Viennese, Sqmmerfest, Showcase, Minnesota Orchestra, July 13, 1994
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
) , Co-Sponsored by WCCO Television and Lunds Food Stores Festival Concert No. 2 ALEXANDER NEVSKY: THE MOVIE AND THE MUSIC DAVID ZINMAN, conductor NANCY MAULTSBY, mezzo-soprano ELISABEIH COMEAux, soprano BRUCE FOWLER, tenor WARIAND SYMPHONIC CHORUS Peter Hendrickson, music director METROPOliTAN BOYS CHOIR METROPOliTAN GIRlS CHOIR Beatrice Hasselmann, music director Thursday, July 14, 1994, 8 p.m./Orchestra Hall \ Claude-Joseph Rouget de lisle/HEcroR BERUQZ La Marseillaise . "~ / INTERMISSION AI.EXANDER NEVSKY A film by Sergei Eisenstein with music by Sergei Prokofiev Film score performed by The Minnesota Orchestra David Zinman will comment on the program from the stage. Performance time, including an intermission following the brief opening number, is approximately two hours and 20 minutes. • + Late Night with David Zinman follows tonight's concert. Warland Symphonic Chorus (Chorus list appears on page 83.) Metropoli~anBoys and Girls Choir (Chorus list appears on page 83.) [ , Sergei Prokofiev composed Alexander _Nevsky in 1938, two years after he returned to Russia 40 SHOWCASE JULy/AUGUST 1994 ( Co-Sponsored by WCCO Television and Lunds Food Stores Festival Concert No. 24 ~ PUCCINI'S I.A BOHEME DAVID ~MAN, conductor t' ~ Saturday, August 6, 1994, 8 p.m./Orchestra usn GIACOMO PUCCINI La boheme KALLEN ESPERIAN, soprano Mimi ANN PANAGULIAS, soprano Musetta JIANYI ZHANG, tenor Rodolfo RODNEY GILFRY, baritone Marcello PETER HALVERSON, baritone Schau nard THOMAS BARRElT, bass-baritone Colline VERN SUTTON, tenor Benoit/ Alcindoro MARK SCHOWALTER, tenor Parpignol DERRICK A PENNIX, bass Sergeant WARlAND SYMPHONIC CHORUS· Peter Hendrickson, music director ,/ METROPOLITAN BOYS CHOIR and METROPOLITAN GIRlS CHOIR Beatrice Hasselmann, music director JAMES ROBINSON, staging coordinator SUPERTITLES for this production of La boheme are owned by San Francisco Opera. SUPERTITLES translation by Clifford Cranna -. There will be one 20-minute intermission preceding Act III. Performance time, including intermission, is approximately two hours and 10 minutes. ~ Franco Zeffirelli's Cafe Momus . scene was an extravaganza. Here is the Act II set design for the Metropolitan Opera's famous production of La boheme. / (Program note appears on the following page.) SHOWCASE JULy/AUGUST 1994 81 -~ sentimental story is dominated by one of Puccini's mo ,. ~I appealing heroines, the fragile little milliner who lives I About the Opera beneath the garret shared by a poet (Rodolfo), a painter by Mary Ann Feldman (Marcello), a philosopher (Colline) and a musician Giacomo Puccini (Schaunard). The love relationships are stormy, butatthe approach of her death from tuberculosis, Mimi returns to Born December 22, 1858, Lucca; the garret to share reminiscences and expire peacefully died November 29,1924, Brussels after reconciling with her former lover.Tussing over La boheme every detail, and begging Giacosa for "just an extra phrase, a word of affection to Rodolfo" in the final scene, Puccini There is no one incapable of identifying with the exuber- Puccini declared: ''When this girl, forwhom I have worked ant characters of Puccini's fourth opera, for this is the so hard, dies, I should like her to leave the world less for story of everybody's youth, when dreams may still come herself and-a little more for him who loved her." true and the pains of romance are bearable, for there may He is an artist and he is romantic, and, although he is be other loves yet to come. La boheme, one of the ABC's supposed to be French, by the time Puccini got through with of the repertory (with Aida and Carmen), carried the him he became totally Italian .... His feelings are my own. composer's name to the opera houses of the entire world. - -Luciano Pavarotti on Rodolfo, the role in which he Strange to say, La boheme was not an immediate tri- made his debut As it is, there is no v doubt about its being umph at its premiere in Turin on February 1, 1896, under an original work! Arturo Toscanini; the critics had come expecting a roman- SYNOPSIS And such a one! The tic tragedy more in the vein of its predecessor, Manon . ACT,I: In their cheerless Latin Quarter garret, the near- last act is most - Lescaut, which two years earlier was Puccini's first tri- destitute artist Marcello and poet Rodolfo try to keep beautiful. So is that of umph. Instead, they found a mixture of light-hearted warm on Christmas EV~by feeding the stove with pages the Latin Quarter, but entertainment and tender romance, all of this carried on from Rodolfo's drama. "They are soon joined by their very difficult. in a melodic yet essentially conversational style. Had they roommates-Colline, ayoung philosopher, and Schaunard, -Puccini in a letter focused on the rich harmonies and the brilliant orchestra- a musician, who brings food, fuel and funds. While they dated September 7, tion-which more than justifies a concert performance in celebrate their unexpected fortune, the landlord, Benoit, 1894, when he first an Orchestra Hall-they would have come away dazzled. comes to collect the rent. Plying the older man with wine, received the libretto Needless to say, the work surmounted the reservations of they urge him to tell of his flirtations, then throw him out c voices that failed to give praise, and nowadays is consid- "$ in mock indignation at his infidelity to his wife. As his ered by many to be Puccini's greatest masterpiece. Only friends depart to celebrate at the Cafe Momus, Rodolf ,_.~~I" \ a little more than a year after its debut, it was produced in promises to join them later, remaining behind to try t, 1J America-at the Los Angeles Theater, where Toscanini write. There is another knock at the door; the visitor turns conducted it on October 14, 1897. The Metropolitan out to be a pretty neighbor, Mimi, whose candle has gone Opera premiere took place on December 26, 1900, with out on the drafty stairway. No sooner does she enter than Nellie Melba as Mimi. the girl feels faint; after reviving her with a sip of wine, ' Besides the lukewarm reception a century ago, another Rodolfo helps her to the door, relighting her candle. irony surrounding this work is that despite its simple, Suddenly Mimi realizes she lost her key when she fainted, fresh story and impression of spontaneity, the writing of and as the two search for it, both candles are blown out. itgave Puccini no end oftrouble. Although he worked with In the moonlight the poet takes the girl's shivering hand, a team of collaborators that any composer would covet- telling her his dreams ("Che gelida manina"). She then Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, who would also provide recounts her life alone in the Latin Quarter, making the librettos of Tosca and Madama Butterfly for him-- artificial flowers and waiting for the spring ("Mi chiamano The famous Swedish Puccini had problems all the way: "The further I advance Mimi"). Rodolfo'sfriends are heard outside, urging him to tenor [ussi Bjiirling the more arduous do the difficulties become," he stated' join them; he calls back that he will be along shortly. when he portrayed in a letter. "Curse the libretto!", he exclaimed. "I have Voicing their new-found rapture ("0 soave fanciulla"), Rodolfo in already done the whole thing from start to finish three Mimi and Rodolfo embrace and slowly leave, arm in arm, Minneapolis during times over, and some of it four or five times." At one point for the cafe. the Metropolitan Giacosa nearly withdrew from the project, complaining: "I ACT II: Amid the shouts of street hawkers, Rodolfo Opera's annual cannot, fo~all my trying, come alive in it; ... I have wasted buys Mimi a bonnet near the Cafe Momus and then spring tour more paper on a few scenes of this libretto than on any of introduces her to his friends; they all sit down and order my own plays." supper. The toy vendor Parpignol passes by, besieged by The story originated in Henry Miirger's Scenes de la vie eager children. Marcello's former sweetheart, Musetta, de Boheme, a series of autobiographical sketches. En- makes a noisy entrance on the arm of the elderly but countering fellow-opera composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo wealthy Alcindoro. The ensuing tumult reaches its peak ••••~ in a Milan cafe one day, Puccini discovered that his friend when, trying to regain the painter's attention, Musetta was also at work on an opera based on the same source. sings awaltz about her popularity ("Quando me'n vo"), To I' We wonder what They argued bitterly, and were enemies ever after. But get rid ofAlcindoro she complains that her shoe pinches, could have started Puccini held fast to the opera already in progress, and sending him off to fetch a new pair. The moment he is Puccini towards the when at last it seemed to be finished, he spent nearly the gone, she falls into Marcello's arms and tells the waiter to degradation of this entire year of 1895 on its colorful orchestration. Equally charge everything to Alcindoro. Soldiers march by the Boheme. striking was his new type of operatic melody, complex in cafe, and as the bohemians fall in behind, Alcindors ))) -The critic of line and only gradually attaining its climax, often to rushes back with Musetta's shoes-only to face the bill. Gazetta di Torini, subside in exhaustion. (You will hear an example of this ACTIII: It is several months later. At dawn on the snowy following. the in the last act duet between Mimi and Rodolfo.) outskirts of Paris, a customs official admits farm women premiere Set in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1830s, the richly to the city. Late merrymakers are heard within a tavern.