Curlew River: a Parable for Church Performance
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Friday, November 14, 2014, 8pm Saturday, November 15, 2014, 2pm Zellerbach Hall Curlew River: A Parable for Church Performance Music by Benjamin Britten Libretto by william Plomer, after Jūrō Motomasa Britten Sinfonia & Britten Sinfonia Voices Soloists from the Pacific Boychoir Academy Curlew River is a co-production of the Barbican Centre, London; Cal Performances; Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York; and Carolina Performing Arts. These performances are made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Annette Campbell-White and Ruediger Naumann-Etienne. Cal Performances’ 8679–867: season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM CuRLEw RIVER: A PARABLE FOR CHuRCH PERFORMAnCE ( 1964 ) Music Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) Libretto Willi am Plomer (1903–1973), after Jūrō Motomasa (1395–1431) Direction, Design, Costume, Video Netia Jones Lighting Design Ian Scott CAST Madwoman Ian Bostridge, tenor Abbot Jeremy White, baritone Traveller Neal Davies, bass Ferryman Mark Stone, bass-baritone Spirit of the Boy David Schneidinger Altar Servants Jeroen Breneman, Sivan Faruqui, Louis Pecceu Music Director Martin Fitzpatrick PROduCTIOn TEAM Video and Production Lightmap Production Manager Rachel Shipp Tour Manager Eoin Quirke Video Technician Dori Deng Costume Supervisior Jemima Penny Hair and Makeup Designer Susanna Peretz Production Manager Steve Wald Stage Manager Beth Hoare-Barnes Deputy Stage Manager Jane Andrews Britten Sinfonia Management Nikola White Curlew River U.S Tour Management Askonas Holt Please note that there is no interval in this performance. PLAYBILL PROGRAM BRITTEn SInFOnIA (ORCHESTRA ) Martin Fitzpatrick, Director Flute Karen Jones Viola Clare Finnimore Harp Hugh Webb Horn Richard Wainwright Double Bass Ben Russell Percussion Scott Bywater BRITTEn SInFOnIA VOICES (CHORuS ) Eamonn Dougan, Director Tenor Andrew Dickinson Thomas Herford Daniel Joy Baritone Gabriel Gottlieb Thomas Kennedy Douglas Nairne Bass Oliver Hunt Louis Hurst CAL PERFORMANCES dIRECTOR’S nOTE A nOTE FROM THE dIRECTOR from the self.” Zeami elucidates: “When they are bereaved mothers, the heroines are repre - Clear as a sky without a cloud sented as abnormally sensitive and particu - May be a mother’s mind, larly susceptible to their surroundings and fall But darker than a starless night into fits of poetic exaltation which expresses With not one gleam, not one, itself by frenzied gestures. When their lost No gleam to show the way. ones are found, their temporary madness —William Plomer, Curlew River leaves them.” In Curlew River , the lucidity that (after Jūrō Motomasa) follows the resolution of the drama is trans - lated into the medieval idea of spiritual en - dEAS OF dARKnESS And LIGHT , obscurity lightenment—the darkness of madness and Iand illumination are at the heart of confusion recedes into the clarity of under - Benjamin Britten and William Plomer’s ex - standing, and, perhaps, redemption. traordinary “parable for church performance,” “There is nothing specifically Japanese left Curlew River . The drawing together of in the parable that William Plomer and I have Japanese noh theater and the English medieval written,” asserted Britten. But the features that mystery play creates an entirely unique and lu - so attracted him to the noh performances that minous work, quite unlike any other. Here, the he witnessed—“the touching story, the econ - concept of light takes separate forms: natural omy of style, the intense slowness of the action, light—the physical manifestation of light or the marvelous skill and control of the per - absence of it—metaphysical radiance or di - formers, the beautiful costumes, the mixture of vine light, and spiritual revelation or enlight - chanting, speech and singing which, with the enment. The interplay between darkness and instruments, made up the strange music”—are light is both literal and metaphorical, at once fundamental to Curlew River . Contrast and op - narrative and abstract—daylight and night, position, opacity and transparency are woven seeing and not seeing, clarity and confusion. through the libretto, and create a slow, subtle, Aspects of both ancient Oriental and but intense accumulation of tension. The blend English medieval theater are reflected in every of ritual and spontaneity of noh theater, com - part of the piece: stillness, ritual, visual rich - bined with the communal nature of enactment ness, and gestural economy. Here human suf - of the medieval mystery makes for a work fering is represented not literally, but with a which is both removed and extremely intimate. degree of abstraction that reveals a deeper Here medieval concepts of illumination and truth. Suffering is pared down to its most ex - spiritual enlightenment are presented in hu - treme expression—a mother made mad with mane terms, both universal and heartbreak - grief for her lost son. In the traditions of noh ingly individual, in music of profound beauty theater, as described by Zeami Motokiyo, the and the deepest expressiveness. 14th-century noh master, madness is “a highly spiritual state accompanied by a separation © 2014 Netia Jones PLAYBILL PROGRAM nOTES CURLEW RIVER BACKGROund However, neither The Rape of Lucretia nor Curlew River attempts to synthesize the VIRTuOuS wIFE raped by the vicious son European past and present or East and West; Aof a Roman tyrant; a Japanese mother, both are simultaneously and separately present maddened by grief perhaps, in search of her in each work and are somehow brought to - abducted son. How much can The Rape of gether within the performance itself. Indeed, Lucretia and Curlew River have in common? “performance” may be said to act as a bridge be - For a start, there’s a span of 18 years between tween these two worlds. So the principal action the first performances of each work, during of the church parable has the Madwoman and which time Benjamin Britten’s interests the Traveller being ferried across the Curlew moved in different directions. Then The Rape River, while in the chamber opera Tarquinius of Lucretia is described as an opera, while must ride from his army camp outside Rome Curlew River was subtitled “A Parable for into the heart of the city to ravish Lucretia. Church Performance.” It’s true that both works Britten was always alert to creative worlds tell their tales within a specifically Christian beyond his native shores. As a young man ex - framework, with the man and woman of the cited by the music of Mahler he had hoped to chorus in Lucretia struggling to relate her rape study with Alban Berg in Vienna. His journey and eventual suicide to Christian ideas about to America in 1939 may have been largely for suffering and redemption, and the history of personal and political reasons, but he evi - the Madwoman in Curlew River performed by dently relished the possibility of becoming a a cast of medieval monks in a work that be - part of a different musical culture. Indeed, it gins and ends with plainchant. was in the United States that he first encoun - But look and listen again. The Rape of tered the music of the gamelan, which would Lucretia was composed hot on the heels of the become such a distinct accent in his own triumph of Peter Grimes in 1945 , while Curlew music after a holiday to Bali in 1956. River was first performed in 1964 , four years In February of that year Britten, together with after A Midsummer Night’s Dream . And both his partner Peter Pears, had been invited to per - would seem to anticipate that late masterpiece form in Tokyo by the Japanese broadcaster Death in Venice . What all three works share is NHK and the British Council. Up to this point a desire to rethink both the form and, perhaps, the composer’s relationship with Japan had not the function of music drama after the com - been a happy one. I n 1940, at the age of 26, he poser had demonstrated (in Peter Grimes , and five other European composers (includ - Albert Herring , Billy Budd , and The Turn of the ing Richard Strauss and Jacques Ibert) had Screw ) his mastery of larger-scale works which been invited to write a piece celebrating the sit relatively comfortably within the tradition 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the of European opera. Japan ese empire. Britten’s resulting work— More significantly, both The Rape of Lucretia Sinfonia da Requiem —composed in memory of and Curlew River look to cultures that are either his parents, was unacceptable to the Japanese. It at the edge of the Western tradition or outside it: was, a court official told him, unsuitably to Rome when it was ruled by kings and to me - Christian and too “gloomy” to celebrate the dieval Japan. Yet both set their stories within the birthday of a dynasty. dominant Western tradition of Christianity. If Matters were much improved in 1956. Britten intends to revise our notion of what con - Britten and Pears gave a recital that included stitutes music drama in both of these works, he the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo together is also, perhaps, a child of his time; an artist who, with the composer’s arrangements of British for all his deep curiosity about other cultures, folk songs. Nine days later Britten conducted was grounded in the tradition set in train by the the NHK Symphony Orchestra in a perform - Enlightenment, that West was probably best. ance of Les illuminations , with Pears as the CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM nOTES soloist, and, for the first time in Japan, the understood without study—it would be wrong Sinfonia da Requiem . to equate noh with Western opera. It makes de - In the meantime, the two men were steep - mands on actors and audiences that are a great ing themselves in traditional Japanese culture, deal more challenging than an evening spent with recitals of traditional geisha singing, vis - in the company of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, or its to kabuki and noh theater and a perform - Berg.