Critical Reception
Reviewing the premiere, The Times concluded, "If Monsieur Beaucaire avoids being an opera it enlists some of the best talents of the Opera. Miss Maggie Teyte, surrounded by half a dozen lovers on the stage, may be sure of as many hundreds in the auditorium, and Mr. Marion Green, every inch the Noble Personage, has a voice to match. Miss Alice Moffat and Mr. John Clarke together make the subsidiary lovers attractive, and Mr. Robert Parker is the very image of courtly vice. It Is rare to get so much good singing where good acting must have been the first requirement in making up the cast. There is a chorus which adds to its beautiful dresses the power of producing quite a beautiful sound, and an orchestra which, under Mr. Kennedy Russell, lets us enjoy the best that Mr. Messager can give." In The Observer, Ernest Newman, having made some mild criticisms of the score and some harsher ones of the libretto, concluded that the piece was "a delightful entertainment, that one can picture oneself going to see a number of times." In The Manchester Guardian, Samuel Langford praised the work, with reservations about the clichéd libretto, but regretted that there was not more music.
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