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Home , English Touring Opera, Flavio, Tamerlano

May 2001 BAMcinematek 2001 Spring Season 651 ARTS Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra

BAM Spring Season sponsor:

PH il iP M ORRIS ~lAG(8Ill COMPANIES INC. 2001 Spring

Brooklyn Academy of Music

Bruce C. Ratner Alan H. Fishman Chairman of the Board Chairman, Campaign for BAM

Karen Brooks Hopkins Joseph V. Melillo President Executive Producer

presents Approximate BAM Harvey Theater running time: May 16,17, & 19, 2001, at 7:30pm 2 hours and May 20, 2001, at 3pm 50 minutes with Sung in English with surtitles one intermission Opera Theatre Company of Ireland

Composer Conductor and harpsichordist Laurence Cummings Director James Conway Sets and costumes Neil Irish Lighting Simon Corder

Rodelinda Helen Williams Grimoaldo lain Paton Bertarido Jonathan Peter Kenny Edwige Yvonne Howard Garibaldo Charles Johnston Kirby Hutton

The New York Collegium

Cello Imogen Seth Smith Theorbo Richard Sweeney

English titles edited by Michael Panayos Technical director Paddy McLaughlin Production electrician Kevin Treacy Stage manager Sarah Harris Assistant stage manager Emma Cullen Orchestra coordinator R. Michael Blanco Leadership support: The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; The Andrew W Mellon Foundation; The Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation, Inc.; The Norman & Rosita Winston Foundation, Inc.; and Robert W Wilson.

Additional support: The Cultural Relations Committee, Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland. 25 Background Scene 2-0utside Bertarido is alone and hopeless, imagining that his On his death , a certain king left his kingdom sentiments are echoed in nature. Edwige happens divided between his two sons , and war developed upon him and is overcome by pity. She explains between them. When one of them was mortally that Rodelinda is faithful to his memory and wounded , he called for the help of a neighboring agrees to help them escape from the kingdom. duke, Grimoaldo, promising him the kingdom and the hand in marriage of his sister, Edwige. The Scene 3-the Palace remaining brother, Bertarido, was isolated; he fled , With Edwige's help, Bertarido and Rodelinda are leaving his wife Rodelinda and son Flavio, and reunited-but Grimoaldo sees them and thinks eventually he spread word that he was dead so that she is making love to a beggar in preference that his family would not suffer in his place. He to himself. He insults her and Bertarido reveals his planned to return in disguise to rescue them. identity to protect her honor. Left alone with Grimoaldo's threats, they embrace and prepare for Synopsis death or sepa ration .

Act 1 - Intermission- Scene l-the Palace In confinement in the palace, Rodelinda mourns Act 3 her husband Bertarido. The new King Grimoaldo Scene l-the Palace surprises her by declaring love for her, but she Reproaching herself for having once betrayed her rejects him, making him love her the more. brother, Edwige pledges to do all she can to help Garibaldo, an ally of Grimoaldo, compares notes Bertarido and Rodelinda. She has the key to the with him on Rodelinda and on Edwige. Edwige dungeon in which Bertarido is kept, so she goes to enters, berating Grimoaldo for avoiding her. He him there. Grimoaldo admits to the treacherous rejects her callously. She is furious, and pledges to Garibaldo that he is torn between anger, suspicion, marry Garibaldo and bestow the kingdom on him and love. if he takes up her cause against Grimoaldo. When she leaves, Garibaldo admits that he is just using Scene 2-a Dungeon her to get to the throne. Bertarido despairs. A weapon drops from a grating into his cell; unbeknownst to him, Rodelinda has Scene 2- a Graveyard smuggled it to him so that he can defend himself. Returning in disguise, Bertarido sees his own Bertarido hears someone opening the door to his monument. Rodelinda approaches with the boy cell, and thinking it is an assassin, he attacks. Flavio, and Bertarido hides. She is disturbed by It is Edwige who has come to free him. She is Garibaldo, who threatens that unless she gives in wounded, but they escape through a secret pas­ to Grimoaldo's love, her son's life will be in dan­ sage to the palace. Rodelinda arrives at the dun­ ger. She sends a message to Gri moa Ido that she geon too late and finds the blood and Bertarido's will marry him, but that she will ask for the head bloody coat. She assumes he is dead and longs of Garibaldo for a wedding present. Alone, for death herself. Bertarido assumes that she has forgotten him. Scene 3-the Palace Act 2 Grimoaldo is distracted. He dreams of the life of a Scene l - the Palace simple shepherd, in contrast to his own dilemma. Edwige and Garibaldo plot and quarrel. Edwige Garibaldo sees his opportunity to assassinate meets Rodelinda and scolds her for her faithless­ Grimoaldo. Bertarido rushes in at that moment ness. When Grimoaldo enters with Garibaldo, and kills Garibaldo. Bertarido then offers his sword Rodelinda agrees that she will marry him on the to Grimoaldo, taunting him. Impressed and hum­ condition that he murders her son right then and bled, Grimoaldo abdicates the throne to Bertarido there: she cannot be at once the mother of the and restores Rodelinda to him. He will reign on a legitimate ruler and the wife of the tyrant who dis­ lesser throne with Edwige. Though reluctant to places him. Each reacts in turn to her defiance. rule, Bertarido pledges peace and reconciliation , and all four are optimistic. 26 Oi rpctor', I\lotp

Rodelinda is frequently, and justly, considered one "Chi di voi, " and his extroverted demanding of Handel's masterpieces. It is set alongside the final number. austere and the elaborate and sensuous . The achievements of his seasons at Grimoaldo is a fascinating study in ambition, the King's Theatre, Haymarket, are almost obsession, and weakness. In many ways he is the unimaginable now; consider that Giulio Cesare complement to Bertarido, and he declines in premiered in February 1724 (eight months after power as Bertarido regains it. lighthearted and Flavio, the lively mixed-genre opera that Opera arrogant when unthreatened, he sheds his most Theatre Company, produced in 1994), followed by important ally, Edwige, and is flattered by a bully, Tamer/ano in October 1724, and by Rodelinda in Garibaldo. His attraction to the steady flame that is February 1725. Rodelinda consumes him as her love evades him; the trappings of power are scarcely won when Handel's prolific opera career is remarkable, even they lose interest for him, and he perceives the in that monstrously inventive era-and, in the way power itself as much an onerous responsibility as of prolific careers, it has invited regrettable gener­ a necessary defense against others. His alizations. There are many notes on the borrowing range in tone from overconfident bluster to rage, and lending of arias, and suppositions concerning paranoid delusion, masochist fantasy, and pastoral distribution of arias between rival or the escapism-what a palette' effects of stage machinery. The real matter though is the remarkable variety of his musical composi­ Edwige is compelling, too. like Grimoaldo and to tion, particularly as it informs the dramatic charac­ a lesser extent Bertarido, she actually changes in ter of his work. Handel was aided in these three the course of the drama. Apparently ruthless at the great operas by an able librettist, Nicola Haym- outset, she discovers some feeling for her brother a cellist, composer, and poet, and in idle and his family after she herself has been humil­ moments, the stage manager of the Royal iated. The school of wretchedness seems to deliver Academy productions. harsh lessons about power and lust-to Edwige, to her unfortunate brother Bertarido, to her erstwhile The characters of this tragic opera are particularly lover Grimoaldo. When the remorseful Edwige finely drawn. Rodelinda herself is portrayed in rich sings of hope at the top of Act 3-even though the detail, with each depicting her in a different most harrowing experiences are to come-she is a light. Affectionate, steadfast, and vulnerable in her character altered by her own rejection and by her laments, she is also a feisty, experienced political close observation of her brother, her former lover, player who has the measure of her opponents. and her supposed ally. The bond between Rodelinda and her husband Bertarido is deep and convincing. It is colorfully Three fairly wicked types-Grimoaldo, Edwige, dramatized in her first and third arias, as well as and Garibaldo-react in three utterly different in the heart-wrenching lament in prison, when she ways to Rodelinda's outrageous proposal that believes that she has found him only to lose him Grimoaldo butcher her child in order to gain her again, and in the heartfelt joy of her final aria. consent to marriage. Until then Edwige is attracted to the swaggering, violent coward Garibaldo and Bertarido is a strange, troubled man. He has with­ excited by the possibilities of avenging her splin­ drawn from kingdom and family for tactical rea­ tered pride on Grimoaldo. The scene is a refining sons, yet he is recklessly brave when he returns. experience for these three , as it is the most He is obsessed by the vanity of power and extreme of Rodelinda's strategies. Handel and oppressed by his want of it. In a number of ways Haym do not miss an opportunity to show how it his own egotism obscures his love for Rodelinda; sends the villains spinning in their particular soli­ it is more his memory of love than his experience tudes, nor how it strips any possibility of idealized of it that drives him to act. His music is enor­ dullness from the heroine. mously varied , from the majestic simplicity of his first aria , to the agitated petulance of the Act 1 No less skillful is the extraordinary prison sequence finale, then from childlike simplicity of the swallow in the third act. The arioso for Bertarido upsets song to the terrible bleakness of the prison aria, all musical expectations, and in this case it is

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followed by a dramatic accompanied recitative; balance of comic and tragic elements. Amadigi this is succeeded by Rodelinda 's highly affecting (performed at BAM in 1997) is nominally a magic aria in the same cell , and then by Grimoaldo's opera , but not at all heroic, charting as it does all furious accompanied recitative and troubling the guises of romantic love, most particularly the pastoral aria . Grimoaldo is no less a captive than multiple indignities of unrequited passion . Bertarido, the defeated king. Although it is not so bleak as Tamer/ano, there is Rode/inda was written for the same singers as nothing comic about Rode/inda-the opera is so Tamer/ano , and they were among the finest artists dominated by the courageous title character, and of the day. sang the title role, by an unshakeable faith in the value of married and the celebrated created the love, that there is a sense of a steady flame in the role of Bertarido; the role of Grimoaldo was greatly darkness of exile and rejection, in the shelterless expanded by Handel and Haym from earlier corridors of power, and in the empty gardens of scripts by Corneille and Salvi, because for a short the dead or those assumed dead. In the first time the Francesco Borosini was available to scenes of the opera our awareness of the flame is them; Anna Vincenza Dotti sang the role of remote and flickering, but by the time two voices Edwige and Guiseppe Maria Boschi was finally blend in duet at the end of Act Two it is Garibaldo. The first production was extremely sure and strong, as if its light were projected successful, and after 13 performances in the from our own eyes and could search every recess spring season it was revived for eight further of the stage. It is this flame that fans to performances in the winter season. brilliance the confident last arias of Bertarido and Rodelinda and illuminates the 's Rode/inda is the fourth Handel opera produced by optimistic final chorus. Opera Theatre Company. We have done three - James Conway versions of Tamer/ano , that tragedy of titans. F/avio, on the other hand, is a charming, earthy

The New York Collegium

Violin I Cello Jorg-Michael Schwarz, Concertmaster Christine Gummere Lisa Ferguson Dongmyung Ahn Jorie Garrigue Jay Elfenbein

Viol in II Oboe Karen Marmer, Principal Stephen Hammer, Principal Peter Kupfer Kathleen Duguet Anton Sta h Iy Lisa Brooke Bassoon Andrew Schwartz Viola David Miller, Principal Andrea Andros

28 The Form of Rodelinda

Opera seria, the generic title of the Italian form modulating to remote keys. By contrast, in which Handel composed his stage works, Rodelinda's "Ritorna, cara" ("Return to me") consists of an alternation of recitative (conver­ continues to develop the same material, with sation) and aria (song); arias being composed, the same full string orchestration. in general, in da capo form. Handel enjoyed this framework since it offered balance and In the alternation of recitative and aria, continuity, yet gave scope for contrast. Handel 's methods were in tune with the artistic conventions of the time----"the doctrine of A standard da capo aria can be illustrated Affects"-where a particular passion is explored as follows: to its limits in one statement. A character Fi rst section ritornel/o (introduction) reveals one aspect of himself in an aria, a vocal entry different aspect in the next, and so on. By the ritornel/o end the character is a composite portrait of Second section usually voice and continuo emotions. A character often exits after an (harpsichord and cello) alone aria-having thoroughly explored an emotion; Da capo reprise of first section with to remain would only weaken the impression. vocal ornamentation ("from the head") In the hands of a master, the da capo aria suits the needs of the audience, the singers, the com­ Handel did not follow this pattern slavishly but poser, and most importantly, the drama. Handel's found ways to color his arias to give them contemporary Burney commented that his arias dramatic validity. He could vary them in terms are "a great canvas a great singer only can color." of their dimensions: Edwige and Garibaldo (Indeed, the first production of Rodelinda featured have briefer, shorter-breathed arias than the some of the finest singers of the time: Francesco complex structures of Rodelinda , Bertarido, and Cuzzoni as Rodelinda, the famous alto castrato Grimoaldo. Sometimes the vocal entry would Senesino as Bertarido, and, unusually, the tenor employ contrasting, though related, material to Francesco Borosini as Grimoaldo). The reprise of the orchestra ritornel/o; at other times Handel the first section drives home the message of the might omit the ritornel/o altogether, as in aria, with the ornamentation giving brilliance to a Edwige's first aria, "Lo Far6" ("I'll succeed"). furious mood and making a sad mood utterly heartrending. The audience could be excited by a The second section could also be dealt with in singer's taste and virtuosity and Handel could different ways. In Bertarido's first aria, "Dove compose satisfying structures that gave the sei?" ("My beloved ... "), the second section audience a second chance to leave the theater was new material, less lyrical, more wordy, humming the hit tunes!

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Yvonne Howard (Edwige) graduated from the Royal sung with Opera Theatre Company (OTC) in a number Northern College of Music. Early operatic roles include of previous Handel productions, including the title role the title role in La Cenerentola with English Touring in Amadigi, Andronico in Tamerlano, and Guido in Opera, Marcellina in Le nOlle di Figaro with both Flavio. Other operatic roles include Nireno in Giulio Glyndebourne Festival and Touring Opera, and Fricka Cesare for the Royal Opera; David in for the and Waltraute in the highly acclaimed City of Covent Garden Festival; La Chaise-Dieu, Valentiniano Birmingham Touring Opera's Ring Saga. For the Royal in Elio for the Handel Festival; Andronico in Opera, Covent Garden, Howard has performed the Tamer/ano for Glimmerglass Festival (New York); the roles of Karolka in JenUfa, Second Lady in Die title role of Gluck's Orfeo for Scottish Opera; and Zauberfl6te, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, and, most Shepherd in Monteverdi's Orfeo at the Salzburg recently, Cornelia in Giulio Cesare, Berta in II barbiere Festival and English National Opera. During 1998 di Siviglia, Marcellina in Le nOlle di Figaro, and a Kenny performed in the premiere of Hey Persephone Flower Maiden and the Heavenly Voice in Parsifal. by Deirdre Gribbin at Aldeburgh and the Almeida She has performed as Meg Page in Falstaff, both for Festival. In contemporary music he created the title English National Opera, New Israeli Opera, Tel Aviv, role in L'Augellino Belverde and the Poet in In Search and Opera North, where her other roles have included of Angels for composer Jonathan Dove. Recordings Maddalena in Rigoletto, Eboli in Don Carlos, and include Narciso in and Spirit in Dido and Evadne in Troilus and Cressida. Last season Howard Aeneas with , as well as Jonathan returned to Opera North to sing Meg Page in Falstaff, Miller's acclaimed BBC television film and CD record­ Dream of Gerontius in New York, Goffredo in ing of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. Recent engage­ at Grange Park Opera, and Mahler's Lieder eines ments include Hamor in for the Nederlandse Fahrendengesellen in Gran Canaria. This season's Bach Vereiniging, Arsamenes in with the plans include Amneris in Aida at the Royal Albert Hall Gabrieli Consort, David in Saul in Oslo, the premiere and Assunta in The Saint of Bleecker Street at the of The Music Programme by Ruxandra Panufnik in Spoleto Festival. Other forthcoming engagements Warsaw and at the Covent Garden Festival, Tobias include Third Lady in Die Zauberfl6te with Royal and the Angel at the Almeida Festival, and, most Opera, Covent Garden. recently, the role of Doctor in Pawel Mykietyn's Ignoramus and Mad Man in Warsaw. Cha rles Johnston (Garibaldo) studied at Durham University and the Guildhall School of Music and lain Paton (Grimoaldo) was born in Scotland and Drama. He has performed with many of the major studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and opera companies in the United Kingdom. His operatic Drama. Winner of the first Eric Vertier Award at roles have included Dandini in La Cenerentola for Glyndebourne, this is his fifth production for Opera Welsh National Opera, Orfeo for English National Theatre Company, having previously appeared as Opera, Schaunard in La boheme and Astrologer in Gomatz in Zaide, Nemorino in The Love Potion, Tom Church Parables for City of Birmingham Touring Rakewell in The Rake's Progress, and Grigoryevich in Opera, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro for Pimlico Opera, Kat'a Kabanova. Paton has sung many leading roles Don Alfonso and Guglielmo in Cos! fan tutte for with Scottish Opera, including Ferrando in Cos! fan , Sharpless in Madama Butterfly tutte, Pedrillo in Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Janek for Mid Wales Opera, Marcello in La boheme, and in The Makropulos Case, the Novice in Billy Budd, Escamillo in Carmen for Castleward Opera. In Vanya in Kat'a Kabanova, and Tamino in The Magic 1996- 97 he sang Count in Le nOlle di Figaro, the Flute. For Opera North he has performed Almaviva in title role in Don Giovanni, and Golaud in Pelleas et The Barber of Seville, Vasek in The Bartered Bride, Melisande for the Atelier Lyrique du Val de Loire on and most recently Lensky in this season's production of tour in France. Recent engagements include Father in Eugene Onegin. He has also worked with the City of Hansel und Gretel and Ford in Falstaff for Palace Birmingham Touring Opera and internationally with the Opera, Baldassare in L'Arlesiana for Opera Holland Flanders Opera , Finnish National Opera, Opera Park, Falke in Die Fledermaus at the Queen Elizabeth Bastille, and at the Innsbruck Festival and Gottingen Hall, London , and the title role in Macbeth for Festival. His recordings include King Arthur and Die Singapore Lyric Theatre. This summer, Johnston Entfuhrung aus dem Serail with William Christie and returns to Castleward Opera to perform Count in Le Les Arts Florissants, with whom he toured the United nozze di Figaro. States in 1999. Later this year he performs the title role in The Rake's Progress in Berlin. Jonathan Peter Kenny (Bertarido) was born in Liverpool, studied music at Exeter University, and Helen Williams (Rodelinda) began her career as a trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. clarinetist before studying singing at the Royal Best known for his Handei interpretations, he has Northern College of Music. During the 1980s she 30 \A./bo'c \A./ho sang regularly for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Her Vanishing Bridegroom for Scottish Opera as well as roles there included Sahka in Osbourne's The projection work for Operama's production of Aida at Electrification of the Soviet Union and Emmie in the Royal Albert Hall and in Seville, Lisbon, Helsinki, Albert Herring on Glyndebourne Festival Opera's tour and Buenos Aires. His lighting designs have been to Rome and Reggio Emilia. After a career break for seen most recently in Mephistopheles at the English three years during which her two children were born, National Opera and at the Royal National Theatre and Williams recommenced her operatic career singing the the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has worked with role of Second Niece in Richard Hickox's St. Endellion Opera Theatre Company on numerous productions Festival performances of Peter Grimes. Since then she over the years, including Amadigi, Tamerlano, Fla vio , has worked regularly with English National Opera Orfeo, High Fidelity, From the Diary of Emily Woolf, making her house debut in 1996 as Ensemble and Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson. in Monteverdi's Orfeo and more recently as Dalinda in and Amor in Orpheus and Laurence Cummings (conductor and harpsichordist) Eurydice. Other recent appearances include Naiad in was born in Birmingham, studied music as Organ Ariadne auf Naxos and First Lady in The Magic Flute Scholar at Christ Church, and studied the harpsichord for Scottish Opera; Yvette in La Rondine and Second at the Royal College of Music. He enjoys a career both Niece in Peter Grimes with the Royal Opera; Covent as harpsichordist and conductor, broadcasting regularly Garden; and Flaminia in II mondo della luna with on television and radio. Cummings first performed Opera Zuid in Holland. Last season's appearances with OTC in 1992 in Tamer/ana, the company's first include First Flowermaiden in Parsifal with Scottish production of a Handel opera, and has since returned Opera and Polissena in at Opera North. for High Fidelity (1993), Flavio (1994), and Amadigi Future plans include Yvette in La Rondine at the (1996). He plays for many leading period-instrument , Frasquita at the Royal Albert groups, including the Gabrieli Consort, the Orchestra Hall, a new recording of Carlo di Bogogna for Opera of the Age of Enlightenment, the Sixteen, and Les Arts Rara, Eurydice in Orpheus and Eurydice at English Florissants. As a soloist Cummings has recorded the National Opera, Micaela in Carmen for Glyndebourne harpsichord music of Louis Couperin for the Naxos Touring Opera, and First Niece in Peter Grimes with label; his recent volume of Fran~ois Couperin (also for Netherlands Opera. Naxos) was nominated as Gramophone magazine's Editor's Choice. Alongside a busy schedule of per­ James Conway (director), director of Opera Theatre forming and conducting, Cummings is head of histori­ Company has directed OTC productions of Flavio cal performance at the Royal Academy of Music and (1994), Tamerlano (1995, 1997) and Amadigi associate director of the . Last (1996), Orfeo (1996), Cos! fan tutte (1998), season he conducted Handel's at the Linbury Cinderella (1998), The Rake's Progress (1999), and Theatre, Covent Garden, for the English Bach Festival. L'elisir d'amore (2000). He has also directed operas Cummings became joint musical director of the for the Canadian Opera Company, Muzietheater London Handel Festival in 1998 and for the 2001 Transparant and De Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp, the Festival conducted Handel's with the London Teatro Nacional Sao Joao in Oporto, and Cultergest in Handel Orchestra and Choir and , Lisbon. He has written for three operas as reliving the historic performance of 1721, where well as fiction that has been published in Canada. Adadei, Bononcini, and Handel each wrote an act. His productions have toured to London's Covent Future conducting plans include Bach's Mass Garden Festival, the Buxton Festival, Opera Comique in B minor at the London Bach Festival and the first in Paris, Melbourne Festival, Expo '98 in Lisbon, and British performance of the newly discovered in BAM. Upcoming productions include Cavalli's Excelsis by Handel. Erismena, a revival of Tamerlano, and a new Cunning Little Vixen. Neil Irish (sets and costumes) trained in Birmingham and at The Slade, London. He has worked on numer­ Simon Corder (lighting designer) has been working as ous productions for OTC, including Amadigi, Pagliacci, a freelance lighting designer for theater, opera , dance, Frankie's, High Fidelity , and That Dublin Mood. Other and performance since 1987. He joined the experi­ opera designs include Julian Grant's A Family Affair mental theater company Lumiere and Son in 1981 and The Man Who Strides the Wind for the Almeida and continues to light their site-specific shows around Opera/English National Opera for Contemporary Opera Britain and internationally. He made his West End Studio, The Nightingale's To Blame for Opera North's debut for Sir Peter Hall's production of A Streetcar United Kingdom and world tour, and The Aspern Named Desire with Jessica Lange in 1996. Past Papers for the Guildhall/Barbican Inventing America opera productions have included Judith Weir's The season during 1998. Irish's recent theater work

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includes Hard Times and Twelfth Night for Compass Theatre Company, Spooked for the Theatre Royal Stratford, Darkness Falls for the Palace Theatre Watford, and The Man Who Was Thursday and Hamlet: First Cut for the Red Shift Theatre Company. He will be working with Compass Theatre soon to design Death of a Salesman and with Red Shift to design Nicholas Nickleby.

Opera Theatre Company is the national touring com­ pany of Ireland. Based in Dublin, the company has toured to more than 100 cities, towns, and villages in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland since its first tour of Turn of the Screw in 1986. This distinctive and adventurous company was founded to create high­ quality opera productions on modest budgets that can be presented anywhere, filling in a void in the com­ pany's native country. Artistic director James Conway says, "OTC makes shows on tiny budgets that can tour to remote islands and even village halls. Our conviction is that standards should be high for these performanc­ es as anywhere else. For instance, our production of Kf1t'a Kabanova with piano that travelled to the Aran Islands as part of a national tour in Ireland went on to be presented at Belem in Lisbon as part of Expo '98. Th e New York Collegi um's performing artists are Our production budgets are modest, but somehow the some of America's best-known Baroq ue instrumental work we do is important here, in a country with little and vocal specia lists, many of whom have performed or no operatic tradition." The company is generously together for more than 20 yea rs. Through their funded by the Arts Counci l of Ire land and Northern collaborations, a uniquely American style of Baroque Ire land for its work in Ireland and by the Cultu ral performance has evolved. Performing on period instru­ Relations Committee of the Irish Department of Foreign ments, the Collegium seeks to combine fidelity to orig­ Affairs for its tours abroad . In addition to producing inal sources with expression, wit, grace, rhythmic four new tours each year, the company has a lively vitality, and a rich pa lette of tona l colors. In its third education program in schools in Ireland, as wel l as the season the Collegium continues to collaborate with a Opera Theatre Studio, a training facility for young distinguished roster of international guest directors singers funded by the Calouste Gu lbenkian and soloists. Past guests have included Christophe Foundation. Opera Theatre Company has had national Rousset, Fabio Biondi, Rei nhard Goebel, An drew and international success with a number of baroque Parrott, and James David Ch ri stie. The New York and early classica l operas (including Monteverdi's Collegium takes its name from the 18th-century Orfeo; Handel's Flavio, Amadigi, Tamerlano, and Leipzig Collegium Musicum that was fou nded by Rodelinda; Haydn's L'infedelta delusa, II mondo della Telemann and later directed by J.S . Bach. Under the luna, La vera constanza) and operas from the 20th tutelage of founding music director Gustav Leonhardt, century (including The Rake's Progress, The Rape of the New York Col legium was established to provide Lucretia, The Ughthouse, Kat'a Kabanova, and JenlJfa American audiences with highly polished and works by Wei ll, Poulenc, Argento, and Johnson). performances of lesser-known Baroque masterpieces, In addition the company has commissioned and per­ led by the most esteemed guest directors. The formed nine new operas by Irish composers as well as Collegi um has its own subscription series in New Yo rk new chamber arrangements of such classics as City and Boston and has performed at BAM and at SI. Carmen, Cos! fan tutte, The Marriage of Figaro, The Thomas Ch urch in Manhattan. The Collegium was Magic Flute, Hansel and Gretel, I Pagliacci, L'elisir heard at BAM at the 1999 Harvey Ga la and in BAM's d'amore, and Wiener Blut, as well as a number of 2001 spring season in Jonathan Miller's production of operas for (and one performed by) chi ldren. In the Bach's SI. Matthew Passion . 2001-2002 season, the company's repertoi re includes The Beggar's Opera, The Ughthouse, Rodelinda, Erismena, The Magic Flute, The Cunning Utile Vixen, The Kiss , and The Emperor of Atlantis.

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