AMERICAN OPERA CLASSICS LOUIS KARCHIN Jane Eyre Libretto by Diane Osen Zetlan • MacPherson • Meglioranza • Thompson Thurman • Giordano • Cannedy • Best • Fry Orchestra of the League of Composers • Karchin Act I Louis 1 Scene 1: Bedroom of Edward Rochester, Thornfield KA(Rb. 1C951H) IN (Eyre , Rochester ) 15:24 2 Scene 2: Drawing room at Thornfield Jane Eyre (2010–14) (Roderick Ingram , Mrs. Ingram , Rochester , Blanche Ingram , Eyre , Fairfax ) 19:27 3 An Opera in Three Acts Scene 3: Study of Edward Rochester, Thornfield Libretto by Diane Osen (b. 1956) (Rochester , Mason , Eyre , Fairfax , Bessie ) 11:07 Based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) Act II 4 Jane Eyre . Jennifer Zetlan, Soprano Scene 1: Drawing Room at Thornfield Edward Rochester . Ryan MacPherson, Tenor (Fairfax , Eyre , Rochester ) 9:57 5 Roderick Ingram / St. John Rivers . Thomas Meglioranza, Baritone Scene 2: The orchard outside Thornfield Mrs. Ingram / Diana Rivers . Jessica Thompson, Soprano (Eyre , Rochester ) 13:54 6 Blanche Ingram . Katrina Thurman, Soprano Scene 3: The chapel at Thornfield Mrs. Fairfax . Kimberly Giordano, Soprano (Wood , Rochester , Briggs , Eyre ) 12:13 Richard Mason / Mr. Briggs . Adam Cannedy, Baritone Act III Mary Rivers / Bessie . Jessica Best, Mezzo-Soprano 7 Scene 1: A one-room schoolhouse in a rural landscape Mr. Wood . David Salsbery Fry, Bass (Diana Rivers , Mary Rivers , St. John Rivers , Eyre , Children ) 24:20 8 Orchestra of the League of Composers Scene 2: A sitting room of Moor House, home of the Rivers family (St. John Rivers , Eyre ) 10:07 9 Louis Karchin, Conductor Scene 3: The parlor at Ferndean, hunting lodge of Edward Rochester Casting Director: Jennifer Rivera • Rehearsal Pianist: Isabella Dawis (Fairfax , Eyre , Rochester ) 13:18 The composer wishes to thank James Schaeffer, Director of the Center for Contemporary Opera (CCO), for his championing of Jane Eyre , both as a winner of CCO’s 2012 competition for new works, and for undertaking the fully- staged world premiere performances in October of 2016, at the Kaye Playhouse in Manhattan. Additional thanks to Director Darren Woods and the Fort Worth Opera for the selection of Jane Eyre for their inaugural Frontiers Series in 2012. The recording of the opera, in September, 2017, was supported by deeply appreciated funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, the Research Challenge Fund of New York University, research funds of the Department of Music at New York University, the Samuel and Beverly Sirota Endowment of the Jewish Community Foundation, and individual donors. The composition of Jane Eyre was supported, in part, by a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation to the composer in 2011–12. Jane Eyre its constant action, a more contemporary technique of of the act, in which Mrs. Fairfax counsels Jane towards a Music by Louis Karchin (b. 1951) • Libretto by Diane Osen (b. 1956) creating monologues not dependent on standard musical conservative approach to her relations with Rochester forms seemed to best propel the narrative of the tale.” before the wedding. Louis Karchin’s Jane Eyre – Rochester’s home, is layered with reference points, Towards the end of Act II, Scene 1 , Jane and The overture to Act III represents Jane’s harrowing An interview with the composer including some tropes from traditional opera. Karchin says, Rochester sing ecstatically of their love and forthcoming flight from Thornfield, gradually calming to reveal the “Diane and I wanted to give Rochester more obvious marriage. Then, as the orchestral interlude intimates, pastoral mood of a country setting. The introduction of Over the past two decades, composer Louis Karchin has appeal – so we represented him as a man of culture and Jane begins to fear the future. “It was important that the children is a crucial component of Act III, Scene 1 . Jane is created an oeuvre of acclaimed vocal works: two extended decided that he should be an opera lover. Donizetti is a interlude between Scenes 1 and 2 – one of the most teaching in a one-room schoolhouse, and providing her pieces for baritone and orchestra – Gods of Winter (2006), composer with whom he might have been acquainted, and extended of the opera – gradually transform the mood into charges with the positive educational experience she was on poems of Dana Gioia, and American Visions (2012), three Donizetti operas are mentioned in the text. All are its opposite,” Karchin notes. “Now Jane is alone, in an denied. “Musically, this opened an opportunity for another settings of the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko – Four alluded to as fleeting musical references, but the one most orchard at night, waiting for Rochester, who is late, and orchestral flowering,” explains Karchin, “as the music of Songs on Poems of Seamus Heaney (2014), for soprano relevant for Jane Eyre was Lucia di Lammermoor , with its she is troubled by ominous signs.” The scene leads to the chorus builds steadily from an accompaniment of ‘one and chamber ensemble, the masque Orpheus (2003), own ‘mad’ scene. For example, Rochester explains to Jane’s “nightmare” monologue, which recalls a trumpet note at a time’ to a ‘symphony of sound’ representing the which employs a poem by Stanley Kunitz, and an hour- Blanche’s mother that Donizetti is ‘a composer, Mrs. motif from the prior interlude. The climax is a duet in children’s happiness (and even providing for the long one-act opera, Romulus (2005), based on a play by Ingram, for the opera, the most sublime art invented by which Jane relates waking to find her wedding veil torn to possibility, towards the end, of a children’s ballet). Alexandre Dumas. While he has set some of the most man.’ At that moment, Rochester is pensive, though, shreds, and Rochester denies any cause for concern. The Afterwards the ‘sweet side’ of St. John’s (pronounced prominent poets of our time, composing a work based on thinking of his own situation, and recalls a phrase from duet, some of the most complex music of the opera, is “SINjin’s ”) character appears, as he cheerfully describes one of the vast and iconic novels of the 19th century, by Lucia’s mad scene (here played by the horns). Mrs. based on a moment in Act I when Rochester is caught to Jane the news of her good fortune. In Scene 2 , by the beloved author Charlotte Brontë, presented both a Ingram, blithely unaware of Rochester’s circumstances, or between praise of Jane and trepidation at Mason’s contrast, Osen’s libretto is deft in turning the tables, challenge and an unparalleled opportunity. his train of thought, dismisses the entire art form in a sudden appearance. The duet expands that music showing St. John’s puritanical side, as Jane ponders his Karchin says, “ Jane Eyre was composed between sentence, ‘Mr. Ingram never cared for music, nor for the greatly, layering it with counterpoint. proposal of a marriage based on single-minded service to 2010 and 2014, and it is, by far, the largest project I have Italians,’ and the music correspondingly changes abruptly.” There is contrasting levity in the wedding scene, as God, rather than love.” ever undertaken. The libretto itself was a feat of “The second scene also contains folk music,” Karchin the pastor, Mr. Wood, plods in his recitation of the The transition between Scenes 2 and 3 is a final compression, and it was Diane’s idea, both from a notes, “and in a few cases, it incorporates songs gleaned marriage vows and Rochester tries to hurry him along. orchestral showpiece, depicting Jane’s carriage ride back to dramatic and practical standpoint, to introduce Jane as a from a book of 19th-century English parlor music loaned The pastor barely budges (as depicted by the incremental Thornfield. As this instrumental climax fades and the governess, already serving Edward Rochester. Her to me by a musicology colleague.” The appearance of tempo marking in the score, “Only slightly faster than carriage slows, a bowed flexatone (one of the most inspired decision to open with a fire raging in Rochester’s Rochester, disguised as a gypsy, references another before”). Rochester’s final monologue in Act II finds him innovative touches of orchestration in the opera) suggests bedroom recreated only one of many dramatic scenes touchstone from traditional opera, in which the fortune losing control and lashing out, declaring that he is above the brakes of its wheels. Mrs. Fairfax relates the story of the that faithfully echo Brontë’s narrative and distinctive teller is a frequent character type. In Rochester’s first God’s laws. fire that has destroyed Thornfield and incapacitated syntax.” While this is their first collaboration, Karchin and major aria, the “gypsy” compliments Jane and searches to Musical connections abound in the second act. In Rochester; as the music gains in intensity, it recalls the “fire Osen had met many years earlier through their daughters, uncover her true feelings about him. addition to the above-mentioned duet, Mrs. Fairfax’s music” of the very opening of the opera. A slow transition and Karchin frequently consulted Osen, an established Scene 3 includes Rochester’s substantial second entrance in Act II expands the music of her previous follows as Rochester now nearly blind, gradually intuits that writer with a background in opera, on questions about aria, in which he begins to confide in Jane. The arrival of entrance in Act I . Moments later, as Jane reflects on her Jane has returned to him. Jane’s return provides a poetry he was setting. the servant, Bessie, leads to the largest ensemble piece visit to her Aunt Reed, the music refers back to Bessie’s redemptive quality to the end of the opera that is The first scene of Act I is roughly divided into three of the opera, a spirited quartet with Jane, Mrs.