Composers:Sir Charles Villiers Stanford
Compositions: The Travelling Companion
Performers: Soloists, New Sussex Opera/Toby Purser
Catalogue Number: SOMM SOMM2742 (2CD)

Apparently a hex has lain, from the outset, on Stanford’s last opera. Completed in 1916 to a libretto by Sir Henry Newbolt, The Travelling Companion remained unstaged at the composer’s 1924 demise. Only now has it been recorded (while his dozen other operas – even Shamus O’Brien, once remarkably popular from Dublin to Wroclaw – still await complete recordings).