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In his only novel set in his own time, Scott’s St. Ronan’s Well depicts the trials and tribulations of a fictional seaside town. The plot centers on Valentine Bulmer and his half-brother Francis Tyrrel and their fight over Miss Clara Mowbray, the sister of the village laird.
Anonymous
Posted October 31, 2007
Take a look at MORE SCOTT OPERAS, Chapter XVI, 'St. Ronan's Well.' That is English Professor Jerome Mitchell's 1996 supplement to his 1977 THE WALTER SCOTT OPERAS. Mitchell finds nine dramas based on Sir Walter Scott's 1823 novel ST. RONAN'S WELL. These include four operas. In depth Jerome Mitchell analyzes the lost 1874 work, LA CONTESSA DI S. RONANO by Cesare Bordiga, music by Ottavio Frangini. I mention Mitchell because the common note among the titles he lists is the female love interest in Scott's novel, the young Scottish noblewoman Clara Mowbray. *** Italian operas have their own peculiar slant on Sir Walter Scott. They simplify. They focus on love and they cannot say no to tragedy. The parallels in both novels and operas are striking regarding the heroines on the one hand Lucy Ashton of THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, who reappears in Donazetti's LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, and on the other hand Sir Walter's Clara Mowbray who pops up in Frangini's opera as well. There is vastly more to Scott's two tales than in either opera. And the operas do not necessarily focus on the aspects of the tales that remain the longest with admiring readers of the Wizard of the North. *** Two half-brothers, one by a bigamous second marriage, contend for the love of Clara Mowbray. There are legal obstacles and the conscience of the young men's father that make a happy ending almost impossible. I will not spoil your enjoyment of an immensely complicated yarn with more about the plot. *** But there are other, subordinate characters I want you to meet: --Meg Dods, spinster proprietress of the Cleikum Inn in the decaying village of St. Ronan. The inn had 'a huge sign, representing on the one side St. Ronan catching hold of the devil's game leg with his episcopal crook ... and on the other the Mowbray arms.' The Mowbrays were the baronial family for which Meg's parents had once worked and who had sold their home and surrounding lands which Meg now controlled. Six or seven years before story's beginning 'in the early 1800s', Meg had entertained for a season two teenage 'cousins,' Valentine Bulmer and Francis 'Frank' Tyrrel. They were English but were then studying in Edinburgh. The return of Tyrrel to southern Scotland sets the novel in motion. Meg is tough, worldly, demanding, quick-tempered but with a heart of gold and a soft spot for young Tyrrel. *** --Captain Hector MacTurk is one of the guests at the recently built hotel that draws much custom away from the mile and a half distant Cleikum inn. The Captain's specialty is to encourage others to fight duels -- not with him -- and then to see that they become friends afterward. Duels play a large role in this novel. *** --Peregrine Touchwood is called 'the nabob' by denizens low and high. Much traveled, he had at one time loaned money to Frank Tyrrel when both were traveling in Ottoman Turkey. Keep your eye on the nabob. He is a born meddler, with the best of intentions. And if the novel takes an avoidably tragic turn, he is not without blame. *** --Reverend Josiah Cargill is the resident Presbyterian pastor of St Ronan's Auld Town. His church itself was auld, elegant in form,'having been built in Catholic times, when we cannot deny to the forms of ecclesiastical architecture that grace which, as good Protestants, we refuse to their doctrine.' He is a scholar, easily absorbed by his studies of the Holy Land. But he had once, against his better judgment, witnessed a clandestine wedding. When he hears that the brother of the then bride may soon announce a new, bigamous marriage by his sister, he confronts the new suitor during a lavish evening's entertainment. *** There are quite a few other characters, none of historical importance, but all serving to advance or comment on the evolving tragedy. -OOO-
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Overview
In his only novel set in his own time, Scott’s St. Ronan’s Well depicts the trials and tribulations of a fictional seaside town. The plot centers on Valentine Bulmer and his half-brother Francis Tyrrel and their fight over Miss Clara Mowbray, the sister of the village laird.