CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS

Friday, October 21, 2011, 8pm Zellerbach Hall

The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a

with

John Malkovich as Jack Unterweger

Louise Frido, soprano Martene Grimson, soprano

Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra Adrian Kelly, conductor

Written and directed by Michael Sturminger

This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Susan Marinoff and Thomas Schrag.

Cal Performances’ 2011–2012 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

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Friday, October 21, 2011, 8pm The Infernal Comedy Zellerbach Hall pera or music drama—call it what Oyou will—has always revelled in transgres- The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer sions of the most shocking kind. , pat- ricide, matricide, , , the pre- meditated of partners, children and best friends, whole cities and tribes put to the sword: PROGRAM these have been raw meat and rough drink to librettists and composers since the Florentine

Camerata first began to experiment with mo- Chapter 1: Introduction Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787): nodic music drama. Audiences have thrilled to Chaconne, “L’enfer,” from Don Juan (1761) the palpable presence of evil on stage for over four centuries. Indeed, there is an argument

worth pursuing that, as the tide of Christian Chapter 2: Where to begin? Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805): Chaconne, faith receded in the 19th century, it was in the “La Casa del Diavolo,” from Symphony in house that men and women who had lost D minor, G. 506 (1771) or jettisoned their faith now encountered the ab- solutes of good and evil. Iago’s credo in Verdi’s

Tom Bachtell Otello, for example, with that chilling word “nul- Chapter 3: (1678–1741): “Sposa son la” at the end; or Hagen in Götterdämmerung disprezzata,” from Ottone in Villa (1713) in The Infernal Comedy inciting Gunter and Brünnhilde to acquiesce to the murder of Siegfried. What no one knew was that Unterweger was

Why be surprised then that Michael anything but a reformed character. In the year Chapter 4: Womanizer (1756–1791): Sturminger chose to make a piece of music the- after his release he killed a total of six prostitutes “Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!,” K. 418 (1783) ater for John Malkovich out of the life and—as in . And when a magazine commissioned will soon be clear—the death of the Austrian him to write about crime in , and in

serial killer Jack Unterweger? Unterweger was particular to explore the different attitudes on Chapter 5: Writer Gluck: “Ballo grazioso” from Orfeo ed convicted of murdering Margaret Schafer in either side of the Atlantic to the issue of prosti- Euridice (1762) 1974. He had strangled her with her own un- tution, Unterweger grasped the opportunity to derwear and he was given a life sentence, which murder three Californian prostitutes. Sherri Ann (1770–1827): under Austrian law meant 25 years—15 in Long, Shannon Exley and Irene Rodriguez were “Ah, perfido,” Op. 65 (1795–1796) prison and then 10 years on parole. While in all beaten, sexually assaulted and then strangled jail, Unterweger began to write poetry, short with their own brassieres—Unterweger’s signa-

stories, plays and an autobiography. Impressed ture way of killing his victims. Chapter 6: Liar (1732–1809): “Berenice, che fai,” by his literary gifts, a number of Austrian in- In time the Austrian police made four from Hob. X XIVa:10 (1795) tellectuals took up the prisoner’s case, including two plus two. (To be fair, Jack Unterweger was a the 2004 Nobel laureate for literature Elfriede prominent celebrity who was rarely of the public

Jelinek. They petitioned for a pardon, arguing eye and we are most of us credulous in the face Chapter 7: Killer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826): “Ah, se that the murderer was reformed and properly re- of fame.) But when the police called to arrest Edmundo fosse l’uccisor!” (insertion for habilitated. Eventually Unterweger was released him, Unterweger had fled. It was the FBI who Mehul’s Helena) (1815) in May 1990, having served his 15 years in jail. tracked him down in , and when he was Within no time at all he became a national ce- returned to Austria the murderer-turned-liter-

lebrity, with frequent appearances on Austrian atus was charged with the eleven . He Chapter 8: Exit Mozart, “Ah, lo previdi!,” K. 272 (1777) television where, among other matters, he would was found guilty of nine crimes by a majority argue the case for the rehabilitation of criminals jury and was again sentenced to life imprison- based upon his own experiences. ment but this time without parole. On his return

6 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 7 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES to prison, Jack Unterweger took his own life. On pregnant by an American GI who went back Comedy rather than appearing in it. But be- every woman he met and so they kind of call June 29, 1994, he hanged himself with a rope he home a few weeks later without ever knowing fore that decision was made, in the spring of him out from the grave in the piece.” had made from his shoelaces and the cord from about his unborn son.” 2008, Mr. Sturminger and conductor Martin What is so modern about this dramatic his tracksuit trousers. It is reported that the knot As Mr. Sturminger says, Jack Unterweger Haselböck—the third member of the creative idea is the blending of the elaborate and often was the same knot that he had used to strangle made people believe in him. “It’s fascinating to triumvirate—had to agree on how they would highly artificial musical worlds of baroque and his victims. see that a lot of the women that he was involved turn Unterweger’s history into music theater. early classical with the lowlife history of a How did Unterweger avoid detection? with didn’t even believe that he was guilty even Their solution was to look to the past as well serial killer who was also a modern celebrity. It Charm, says John Malkovich, who takes the after the trial and [having heard] all the evi- as the present. So Mr. Sturminger wrote a se- is as if Handel had turned Truman Capote’s In part of the serial killer in The Infernal Comedy. dence against him. They could not believe that quence of monologues for Mr. Malkovich that Cold Blood into an opera. John Malkovich be- “I saw him more than once on television. He the person they knew had been the person who began with the notion that he comes back from lieves “that’s why it works. There’s a kind of pure became quite a celebrity here and hung out a killed all these women. He must have been a the dead. Unterweger steps out before the audi- God-given talent such as Mozart’s, that affirms cafe that is just about a five-minute walk from very charming and interesting and lovely man. ence to promote a new book. “The piece starts all of mankind’s potential for creating beauty, where I am now in . He was quite ‘the His young girlfriend who followed him for years out as if it’s stand-up comedy,” Mr. Sturminger set against Unterweger, who encapsulates man- man about town’ at the time. He was someone still couldn’t believe that he was the murderer explains. “Jack comes in saying ‘hello’ and be- kind’s potential for mayhem and cruelty. I think who had a lot of charm. If you go over to that even after his trial. It was a little bit of a Jekyll ing charming and funny. After he died, he tells that this mix, which was Martin Haselböck’s cafe where he used to go, you can talk to people and Hyde situation.” us, he wrote his true-life story. Now he’s going idea, is unusually potent.” The potency of pow- who will tell you that he was nice and funny and What then is the truth that Mr. Sturminger to present it to the public for the first time. But erful music combined with dangerous emotions: always had a smile on his face. In retrospect, and puts on stage about the serial killer? “It’s a cyni- his publisher has forced him to have this strange the very stuff of music theater. given the events of his life, we should remember cal story about a man who is tricking the whole kind of old-fashioned music around it because one of the things that he wrote—that the first world. At the same time it’s a story of a person they were concerned about the [need for] dra- Christopher Cook thing he had learnt was to smile and that smile who believes that he can do anything because matic impact.” was already a lie.” no one understands who he really is.” To which Music underpinning speech looks back to Michael Sturminger, author and stage di- Mr. Malkovich adds, “I think that in Judeo- an almost entirely forgotten 18th- and early- rector of The Infernal Comedy, argues that the Christian society the notion of redemption is so 19th-century tradition, the melodrama. There lies go far beyond a killer’s smile; that Austria powerful and necessary that we’d all like to be- are melodramas in Mozart’s opera Zaïde, and itself has never owned up to the truth about Jack lieve that we could be redeemed, even for things Beethoven acknowledges the form when Rocco Unterweger. “The Austrian media had been re- that don’t measure at all on the same scale as and Leonora are digging Florestan’s grave in porting about him all the time but had never Unterweger’s crimes. So it’s understandable that Fidelio. Weber uses the same device in the been particularly interested in finding out the someone should present themselves as a model “Wolf’s Glen” in Der Freischütz. Music raises truth about him. The press had overlooked prisoner, one who has learnt to write and has the emotional temperature of the drama, hint- [much] because they had relied on the things been rehabilitated, and so on. On that level, I ing at things that cannot be said. that Unterweger himself had said in his inter- think that The Infernal Comedy is about the no- Then there are two sopranos on stage, per- views or had written about himself, at least half tion that because we believe in something, it forming arias by Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, of which were not true. So the topic of what must be true. And that what we believe is borne Haydn and Weber. They depict heroines from could be the truth, and what should be the truth out by the facts. It’s something that you have the baroque and early classical periods singing about this person was very interesting for me.” to be careful of: philosophies and ideologies of their grief and torment, their fury and their At one point in his libretto, Mr. Sturminger, scare me.” resignation—the emotional red meat of opera speaking through the “character” of Unterweger, Put another way, The Infernal Comedy would and the concert aria. “The two sopranos begin tells us that even Jack’s Wikipedia entry peddles seem to circle that current cultural conceit, par- as concert singers,” Mr. Sturminger explains, fiction rather than truth about his history. For ticularly in respect of celebrities, that what we “artists who are going to provide a bit of clas- Mr. Malkovich, these lies or half-truths be- see or are shown is the truth, that the outer self sical music between Unterweger’s monologues, gan at the very beginning. “The women in must surely be the same as the inner self. “Sure,” but gradually they become characters in his life. Unterweger’s life were victims in some way or says Mr. Malkovich, adding that we confuse Not always as definite characters with names but other...indeed his mother was also a victim of even ourselves. “That’s Unterweger. I think it is their stories and Jack’s life story somehow merge [her son]. He made it up that she was a Viennese a tragic and haunting piece and story. But that’s together.” Mr. Malkovich takes up the idea. prostitute when in fact nothing could have been not at all to excuse anything he did.” “Their arias are chosen to...represent the women further from the truth. She was just a very young Mr. Malkovich had originally intended to in Unterweger’s life, all of whom were victims in girl, really a kind of country bumpkin, who got direct what was about to become The Infernal some way or another. He victimized...just about

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conductor Martin Haselböck, who was looking MUSIC ANGELICA BAROQUE ORCHESTRA for a new connection between classical music and contemporary acting. The Infernal Comedy, Adrian Kelly, Conductor a piece for orchestra, two sopranos and one ac- tor, had its world premiere in Los Angeles, di- rected by and performed by John Malkovich. first violin Following the production’s initial success, The Ilia Korol (Part I only) Joshua Lee Infernal Comedy was produced and directed by Cynthia Roberts Jessica Powell Mr. Sturminger in 2009 at the Ronacher Theatre Kati Kyme in Vienna and Pera Lada Festival in Spain. In

Owen Dalby flute Bauer Nathalie May and June 2010, the production went on a John Malkovich is one of the most important tour including Luxembourg, Brussels, Paris, Francis Liu Stephen Schultz Noah Strick actors of today’s cinema. He has played in more Istanbul, Hamburg, Athens, Saloniki, Malaga, Tatiana Daubek than 65 movies and directs and produces films. Bilbao, Ravello, St. Petersburg and Toronto and In 1976, John Malkovich joined Chicago’s continues to North and South America in 2011. second violin Gonzalo Ruiz Steppenwolf Theatre, newly founded by his Alongside his opera productions, Michael DuPree friend, Gary Sinise. Mr. Sturminger regularly directs dramas at Piroska Batori (Part I only) After that, it would take seven years before Vienna’s Volkstheater (Peer Gynt, Hiob and Du Janet Strauss bassoon Mr. Malkovich would show up in New York and bleibst bei mir) and has also directed several op- Jolianne Einem win an Obie in Sam Shepard’s play True West. eretta productions, including Die Fledermaus Amy Wang Anna Marsh In 1984, Mr. Malkovich appeared with Dustin with Franz Welser-Möst at Zurich Opera House Maxine Nemerokski Kelsey Schilling Hoffman in the Broadway revival of Death of (2008) and The Czardas Princess with conductor/ Jennifer Heilig clarinet a Salesman, which earned Mr. Malkovich an intendant Stefan Soltesz at Aalto Theatre Emmy Award when it was made into a movie for Essen (2010). viola Nina Stern television the next year. Mr. Sturminger has also worked in cinema. Laura Spino Robert Diggins He made his big-screen debut as the blind His 2004 film Hurensohn, starring Russian ac- Aaron Westman horn lodger in Places in the Heart (1984), which tress Chulpan Khamatova, received several William Frampton earned him an Academy Award nomination for awards. In 2008, his documentary Malibran Hermann Ebner (Part I only) best supporting actor. Other films would fol- Rediscovered with was shown cello Ferenc Varga (Part II only) low, including The Killing Fields (1984) and The on Arte TV and released on DVD. A DVD William Skeen Suzette Moriarty Glass Menagerie (1987), but he would be well re- of The Infernal Comedy was published by Shirley Hunt membered as Vicomte de Valmont in Dangerous Arthouse. Mr. Malkovich, Mr. Haselböck and Liaisons (1988). Playing against Michelle Pfeiffer Mr. Sturminger have recently created a second and Glenn Close in a costume picture helped opera project, The Giacomo Variations, which raise his standing in the industry. He would be will be published on DVD and performed cast as the psychotic political assassin in Clint in many European cities, including Vienna, Eastwood’s In the Line of Fire (1993), for which , Moscow, Bruxelles, Hamburg, Paris, he would be nominated for both the Academy Turku and St. Petersburg. Award and the Golden Globe. Out of his interest in independent movies Danish soprano Louise and his reputation as one of the most absorbing Fribo had her break- actors in Hollywood did the movie Being John through in Denmark at Malkovich arise. age 21, soon after com- Mr. Malkovich has periodically returned to pleting her training at Chicago to both act and direct. the Bush Davies School in England. She was In early 2008, Michael Sturminger started discovered by one of the a project with the renowned organist and leading producers of

10 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 11 ABOUT THE ARTISTS ABOUT THE ARTISTS the time, and after having played Cosette in Les Lübeck and in Messiah with Danish Radio She recently made her debut for the Nationale and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Musica Misérables and Cunegonde in Candide she re- Sinfonietta under Peter Dijkstra. Reisopera as Glauce in Medea. Angelica was co-founded by the late Michael ceived the Marguerite Viby Award. She then Engagements this season and beyond in- Eagan, widely considered one of the foremost landed the role of the Fairy in the Danish TV Soprano Martene Grimson clude Despina in Così fan tutte for Longborough lute players in the country, and the late gambist X-mas series and subsequently became a name graduated from the Sydney Festival Opera, Nanetta in Falstaff with Mid Mark Chatfield. known to people across the country—especial- Conservatorium of Music Wales Opera conducted by Nicholas Cleobury, ly to children. before moving to London, and performances of The Giacomo Variations Adrian Kelly was born in Ms. Fribo has sung in , musicals and where she completed her with John Malkovich in Vienna, Sydney, Hertfordshire, England. He concerts. She has worked as an actress in TV se- studies at the Royal College St. Petersburg and on tour in . studied at King’s College, ries and films, dubbed the heroines of Disney, of Music’s Cambridge, where he was a performed 700 shows of Cats in London, toured Opera School and at the Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra is led by choral scholar, and later at with legendary Bent Fabricius-Bjerre, done film- Ahlburg Sussie National Opera Studio. She internationally renowned organist, conductor the Royal Northern College ing with Lars von Trier, and recorded four re- was supported by the Royal Opera House and composer Martin Haselböck. Regarded of Music. On completion of cords in her own name. Presently Ms. Fribo is Countess of Munster Musical Scholarship and as southern California’s premier baroque en- his studies he joined the working mainly as an opera singer. the Madeline Finden Memorial Award. semble, Musica Angelica presents wide-ranging Young Artists Program at Her education as a coloratura soprano from Ms. Grimson was awarded second prize in programs encompassing music from the early the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where the Royal Danish Opera Academy founded the the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier Competition and baroque through the early Classical era. he had to the opportunity to work with conduc- base. After her debut as Zerbinetta at Theater has given recitals at the Aldeburgh Festival, Since its founding in 1993, Musica Angelica tors of the highest quality, including Antonio Lübeck, she sang at the Salzburg Festival 2006 Wigmore Hall, the Royal Opera House (in has produced an annual subscription season Pappano, Philippe Jordan and Sir Charles in Mozart’s Il Sogno di Scipione, and the festi- the Linbury Studio and Crush Room), St of orchestral and chamber concerts in venues Mackerras. In 2002, he joined the music staff of val announced her to be one of their “Shooting John’s Smith Square, Fairfield Hall and the throughout Los Angeles County, programming the Hamburg State Opera. In Hamburg, he cov- Stars” in their Generation con Brio series. The Harrogate Festival. a mixture of known masterworks along with ered a large amount of the operatic repertoire opera has been recorded and released on DVD Her recent concert engagements include rarely heard gems, and featuring many of the ranging Cavalli and Handel, to Verdi and by Deutsche Grammophon. Pulcinella with Scottish Chamber Orchestra best Baroque musicians from across the coun- . He assisted conductors such as Subsequently she has had engagements, under Thierry Fischer, Bernstein’s Trouble try and Europe. Guest conductors have includ- Martin Haselböck, Ingo Metzmacher, Nicola such as Queen of the Night at Volksoper Wien, in Tahiti with the at ed Alessandrini, Giovanni Antonini, Luisotti and Simone Young. During that time, Fiakermilli at Staatsoper Hamburg, Blondchen the Prinzregententheater, Munich, under Ulf Harry Bicket, Paul Goodwin and Jory Vinikour. Mr. Kelly also became the Chief Conductor of at Deutsche Oper am Rehin, Waldvogel at Schirmer, a concert performance as Dorinda Musica Angelica’s first international tour, the Harvesterhuder Sinfonieorchester, a local Opera National de Lyon and Olympia at the in Orlando with Independent Opera at the distinguished by sold-out performances and student orchestra, with which he performed Royal Opera in Denmark, for which she re- Wigmore Hall, a Strauss tour of the UK for critical acclaim, took place in March 2007 in a regular concerts in Hamburg’s Laieszhalle, in- ceived a Reumert Award. Recently she received Raymond Gubbay; Haydn with the Orchestra of joint venture with Mr. Haselböck’s acclaimed cluding Brahms’s Second Symphony Mahler’s acclaim in Lübeck for the role debut as Ariel— the Age of Enlightenment under Frans Brüggen European orchestra, the Wiener Akademie of Fourth Symphony and Richard Strauss’s Tod the extremely high and difficult role in the opera in London and Bristol; Gretel in Hansel and Vienna. The ensemble presented 13 performanc- und Verklärung. The Tempest by Thomas Adés. Gretel with the BBC Concert Orchestra under es of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Los Angeles, In 2009, after one year as Studienleiter and Ms. Fribo is a frequent soloist with all the Charles Hazelwood at the Queen Elizabeth Hall New York, Savannah, Mexico, Hungary, Kapellmeister at Theater Erfurt, , orchestras in Denmark and has thus sung in and at the Chichester Festival; and Brahms’s Austria, Spain, Italy and Germany. he was appointed First Kapellmeister at the numerous New Year and summer concerts. Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall under Sir In 1998, Musica Angelica issued a well- Salzburger Landestheater. There has conduct- Most recently she has sung Mahler’s Eighth David Wilcox. received recording, Vivaldi Concertos for Lute, ed such operas as Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Symphony with Trondheim Symphony and Her operatic engagements include her role Oboe, Violin, and Strings. In 2007, Musica Giovanni, as well as L’elisir d’amore and Tosca. Eivind Aadland and has worked with such con- debut as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro for Opera Angelica raised its profile with a contract for In May 2010, the European Premiere of Carlisle ductors as Simone Young, Gerard Korsten, Marc East; Melia in Apollo and Hyacinthus; Ilia in four recordings on the German-based New Floyd’s opera The Passion of Jonathan Wade. Soustrot, Ernst Märzendorfer, Robin Ticciati, for Pinchgut Opera in Sydney; First Classical Adventure label. The first, released in Since 2009, Adrian Kelly has also collabo- Adam Fischer, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Michael Witch in Dido and Aeneas for ; and 2007, is Handel’s Acis and Galatea. rated regularly with the Salzburg Festival, as a Schønwandt and Martin Haselböck. Mrs Gleaton in Floydd’s Susannah and Laurette Based in Santa Monica, Musica Angelica pianist and assistant conductor, and in 2010 as a Current and future engagements include a in Bizet’s Le Docteur Miracle for the Wexford collaborates with leading performing arts insti- piano accompanist for an opera gala. world tour of The Infernal Comedy with John Festival. With the Classical Opera Company she tutions in Southern California, including Los Malkovich. Additionally she will be singing has sung Hyacinthus in Apollo and Hyacinthus, Angeles Opera, Long Beach Opera, the J. Paul her first Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier at Theater Aminta in Il re Pastore and Cinna in Lucio Silla. Getty Museum, the Norton Simon Museum

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