Thomas Allen - O Waly, Waly

Sir Thomas Allen sings two verses from the English folk song, 'O Waly, Waly' - otherwise known as 'The Water is Wide'.

If anyone is wondering why there are seagulls crying in the background or water lapping against a shore, you're not imagining things. Allen sang this song (without accompaniment) on a Northumbrian sea shore during the closing scene of a documentary made about him around 1986. I was struck by how beautiful and heartfelt this sounded and thought I would post it up. As far as I know, he has never recorded this song on CD...which I think he should since it suits his voice wonderfully.

The lyrics sung here are as follows:

The water is wide, I cannot get o'er,
And neither have I wings to fly.
Give me a boat, that will carry two,
And both shall row, my love and I.

O love is handsome and love is fine
And love's a jewel while it is new
But when it is old; it groweth cold
And fades away like morning dew.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• thomas
• allen
• waly
• the
• water
• is
• wide
• english
• folk
• song

[a96agli]

What is the documentary about? How did you see it?

[schweitzer006325]

The documentary is called 'In Touch with Life' made by Tyne Tees television in 1986/7. It's one of the rare documentaries about him (perhaps the only one?) and basically followed Allen during some of his engagements in London as well as his Onegin in San Francisco in 1986.

I might put it up but I have to first ask my friend who sent it to me!

[antmusique]

The seagulls really enhance the song ;)

Anyway, this is beautiful - thank you for posting. He sounds very tenor-ish, especially in the first stanza.

[schweitzer006325]

He does sound tenor-ish, I agree.

Here's a quote I found about his opinion of his vocal range: 'At different times in my career I've dodged between being a bass baritone, a baritone, and at other times a tenor. I am fortunate in that I have this tendency (I was going to say delight), to enjoy singing in the higher regions of the voice... but I think it would be awful having a life as a tenor who only ever gets out there to sing famous arias.'

[drtmuir]

@schweitzer006325 I vaguely remember from his book that he mentioned how he likes all these baritone characters, even secondary characters, because he felt that they really held the story and other characters together. He mentioned in particular Marcello, whom, he felt in spite of his bad temper, is the one who really takes care of everyone.

[drtmuir]

@antmusique They do make more money, though. :(

[drtmuir]

PS: Sitting by the sea, singing a folk song at the top of your world-famous operatic voice, because that's just what famous opera singers do all the time. ;) Gotta love arts documentaries. :P

[drtmuir]

When I was studying, the big difference between tenor and baritones was that the baritones were all sane, and rather fun to be around. :P I think something does go wrong with people who sing "the tune" all the time. It causes you to look at the world in the wrong way. ;)

Anyway, Domingo is gearing up to sing Boccanegra at the Met very soon . . In the other direction, there is an, um, interesting recording floating around of Tom Hampson singing "Winterstürme." ;)

[antmusique]

I laughed out loud (in a good way) at the suggestion that being a tenor would be awful. That's the spirit, Sir Thomas!