NASHVILLE OPERA WELCOME MAESTRO DEAN WILLIAMSON OUR FIRST MUSIC DIRECTOR PUCCINI’S EPIC turandot THE FINAL PRESENTATION ON GOUR MAoSSIVrE DgRAGeOoN SEuT! s DID YOU LANDMARK COMPANY PREMIERE CELEBRATE hydrogen jukebox John Hoomes Day? PHILIP GLASS & ALLEN GINSBERG FALL 2015 THE NEXT LEVEL Did you know Nashville Opera is not only keeping pace with Music City’s soaring trajectory, but we are achieving some of the same artistic milestones as opera companies working with $3–5 million budgets? Our $2.7 million budget currently places us among Level- 3 opera companies such as Dayton, Des Moines, and Memphis. But Nashville Opera is ready to take it to the next level! Our goal is to become a Level-2 opera company by 2020, putting Nashville’s cultural landscape on par with Austin, Denver, Charlotte, St. Louis, Boston, and Washington DC. We thank the Vision 2020 Founders who made new commitments above and beyond their annual support or have matched gifts to NASHVILLE OPERA’S help us reach goals such as producing world premieres and commercial recordings. It is their dedication, and yours, that will allow us FIRST MUSIC DIRECTOR to step up to the next exciting level! Conducting the sitzprobe of THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST at the Noah Liff Opera Center, April 2012. NASHVILLE OPERA Adding the position of From my first production in Nashville I knew I had found a VISIONARY FOUNDERS music director is a big step great colleague and a city to add to my favorites list. John and I for an opera company. It is understood each other from the get go with music and drama Linda & David Anderson Cara Jackson * Molly & Richard Schneider * seen as a sign of a compa - coming together easily in rehearsal. We also shared an interest ny’s maturity, stability, and in operatic oddities, bizarre movies, and great restaurants. And Bill Armistead • Dr. and Mrs. John W. Lea Carolyn W. Schott * growth, and it is a large step toward the Nashville has become my home away from home, making life on Judy & Joe Barker * Mr. & Mrs. Zachary & Jessica Liff * Sue & Earl Swensson * advancement of artistic excellence. The challenge, however, is the road as an itinerant musician comfortable and pleasant. The Honorable & Mrs. Boyd Bogle III * Linda and Jim Marler * Nancy Coleman & M. Andrew Valentine finding the right person for the job. And, I am happy to say, that The city has long been an international music center. Because is just what we have been able to do. studio musicians are expected to master a wide variety of styles, Barbara & Jack Bovender * Jocelynne McCall * Mrs. Debra Greenspan and For our upcoming season, Maestro Dean Williamson will be the level of musicianship is very high. Their dedication and pro - Ann & Frank Bumstead * Karen & Scott McKean * Mr. Talmage M. Watts * joining the Nashville Opera as our first-ever music director. fessionalism are unparalleled, and they do it with as much joy as Janet & Jonathan Weaver * Dean has worked with Nashville Opera as a conductor since our seriousness. To have so many of them in the ranks of the Jan Lewis Brandes * Ann Marie & Martin McNamara III * acclaimed production of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet in winter Nashville Opera Orchestra is unique to Music City. Dr. G. Helen & Mr. Clyde L. Brown Talena & Kent Moegerle Colleen Conway-Welch • 2007. Since then, Dean has served as conductor for a variety of I look forward to helping Nashville Opera build an opera Joy & Chris Calico Mr. & Mrs. J. William Myers * Dr. & Mrs. Kent White Nashville Opera productions and worked with me to create the orchestra. A major task will be guiding players in music that Jerry & Ernie Williams Noah Liff Opera Center series. With his vast knowledge of oper - requires agility, finesse, and flexibility. In opera we often joke Ann & Sykes Cargile * Laura Anne Turner • atic repertory, his excellent conducting skills, and his ability to that you have to be ready to turn left when you expected to turn Anita and Larry Cash * Dr. and Mrs. Robert Ossoff Susan and Fred Williams draw the very best performance out of an orchestra, I know Dean right. A player’s radar has to be on overdrive—do I follow my Marilyn Shields-Wiltsie & will be a valuable team member as Nashville Opera continues to Ruth Akin Roberts Cowan • Elizabeth & Larry Papel * stand partner, my section, the concertmaster, the conductor, or Dr. Theodore E. Wiltsie move forward. Please join me in welcoming Maestro Dean what I’m hearing coming off the stage? Every note out of their Wendy & Greg Firek Dr. & Mrs. Harry L. Page, Jr. * Williamson to our Opera family. instruments is adjusted to fit while coming together like a great Stacy Widelitz * Judy and Bob Fisher Amanda & Cal Renegar We are also thrilled to announce that, as our new music direc - accompanist at the piano. tor takes the podium, the Nashville Opera Orchestra is being As the city is growing, so is Nashville Opera. It is one of the George F. Gray Jr. * Mary Ellen & Tom Rodgers * A challenge gift underwritten in part by Barbara and Jack Bovender in honor of most stable regional companies with many wonderful produc - Deborah Smith-Holmes & Mr. & Mrs. John Stoll Sanders * • Matched a challenge gift my 20th anniversary with the company. I am personally very tions and special projects ahead. It is a great honor to be a part Donald N. Holmes * * Multi-year Founder gift or pledge touched by this generous gift and excited about the artistry it will of this new era as Nashville Opera’s music director and I am As of July 31, 2015 help us achieve as a company this season. grateful that, as I step into this position, it is being generously underwritten this season by Ann and Frank Bumstead. JOHN HOOMES General & Artistic Director To become a Visionary for the 2015.16 Season and be an important part of Nashville Opera DEAN WILLIAMSON Music Director as it forges a path to the future, please call Kristin Starling at 615.986.3567. 2 NASHVILLEOPERA.ORG 3 TURANDOT ARTISTS VAiNDv TaHE UNPRELENTINuG TcOScCAiNnINiI ! At the peak of a successful career containing such masterpieces as La Bohème and Madame Butterfly, Puccini was writing what he con - sidered would be his crowning achievement. However, fate intervened. Turandot was left unfinished by the composer, who died in Brussels on April 28, 1924, of complications following a successful throat surgery that had removed a malignant throat cancer. Princess Turandot Prince Calàf Liù Timur Ping Pang Though Puccini died leaving the opera incomplete, he left many sketches and notes outlining his compositional ideas and intentions OTHALIE JONATHAN DANIELLE BENJAMIN WES JONATHAN for the finale of Turandot. After much discussion and heated debate, composer Franco Alfano was chosen for the GRAHAM BURTON* PASTIN LECLAIR* MASON* BLALOCK* daunting task of completing Turandot— the final work by soprano tenor soprano bass baritone tenor the Italian opera master Giacomo Puccini from Puccini’s The Bovender Central City Opera Nashville Opera: Austin Lyric Opera Kentucky Opera Des Moines Metro own notes. Alfano’s task was not made easier by the Principal Artist Kentucky Opera La Bohème, 2014 Des Moines Metro Fort Worth Opera Opera sketchy (and sometimes unreadable) nature of Puccini’s Nashville Opera: Tulsa Opera Metropolitan Opera Opera Opera Philadelphia San Antonio Opera annotations or by Alfano’s personal conflicts with Arturo The Girl of the Utah Opera Dallas Opera Florentine Opera Glimmerglass Washington Toscanini, a close friend of Puccini’s and the conductor of Golden West Austin Lyric Opera Santa Fe Opera National Opera Turandot’s upcoming premiere . Santa Fe Opera Arizona Opera Santa Fe Opera Toscanini fully oversaw and controlled the first Michigan Opera Turandot performance. When Alfano submitted his orig - Theatre inal version of the finale, Toscanini quickly refused it say - Opera Carolina ing it was “not very good at all.” Utah Festival Opera Alfano composed a second version which, after many cuts demanded by Toscanini, was finally agreed upon. Even then, Toscanini was still no fan of Alfano’s work and considered the new finale to be only “less bad than the first version.” After attending an early orchestral rehearsal of the agreed-upon version, Alfano made the error of asking the sometimes volatile Toscanini what he thought about the new finale. The conductor allegedly replied: “I saw Puccini coming in and slapping my face!” Pong The Mandarin Emperor Altoum Accompanist & Stage Director Conductor Even though Alfano’s finale to Puccini’s Turandot is Chorusmaster today considered the official completion of the opera, it IAN JEFFREY TED D. JOHN JOSEPH was not performed at the first night of the opera’s pre - MCEUEN* WILLIAMS WYLIE AMY TATE HOOMES MECHAVICH* Nashville Opera miere. On the opening night of Turandot, April 25, 1926, tenor baritone tenor WILLIAMS Music Director, at Teatro alla Scala, Arturo Toscanini stopped conducting Nashville Opera General & Artistic Kentucky Opera Washington Nashville Opera: Nashville Opera: Accompanist, Director, 1995 –present at the very moment, in the very bar where Puccini had National Opera The Barber of Seville Turandot, 2001, 2006 San Diego Opera 1998 –present Nashville Opera: died. The conductor then turned to face the audience and Otello Florentine Opera Glimmerglass Professor of Music Elmer Gantry said: “And here the maestro laid down his pen.” Nashville Opera: Opera Colorado Metropolitan Opera 2014 Mary Ragland & Coordinator of Elmer Gantry Samson and Delilah Calgary Opera After a long moving silence, a spectator from the upper Arizona Opera Young Artist International Studies Romeo and Juliet Salome balcony cried: “Viva Puccini!” Taking this as a cue, the Theater an der in Music, Don Giovanni The Fall of the House opening-night crowd erupted into applause and leaped to Wien, Austria Belmont University Tosca of Usher its feet.