How Like an Angel (U.S

10-22 Angel_GP 10/7/14 3:02 PM Page 1 Wednesday–Friday Evenings, October 22–24, 2014, at 7:30 Post-performance discussion with Robert Hollingworth, Yaron Lifschitz, and Ara Guzelimian on Thursday, October 23 How Like an Angel (U.S. premiere) Created by Yaron Lifschitz and Robert Hollingworth Circa Yaron Lifschitz, Director I Fagiolini Robert Hollingworth, Director This performance is approximately 70 minutes long and will be performed without intermission. Please join the artists for a White Light Lounge immediately following the performance. (Program continued) The White Light Festival is sponsored by Time Warner Inc. Generous support for the White Light Festival presentation of How Like an Angel is provided by The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc. These performances are made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. James Memorial Chapel, Please make certain all your electronic devices Union Theological Seminary are switched off. WhiteLightFestival.org 10-22 Angel_GP 10/7/14 3:02 PM Page 2 Endowment support is provided by the American Upcoming White Light Festival Events: Express Cultural Preservation Fund. Friday–Sunday, October 24–26, MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center. in the Walter Reade Theater White Light on Film: The Decalogue Movado is an Official Sponsor of Lincoln Center. Krzysztof Kie slowski , Director The complete ´cycle of 10 films is screened over a United Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln weekend. Center. Introduced by Annette Insdorf on October 24 at 7:30 Presented in association with the Film Society of WABC-TV is the Official Broadcast Partner of Lincoln Center Lincoln Center. Saturday, October 25, from 3:45 to 5:15 William Hill Estate Winery is the Official Wine of in the Walter Reade Theater Lincoln Center. White Light Conversation: The Evolution of Morality Artist Catering is provided by Zabar’s and John Schaefer , Moderator Zabars.com. With John Luther Adams, Randy Cohen, Alice W. Flaherty, and Elaine Pagels Circa acknowledges the assistance of the Thursday–Saturday, October 30–November 1, Australian Government through the Australia at 7:30 in Synod House, the Cathedral of Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the St. John the Divine Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. Curlew River (U.S. premiere production) Ian Bostridge , Madwoman How Like an Angel was originally produced by Netia Jones , Director and Designer Norfolk & Norwich Festival in association with BRITTEN : Curlew River Circa and I Fagiolini, and commissioned by London A co-production between the Barbican Centre, 2012 Festival. London, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Carolina Performing Arts, and Cal Performances Berkeley Tuesday, November 4, at 7:30 in Alice Tully Hall Mavis Staples One True Vine Sunday, November 9, at 5:00 in Avery Fisher Hall Cathedrals of Sound Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig Riccardo Chailly , Conductor BACH : Orchestral Suite No. 4 BRUCKNER : Symphony No. 7 Pre-concert lecture by Scott Burnham at 3:45 in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit WhiteLightFestival.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at (212) 875-5766 to learn about pro - gram cancellations or to request a White Light Festival brochure. Visit WhiteLightFestival.org for more information relating to the Festival’s programs. Join the conversation: #LCWhiteLight We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the performers and your fellow audience members. In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building. 10-22 Angel_GP 10/7/14 3:02 PM Page 3 How Like an Angel (U.S. premiere) Created by Yaron Lifschitz and Robert Hollingworth Circa Yaron Lifschitz, Director Rowan Heydon-White, Bridie Hooper, Rudi Mineur, Kathryn O’Keeffe, Paul O’Keeffe, Skip Walker-Milne, Billie Wilson-Coffey I Fagiolini Robert Hollingworth, Director Anna Crookes, Charlotte Mobbs, Soprano Clare Wilkinson, Mezzo-soprano Robert Hollingworth, Countertenor Matthew Long, Nicholas Hurndall Smith, Tenor Greg Skidmore, Baritone Christopher Adams, Bass TALLIS Excerpt from Gaude gloriosa Dei mater DANIEL-LESUR Dialogue, from Le cantique des cantiques BHEKA DLAMINI Umsindisi HILDEGARD O viridissima virga JOSQUIN Agnus Dei, from Missa “L’homme armé” sexti toni VICTORIA Alma Redemptoris mater (c. 1581) RODERICK WILLIAMS Tallis/Hildegard Patterns (2012) ADRIAN WILLIAMS Hymn to Awe (2011–12) Lawrence English, Electronic composer WhiteLightFestival.org 10-22 Angel_GP 10/7/14 3:02 PM Page 4 Note from the Artistic Director by Yaron Lifschitz It begins with a phone call. It ends in voices and bodies and space. It starts with thought. It ends in emotion. It was a typically humid Brisbane late afternoon when, mired in the Storey Bridge’s traf - fic, my phone rang. On the other end was a chuffed Jonathan Holloway, then artistic director of Norfolk and Norwich Festival. “Yaron,” he enthused, “if I said we could get funds to do a circus piece with vocal music in cathedrals for the Olympics, would you be interested?” I can’t remember what I said next, though I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t be repeated in a house of worship. And now, years later, after many thousands of kilometers and hundreds of emails, we get to show the fruits of that wonderful phone call. Jonathan got us here. The insight, patience, and intelligence of Robert Hollingworth, along with the talented musicians of his ensemble, I Fagiolini, created a wonderful musi - cal journey. This is counterpointed by Lawrence English’s powerful sonic disruptions and Libby McDonnell’s costumes, which pushed the visuals into wonderful new terrain. My extraordinary delivery team of Jason Organ, Benjamin Knapton, and Danielle Kellie made this happen. And of course our startling acrobats fill the stage with the impossible. Certainly How Like an Angel is a show about belief, love, failure, ascent, humility, endurance, passion, loss, death, life—about our capacity for belief and the challenges and complexities of that belief. But I choose to work in a medium without words. So every one of these program notes is a trial—a sort of betrayal. The director’s note carries with it the promise to explain, “ How Like an Angel is a show about...” But if we could say it in words, it wouldn’t need enactment. Wittgenstein put it best: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.” We know for sure that tonight, bodies will lift and drag, suspend and drop, hurl and recoil. Voices will soar and glide, delivering dense polyphony and intricate rhapsodies. There will be ferocity and tenderness, hope and fear, tension and release. At the heart of this work is a mystery. Something that eludes words. Maybe it is a form of wonder. I wanted to make something beautiful that makes you feel something, even if you can’t exactly say why. —Copyright © 2014 by Yaron Lifschitz Please turn to page 68 to learn about the evolution of the circus. 10-22 Angel_GP 10/7/14 3:02 PM Page 5 Note from the Music Director by Robert Hollingworth We’ve done some unusual things for a vocal ensemble, but working with Circa was a par - ticular challenge. The basic energy of circus and music seemed to me (before meeting and working with Yaron Lifschitz and Circa) so different. Much of the music we sing is fun - damentally linear, whereas I thought that circus was a series of moments. One of the biggest discoveries for I Fagiolini in this project was watching Circa rehearse and seeing how their language is fundamentally linear and expressive: those “tada” moments are points on a line and ones they work hard to iron into the line. Back at the beginning though, I went to some live Circa shows in London and Berlin, sent Yaron a lot of music (as he did me—he has very wide and informed musical tastes), and we drank a lot of coffee together. He had a shape in his mind for the piece, and I started to have ideas about music that could create some sort of relationship to the physical work I had seen. This led to the first version of the show in Perth, which was performed in a large hall. The show was substantially re-imagined for UK cathedrals, building on our experience of working together in Perth. Specifically, we wanted to avoid the live music merely being a soundtrack and to play with how the energy could flow from one group to the other and one piece could set up another. This was easier once we had the experience of working together in Perth, and was fuelled by some interesting and slightly dangerous live impro - visations there (artistically dangerous but also literally—I don’t think our soprano Anna Crookes had actually expected to find herself standing on an acrobat’s shoulders without warning at one moment). As performances and rehearsals continued, both singers and acrobats started to have a much stronger response to what the other was doing. Few of the acts are specifically choreographed in a conventional sense, but all are inspired by the music, and that process quickly started to flow back the other way. Of course, the music you will hear was not intended to be performed for such an occa - sion, but neither was it intended to be performed to a partly atheist 21st-century public who have paid for their tickets. Context is everything, and we hope that the juxtapositions of the music, sounds, light, and physical work (both corporeal and vocal) take you some - where interesting tonight and give you pause for thought.

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