May 2000

Brooklyn Academy of Music 2000 Spring Season BAMcinematek Brooklyn Philharmonic 651 ARTS

Saint Clair Cemin, L'lntuition de L'lnstant, 1995

BAM 2000 Spring Season is sponsored by

PHiliP MORR I S ~lAGfBlll COMPANIES INC. Contents • May 2000 Lust in the Woods 10 The Royal Shakespeare Company presents Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at BAM in a saucy production by Michael Boyd. By Ian Shuttleworth

Schiller's Shocker 22 Friedrich Schiller's riveting Don Carlos , to be performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at BAM, still has the power to ruffle feathers. By Steven R. Cerf

Program 17

Upcoming Events 43 BAMd i rectory 52

Photo by Jonathan Doc kar-Drysdale I3A 1\/1 CO\/Ar Arti,t

Saint Clair Cemin Saint Clair Cemin was born in Cruz Alta , Brazil , in 1951. He studied at the Ecole Nationale L'lntuition de L'lnstant Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, France. He lives in New York City. 1995 Painted wood Cemin's sculpture has been exhibited worldwide, including at the Hirshhorn Museum and 97" x 91 ' x 36' Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Museo de Arte Contemporary, Monterey, Mexico; California Center for the Arts Museum , Escondido, CA; Centro Cultural For BAMart information Light, Rio de Janiero, Brazil; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Stadische Kunsthalle, DUsseldorf, Germany; The Fredrik Roos contact Deborah Bowie at Museum, Malmo, Sweden; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Whitney Museum 718.636.4111 ext. 380 of American Art Biennial, New York, NY; Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas, Grand Canary Island; Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany; 22nd Biennial International, Funda,ao de Sao Paolo; Galleria Communale d'Arte Moderna, Bologna , Italy; Fogg Art Museum , Cambridge, MA; and the Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland. His work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Paris; Rooscum, Stockholm; the Broad Foundation , Los Angeles. He has executed many private and public commissions including the Reston Town Center, Reston, VA, and the Fountain House, New York City. In 1995 he received the Biennial Award from the Ueno Royal Museum and the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Japan. A major monograph will be published on his work, and a book of his writings will be published in 2000. In addition, the first volume of his catalogue raisonne is now being prepared. 6 Director Michael Boyd creates a In the Indo-European ur-Ianguage from which many modern tongues are descended, there was labyrinth of lust in A Midsummer originally no verb "to be"; it evolved from an earlier Night's Dream, to be presented by verb meaning "to be lost in the woods." When I mention this to Michael Boyd, he is fascinated. He the Royal Shakespeare Company explains that his approach to directing the acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Company produc­ at BAM. tion of A Midsummer Night's Dream (which is one By Ian Shuttleworth of three plays on show during the RSC's residency at the BAM in May) began from the premise that "a good artist doesn't do things for no reason. Shakespeare didn't send these people into the woods for no reason. So something should happen in the woods. Then there's an After, and a Before; and what's the difference between them? The After felt a bit more chaotic, warm, and human, and the Before felt quite beautiful but very formal and much, much colder. "

For Boyd, it was important to create a sensation of entering the woods, somehow connected to "an act of imagination." "I wanted it to be done Oberon and Titania Photo by Donald Cooper before our very eyes," says Boyd, "so when Bot- tom is fooling around on his own after the other became a succes de scandale, after one school mechanicals have gone [at the end of their first teacher was so shocked that he marched his scene], playing at being different kinds of heroes, charges out of the theater. Boyd , who was out of the last one is a Robin Hood/Ken Branagh type the country at the time, was less than happy with with an imaginary bow and arrow." Suddenly the the RSC's apologetic response to the brouhaha. arrow actually appears, quivering, in the back "There was one press release that said 'suitable for wall of the set, and dozens of flowers bloom up older children,' and I was fuming, because from from a previously bare stage. "It's like the transfor­ ten years up, no problem, as far as I'm concerned. mative power of the imagination, which is one It's a lovely show for those kids, which is exactly key into the woods. One of the main turning the age of my kids ... and what they talk about in points going into the woods is the creative imagi­ the playground is worse than anything you'll see or nation of the mechanicals; the play is a huge hear on that stage! I don't really think it's worthy of hymn of praise to the mechanicals- they are the comment, except that of course the Dream is a engineers of the imagination. It's about the power play about coupling. But yes, it was lucky that the of dreaming-and a lot of us also have the power play's been otherwise well received." to dream when we're awake, and this is what the mechanicals have. "Well received" is putting it mildly. The consen­ sus among the London critical fraternity is that, "It was also important to me that we actually see even amongst those who saw Peter Brook's now two of the most uptight of the courtiers transformed legendary 1970 production of the play, Boyd 's into fairies literally in front of our eyes," continues comes in as a more than respectable second. Boyd . These are Sirine Saba's Peaseblossom and Boyd- who admits that he loathes "the implica­ Aidan McArdle's almost malevolent Puck, and their tion [you sometimes get with the RSC] that the metamorphosis occurs as they gradually rip each audience should be so lucky to be in such a tem- other's court clothes off and are about to go to it Peaseblossom and Puck Photo by Donald Copper with a vengeance when they are interruptus'd by the arrival of Oberon and Titania. This is not a gra­ tuitous erotic import. "If you read the play," says Boyd , "there's a hell of a lot of naughties in there!"

It's not simply a matter of sensual goings-on; the company also takes a firm grasp of every opportu­ nity for Shakespearean bawdiness. Boyd is similarly matter-of-fact about such gags: "I think the Renaissance audience would have gotten those jokes; we don't get half of them. When we discovered some of them in rehearsal , we thought, 'Well, look, we can't avoid this.' I had designed the wall costume for Snout [which gives easy access to the tinker's nether regions] already, and I was alert to the reference in 'I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all,' but the moment we started rehearsing it, 'My cherry lips have often kissed thy stones' became such a clear reference to testicles that we just cou ldn't avoid it- I mean, 'with lime and hair knit up in thee' ... it was so obvious! Even the word 'chink' is English Renais­ sance slang for vagina. It's just there!"

This led to a brief episode during the production's original run at Stratford-upon-Avon when it

12 pie of hallowed tradition, and that any artists dar­ comforts it. Essentially this is Egeus's dream, trying ing to put their mark on the great Bard's work to reconcile himself to what his daughter is doing. would do so greatly at their peril"--{;onfesses So there is the sense that it's everybody's dream­ nevertheless that "Brook is the one RSC figure the only people that actually are there are the that I don't mind hanging around in the ether, lovers and the mechanicals." partly because he's done very well at keeping himself alive and reinventing himself, and ever Musing upon the atmosphere of directness and since he did his Dream, anyone with any sense openness he has created between the characters has been terrified of doing it. I was fortunate on the stage and the audience, Boyd surprisingly enough not to see it; I've seen about five minutes declares that he misses directing pantomime. of it on a late-night arts program, which was "Having grown up as a theater artist in Scotland , deeply unflattering, so that was great for me." where the main theater tradition-the only really respectable , strong theater tradition that goes Boyd's production is at once pared-down in terms back any distance-is variety, I have a great deal of design and exuberant in its presentation. "I love of fondness for that. A coy or manipulative rela­ conscious theatricality, properly used- I'm a sort of tionship can be a bit sickening, but when it's blowsy, lapsed Brechtian without the Puritanism. good, there is an honesty and an intimacy about The whole of the court becomes the population of it that I do think Shakespeare understood, and the forest, and their costumes are all muted , mor­ generally the Renaissance stage understood it phed versions of the cou rt costumes. Theseus much better than we do." becomes Oberon , Hippolyta becomes Titania, but it goes further: even Egeus has an alter ego in the Ian Shuttleworth is a drama critic for the woods. He is a fairly scary presence, but there's Financial Times. one particular moment in the amity dance, where Oberon and Titania are reconciling themselves in a The RSC performs A Midsummer Night's Dream festival way, when the Egeus-fairy figure picks up at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House on the sleeping body of Hermia and strokes it and May 21, 22, and 24-27.

Pease blossom and Puck Photo by Donald Cooper

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Brooklyn Academy of Music Bruce C. Ratner Chairman of the Board

Karen Brooks Hopkins Joseph V. Melillo President Executive Producer

presents Theodora

Running time: by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) approximately three hours, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House including one May 6, 2000, at 7:30pm intermission May 7, 2000, at 3pm

Les Arts Florissants Musical Director William Christie Chorus Master Franc;ois Bazola First Violin Hiro Kurosaki linguistic Consultant Alan Woodhouse Les Arts Florissants Orchestra and Chorus

The Cast Theodora Sophie Daneman Didymus Daniel Taylor Irene Juliette Galstian Septimius Richard Croft Valens Nathan Berg

Leadership support is provided by The Florence Gould Foundation; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; The Andrew W Mel/on Foundation; The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc.; and The Norman & Rosita Winston Foundation, Inc. Corporate sponsorship is provided by Credit Lyonnais, with major support by E. Nakamichi Foundation; Tony & Lawrie Dean; and The American Friends of Les Arts Florissants.

Les Arts Florissants is funded by the French Ministry of Culture, the Town of Caen, and the Conseil regional de Basse-Normandie, and is sponsored by MORGAN STANLEY DEAN WITTER.

Special thanks to Harmonia Mundi USA. Photos by Michel Szabo.

17 Orchestra Violin I Contrabass Hiro Kurosaki Jonathan Cable Jean-Paul Burgos Michael Greenberg Catherine Girard Simon Heyerick Flute Mihoko Kimura Serge Sa'ftta Michele Sauve Charles Zebley Peter Van Boxelaere Oboe Ruth Weber Michel Henry Pier Luigi Fabretti Viol in II Vincent Van Ballegooyen Bernadette Charbonnier Machico Ueno Roberto Crisafulli Sophie Demoures Bassoon Myriam Gevers Emmanuel Vigneron Valerie Mascia Rhoda-Mary Patrick Martha Moore Horn George Willms Denis Maton Viola Gilles Rambach Galina Zinchenko Trumpet Michel Renard Joel Lahens Jean-Luc Thonnerieux Rene Maze Anne Weber Percussion Viol incello Marie-Ange Petit David Simpson Emmanuel Balssa Theorbo Ulrike Brutt Elizabeth Kenny Paul Carlioz Harpsichord Damien Launay Beatrice Martin Alix Verzier

Chorus Soprano Tenor Sophie Decaudaveine Michael Loughlin-Smith Nicole Dubrovitch Nicolas Maire Anne Froidevaux-Mopin Jean-Yves Ravoux Cassandra Harvey Bruno Renhold Anne Pichard Maurizio Rossano Isabelle Sauvageot Roselyne Tessier-Lemoine Bass Jeannette Wilson-Best Fabrice Chomienne Sheena Wolstencroft Laurent Collobert Jean-Fran<;ois Gay Alto David Le Monnier Jean-Paul Bonnevalle Christophe Olive Dominique Favat Laurent Slaars Armand Gavriilides Frits Vanhulle Pierre Kuzor Anne Lelong 18 Theodora by Winton Dean

Theodora is unique in several respects. It is Handel's only dramatic oratorio on a Christian subject (Messiah and the early La Resurrezione belong to different genres); it is based not on the Bible but on a later historical event: the persecution of the Christians under the Emperor Diocletian early in the fourth century, when the young virgin Theodora (also known as Dorothea) was martyred; and it marks a radical change in Handel 's approach. Whereas earlier oratorios were overwhelmingly concerned with outer events, battles, pageants, tribal warfare , and the propitiation of an angry Jehovah, the central conflict of Theodora is a matter of conscience. The score, while never departing from the dramatic form (which indeed is intensified), looks inward to the deepest springs of human character. It shares with its single successor, Jephtha, a profound underlying theme: the necessity of man's submission to destiny. It is very revealing that the music in which Theodora bids farewell to the "fond flattering world" reap­ pears in the mighty central chorus of Jephtha associated with the words "Whatever is, is right." We can surely detect in these two late oratorios the preoccupations of a man whose health and sight were beginning to fail and who must have foreseen the approach of declining powers and death. Theodora was Handel's favorite among his oratorios. It was also the greatest failure of his career.

The story is straightforward, without subplot or secondary characters. Valens, the prefect of Antioch, gives orders for a festival and sacrifice to the heathen gods in honor of the Emperor's birthday: all who refuse to take part will suffer the full rigor of the law. Didymus, a junior Roman officer, requests free­ dom of conscience for loyal citizens who may yet find the Roman gods alien, but Valens is implacable. Didymus appeals to Septimius, a colleague senior in rank, who replies that Romans may feel pity but must obey the law. The Christians assemble under Theodora and her friend Irene. Theodora says farewell to the "fond flattering world." A messenger brings news of the decree, and the Christians throw themselves on God's mercy. Septimius rebukes their "stubborn melancholy" and arrests the defiant Theodora; she must serve in the temple of Venus as a prostitute. She begs instead for death and, com­ mending herself to the angels, is led off. Didymus rushes in; on hearing of Theodora's sentence he vows to rescue her or die with her. The Christians call down a blessing on him.

Act II has six short scenes. (i) In the temple of Venus, Valens and the Romans make merry and look forward to the pleasures associated with the goddess; (ii) Theodora in prison wrestles with her fears; (iii) Didymus confesses to Septimius that he is a Christian convert and in love with Theodora , and obtains permission to visit her in her cell; (iv) Irene begs heaven to protect Theodora against "unex­ ampled'lust and cruelty"; (v) Didymus finds Theodora asleep. He begs her to change clothes with him and escape; after asking him to kill her she finally agrees; (vi) the Christians at night comfort themselves by recalling Christ's miracle in raising the widow of Nain 's son from the dead.

Act III finds the Christians still at prayer. Theodora enters wearing Didymus' clothes, but their joy is cut short by the news that Valens has condemned Didymus to death and is threatening Theodora with a like fate. She joyfully accepts the prospect of martyrdom. In the Roman courtroom Valens is questioning Didymus when Theodora enters and offers herself in his place. Each competes for the honor of dying for the other, to the wonder of the Roman spectators. In that case, declares Valens, " 'Tis but equity that both should suffer." After an ecstatic duet they are led to execution. The Christians pray that they may be granted equal faith .

Handel 's librettist Thomas Morell found the story in The Martyrdom of Theodora and of Oidymus by Robert Boyle , a distinguished physicist and natural philosopher, succinctly described in his epi­ taph as "Father of English Chemistry and Brother to the Earl of Cork." Morell also took one or two hints from Corneille's drama of 1645, Theodore Vierge et Martyre. Boyle's book is a mawkish his­ torical novel; his heroine must be one of th e most insufferable prigs in literature, and his coy lin­ gering over sex and the details of the execution leaves an impression of prurient self-righteousness. Morell's libretto has been almost universally condemned for its prosaic language, the insipidity of its characters, and his failure to present the martyrdom as anything other than a pious lesson for future generations. But at least he tells the story clearly and spares us Boyle's worse excesses . It was left to Handel's music to transcend any deficiency and raise the work to the universal plane.

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Handel began the score on June 28, 1749, and completed it on July 31. Dates in the autograph give some idea of the pressure of inspiration. He produced the rough score with remarkable speed, taking only six days over the superb second act, but spent a fortnight over the filling up. The first per­ formance took place at Covent Garden on March 16, 1750; in the interval Handel played a new organ concerto, almost certainly Op. 7, No.5, in G minor. The part of Didymus was created by the alto castrato Gaetano Guadagni (later Gluck's first Orfeo), Theodora by Giulia Frasi, Irene by Caterina Galli, Septimius by Thomas Lowe , and Valens by Henry Theodore Reinhold. Didymus was only the second part written for and sung by a castrato in Handel's English oratorios (after Barak in Deborah) .

The reception was frigid. It is well documented in the words of Handel himself, which throw a reveal­ ing light on his character. Morell recalled that the second night "was very thin indeed .... 1 guessed it a losing night, so did not go to Mr. Handell [sic] as usual, but seeing him smile, I ventured, when 'Will you be there next Friday night,' says he, 'and I will play it to you?' I told him I had just seen Sir T. Hankey, 'and he desired me to tell you, that if you would have it again, he would engage for all the Boxes.' 'He is a Fool; the Jews will not come to it (as to Judas) because it is a Christian story; and the Ladies will not come, because it [is] a virtuous one.' " Bumey reported that, when a little later two musicians asked Handel for free tickets for Messiah , he replied with warmth, "Oh your servant, mein Herren! you are damnable dainty! you would not go to Theodora-there was room enough to dance there, when that was perform [sic]." However, he reassured friends who condoled with him on an empty house: "Never mind; the music will sound the better." Theodora was a great favorite with his friends Mrs. Delany and her family and with Lord Shaftesbury, who attended all three of the 1750 per­ formances and wrote after the last, "I. .. will venture to pronounce it, as finished, beautiful and labour'd a composition, as ever Handel made .... The Town don't like it at all , but.. .severa I excellent Musicians think as I do." Handel revived Theodora for a single performance in 1755. A second revival was planned for 1759 but cancelled owing to his illness and death. The total of four performances was the lowest achieved by any of his operas or oratorios during his life.

The explanation undoubtedly lies in the very qualities that raise the oratorio to the sublime. Instead of a patriotic jamboree or a story with an edifying moral and a comfortable conclusion, audiences were confronted by a grim human tragedy with no jolly "Hallelujah" at the end-or anywhere else. Although the male characters are all soldiers, there are no military flourishes . The predominant mood is intimate and personal, with a plethora of slow airs. The Christian choruses , although clothed in sober colors, glow with an inner strength almost unique in the oratorios. Act II, arguably the greatest single act in any of the oratorios, with its marvelous contrasts of darkness and light, culminates in a chorus ("He saw the lovely youth") that Handel told Morell he ranked "far beyond " the Messiah "Hallelujah," and one can only agree. In the final chorus, "0 love divine, " Handel soars into the realm of the St. Matthew Passion. The affinity between the finales of these two great works is very striking. Handel's music so seldom resembles Bach's in essence that one seeks a special reason. The secret surely lies in the fact that Theodora, unlike earlier dramatic oratorios, involved his personal religion, and the search for a musical equivalent led him unconsciously toward the style of the greatest religious composer of his age, whose music he never knew.

Handel had several times depicted two contrasted national choruses (three in Belshazzar), but sel­ dom so effectively as in Theodora . He always had a soft spot for the hedonistic heathen, and his sympathies embraced Romans as well as Christians. Valens apart, there is nothing repulsive or sadistic about these easy-going children of nature. Handel even subverts the libretto in their favor. Where Morell's Romans gloat over the groans and cries of the persecuted Christians, Handel sets the chorus in a lilting dance rhythm echoing very closely-in meter, key, and scoring-the chorus in Athalia , "The gods who chosen blessing shed," in which the Baalites try to cheer their dejected queen. Four of the five Roman choruses are carefree dance movements. While the Christian choruses are rich in counterpoint but austere in scoring--even the oboes are scarcely ever independent­ those of the Romans are largely homophonic, in the temple scene entirely so; one is accompanied by trumpets and drums, two by the mellow warmth of a brace of homs. Startled out of their com­ fortable routine by the mutual self-sacrifice of Theodora and Didymus, they venture for the one and

20 Program I\lotp, only time into fugal texture and a minor key. Of the 19 movements sung exclusively by Roman characters, 14 airs, and 6 choruses, this is the only one in the minor mode, in a key (A minor) that occurs nowhere else in the score, and outside Didymus' party the only one in a slow tempo, whereas 17 of the 20 Christian movements are slow. How strange their ends' stands out in sharp dramatic relief. Handel borrowed its main theme from a vocal duet by G.C.M . Clari, the angular intervals per­ fectly adapted to the expression of the Romans' mingled astonishment and admiration. (Other movements in Theodora use material by Clari, but it is thoroughly digested. The most remarkable borrowing is in the last chorus, where by a few deft touches Handel transformed an unperformed air in Hercules into a prayer for all humanity.)

The individual characters are drawn with great clarity. Christians and Romans are presented in two aspects, the unyielding (Theodora and Valens) and the pliant (Irene and Septimius), while between them stands Didymus, at once Roman and Christian, the hero whose courage is as much moral as physical. Significantly Handel never gives him lively or energetic music, but emphasizes his spiritual quality by introducing both his Act I airs with a phrase of sustained rapture in a different mood and meter from what follows. The tenderness of his love for Theodora is beautifully illustrated in "Sweet rose and lily, " the air he sings over her as she sleeps in prison, with its delightful sugges­ tion of a smile in the violin part. (Act II is full of such happy illustrations: the laughter of Venus in the first scene, the rise of the revived youth, and his mother's bow of gratitude in the finale.) Theodora herself might easily have turned out a plaster figure. Handel makes her touchingly human. Her passion is not of the flesh-she has more admiration than love for Didymus-but the astonishing intensity of her first prison scene reflects a desperate struggle between the earthly and the divine summons. Her emotional , vulnerable nature is beautifully realized in the music; of the nine movements in her part (eleven if the two symphonies in the prison scene are counted) including three fine duets, everyone is in a minor key except her prayer to the angels when she is first arrested. The part is a rare example in dramatic music of a convincing saint; neither prim nor mawkish, Theodora completely transcends the figure drawn by Morell.

Irene is something more than a conventional confidante, thanks to the outstanding beauty of at least three of her airs, including the exquisite evocation of dawn in the first act. Valens embodies the military energy of Rome : stern , efficient, unimaginative, unsoftened by pity. His five airs are all brief. The hint of inebriation in the syncopated rhythm of "Wide spread his name" in the temple scene pictures the strong man off duty and suggests that the party is well under way. Septimius is saved from degenerating into a humdrum tenor by the noble melodies of his first and last airs.

It has been held against Theodora that the characters do not develop. But that is the point. The hub of the plot is the clash of two irreconcilable ways of life. Neither can give way to the other; from that springs the tragedy. Handel's score is beautifully balanced , both musically and dramati­ cally. He never loads the dice. Perhaps the secret of his success is that the opposing elements, the spiritual and the hedonistic, reflected the two lobes of his own personality.

The text of Theodora presents problems. During the original run, as a result of the poor reception , Handel made drastic cuts both in recitatives and airs. He omitted three airs altogether, replaced two with short recitatives, and severely shortened four others. A few of these changes are tolerable or even beneficial ; two at least are damaging. Further SUbstantial cuts were made later and one or two alien pieces inserted, probably by the younger Smith during Handel's blindness. Later still , after Handel's death, three new settings were devised by parodying Morell's words on arias from Handel's operas. As a result, the first full scores , issues by Wright and Arnold in 1787, are sadly muddled. Chrysander's (1860), despite the boasts in his preface, omitted more than 20 passages of recitative, leaving sentences that make no sense. Theodora has seldom (if ever) been performed both accurately and uncut. The only complete text is the vocal score edited by Watkins Shaw and published by Novello in 1984.

Winton Dean has published several noteworthy volumes on opera, oratorio, and the works of Handel.

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William Christie was born in Buffalo, New York, Mr. Christie has reappraised the works of in 1944. He began his musical studies with his Charpentier, and an important part of the discog­ mother and went orfto study the piano, organ, raphy of Les Arts Florissants is given over to this and harpsichord, notably with Ralph Kirkpatrick, composer. He has conducted Medee and David who encouraged him in his predispcsition for et Jonathas, as wel l as the interludes from the French music. In 1971, after graduating from Malade Imaginaire by Moliere/Charpentier. He Harvard and Yale, he settled in France. In 1979 has recorded all of Rameau 's harpsichord works he founded Les Arts Florissants and began and conducted Anacreon, Les Indes galantes, exploring French, Italian, and English music of Pygmalion , Nelee et Myrthis , Castor et Pollux, the 17th and 18th centuries. This ensemble per­ Les Grands Motets, Les Fetes d'Hebe, and formed in small structure as well as with Hippolyte et Aricie. soloists, choir, and orchestra, and allowed him to contribute to the resurgence of interest in Les Arts Florissants has been awarded numer­ vocal technique of the 17th and 18th centuries. ous prizes for its recordings, the most recent of Also interested in theater and French declama­ which are Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, tion, Mr. Christie directed a number of French Couperin's Ler;ons de Tenebres, and Mondon­ tragedie-Iyrique with Les Arts Florissants, with ville's Grands Motets. The ensemble's latest various stage directors and choreographers. recording is Handel's Alcina.

In 1982 he became the first American profes­ In 1993 Mr. Christie was awarded the presti­ sor at the Conservatoire National Superieur de gious French Legion d'Honneur and is now a Musique de Paris. In this role he has been French citizen. involved in a number of student productions, often in collaboration with other institutions. Les Arts Florissants is a vocal and instrumen­ Mr. Christie is regularly invited to conduct other tal ensemble founded by William Christie in orchestras; he made his second appearance at Paris in 1979, three centuries after the creation the Glyndebourne Festival in 1998 in a new of the work by Marc-Antoine Charpentier from production of Handel's Rodelinda with Jean­ which it takes its name. From the outset, the Marie Villegier. group has devoted itself to research into 17th- and

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18th-century music, their repertoire being com­ has also presented the company's staged pro­ posed largely of unedited works, most notably duction of Orlando, 1996, and concerts in those of Bibliotheque Nationale de France in 1991 , 1993, 1995, 1998, and 1999. Paris (Charpentier, Campra , Monteclair, Mouline, Lambert, Bouzignac, and Rossi). Les Arts Florissants is also regularly invited by the Aix-en-Provence festival for such procuctions as Les Arts Florissants has also earned recognition for Purcell's Fairy Queen (staged by Adrian Noble, its interpretations of operas, notably at the Opera 1989, Grand Prix de la Critique), Rameau's Castor du Rhin with Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, et Pollux (staged by Pier-Luigi Pizzi, 1991), Monteverdi's Ballo delle Ingrate (1983), Rameau's Handel's Orlando (staged by Robert Carsen, co­ Anacreon, and Charpentier's Acteon (1985). procuction Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Opera de Montpell ier, 1993), Mozart's The Magic Flute in The production of Lully's Atys, staged by Jean­ 1994 and 1995, and Handel's Semele in 1996 Marie Villegier, was voted best opera by French (both staged by R. Carsen). critics in 1987 and was performed at the Opera Comique in Paris, in Caen, Montpellier, Les Arts Florissants has made more than 40 Versailles, Florence, Madrid, and at BAM (with a recordings on the Harmonia Mundi label. In repeat visit in 1992) to rave reviews. Jean-Marie 1994 Les Arts Florissants signed an exclusive Villegier has also staged Le Malade Imaginaire contract with Erato/Warner Classics. by Moliere/Charpentier (co-production: Theatre du Chatelet, Theatre de Caen, and Opera de Les Arts Florissants is funded by the French Montpellier, 1990), La Fee Urgele by Ministry of Culture, the Town of Caen , and the DunilFavart (directed by Christophe Rousset, Conseil regional de Basse-Normandie, and is Opera Comique, 1991), Charpentier's Medee sponsored by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. (co-production Opera Comique, Theatre de Caen, and Opera du Rhin, 1993; also performed Nathan Berg (bass-baritone) was born in in Lisbon and at BAM in 1994), and Rameau's Saskatchewan, Canada . His vocal studies have Hippolyte et Aricie (co-procuction Opera taken him to Canada , the United States, Paris , National de Paris, Opera de Nice, Opera de and finally to the Guildhall School of Music and Montpellier, Theatre de Caen , and BAM , 1997). Drarna in London, where he began his studies Besides the aforementioned engagements, BAM with Vera Rozsa. He has won numerous prizes, 20C \ALbo', \ALho including the Gold Medal for Singers at the and Halle Handel festivals; the Freiburg Baroque Guildhall. His concert repertoire has led him to Orchestra; Rias Kammerchor; Gabrieli Consort; and travel extensively with such conductors as The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. This Christie, Masur, Salonen, Dohnanyi, season she sings Servilia (La clemenza di Tito) in Herrew~ghe, Tortelier, and Norrington, singing Barcelona, Euridice (Haydn's Orfea) in Lausanne, repertdire ranging from Bach and Handel orato­ and Euridice (Monteverdi's Orfea) in Munich. rios to Mahler song cycles. Recent concerts include Schubert songs with the San Francisco Juliette Galstian (soprano) earned her Conservatory Symphony Orchestra under Tilson Thomas and diploma in her native Armenia as a concert pianist his debut at the Edinburgh Festival in a recital of in 1995, after which she concentrated on singing. Wolf lieder, as well as of the C-minor Mass with She quickly gained acknowledgement in competi­ the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Handel 's tions, including first prize in the International Viotte Rinaldo with the Academy of Ancient Music. Competition; this award led her to sing Mimi in La Recent opera roles include Leporello and Masetto boheme (in the second cast to Mirella Freni) at the in the new Peter Brook production of Don Teatro Regio Torino, where she would later portray Giovanni, conducted by Claudio Abbado and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro . Ms. Galstian has Daniel Harding in Lyon , Milan, Brussels, and distinguished herself in productions at La Fenice, Tokyo, and Les Indes galantes at the Bastille. Venice, as Zerlina in Akim Freyer's production of Don Giovanni with Mo Karabtchevsky; as Richard Croft (tenor) was bom in Cooperstown, flowermaiden in Parsifal at the Opera Bastille; and New York, and made his debut at the Saint Louis in performances at the Royal Opera-Covent Garden Opera in 1986 and his European debut at Nice and Geneva Opera. She recently performed the role Opera in 1987. At the Metropolitan Opera Mr. of Zerlina in Don Giovanni under James Conlon at Croft has sung Belmonte, Cassia (Otel/o), Opera Bastille and performed Valencienne in Die Almaviva (/I barbiere di Siviglia), and Ferrando lustige Witwe in Torino. under James Levine. He is a regular guest with the Netherlands Opera, where his roles include Daniel Taylor (countertenor) has recently appeared Almaviva, Sifare in Mitridate, and Agenor in /I re as Bertarido in Handel's Rodelinda (Glyndebourne pastore. His numerous opera roles include Festival Opera and Montreux Festival under William appearances at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, in Christie) and concert performances and a recording Santa Fe and Dallas, at the Glyndeboume of Handel's Rinaldo with Cecilia Bartoli and the Festival, and in several performances with Rene Academy of Ancient Music under Christopher Jacobs; concert appearances include Saint Louis Hogwood. He has sung Handel's Jephtha on tour Symphony, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra , and with Rias Kammerchor under Marcus Creed and Carnegie Hall with Sir Neville Marriner. Mr. Croft's Bertarido (Rodelinda) in Jonathan Miller's produc­ recordings include Ariodante and /I primo tion. He made his North American debut last sea­ omicidio; La finta giardiniera at Drottningholm is son with the Metropolitan Opera in Giulio Cesare, on video and laserdisc. Israel in Egypt and Hercules with the San Francisco Philharmonia Baroque under Nicholas Sophie Daneman (soprano) has established an McGegan, and in Jonathan Miller's production international reputation in repertoire ranging from of St. Matthew Passion at BAM. Highlights this Monteverdi to Berg, specializing in period perfor­ season include Bach Cantatas with the mance. Her opera engagements include Handel's Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra and Collegium Rodelinda , Theodora , Arianna, and Melisande Vocale, Goffredo (Rinaldo) for New York City (Opera Comique). Her wide discography includes Opera , and Giulio Cesare for San Francisco award-winning recordings of Rameau (Grands Opera. Canadian born, Mr. Taylor is a graduate Motet and Les Fetes d'Here) and Handel (A cis of both McGill University and the University of and Galatea) with Les Arts Florissants. She has Montreal and is the recipient of grants from the appeared with the Edinburgh , Beaune, Aldeburgh , Canada and Ontario Arts Councils.

20D ScbiIlAr'~ SbockAr

The Royal Shakespeare Company When Nazi German theaters mounted Friedrich Schiller's magisterial drama Don Car/os, the fol­ comes to BAM with Gale Edwards' lowing phrases uttered by the freedom-loving production of Friedrich Schiller's Marquis of Posa often drew show-stopping applause in anonymous protest against the Don Carlos, a riveting Oedipal Hitler regime: "G ive back dignity to humankind i Your people must again be what they were .... drama of prickly political intrigues. The citizen you lose for his religion/ Is your best By Steven R. Cerf man .... An institution / Built upon fear will not survive its founder."

While the play comforted humanists, it retained the power to outrage authoritarians. One religious group was so offended by Don Car/os' picture of the Spanish Inquisition that in 1951, when Verdi 's opera (based on the play) returned to the Metro­ politan Opera after a long absence, 30 pickets appeared before the theater carrying signs: "Mock­ ery of religion"; "Moscow termites invade the Met"; "Planned deficit financing is Anti-American."

New Yorkers will again have the chance to forrn strong opinions about Schiller's classic when the A scene from Don Carlos Photo by Jonathan Dockar-Drysdale

22 Royal Shakespeare Company performs it at BAM Inquisitor himself has been stalking Posa for this May. years. This secret slaying has robbed the Inqui­ sition of the chance to execute a prominent Schiller 0759-1805) had a gift for sustaining heretic in a grand public spectacle: histrionic excitement while discussing grown-up ideas. Consider one famous scene in Don Car­ ... Hi s blood los where two men embody the conflict between should have poured to glorify us all ... church and state. Schiller begins it with a visual This man was ours ... . tableau whose jaw-breaking power jolts even The ceremony of his soul's disgrace unsophisticated theatergoers. As King Philip II Was given to us for a divine parade. of Spain sits in his chamber, a door opens upstage to reveal the Grand Inquisitor, a desic­ Well aware that Philip indeed ordered the killing cated wraith of a man, 90 years old and as a preemptive strike to preserve royal power vis­ blind-both literally and symbolically. Led by a-vis the Church, the Inquisitor is obliquely acolytes, he oozes forward, extending a pall of warning the monarch not to try it again. Seldom decay and fanaticism with every advancing has anyone created so chilling a portrait of politi­ step. Now follows an argument of exquisite sub­ cal versus theocratic calculation, and the scene tlety. The Inquisitor excoriates the King for rings true to this day. The Inquisition's "divine having the heretical Posa assassinated-not parade" is still uncomfortable to contemplate because killing is wrong, but because the shortly after the close of a centu ry that knew the

Rupert Penry-Jones as Don Carlos

24 his first play, the iconoclastic Robbers (1781) to his last complete drama, Wilhelm Tell (1804).

As he planned Don Car/os in 1784, Schiller envi­ sioned a "domestic drama in a royal house." Emperor Charles V is dead ; his world-girdling empire is fracturing under the rule of his son King Philip II, who tries to put down a Protestant uprising in Flanders by brutal repression. Philip's own son Don Carlos, expected to live up to his grandfather's name as the prospective Charles VI, quails at the challenge, and now a quasi-Oedipal love for his father's wife has reduced him to paralysis. The court is a hotbed of intrigue: Car­ los correctly assumes that everyone who speaks to him is a spy for the King.

Into these suffocating surroundings, Schiller inserted a spokesman for his own progressive views: the Marquis of Posa, a wildly anachronistic Age-of-Enlightenment idealist from a world ready for the French Revolution. Posa/Schiller confesses:

... This century is far from ripe for my designs. I live Among the citizens that are to come.

Imploring the king- at the risk of his own liberty - to exercise religious tolerance, he pleads in Rousseau-like tones: Don Carlos by Alonso Sanchez

Moscow show trials of the 1930s, the McCarthy­ Look all around at nature's mastery­ era HUAC hearings, and the theological executions Founded on freedom. And how rich it grows, in Iran during the Ayatollah Khomeini regime. Feeding on freedom .... Can there be any Holier duty than equality? ... Such wheels-within-wheels moves and counter­ Make your citizens a million kings ... moves-always accompanied by eye-catching Grant freedom of thought! dramatic action-occur repeatedly in Don Carlos (1787), Schiller's first verse play and the first Posa is but one of a phalanx of grand-scale work that shows the full scope of his genius. It characters that offer endless challenges to the is a drama that boasts the psychological acuity most gifted classical actors. Note, for example, of Hamlet, the political sophistication of War the twists and turns of Princess Eboli, pursuing and Peace, and the theological complexity of ruthless sexual schemes to obtain a throne, yet Saint Joan. willing to destroy her own prospects to preserve her genuine patriotic scruples. This is, of course, the same Schiller whose 1785 "Ode to Joy" would climax Beethoven's Ninth Then , there is Philip himself, politically belea­ Symphony with the credo "Aile Menschen werden guered and mired in family dysfunction. Bruder" ("All people will become brothers"). Free­ Tormented by sexual suspicions, he surrounds dom was his obsessive theme in the theater, from his wife with spies, whom he abuses without

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hesitation. Yet, his expressions of loneliness are unfailing frankness- and capable of enormously so honest that our sympathy is aroused, and we clear insights- Carlos exasperates us but never admire the surprising intellectual detachment he alienates us so far that we cease to root for him. musters when hearing pleas for tolerance that Posa , dying, says: represent a significant threat to his power. His affection for Posa grows almost to idolatry, and Save yourself, when he realizes that he must execute the Mar­ For Flanders' sake. To rule is your vocation, quis, Philip is too shaken to hide his tears. To die for you was mine Schiller himself observed, "If this tragedy is to move people, it must do so through the situa­ In accepting Posa's charge, Carlos rises to the tion and character of King Philip." Far more greatness that was always his family heritage--a elusive is the exact mind-set of this complex, greatness, ironically, that spells his doom. With the enigmatic man as he delivers his own son to ultimate arrest of the hero, Schiller produces the the Grand Inquisitor with the drama's last line: rarest kind of shock: the shock of the inevitable. "Cardinal, I have done my part, now do yours." Steven R. Cerf is Skolfield Professor of German Amid such epic figures, Carlos holds his own­ at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. animated, Schiller believed, with "the soul of Hamlet...and my own pulse." Neurotic, epileptic, The RSC performs Don Carlos at the BAM hopelessly undiplomatic, yet attractive in his Harvey Theater. May 16- 20.

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