A Little Night Music Victorian Opera Presents a Little Night Music
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A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC VICTORIAN OPERA PRESENTS A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC A MUSICAL IN TWO ACTS Music and Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM Book by HUGH WHEELER Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick Suggested by a Film by Ingmar Bergman Originally Produced and Directed on Broadway by Harold Prince Licensed exclusively by Music Theatre International (Australasia). All performance materials supplied by Hal Leonard Australia. 27 JUNE – 6 JULY 2019 Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse Original premiere: 25 February 1973, Schubert Theatre, New York Approximate timings Act One: 1 hour 25 minutes Interval: 20 minutes Act Two: 1 hour Backstage: Ali McGregor (Desirée Armfeldt) 3 PRODUCTION MUSIC CREATIVE TEAM VICTORIAN OPERA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Music Director Phoebe Briggs Leader of the Orchestra / Violin I Jo Beaumont Director Stuart Maunder AM Violin II Zoe Black Set and Costume Designer Roger Kirk AM Viola Shani Williams Lighting Designer Trudy Dalgleish Cello Nils Hobiger Choreographer and Assistant Director Elizabeth Hill-Cooper Double Bass Shannon Birchall Sound Designer Jim Atkins Harp Yuko Tomonaga Associate Costume Designer Candice MacAllister Flute / Piccolo / Alto Flute Tamara Kohler Clarinet / Flute Stuart Byrne CAST Clarinet / Bass Clarinet Lachlan Davidson Mr Lindquist Markus Matheis Oboe / Cor Anglais Rachel Curkpatrick Mrs Nordstrom Michelle McCarthy Bassoon Colin Forbes Abrams Mrs Segstrom Kirilie Blythman Trumpet I Tristan Rebien Mr Erlanson Paul Biencourt Trumpet II Joel Walmsley Mrs Anderssen Juel Riggall Trombone Charles MacInnes Fredrika Armfeldt Sophia Wasley Horn I Anton Schroeder Madame Armfeldt Nancye Hayes AM Horn II William Tanner Frid Tiernan Maclaren Horn III Melanie Simpson Henrik Egerman Mat Verevis Percussion Kaylie Melville Anne Egerman Elisa Colla Piano/Celeste Phillipa Safey Fredrik Egerman Simon Gleeson Petra Alinta Chidzey MUSIC STAFF Desirée Armfeldt Ali McGregor Principal Repetiteur Phillipa Safey Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm Samuel Dundas Repetiteur Jacob Abela Countess Charlotte Malcolm Verity Hunt-Ballard ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PRODUCTION TEAM Victorian Opera acknowledges the support of Opera Australia who have Production Manager Eduard Inglés loaned the set, properties, and costumes for this production. Stage Manager Marina Milankovic Victorian Opera would like to thank Deputy Stage Manager Emma Wenlock-Bolt Onset Arts, Ruth Bauer, and Malthouse Theatre. Assistant Stage Manager Meg Deyell 4 5 WELCOME This is the fourth of the great Sondheim musicals that the company has undertaken since 2013, and finishes a natural progression that began with Sunday in The Park with George and encompassed both Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd – except that we, by and large, worked backwards, A Little Night Music being the earliest work dating from 1973. However, there is nothing of the apprentice in this score – Sondheim’s apprenticeship had been served well with works such as the text for West Side Story and shows like Company (1970) and Follies (1971). He also had his share of failures – dictates form’, ‘God is in the details’, all in Anyone Can Whistle (1964) ran for the service of the text and drama. nine performances only – and many The pacing and musicality of the work circumstantially compromised projects, are evergreen. But, perhaps most such as Do I Hear a Waltz and The Exception importantly, Sondheim’s prodigious and the Rule – which was a failed second technique and intellect unite to explore collaboration with Bernstein. the richness, joy, irony, passion and However, Broadway royalty oversaw the tragedy of the human condition – the young Sondheim from about the age geography of the heart, with all its of 10. He became friends with James complexities, occasionally assumed Hammerstein, son of Oscar Hammerstein duplicities, pain, enthusiasms, II. Oscar became his mentor and through disappointments and fulfilments – often him, Hal Price and Richard Rogers were in the context of the wry sting of self- introduced into Sondheim’s circle. Most awareness and a glimpse of the fine interestingly, Sondheim managed to study boundary between romantic abandon and with Milton Babbitt – probably one of the the sense in which vulnerability can, at most ‘advanced’ composers of his time, times, border on the ridiculous. a devotee of the serial techniques of the At every corner, art conceals art with second Viennese School and electronic a seemingly effortless grace unique in music but, at heart, a great fan of the the literature of the genre. Enjoy and ‘show tune’. welcome to our season of A Little Night This unlikely combination of influences Music. formed a unique genius of musical theatre – the consummate craftsman who lived RICHARD MILLS Backstage: by his maxims ‘Less is more’, ‘Content Artistic Director, Victorian Opera Alinta Chidzey (Petra) and Nancye Hayes (Madame Armfeldt) 6 DIRECTOR’S NOTE The lawyer Fredrik Egerman, after a night of eye-opening romantic entanglements A Little Night Music is a complete muses to the wife of his lover’s lover: ‘I’m afraid marriage isn’t one of the easier masterpiece, dealing as it does with the relationships, is it?’ She replies: ‘Mr Egerman, for a woman it’s impossible!’ His whole gamut of human relationships in response: ‘It’s not all that possible for men.’ all their painful, ridiculous and beautiful variety. The opening clarinet passage of the show’s big hit ‘Send in the Clowns’ What a wise, human, touching show is Hugh Wheeler’s book with all its world paints it all; there’s regret, anger, A Little Night Music. weary charm and razor sharp insight resignation and delicious melancholy. perfectly matches the matchless sweep When I first saw the piece in January I’m not sure I saw it all at 16, but now… of Stephen Sondheim’s bittersweet 1974, as a 16 year old, I could not confection. The whole piece has the believe the beauty of the staging, form of a traditional operetta – yet the STUART MAUNDER AM the theatricality, with music the like score has the feel of Ravel, Debussy and Director of which I had never heard. It was so even a little Richard Strauss. Traditional perfect...and elegant, if that was a word operetta has heart, of course, but this I even knew when I was 16. My love for piece is an operetta with head as well. the piece deepened after acquaintance In the words of the original director with excerpts through the compilation Harold Prince, A Little Night Music is show Side by Side by Sondheim and ‘whipped cream with knives’. eventually by playing the original cast album to death. It is like an Impressionist painting, and for this production we have created a But now as a 60-something I finally simple, impressionist world; a world of understand why the usually caustic New shadows, beauty, stillness, sensuality. York Times critic Clive Barnes greeted We could be standing in a Monet the original production with the cry: painting, or the seemingly tactile world ‘Good God! An adult musical’. of a Degas dance studio. The lovers It’s hard to grasp that A Little Night drift through the landscape like pawns Music is 45 years young. The piece on a chess board, out of context. The remains stylish, intelligent, poignant, evening is a series of transitions, a joyous, sensual, subtle, full of wit, blackout-free zone. All is clean, clear enchantment, elegance and with but with blurred edges, lush, magical, a sophisticated, refined, urbane, bewitching. This is a Scandinavian Rehearsal room: glamourous and intense humanity. midsummer night; there is no darkness, Stuart Maunder (Director) There, I’ve used all my adjectives for the there is nowhere to hide. year. 8 9 MUSIC DIRECTOR’S NOTE Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s gem of a work has a sumptuous and beautiful score and a clever, witty, charming and moving book. Written in 1973 and orchestrated by With shimmering strings and the frequent collaborator Jonathan Tunick, haunting clarinet solo of ‘Send in the the score is composed almost entirely Clowns’ to the brilliance of the celeste in triple time. Madame Armfeldt says and the mournful yet warm sound of ‘The Summer night smiles…three times’ the cor anglais in ‘Liaisons’, the score and Sondheim has used this theme of is rich with a broad palette of vibrant the number three in different guises colours and textures. throughout the work. He writes The production period has been such waltzes, (‘Night Music’, ‘Overture’, a pleasure – the rehearsal room filled ‘Soon’), a pompous polonaise (‘In with laughter (and at times tears) from Praise of Women’) and a mazurka (a the sheer joy, exhilaration and wonder Polish folk dance with strong accents of bringing such a masterful work to on the second and third beats – ‘The life. Glamorous Life’). The ‘Night Waltz’ – a sumptuous PHOEBE BRIGGS almost filmic waltz accompanied by a Music Director meandering chromatic line alternating between the clarinets and bassoon, or celeste and piano, signifies the complexities of the characters’ lives and bookends the work. ‘A Weekend in the Country’, the stunning finale to Act 1 was originally constructed from improvised scenes and culminates in a thrilling double quartet. A quintet of Liebeslieder act as a Greek chorus throughout, introducing characters’ themes in the overture and then recalling past events as the plot Stage rehearsals: evolves (‘Remember?’). Simon Gleeson (Fredrik Egerman) 11 SYNOPSIS ACT ONE ACT TWO Thirteen-year-old Fredrika lives with Over breakfast, Carl-Magnus tells his Everyone arrives at the Armfeldt estate his wife with Fredrik and rushes off her grandmother, Madame Armfeldt, wife Countess Charlotte about the and there is tension in the air. Fredrik to challenge him to a duel. Charlotte while her mother Desirée, an actress, is encounter and encourages her to visit and Carl-Magnus compete for Desirée’s finally realises that Carl-Magnus really on tour. Madame Armfeldt explains how Anne to inform her of her husband’s attention. Charlotte tells Anne of cares for her.