10-15 Rite_GP 10/2/14 2:42 PM Page 1 Wednesday–Saturday Evenings, October 15–18, 2014, at 7:30 Saturday Afternoon, October 18, 2014, at 2:00 Pre-concert discussion with Basil Twist and Jane Moss on Friday, October 17, at 6:15 in the Irene Diamond Education Center The Rite of Spring (New York premiere) Basil Twist , Director and Designer Orchestra of St. Luke’s Jayce Ogren , Conductor Ayumu Poe Saegusa , Lighting Design Greg Meeh , Special Effects Design Daniel Brodie , Projection Design Lynne Buckson , Costume and Textile Design This program is approximately 65 minutes long and will be performed without intermission. Commissioned by Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Please join us for a White Light Lounge in the Irene Diamond Education Center immediately following the evening performances on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. (Program continued) The White Light Festival is sponsored by Time Warner Inc. Generous support for the White Light Festival presentation of The Rite of Spring is provided by The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc. Additional support provided by The Jim Henson Foundation. This presentation of The Rite of Spring is made possible in part by endowment support from the American Express Cultural Preservation Fund. These performances are made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Rose Theater Please make certain all your electronic Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall devices are switched off. WhiteLightFestival.org 10-15 Rite_GP 10/2/14 2:42 PM Page 2 MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center. Upcoming White Light Festival Events: Movado is an Official Sponsor of Lincoln Center. Wednesday–Friday, October 22–24, at 7:30 in James Memorial Chapel, Union Theological Seminary United Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln How Like an Angel (U.S. premiere) Center. A unique melding of acrobatics by the troupe Circa and sacred song performed by I Fagiolini WABC-TV is the Official Broadcast Partner of Post-performance discussion with Robert Lincoln Center. Hollingworth and Yaron Lifschitz on Thursday, October 23 William Hill Estate Winery is the Official Wine of Lincoln Center. Friday–Sunday, October 24–26, in the Walter Reade Theater Artist Catering is provided by Zabar’s and White Light on Film: The Decalogue Zabars.com. Krzysztof Kie slowski , Director The complete ´cycle of 10 films is screened over a weekend. Orchestra of St. Luke’s participation is made Introduced by Annette Insdorf on October 24 at 7:30 possible with major support by The Andrew W. Presented in association with the Film Society of Mellon Foundation. Lincoln Center The Rite of Spring was commissioned by Carolina Saturday, October 25, from 3:45 to 5:15 Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina, in the Walter Reade Theater Chapel Hill, as part of its “Rite of Spring at 100” White Light Conversation: The Evolution celebration in 2013. of Morality John Schaefer , Moderator With John Luther Adams, Randy Cohen, Alice W. Flaherty, and Elaine Pagels Thursday–Saturday, October 30–November 1, at 7:30 in Synod House, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine Curlew River (U.S. premiere production) Ian Bostridge , Madwoman Netia Jones , Director and Designer BRITTEN : Curlew River A co-production between the Barbican Centre, London, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Carolina Performing Arts, and Cal Performances Berkeley 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. 10-15 Rite_GP 10/3/14 9:04 AM Page 3 The Rite of Spring (New York premiere) Basil Twist , Director and Designer Orchestra of St. Luke’s Jayce Ogren , Conductor Ayumu Poe Saegusa , Lighting Design Greg Meeh , Special Effects Design Daniel Brodie , Projection Design Lynne Buckson , Costume and Textile Design ALL-STRAVINSKY PROGRAM Fireworks (1908/1909) Pulcinella Suite (1922/1949) Sinfonia Serenata Scherzino: Allegro—Andantino Tarantella Toccata Gavotta con due variazioni Vivo Minuetto e Finale The Rite of Spring (1911–13) (orch. McPhee) The Adoration of the Earth Introduction The Augurs of Spring Ritual Abduction Spring Round Dances Games of the Rival Tribes Procession of the Wise Elder Adoration of the Earth Dance of the Earth The Sacrifice Introduction Mystic Circles of the Young Girls Glorification of the Chosen One Summoning of the Ancestors Sacrificial Dance (The Chosen Victim) Basil Twist’s Tandem Otter Productions Barbara Busackino, Producer Puppeteers Eric F. Avery, Kate Brehm, Lute Ramblin Breuer, Dede Corvinus, Chris de Ville, Ben Elling, Lily Escobar, Rob Hamilton, Sarah Howe, Matthew Leabo, Jonothon Lyons, Brendan McMahon, Katie Melby, David Ojala, Marc Petrosino, Tori Ralston, Jessica Scott, Rachael Shane, Lake Simons, Julia M. Smith, Amanda Villalobos, Ashley Winkfield, Christopher Williams (dancer) WhiteLightFestival.org 10-15 Rite_GP 10/2/14 2:42 PM Page 4 Note from the Director by Basil Twist In 1917 Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes presented Stravinsky’s Fireworks as conceived by the Italian futurist Giacomo Balla as a “ballet without dancers,” where the scenic elements consisted purely of geometric shapes with modern lighting effects on them to incarnate the music visually and in three dimensions onstage. The legend of this piece and other genre-defying experiments in music in movement like it—such as Alexander Calder’s staging of Satie’s Socrate or Loie Fuller’s billowing silks—inspired me when, in 1998, I created my version of Symphonie Fantastique , where shapes and tinsel and bubbles and light danced underwater in a 500-gallon aquarium. After seeing that show, Jane Moss and Jon Nakagawa of Lincoln Center invited me uptown and to the world of amazing and accomplished classical musicians, and I have not turned back since. With all the wonderful adventures, musical collaborations, and opportunities I’ve had since, I have always dreamed of taking my abstract puppetry to a much bigger scale. It took 15 years and the centenary of an audacious piece of music and an equally audacious presenter (the courageous Emil Kang of Carolina Performing Arts) to finally commit to making this kind of work a reality. Getting to stage my interpretation with the amazing Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center is really and truly a dream come true. An army of brilliant and skilled artists and allies have joined me, led by the spectacular Barbara Busackino and our Tandem Otter Productions team, to rise to the level of this thrilling invi - tation and to make this experience as magnificent as the music. Our experience of The Rite of Spring is visceral, human, drenched, explosive, and sub - terranean. I want to feel this music elevated from any representative visual association and to make quite purely the music visual itself and the stage we gather around alive. I have always felt that I am more of an experience maker than a storyteller, and that my art as I see it is most importantly a phenomenon to be present to. With this incredible and meaningful music and in such auspicious company, I hope for these performances to be a true rite for us gathered in the Rose Theater, a rite befitting the far-reaching, expansive, and beautiful White Light Festival. —Copyright © 2014 by Basil Twist Please see page 56 for an in-depth interview with Basil Twist. 10-15 Rite_GP 10/2/14 2:42 PM Page 5 Summary of the Music by Harlow Robinson “What are the connections that unite and separate music and dance?” Stravinsky once asked, responding to a question about his work with choreographer George Balanchine. “In my opinion one does not serve the other. There must be a harmonious accord, a synthesis of ideas. Let us speak, on the contrary, of the struggle between music and choreography.” This wrestling match between the two elements of dance fascinated Stravinsky from his earliest years growing up in tsarist St. Petersburg and throughout his long life as a Russian expatriate in Europe and Los Angeles: “I love ballet and am more interested in it than in anything else.” The son of an operatic bass at the imperial Mariinsky Theater, Stravinsky was surrounded as a child by dance and dancers (prima ballerina Tamara Karsavina lived upstairs) and even caught a glimpse of Tchaikovsky not long before his death in 1893. The critical and popular success of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty , and The Nutcracker at the end of the 19th century paved the way for Stravinsky in the 20th. Stravinsky’s early ballets, especially The Firebird , are deeply indebted to Tchaikovsky in subject matter and form. As time went on, however, Stravinsky’s bold experiments in tonality, rhythm, instrumentation, and formal structure (especially in Petrushka and The Rite of Spring ) went far beyond anything Tchaikovsky could have imagined. After World War I, Stravinsky began to wander farther afield from the “traditional” story ballet as practiced by Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, and Prokofiev. Increasingly, he would mix within a single work various genres (song, dance, opera, oratorio, drama), as he does in Pulcinella . His legendary collaboration with Balanchine—one of the closest and most pro - ductive composer-choreographer partnerships in the history of dance—lasted for more than 40 years, beginning with the 1928 Apollon musagète (Apollo ).