Acknowledgments Recorded October 10 and 11, 2016 at the Leighton Concert Hall of the Robert Kyr DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, University of Notre Dame. Paradiso: Daniel Stein and Carmen-Helena Téllez, Producers; Gregory Geehern, Transformation assistant producer; William Maylone, Sound Engineer; Cover Art by Chantelle Snyder, after Gustave Doré; Photography by Rebecca Stutzman. and This CD project is possible with support from the University of Notre Transfiguration Dame’s Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (ISLA). Support for the commission of Paradiso was granted by the Ann Stookey An Oratorio based on Fund for New Music (http://annstookeyfund.org/). Dante’s Divine Comedy Robert Kyr’s Paradiso was part of Journeying la Divina Commedia: Desert, Libretto by Robin Discovery, Song, a sacred music drama conceptualized by Anton Juan, Kirkpatrick Robin Kirkpatrick and Carmen-Helena Téllez for the series of Sacred Music Drama Projects at the University of Notre Dame, with sponsorship by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and further support from the Devers Program in Dante Studies, and the Film, Television and Theatre Depart- ment at the University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame Vocale and the Sacred Music Drama Project are research projects of Carmen-Helena Téllez residing in the Sacred Music Program at Notre Dame (https://sacredmusicdrama.nd.edu/). Arwen Myers, soprano WWW.ALBANYRECORDS.COM TROY1754 ALBANY RECORDS U.S. Fernando Araujo, baritone 915 BROADWAY, ALBANY, NY 12207 TEL: 518.436.8814 FAX: 518.436.0643 Notre Dame Vocale ALBANY RECORDS U.K. BOX 137, KENDAL, CUMBRIA LA8 0XD Carmen-Helena Téllez, conductor TEL: 01539 824008 © 2018 ALBANY RECORDS MADE IN THE USA DDD WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL. Kyr_1754_book.indd 1-2 10/18/18 12:37 PM Paradiso: Transformation and Transfiguration Robert Kyr An Oratorio based on Dante’s Divine Comedy Paradiso: Transformation and Transfiguration Libretto by Robin Kirkpatrick An Oratorio based on Dante’s Divine Comedy Libretto by Robin Kirkpatrick Fernando Araujo, baritone – Dante, the Italian poet 1 Opening Bells [0:06] Arwen Myers, soprano – Beatrice, the woman Dante loved from afar, who died young 2 Rinovellato! / Dante Jamie Caporizo, mezzo-soprano – Piccarda Donati, who rejoices in her obedience to the will of God Fernando Araujo, baritone in Heaven Notre Dame Vocale’s Instrumental Ensemble [1:55] Matthew Kelly, tenor – King Solomon, glorified in Heaven 3 How Things Move / Beatrice Emorja Roberson, baritone – Saint Peter, who defends the purity of the Church Arwen Myers, soprano Joshua Boggs, countertenor – St Bernard praying as a young Man Notre Dame Vocale’s Instrumental Ensemble [1:42] Jessica Roberts, soprano – A Glorified Woman, more beautiful in resurrection than on earth 4 To All These Circling Spheres / Beatrice and the Glorified Souls Notre Dame Vocale – Glorified Souls Arwen Myers, soprano | Notre Dame Vocale [2:34] 5 In Willing Us In Will / Beatrice, Notre Dame Vocale Piccarda and the Glorified Souls Carmen-Helena Téllez, artistic and music director Arwen Myers, soprano | Jamie Caporizo, mezzo-soprano Justin Appel, Joshua Boggs, Erin Donegan and Phillip Ganir, SJ, assistant conductors Notre Dame Vocale [2:56] Ilia Ulianitski, collaborative pianist 6 Slowly In A Stream / Dante and the Glorified Souls Fernando Araujo, baritone | Notre Dame Vocale [3:06] Erin Donegan, soprano Joshua Boggs, countertenor Matthew Kelly, tenor 7 Lift Up Your Eyes / Dante Abigail Helbling, soprano Cameron Brownell, tenor Justin Appel, baritone Fernando Araujo, baritone Katherine Surine, soprano Emerson Eads, tenor Emorja Roberson, bass-baritone Notre Dame Vocale’s Instrumental Ensemble [1:41] Marie Smith, mezzo-soprano Phillip Ganir, SJ, tenor Elliott Smith, Baritone 8 Greeting The Sun / Beatrice and the Glorified Souls Arwen Myers, soprano | Notre Dame Vocale [2:44] Instrumental Ensemble 9 The Feast Of The Resurrection Marco Nuñez, Flute/Alto Flute Collin Lewis, Clarinet/ Rosalyn Troiano, Viola Arwen Myers, soprano Sarah Hubsch, Oboe/ Bass Clarinet Kyra Saltman, Cello Notre Dame Vocale’s Instrumental Ensemble [1:10] English Horn Songhea Sackrider, Violin 10 Of Free and Gracious Love / King Solomon and the Glorified Souls Matthew Kelly, tenor | Notre Dame Vocale [4:41] Kyr_1754_book.indd 3-4 10/18/18 12:37 PM 11 Rose Like To The Sun / Dante, Beatrice and Two Glorified Women of an immersive and interactive experience. I then invited Professor of Theatre Anton Juan to join us in Fernando Araugo, baritone | Arwen Myers, soprano | Jessica Roberts, soprano developing a concept together. Jamie Caporizo, mezzo-soprano [4:46] One of our goals was to be able to create a work that would adapt to variable cultural contexts and 12 This Sacred Place / St. Peter and the Glorified Souls artistic circumstances, reflecting the location and the society where it would be presented. We hoped for Emorja Roberson, baritone | Notre Dame Vocale [2:43] the work to continue to take different shapes through time, so that other artists and audiences can engage 13 The Three And Two Are One / Beatrice and the Glorified Souls in a process of co-creativity. This is faithful to two central ideas already embedded in Dante’s Commedia, Arwen Myers, soprano | Notre Dame Vocale [6:48] “journey and transformation.” From the very start of our creative discussions, these ruled the central 14 Aubade / Vocalise for Beatrice, the Gloried Woman and Souls thrust of Robin’s libretto for our new work, which we titled “Journeying the Commedia: Desert, Discovery, Arwen Myers, soprano | Jessica Roberts, soprano Song.” Notre Dame Vocale [5:49] We planned to create an illusion of distortion and suspension of time. As the audience traveled 15 To Greet The Final Peace / St. Pernard as a Boy and the Glorified Souls with Dante and Virgil, they first experienced Inferno as a short play about pride and misguided love, sur- Joshua Boggs, countertenor | Notre Dame Vocale [7:23] rounded by a specially created soundscape by composer Christopher Preissing. In Purgatorio, the audience 16 The Love That Moves / Dante and the Glorified Souls processed with a group of prayerful pilgrims, singing what Dante himself thought was liturgical music Fernando Araujo, baritone | Notre Dame Vocale [4:06] sung in the afterlife, and listening to the declarations of suffering souls who some on earth would have thought were damned, but who were, in fact, waiting for their moment of salvation. The procession led the Carmen-Helena Téllez, conductor audience into Paradise, where Dante’s long-lost love, Beatrice, awaited him to guide him further up into Total Time = 53:06 the highest spheres, close to Our Lady. Paradise was designed to be all music, as Dante thinks this art form is like a prayer and a blessing. As he perceives the sublimity of beauty and prayer, Dante emerges illuminated and renewed, Notes about the commission of Paradiso as the climax of a sacred music drama The beautiful new oratorio composed by Robert Kyr on Robin Kirkpatrick’s poetic libretto—which In 2015, I visited my colleague, Associate Professor of Liturgical Studies Michael Driscoll, for a casual includes a trope in the form of a short original poem—represents the culmination of Dante´s journey. conversation in his office at the University of Notre Dame. I was struck by a new book on his desk. It Kirkpatrick and Kyr discussed the representation of Dante and Beatrice at great length. Dante emerges was a volume edited by Notre Dame’s Associate Professor of Italian Studies and Dante Studies Vittorio as a passionate man, fully aware of sensorial beauties as much as spiritual ones. He travels through Montemaggi, titled Dante’s Commedia: Theology as Poetry. It immediately sparked in me a curiosity to higher and higher spheres in Paradise, populated by shimmering and resonant voices, which in the live find if the Commedia could become the opportunity for a meeting of artists expressing Dante’s views performance stood in close and distant balconies of the theater. Robert Kyr recreates these polarities through their particular disciplines. I reached out to Vittorio, who immediately paid homage to his mentor, and motions through distinctive and exquisite vocal writing for both characters, as well as imaginative Robin Kirkpatrick, the world-renowned Dante scholar, translator and poet teaching at the University of orchestration throughout for the chamber ensemble. Responsive to medieval practices, Kyr uses the Cambridge. This was the beginning of what has been an intense and demanding artistic journey. Robin Prelude of Bach´s Suite No. 1 for cello as a sort of cantus firmus that recurs throughout the oratorio. At Kirkpatrick immediately accepted the proposal to develop the libretto for a sacred drama in the manner the end, Kyr includes an uncanny representation of the planetary and spiritual orbits, suggested by bell Kyr_1754_book.indd 5-6 10/18/18 12:37 PM strokes, and played or hummed pitches, set to mathematical proportions. In the live performance, these and the questioning or even the doubts that his narrative dramatizes are seen at every point to impel us sounds surrounded the spectators in a moment of unexpected immersion in the improbable experience towards a greater engagement with the reality we were created to enjoy. That impulsion, falling into sin, of the poet. may often be misguided or confused. But for Dante there is always the hope that—as in Purgatory—it —Carmen-Helena Téllez, Artistic Director of the Sacred Music Drama Projects at Notre Dame, may be re-directed, towards, as God eternally intended, its proper goal. Concept Co-Creator and Music Director None of this should be taken to imply that Dante ever supposed (in a megalomaniac spirit) that any human mind could ever encompass in an absolute sense the truth and goodness of divine existence. No Journeying Dante—Notes for a Sacred Drama finite creature can logically circumscribe the infinity of that existence: and it was, for Dante, Lucifer’s sin Over the seven centuries since Dante’s Commedia was first publically acclaimed, many different ways of to suppose that he might.