John F. Leonard and his high school operettas
Date
1993
Authors
Esau, Mary Lois
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Abstract
The recorded productions of indigenous, Canadian, musical-dramatic works prior to 1950 are few in number. Furthermore, the majority of these pieces were mounted in the Eastern provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. Occasionally a production was written to be performed by children but for the most part, an adult cast was required. The opportunity to contribute to the existing canon of Canada's music theatre history presented itself when the writer learned of John F. Leonard, a British Columbia composer of high school operettas, mentioned by Dale McIntosh in his book History of Music in British Columbia: 1850-1950.
Leonard died in 1967, but his manuscripts still exist and are being kept by the Langley Centennial Museum, Langley, British Columbia. Preliminary investigation revealed that other primary source material including the following was also being held in the John Leonard Collection: scrapbooks of newspaper reviews, cast pictures, personal correspondence, memoirs, a pamphlet entitled The Story of John F. Leonard, and a collection of songs published as Golden Days: Selections from the Operettas of John F. Leonard. Freedom to access this resource material and the exciting possibility that Leonard's operettas might still be worthy of performance today, spurred the writer on to further research.
In order to properly evaluate the operettas Leonard wrote it seemed important to research the music training Leonard received and to examine factors that influenced his style of writing. Therefore Chapter One includes biographical material regarding Leonard's formative years, first in England and then in Salmon Arm, British Columbia. Leonard's sister Marjorie Fulmer recorded valuable background information from this part of Leonard's life in The Story of John F. Leonard and in her memoirs kept in the British Columbia Archives and Record Service, Victoria. Another major resource vital to the reconstruction of Leonard's early years as a musician was the Salmon Arm Observer.
Each of Leonard's five operettas, "The Maids of Hamlin" (1943) , "Bow Bells" (1944) , "The Girl of the Bandolier" (1946), The Rajah of Singh" (1947), and "Fort Langley" (1956), was mounted at least twice. The first four were produced by the small, rural, Langley High School and then remounted by John Oliver High School, a school situated in a working class district of Vancouver and also the city's largest high school. The fifth operetta, written for the musical forces of John Oliver High School was restaged two years later by Gladstone High School , another Vancouver high school, as a Centennial pageant renamed "T'Lagunna." According to newspaper reviews Leonard's operettas were highly praised by student casts, school educators, and local audiences. To qualify the success of Leonard's operettas, Chapter Two deals with the setting in which his works were written and produced. Data required for this chapter necessitated the reading of school newspapers and yearbooks, Langley and Vancouver newspapers, as well as the interviewing of people involved with his productions.
Leonard wrote the scores and, with the exception of "Fort Langley," the libretti for his operettas. Therefore Chapter Three includes not only an analysis of selected songs but also a discussion of one of his libretti -- "Bow Bells."
As other classics in the operetta repertoire have been given new books or updated dialogue to suit the more demanding tastes of today's audience so too Leonard's operettas must be edited to meet present-day standards. The second edition of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada recognizes John Leonard's contribution.