‘That’s a - ’he says ergin, riding right up to the word and jumping off jest in time. ‘That’s a-’ says Big Henry, and sidesteps. ‘Paul Bunyan is the man I’m speaking of,’ says the tother, buttoning up his mouth in a right stubborn way. ‘Look a-here, stranger, didn’t you hear me say that was Tony Beaver you was talking erbout?’ says Big Henry, git ting mighty restless. It sure is hot work fer the fellers! Every slide they make they leave a trail of smoke behind ’em, and they have to keep stomping they feet all the time to stomp the flames out.’ It’s really eight he uses, and in a pinch I’ve seen as many as ten er twelve hands skating over it, with them slabs of bacon on they feets. ’I hate to git things wrong,’ says the stranger, looking like he was doing his best to hit the truth ‘and it’s a fact I made a slip when I said Paul Bunyan needs six men to grease that there griddle. ‘It’s right here in Tony Beaver’s camp you belong - only first you got to git them names straight.’ In Paul’s camp now,’ he says, setting down on a stump and biting him off a chaw of terbacker, ‘ they got a griddle for frying the batter cakes the fellers eats so big that the onliest way they kin grease the thing is to have six men skate over it with a slab of fat meat on each foot.’
‘I never heard tell of no Tony Beaver,’ says the stranger, ‘but Paul Bunyan I know well, being one of his hands. It wa’n’t no Paul Somebody growed that tree it was Tony Beaver hisself, and well I recollect the time.’ ‘That song’s all right, but you got the names twisted. ‘Hey, stranger!’ Big Henry, one of Tony’s stoutest hands, yells at him. The time eventually comes for the camp to break up and for the men to go their separate ways.‘Paul Bunyan growed a mighty tree, Its branches scratched the sky And when he felled the doggoned thing It ripped a hole on high.’ By the time Bunyan returns, Helson has indeed staged a takeover, and it is necessary for Bunyan to beat him in a fight in order to regain control.
In this Bunyan assists them, and goes to set this scheme in motion, He leaves the other loggers under the leadership of Helson, in spite of the warnings of Inkslinger, who distrusts him. A number of the men want to leave their logging camp and take up farming. When the cooks are sacked their duties are taken over by Slim and Tiny, Bunyan's daughter, who gradually form a relationship.
The action takes place in rural America, where Paul Bunyan runs a logging camp, where his senior employees are Helson and Inkslinger.
#Johnnie inkslinger professional#
Britten's first stage work still awaits a professional production in Scotland. Sadly the closure of the Theatre for major renovation meant that only the Concert Hall was available, deemed suitable for The Magic Flute, but not for unfamiliar works such as Paul Bunyan or King Priam. Britten was persuaded to dust it down after the completion of Death in Venice, and some revisions were carried out before a radio broadcast which was followed by its first Aldeburgh performances.Įnglish Touring Opera originally planned to bring a staging to the 2014 Perth Festival. Before carrying out any proposed revisions, the composer sailed back to the UK in 1942, and his score for Paul Bunyan lay in a drawer at Aldeburgh for the next thirty years. While Britten's music seems to have been well received, the Auden libretto, witty and satirical, met with less success. As work progressed, it developed into a Broadway-style musical, which eventually received a handful of performances. It was not long before the suggestion came that he should collaborate with Auden on a stage work for children. When Britten was living in the USA during the early years of the war, he and Peter Pears became part of a community of expatriate Britons that included the poet W H Auden.
įirst Performance (revision): Manchester (Studio Broadcast), 1 February 1976.įirst Stage Performance in UK: Snape (Maltings), 4 June 1976.įirst Performance in Scotland: Edinburgh (University), February 1990. Composer Benjamin Britten Librettist W H Audenīenjamin Britten (Born Lowestoft, 22 November 1913 died Aldeburgh, 4 December 1976).įirst Performance: New York (Brander Matthews Hall, Columbia University).
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