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Tempest Libretto Book.Pmd LEE HOIBY The Tempest Opera in Three Acts Libretto by Mark Shulgasser after William Shakespeare Purchase Opera Conservatory of Music School of the Arts Purchase College Jacque Trussel, artistic director Purchase Symphony Orchestra Hugh Murphy, conductor The Tempest Music...........................................Lee Hoiby Notes on The Tempest...................Jacque Trussel Libretto..............................Mark Shulgasser, As I remember, Lee Hoiby and his librettist Mark Schul- after William Shakespeare gasser, having finished their new work The Tempest, were Conductor..............................Hugh Murphy ruminating on who should sing the challenging, dramatic Artistic Director.......................Jacque Trussel role of Caliban for the opera’s premiere at Des Moines Opera. Project Coordinator............Margaret Vignola They asked Matthew Epstein, the powerful Columbia Artist manager, for suggestions. Hearing their description of the CAST: character and his demanding music, he said emphatically Prospero.............................Robert Balonek that tenor Jacque Trussel was their man. Ariel.......................................Molly Davey Days later the pair were at home listening to a radio Miranda........................Catherine Webber broadcast of a new production from San Francisco Opera of Caliban..........................Joshua Benevento Reimann’s Lear. Hearing Edmund’s powerful aria “Wherefore Ferdinand........................Anthony Caputo Bastard,”Lee Hoiby declared then and there “That’s our Stephano.............................Julian Whitley Caliban!” After the broadcast, they discovered the name of Trinculo...............................Rasdia Wilmot the singer—Jacque Trussel! Struck by this coincidence, Hoiby made a personal call to me; it was answered by my wife and Gonzalo..............................Jeffrey Taveras voice instructor, Bonnie Hamilton. A fan of his work, Bonnie King Alonso.........................JungBum Heo was excited by Hoiby’s offer for me to sing the role of Caliban Antonio...................Derek Greten-Harrison in his new opera. Lee was concerned about the fee, but Sebastian...............................Said Pressley Bonnie reassured him: “Don’t worry, I’ll see that this will Iris.....................................D’ana Lombard happen.” We went to Lee’s New York apartment; after Ceres ...............................Diana Wangerin hearing Caliban’s second act aria,“Be not afear’d,” the Juno........................................Ilene Pabon project was a no-brainer. A critic has since referred to it as “possibly the most beautiful operatic aria written in the past Courtiers: John Arida, Christopher Colmenero,* 50 years.” I said yes on the spot. Marcos Cuevas, Kevin Dilone, Gabriel Felippe,* Doing this work began what has turned out for me to be Brister Hay IV,* Robert Jedlicka, Michael Meyers,* a love affair of more than two decades with both Hoiby and Christian Perez, Constandinos Tsourakis. *courtier solos his glorious music. My long-time colleague and coach Hugh Female Chorus: Angelique Alexander, Isabela Bendik, Savannah Bisset, Marina Da Costa, Amelia Feuer, Murphy helped me learn the role. This partnership and our Rebecca Hajek, Samantha Kelley, Holland Kerker, shared respect for Hoiby’s beautiful opera have endured and Taylor Kirk, Emily Klavun, Nadine Kulburg, Alyssa culminated in the making of this recording. Meyers, Skylar Saltz, Sofia Sarkisian, Katharine After the 1986 performances, I remember telling Lee Steffens, Jennifer Sunshine, Jasmine Thomas. that some day I would direct The Tempest, because I wanted ■ 2 ■ to do it my way. Twenty years who has chosen to live his life in his intellect. He has later, a promising roster of unwittingly given up his kingdom to his opportunistic vocal students here at SUNY brother and to the King of Naples. He has been set to sea Purchase have made it pos- and marooned on an island where he dwells in a gigantic sible to realize that ambition. shell with his daughter Miranda. (The meaning of the We staged and performed name “Miranda” is “mirror” and I see her as repre- the work in Spring 2008 to senting his body of work, his progeny.) While on this great acclaim and together island he is forced to examine himself in his totality, not with Hugh Murphy, we now just as an intellect. He discovers his darker, native side— record Lee’s masterpiece. in the uncivilized Caliban, his spiritual side and his muse Jacque Trussel as Caliban Shakespeare was nearing —in the sprite Ariel. In the opera, Prospero is forced to the end of his life as he finished The Tempest. I believe it confront his own demons, his jealousy and rage toward to have been his play of reflection—what have I done those whom he has allowed to conspire against him: with my life? Have I lived it to the fullest and what is to hence, the tempest he creates. In the end, he learns happen to that which I have created when I have passed? forgiveness and to forsake the need to hold fast to his The Tempest asks and answers these questions for the own work, ultimately entrusting it to those who will playwright. In our staged version, William Shakespeare watch over it. By doing so, he—the character and the has a dream in which he becomes Prospero, the man great playwright— realizes the whole of his humanity. A Note from the Conductor......Hugh Murphy I first encountered Lee Hoiby’s The Tempest in 1986 of Miranda in this production. Ten years later Jac, Bon- when Jacque Trussel was contracted to create the role of nie Hamilton, Kaori and I, all on faculty at the Purchase Caliban for the Des Moines Metro Opera. Jac was singing College Conservatory of Music, decided we had the right all over the world at the time, and had had big successes voices and students to cast Hoiby’s opera! Our Purchase in other world premieres. We’d been coaching for a Opera productions had been gaining wide attention, couple of years by then, and had worked together on been favorably reviewed by Opera News and The New some challenging pieces—Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, York Times, and hailed as “Best Opera of the Year” Wozzeck, Peter Grimes, The Gambler. We both found the three times by the National Opera Association. Hoiby score interesting and difficult but also strikingly I was excited to conduct a score by a living com- beautiful, and realized that this was an important opera. poser, and in preparation for working with Lee Hoiby, Jac had a tremendous success in the role of Caliban, undertook an in-depth study of it. I found fascinating particularly with his performance of that magnificent musical relationships between characters, and con- second act aria “Be not afear’d.” nections between text and music. As I coached the I helped Jac review his role for a 1996 revival of students in their roles, I realized that, as in Strauss’ Die The Tempest in Dallas, and also prepared Kaori Sato, the Frau ohne Schatten, each character has a clearly defined young soprano who would be understudying the role musical personality and inhabits a distinct musical world ■ 3 ■ governed by its own interior logic. On a purely musical island until Prospero’s arrival, inhabits a tormented, level, the drama involves the collisions of these worlds confusing musical world built of half-steps and tritones, and their influences on each other. full of rhythmic confusion. He only escapes this musical Prior to the production, Jac and I met with Lee and torment during his second act aria “Be not afear’d.” This Mark, working through revisions, and discussing Jac’s is a heroic piece of music sung by a “low” Shakespear- concept for staging the piece. I asked Lee about some of ean character who expresses his inner desires and dreams the compositional choices and historical references that I in a way that transports him completely beyond the found so brilliant and meaningful. I didn’t get far before opera. It also places the conflict between good and evil he stopped me, exclaiming with surprise and a little irony, that rages in every soul at the musical and philosophical “You mean I did that? Gosh, I must be a genius!” He center of this Tempest. told me that he’d written each note just as it needed to The comical Trinculo and Stephano are the only char- be, from his unconscious, and he would leave it to the acters who sing in true recitative. The composer often scholars to figure out his technique. instructs Trinculo to use falsetto and to approximate In Jac’s concept of this Tempest, the Act I Prelude pitches. The drunken Stephano arrives singing a sea begins with the character of Shakespeare preparing for chanty, and continues with erratic, colorful music that bed, then falling asleep. His bed begins to rock, to sway. veers wildly in style. Hoiby’s orchestra provides humorous Suddenly, on a musical cue, the bed curtains become a comments on the action throughout the comic scenes, sail, and Shakespeare disappears. The bed is transformed swooping drunkenly, stumbling in and out of any con- into a ship upon the open sea. A light wind springs up venient key center. Later, in Act II, these characters are which grows in strength until it becomes a tempest. drawn into Caliban’s musical world as he seduces them As the storm subsides, we find ourselves washed with a plot to kill Prospero. ashore on the island from which Prospero and his The Prelude to Act II paints an eerie picture of a dark, daughter Miranda have been watching the tempest and vine-draped part of the island where we encounter Duke the shipwreck that has brought his enemies to the island. Alonso and his courtiers. Alonso’s powerful, masculine Their natural world, enhanced by Prospero’s magic, is music rises aggressively out of the orchestral murk. represented through a tonal structure in which major His courtiers sing in three-part harmony, alternatively and minor versions of each chord appear together, reminiscent of English madrigal style and a harmonically stacked on top of each other, bringing to mind a adventurous version of faux-bourdon.
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