Program Notes

Saturday, April 18, 7:30pm Five Flags Theatre Sunday, April 19, 2:00pm Downtown Dubuque

WILLIAM INTRILIGATOR, Music Director & Conductor

Best of Opera

Opera, where compelling drama meets virtuosic vocal and instrumental music, is the most visceral genre in classical music. Its characters burst into song because their emotions are simply too powerful for ordinary speech. Though operatic plots are frequently hard to believe, they always deal with the most basic and universal of human emotions: ambition, jealousy, anger, revenge, and above all, passionate love. Drawing on music from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, tonight’s concert travels from France to Italy to Germany and Austria, and on to Russia to visit many of the most beloved moments in opera: from exhilarating orchestral overtures to full-throated choruses to the magnificently heart-on-sleeve arias of some of opera’s most memorable characters.

We begin with the very colorful “Les Voici” chorus that opens Act IV of Georges Bizet’s (1838–1875) masterpiece Carmen, premiered in 1875. Today, Carmen is considered one of the most perfect of all operas: an ideal blending of spellbinding story, vivid characters, expert pacing, and, above all, nonstop musical inspiration. The libretto was based on Prosper Mérimée’s gritty novella about an untamed gypsy who makes her own rules, chooses her own lovers, and welcomes death without a tremor. Carmen seduces an upright young soldier, Don José, away from the army and his fiancée into a nefarious life of smuggling, then jilts him for the glamorous toreador, Escamillo. Maddened by jealousy, Don José stalks her at the bullfights in Seville and stabs her to death outside the arena. But as Act IV begins, the excited citizens of Seville have no idea that tragedy is about to strike as they enthusiastically watch the parade of the participants in the bullfight, culminating in the arrival of Escamillo with Carmen by his side.

The two most influential creators of 19th-century opera were born in the same year, 1813: Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) in Le Roncale, Italy and Richard Wagner (1813–1883) in Leipzig, Germany. Success came to Verdi much earlier than to Wagner. His third opera, the biblical epic Nabucco about the Hebrew captivity in ancient Babylonia, was a triumph at its premiere in March 1842 and sent the audience home singing the Hebrews’ poignant patriotic chorus “Va, pensiero” (“Go, my thoughts, on wings of song”), which subsequently became the newly reunited Italy’s unofficial national anthem. In this famous chorus from Act III, the Hebrews despair of ever seeing their homeland again, but their high priest, Zaccaria — a fiendishly difficult role for bass-baritone — immediately commands that they embrace hope instead. In the highly dramatic “Prophecy Scene,” he foretells the fall of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar(Nabucco) and the destruction of his pagan empire.

Many operas followed, leading to a trio of immense successes in the early 1850s: Rigoletto, Il trovatore, and La traviata. With Traviata (1853), Verdi risked something new: he set a libretto based on Alexander Dumas fils’ recent playLa Dame aux camélias, which told the tragic story of a contemporary Parisian courtesan, Violetta Valéry, who falls in love and then dies of tuberculosis, abandoned by all. However, in Act I, life looks brighter as at a lavish party in Paris she meets Alfredo Germont, who will become the love of her life. Playfully, she challenges him to give a toast; he replies with the famous waltz “Libiamo ne‘ lieti calici,” in which he reveals that he takes love more seriously than she does.

In true operatic fashion, the fatal trio in the dark Spanish tragedy Il trovatore (1852) is a love triangle: both the tenor, the gypsy-bred rebel knight Manrico, and the baritone, Count di Luna, love the same woman, Leonora. The iconic Anvil Chorus from Act II is a bit of local color sung by the gypsies in the mountain camp where Manrico was raised.

When Richard Wagner composed both the words and music for Tannhäuser in the early 1840s, he was only in his early thirties and not yet the leader of progressive German music. In fact, he had just returned to Germany after two and a half years of poverty and frustration in Paris, where he’d been forced to arrange other people’s music in order to keep the wolf from the door. His opera in the German-Romantic opera style was inspired by the medieval legend of the knight Tannhäuser, who dallied with Venus, the goddess of love, in her sacred mountain the Venusberg. When Tannhäuser finally tore himself away and traveled to Rome to seek absolution, the Pope told him he would never be forgiven unless the Pope’s ceremonial staff should sprout living branches. Since this seemed impossible, the knight prepares to return in despair to Venus. The majestic Pilgrims’ Chorus is heard initially in the opera’s overture, but reappears in its choral form in the Third Act, sung by the pilgrims returning from Rome, a defeated Tannhäuser among them. We then jump to the end of the opera when a women’s chorus of younger pilgrims arrives to tell the dying Tannhäuser about the miraculous blooming of the Pope’s staff; the whole chorus joins in a triumphant version of the Pilgrim’s Chorus celebrating his salvation.

Another opera on a medieval legend followed: Lohengrin, completed in 1847. Elsa, Princess of Brabant, has been accused of murdering her brother, Gottfried, heir to the throne. To defend her honor, Elsa prays for the knight champion she has seen in a dream. Her prayer is answered by the appearance of that very man, Lohengrin, clad in radiant silver and riding in a magical boat drawn by a swan. This mysterious champion proposes to marry Elsa on one condition: she must never ask his name or where he comes from. Elsa happily agrees, but the scheming Ortrud inflames her doubts; on their wedding night, Elsa asks her husband the fatal question with tragic results. We all know Act II’s Bridal Chorus because it has been adopted as the wedding processional of choice, though listeners should notice it has a slightly different rhythm here in Wagner’s original. The proud, fiery Prelude to Act III recalls the splendid wedding ceremony concluding Act II. But its agitated pace suggests all is not well, and, at the end, we hear in the horns the ominous motive of the Forbidden Question.

In the midst of writing his four-opera Ring Cycle, but with little hope of producing it, in 1861, Wagner decided to write a modest comic opera, Die Meistersinger, that would be, he said, “well within the scope of any small opera house.” But like everything Wagner touched, this little comedy grew to epic proportions: the longest opera score he ever wrote. Die Meistersinger is a salute to the mastersinger guilds that flourished in Nuremberg, Bavaria, from the 14th to 17th centuries. They developed elaborate rules for their art and sponsored song contests to reward their greatest practitioners. Festive in tone, showcasing all sections of the orchestra but the brass above all, the Prelude to Act I presents in contrapuntal glory many of the opera’s important themes. From the mighty Ring of the Niebelungen’s second opera, Die Walküre, we hear the most famous Wagnerian except of them all: the “Ride of the Valkyries.” On a rocky mountain pass, Wotan’s daughters — divine warrior maidens or Valkyries — gather after a battle where they have rescued slain heroes to carry to new life in Valhalla, the abode of the gods. In the music, we hear the galloping of their airborne steeds, the rushing winds, and their fierce battle cries.

Premiered in 1724, Giulio Cesare in Egitto is George Frideric Handel’s (1685–1759) most popular opera. Its fascinating heroine is the young Cleopatra, who is competing for the Egyptian throne with her rather nasty brother/consort Ptolemy. Using her beauty and her seductive skills, she lures the visiting Julius Caesar to her side and enlists his help against Ptolemy. In Act II, the imprisoned Cleopatra believes for a time that Caesar has been killed and she will soon be executed by the apparently victorious Ptolemy. In one of Handel’s most hauntingly beautiful melodies, “Piangerò la sorte mia” (“I Shall Lament My Fate”), she grieves for Caesar and her situation. However, the contrasting middle section reveals she is not yet defeated as she vows vengeance on Ptolemy in blistering coloratura roulades.

Each half of this program closes with one of opera’s great spectacles, in which massed voices and orchestra are used to recreate the imperial splendor of exotic worlds. Based on Alexander Pushkin’s verse drama, Boris Godunov is Modest Mussorgsky’s (1839–1881) masterpiece. Drawing on actual historical events, it is set in the troubled period in Russian history between the death of Ivan the Terrible and the ascent of the Romanov dynasty at the beginning of the 17th century. As the opera opens, Boris has won the Russian throne after the mysterious death of the child heir Dmitri, whose murder he secretly ordered. The drama traces the rise of a false pretender claiming to be the risen Dmitri, the gradual spread of his revolt against Boris, and the collapse of the Czar’s power and his powerfully depicted death. In the gorgeous “Coronation Scene” set in Moscow’s Kremlin Square, Boris makes his first appearance in the opera as he addresses his new subjects and is acclaimed by them in richly sonorous music based on the melodies of Russian Orthodox chant and the tolling of cathedral bells.

Born two generations after Verdi, Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) was the master of communicating extreme emotional states with irresistible power. His keen theatrical sense seldom failed him, and he knew how to intoxicate an audience with passionately soaring arias and duets. In the enchanting aria “Oh! mio babbino caro,” Lauretta, the young heroine of Puccini’s only comedy Gianni Schicchi, part of his operatic trilogy Il trittico (1918), is trying to wheedle her “dear daddy” into letting her marry the man she loves, Rinuccio. And she eventually succeeds, for who could resist that ravishing tune?

And we also hear later from a Puccini hero: Calaf, the Tartar Prince, who in Puccini’s last opera Turandot (premiered in 1926), is trying to win the hand of the icy Chinese Princess Turandot, who has had all her previous suitors executed. Having succeeded in answering her three riddles, he has put his life in her hands by offering to die if she can discover his name. As he waits out the deadline, he voices his confidence that victory will ultimately be his. Made famous by the Three Tenors Concert during the 1990 World Cup in Rome, “Nessun dorma” (“Nobody Sleeps”) has become the unofficial anthem of international soccer. Sometimes just one aria in an opera becomes immortal while the rest of the work fades away. Such is the case with the beloved “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” (“You are my heart’s delight”) from Franz Lehár’s (1870–1948) operetta “Das Land des Lächelns” (“The Land of Smiles”), premiered in 1929. His romantic operettas such as The Merry Widow made the Hungarian-born Lehár the toast of Vienna during the first decades of the 20th century. This one tells the bittersweet story of a European noblewoman who moves to China to marry a Chinese prince, only to have their love collapse under the pressure of culture shock. This glorious melody was designed to showcase the golden voice of Austrian lyric tenor Richard Tauber, who played the Chinese prince.

The great bel canto composer Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835) once wrote to a friend: “Opera, through singing, must make one weep, shudder, die.” He was the master of long-spanned legato melodies: melodies that flow smoothly over great arcs, supported by the extraordinary breath control a fine operatic singer must possess. The most famous example is the aria: “Casta Diva” (“Chaste Goddess”) from his 1831 opera Norma. In ancient Gaul ruled by the Romans, the Druid priestess Norma is secretly in love with the Roman commander, by whom she has borne two children. In Act I, she sings this mesmerizing aria to the moon goddess, in the process conveying a message of peace to her Druid followers, who are planning a revolt against the Romans.

We conclude our operatic journey with the “Triumphal Scene” from Act II of Verdi’s 1871 opera set in ancient Egypt: Aida. Again, this opera revolves around a love triangle: the Eygptian general Radames is loved by Amneris, daughter of the king of Egypt, but he prefers Aida, her Nubian slave. After he vanquishes the Nubians in battle and takes captive their leader Amonasro, who is in fact Aida’s father, he returns in triumph to his homeland. Opera producers frequently throw everything they can afford at this scene: dozens if not hundreds of supernumeraries to augment the choral crowd, as well as horses and even an elephant or two. Nevertheless, it is Verdi’s resplendent music, topped by pealing trumpets, that truly makes this one of opera’s most electrifying scenes.

Notes by Janet E. Bedell copyright 2015

INSTRUMENTATION 16 Violin, 7 Viola, 5 Cello, 5 Bass, 3 Flute/Piccolo, 2 Oboe, English Horn, 2 Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, 2 Bassoon, 4 French Horn, 3 Trumpet, 2 Trombone, Bass Trombone, Tuba, Timpani, 4 Percussion, Harp