Trisha Brown
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Brooklyn Academy of Music Bruce C. Ratner Chairman of the Board Harvey Lichtenstein President and Executive Producer presents LOrfeo Running time: By Claudio Monteverdi approximately two hours. There will be no BAM Opera House intermission. June 10-12, 1999 at 7:30pm June 13 at 3pm Conductor Rene Jacobs Director and Choreographer Trisha Brown Scenery and costume design Roland Aeschlimann Lighting design Roland Aeschlimann and Gerd Meier Performed by Concerto Vocale, Collegium Vocale & Trisha Brown Company Orfeo Simon Keenlyside (June 10 & 12) Carlo Allemano (June 11 & 13) Euridice/Eco Patricia Biccire Messaggera/Musica Graciela Oddone Apollo Pale Knudsen Proserpina Marissa Martins La Speranza Christophe Laporte Plutone Stephen Milling Caronte Paul Gerimon Ninfa Anne Cam bier Pastori/Spiriti Christophe Laporte, Johannes Chum , John Bowen , Rene Linnenbank A production of La Monnaie/De Munt In co-production with Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Trisha Brown Company and kunstenFESTIVALdesArts FoRESTOTYRATNER Corporate sponsor Leadership support: The Andrew W Mel/on Foundation Major support: E. Nakamichi Foundation, The Eleanor Naylor Dana Charitable Trust, The Harkness Foundation for Dance Brooklyn Academy of Music wishes to express its appreciation to Theater Development Fund for its support of this production. On manner, type and style in L'Orfeo mira Orfeo") beats. These moments are, however, Notes on the musical realization far less numerous in L'Orfeo than the more abundant lyrical outbursts in Venetian operas in which all of Una certa nobile sprezzatura del canto de maniere di cantare (manners of singing) of the Favellar in musica, to speak, or discourse in music period were combined with one another. Schlitz's was the duty of the singer in the early Italian music pupil , Christoph Bernhard, described them in his drama. In the Preface to his Le Nuove Musiche treatise Von der Singeskunst oder Manier (1602), the singer-composer, Giulio Caccini wrote (Manuscript, mid-17th century): that the ingredients of the new music were, in 1. The Cantar parsaggiato, or si nging with numerous order of importance, 1. Text, 2. Rhythm , 3. Melody. virtuosic coloraturas ("parsaggi"), as it is best Both the rhythmic and the melodic notation of this pra cticed in Northern Italy (therefore also called singing speech (parlar cantando) issued from the "alia lombarda") , a style of singing that was already natural declamation of speech. considered outmoded at the time of Monteverdi, We know that Monteverd i composed slowly - because it harked back to the stupendously virtuosic probably a whole year on L'Orfeo. There was a reason technique of diminution of the late 16th century. In for this: the "clothing in music" (vestire in musical Monteverdi's operas only the gods sing in this manner of the dramatic declamation could never be perfect (for example Minerva in Uiissel. In Orpheus' enough in his eyes. When he was offered a maritime Possente spirto this virtuosic ornamented style of fable (Le Nozze di Tetide) in which there was a singing indicates the divine character of this dialogue of the Winds, he gave up in despair, singing: Apollo directly inspires him , as the "magic" because he did not know how the Zephyrs and the Sinfonia at the beginning of Possente spirto suggests . Boreads spoke: "How, dear sir [Alessandro Striggio 2. The Cantar sodo, or simple, plain and unorna in Mantua], since winds do not speak, shall I be mented style of singing: the last stanza oi Possente able to imitate their speech? And how, by such spirto ("Sol tu , nobile Dio"), accompanied on the means, shall I be able to move the passions? .. lyre of Orpheus himself (or by Apollo?), calls for this Ariadne [the main character in the opera L'Arianna simple and moving style. of 1608, of which only the famous Lamento has 3. The Cantar d'affetto, or Cantar napolitana, the survived] inspired me a true lament, and Orpheus a "modern" style of singing, in which all the vocal true prayer, but I do not know what this will inspire effects are employed to express the affetti (passions) in me ..." (Letter from Venice, 9 December 1616). Wagli effetti nascono gli affettil: dynamiC contrasts, The rhythmic notation of the recitati ves in tOrfeo alternation of dark and bright tone colors, of is, therefore, painstakingly precise, no less so than emphatic and slight vibrato, (in the 17th century a that of his extremely text-conscious and declamatory "charmi ngly trembling and vibrating voice" was a madrigals. With the greatest precision - unlike many necessary quality of the "Dispositio" of a good of his contemporaries such as Caccini, Peri, d'india or voice, as we can read in Praetorius), of the most Mazzocchi - Monteverdi writes out the rubato dictat varied ways of linking the tones to one another. In ed by the affeti (passions) of the singing actor in actu Possente spirto the penultimate stanza (after the al notation, which Caccini pertinently qualified as Cantar parsaggiato had not succeeded in convincing "una certa nobile sprezzatura del Canto" (a certain Charon) calls for the passionately charged style noble disdain for the singing). of singing. These three manners of singing together constitute Or d'uopo e d'un gran core e d'un bel canto the powerfully seductive art of Orpheus' singing, (Now there is need of a valiant heart and an enciting with which, as Hope tells him, he might be able to song/Hope to Orpheus, Act III) And yet there are beguile Charon. ample moments in L'Orfeo in which pure singing gains the advantage over speech, thereby con Ou r musical realization sciously transgressing the basic rules laid down at The two printed scores of L'Orfeo (1609, 1615) the invention of the opera, that decreed that "Music must be considered as reference documents rather be the servant of the text, " more specifically where than as definitive scores in the modern sense, their 4/4 time typical of the recitative style changes to a first objective being to restore, to the eyes of present bar with three fast (Orpheus: "Vi ricordi , or boschi day listeners and of posterity, the brilliance of the ombrosi") or three slow (Shepherd: "Mira, deh, performances at the Gonzaga Palace. The first page (0 provides, in addition to the drama tis personae, the The continuo is divided into three groups: those on list of instruments. As if to throw us off, however, the left and on the right are composed of a regal, the instruments occasionally specified in the score an organ, a harpsichord, a violone (contrabassi di ask for more instruments than those specified in viola), and an instrument of the lute family, while the list. A large number of these indications tell us the center group includes one harp, one lute, two the way in which a piece was played. And not instruments of the viola da gamba family (one necessarily how it must be played. Let us see, for lirone and one bass viol) and one violoncello. example what is meant by: "Questo Ritornello fu sonato di dentro da duoi chitarroni, un clavecimbalo In the same year as L'Orfeo [1607], a treatise on e duoi flautini." orchestral continuo playing appeared in Siena, Two important points should be noted here. Agostino Agarazzari's Del sonare sopra '/ Basso con First, Fu sonato means how it "was played" at the tutti Ii Strumenti e dell'uso loro nel Concerto. time (in 1607 in Mantua). In a later production, a Nowhere better than in this little book can one different instrumentation cannot be excluded. learn how the improvisatory continuo orchestra , for Second , Di dentro refers to the fact that in any which, according to a letter, Monteverdi demanded event the instruments mentioned were not to be lengthy rehearsals to coordinate the communal found in the orchestra, that they were probably not improvisation. While one group of instruments had visible to the public: they may have been in an the task of playing the chords themselves as clearly adjoining room or in a corridor. If we add all the and supportively as possible, other instruments - instruments which, according to the score, played including melodic instruments like the violins - di dentro , we find that approximately one-third of were free to improvise around a middle voice. We the orchestra was "hidden," which is only possible have done everything possible to take this aspect in a small hall. It goes without saying that our into account in the performance of the continuo. instrumentation must always be adapted to the That requires a great power of imagination and an acoustics of the theater where we perform. Thus, improvisation technique, which has been lost in we did not take into account the direction in the our time. The Nineteenth Century - with its great score in Act II relative to the ritornello between the symphonic scores in which the slightest rubato is songs of the shepherds, in which the instruments written out in detail with every note - is partially also have to suggest the pastoral setting by their responsible for this loss. To simulate the improvisa rnusical coloration. In effect, according to the score, tion of the members of the "concerto d'istrumenti," these ritornelli were played di dentro. We still do I have myself an occasion "written" improvisation not know with certainty what is meant by violini suggestions in the imagination. I completed the piccoli alia francese specified in Act II (it might be transcription of the basso continuo (sparing in the that what is meant are small violins of French two printed scores), but Attilo Cremonesi and workmanship, unless the expression alia francese Konrad Jundhanel also largely contributed to the referred to the way in which the ritornello must be final harmonization.