the "happy bits" of Tristan, particularly "If You Were the Only Boy in the World."

Rumpole (Leo McKern) sleeps through a recital as Guthrie Featherstone (Peter Bowles, r.) looks on.
Frame-grab from Rumpole and the Case of Identity © 1980 Thames Television.

It was thanks to Claude's misadventures that I first heard much of the Wagner catalogue, long before I owned any recordings or saw the operas. The show includes excerpts from the Prelude to Act III of Meistersinger. The Wach Auf chorus shows up, faintly, in another episode, along with the Ride of the Valkyries and the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde

We'll end with Rumpole and the Official Secret has a scene filmed in the Royal Box at Covent Garden. Rumpole goes to interrogate a suspect during Act I of Tosca. The villain (who is earlier said the be the "only chap in the office who could actually whistle Wagner") doesn't stick around for the third act. He hurls himself to his death in the London Underground against the crashing Scarpia chords. 

Gustav Mahler...on The Simpsons?

Homer J. Simpson, appearing soon in the Metropolitan Opera's new La Traviata.
From the 2010 episode To Surveil With Love. © 2010 Gracie Films/20th Century Fox.

So this morning I'm on Hulu, catching up on this week's new Simpsons episode, The Scorpion's Tale, where Lisa accidentally creates a new "happy pill" from the extract of a desert flower. About 12 minutes into the episode, there's a montage with all of Springfields' septue- and octogenarians romping about happily. The soundtrack: Mahler's First Symphony, first movement. Conductor and orchestra unknown.

Classical music has long played an important role in the adventures of America's favorite family. The very first episode, "Bart the Genius", featured Marge taking her family to the opera. They saw Carmen. Unaccountably, the opera was advertised asbeing sung in Russian, although the singing was in French. After Bart gave his rendition of "Toreador-o, don't spit on the floor", they left the opera house and went for hamburgers.

In Season 2 (Marge vs. Itchy and Scratchy), Bart's mother lauches a successful crusade against cartoon violence. This results in the children of Springfield going out and playing in the sunshine to the bucolic strains of Beethoven's "Pastorale" Symphony, again the first movement.

Season 15's Margical History Tour featured an entire sketch based on the play and movie Amadeus. Bart was Mozart. Lisa, a jealous, angry Salieri who decides to sabotage the first performance of Bart's opera, The Musical Fruit. The episode also featured school bully Nelson Muntz as a hopeful young composer named Beethoven:

Nelson Muntz as Beethoven in a scene from Margical History Tour. © 2004 Gracie Films/FOX.

Seasons 16's The Seven-Beer Snitch featured the opening of a brand new concert hall in Springfield, designed by architect Frank Gehry. The concert hall closed quickly after the first performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (the audience left after the opening "Dah-dah-dah-DUM") and became a prison.

Bart Simpson as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in a scene from the Mozart and Salieri
segment of Margical History Tour. © 2004 Gracie Films/20th Century Fox.

Marge Gamer (Season 18) featured Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. Placìdo Domingo showed up in The Homer of Seville, (Season 19) gave Homer some career tips on singing opera, and then snapped him with a wet towel. And, the highly amusing Da Vinci Code spoof Gone Maggie Gone (Season 20) featured a choir of nuns essaying the opening bars of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.

Although the show's episodes average 20 minutes in length, (shorter than the opening movements of most Bruckner symphonies!) it is encouraging to see that the writers on America's longest-running situation comedy keep the classical music flag flying. And who knows? Some kid watching Our Favorite Family might get into classical music and some day start a blog and call it...oh, I don't know...Ultraconductor?
...Megaconductor?
...Hyperconductor?!

Here's some music:

The Los Angeles Philharmonic plays Mahler's Symphony No. 1 "Titan". Gustavo Dudamel conducting. © 2010 Universal Music Group