The Midsummer Marriage Saturday November 10, 2012 7:30 Michael Tippett (1905–98)
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THE MIDSUMMER MARRIAGE SATURDAY NOVEMBER 10, 2012 7:30 MICHAEL TIPPETT (1905–98) ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: GIL ROSE THE MIDSUMMER MARRIAGE (1955) SATURDAY NOVEMBER 10, 2012 7:30 JORDAN HALL AT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY 20122013 CONCERT PERFORMANCE ORCHESTRAL SERIES Act I: Morning Intermission JORDAN HALL The Midsummer Marriage Act II: Afternoon AT NEW ENGLAND SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2012 — 7:30 Act III: Evening and Night CONSERVATORY composer: Michael Tippett Pre-concert talk hosted by Sara Heaton soprano | Julius Ahn tenor SARA HEATON, soprano Jenifer The Score Board David Kravitz baritone | Deborah Selig soprano one hour prior to concert JULIUS AHN, tenor Mark Matthew DiBattista tenor | Joyce Castle mezzo-soprano (except The Midsummer DAVID KRAVITZ, baritone King Fisher Marriage) Lynn Torgove mezzo-soprano | Robert Honeysucker baritone DEBORAH SELIG, soprano Bella subscriptions MATTHEW DIBATTISTA, tenor Jack available Voilà! Viola! JOYCE CASTLE, mezzo-soprano Sosostris FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2013 — 8:00 LYNN TORGOVE, mezzo-soprano She-Ancient composers: Crockett | Kubik | Perle | Ung | Yi ROBERT HONEYSUCKER, baritone He-Ancient Susan Ung viola | Kate Vincent viola GIL ROSE, Conductor Olly, All Ye, In Come Free SUNDAY, APRIL 14 2013 — 8:00 *FREE CONCERT* We would like to acknowledge the donors whose generous support as of November 5, 2012, composers: Knussen | Gandolfi | Winners of the made this production possible: NEC Concerto and Composition Contests CONCERT SPONSOR Randolph J. Fuller Gen OrcXstrated CONCERT UNDERWRITERS FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2013 — 8:00 Deborah and Samuel Bruskin Davis, Malm & D’Agostine, P.C., John Loder composers: Bates | Norman | Ruo Gregory E. Bulger Foundation/ Sam Mawn-Mahlau, Campbell Steward Gregory Bulger and shareholder Theresa and Charles Stone Richard Dix Carole Charnow and Peter Wender ALSO THIS SEASON Clive Grainger Marillyn Zacharis Club Concerts Winifred Perkin Gray 12/4/12, 1/29/13, 3/12/13 | tuesdays | 7:30pm CONCERT CONTRIBUTORS Anonymous Mary Chamberlain Eva R. Karger Experience brand new music in a back room setting. John Archer Paula Folkman Louise McGinnes Club Café, Boston Henry Bass Jill Fopiano Les Miller M. Kathryn Bertelli Barrie Gleason Ann Teixeira Patricia and Paul Buddenhagen Arthur Hulnick www.bmop.org BOSTON MODERN ORCHESTRA PROJECT 781.324.0396 4 5 N LLO A T INA T Tonight’s PERFORMERS FLUTE TIMPANI Rohan Gregory Sarah Brady Craig McNutt Tera Gorsett CHORUS Rachel Braude Edward Wu PERCUSSION Mina Lavcheva OBOE Robert Schulz SOPRANO MEZZO-SOPRANO BASS Jennifer Slowik VIOLA Kim Soby Bonnie Gleason John Salvi Barbara LaFitte HARP Joan Ellersick Rachele Schmiege Christina English Jonathan Nussman Franziska Huhn Noriko Herndon Kira Winter Julia Cavallaro Ishan Johnson CLARINET Dimitra Petkov Kay Patterson Shaw Anney Barrett Jacob Cooper Michael Norsworthy CELESTA Emily Burr Hilary Walker Barratt Park Linda Osborn-Blaschke Emily Rideout Jan Halloran Alexander Vavilov Emily Brand Cristina Bakhoum Athan Mantalos VIOLIN I Emily Rome Evangelia Sophia Leontis Sarah Kornfield Graham Wright BASSOON Lindsay Conrad Carola Emrich-Fisher Ronald Haroutunian Charles Dimmick Willine Thoe Piotr Buczek Melissa Howe Heidi Freimanis Margaret Phillips Pam Igelsrud TENOR Amy Sims Stanley Wilson HORN Heather Braun CELLO Rafael Popper-Keizer Ted Pales Whitacre Hill Oana Lacatus Patrick Waters Ken Pope Sarita Uranovsky Nicole Cariglia Katherine Kayaian Jonas Budris Alyssa Daly Colin Davis Michael Barrett Lee Wadenpfuhl Sasha Callahan Amy Wensink Patrick Owen Stefan Barner Rose Drucker Henry Lussier TRUMPET Jesse Irons Steven Laven Terry Everson Devron Monroe Eric Berlin VIOLIN II BASS Heidi Braun Hill Anthony D’Amico TROMBONE Colleen Brannen Scot Fitzsimmons Hans Bohn Julia Cash Bebo Shiu Martin Wittenberg Melanie Auclair-Fortier Robert Lynam BASS TROMBONE Beth Abbate Christopher Beaudry Ji Yun Jeong 6 SYNOPSIS 7 ACT I ACT III A temple on a hill in a lightly wooded landscape. Groups of young Men and Girls The men and women, assembled at King Fisher’s request, have had a midsummer enter the clearing at dawn, chattering. They hide among trees as the Dancers night’s feast. King Fisher and Bella arrive; the former sets up a contest between come onstage, accompanied by the two Ancients, an ageless man and woman. the Ancients and Madame Sosostris. She is apparently brought in, covered in a The dance is highly formal. Mark enters and lobbies for a new kind of dance to robe, but is revealed to be Jack, to the hilarity of most of the company. The real signify youth; the Elders warn disdainfully of changing tradition. When Mark Sosostris, heavily veiled, is brought in. Questioned by King Fisher, Sosostris insists, to his horror the male Ancient, saying “watch your new dance,” trips and in a long aria deflates his “illusion that you practice power” and reveals, in a injures the dancer Strephon. The Ancients and dancers disappear into the temple. vision, Jenifer’s conquest by Mark (or vice versa). Jack refuses to aid King Fisher in Mark awaits his fiancée Jenifer, singing of his love for her to the assembled removing her veils; Jack and Bella leave. King Fisher begins to de-veil Sosostris, Men and Girls. Jenifer arrives “dressed for a journey” and impatiently tells Mark slowly, lifting the last veil to reveal an enormous, glowing bud, which opens to she has left her father, King Fisher, and that there will be no wedding. To get reveal further Jenifer and Mark in rapt mutual contemplation. She has been further away from Mark’s attempt to dissuade her she begins to ascend a set of ancient transformed as Parvati, he as Shiva. King Fisher aims his revolver at Mark, but a steps, which apparently have mystical importance. Mark is distraught. King powerful glance from Jenifer and Mark is too much for him; he dies. The Ancients Fisher approaches, and the Men and Girls implore Mark to leave. In despair, he instruct the men and women to make him a shroud from the scattered veils. enters a cave. “For her, the light! For me, the darkness!” Fourth Ritual Dance, Fire in Summer, led by Strephon with a burning brand. King Fisher enters and sends his secretary Bella to communicate with the The dancers cover Jenifer and Mark with veils and petals from the opened bud. Ancients, who insult King Fisher by asking why he won’t talk to them directly. Bella Chorus, Jenifer/Mark, and the Ancients sing of consummation. suggests they force the gates to the Temple, employing her mechanic boyfriend Jack. In an extended aria, King Fisher berates the men and throws money at FINALE them to remind them he’s the boss. He attempts the same with the women, Only the Chorus remains onstage, wondering whether what they’ve witnessed who recoil in disgust. was a dream. Dawn begins to break, closing the circle that began with the dawn Jack arrives to try to force the gates. The offstage voice of Madame Sosostris of the first scene. Jenifer and Mark appear, calling to each other, dressed for warns against the attempt. King Fisher and the Men encourage Jack; Bella and their wedding. the Girls are frightened and try to stop him. In Act I’s finale, Mark and Jenifer return, flush with new experience and mutually contentious. She has been partly transformed as Athena; he, as Dionysus. She then heads spitefully into the cave, and he climbs the ancient steps. ACT II Bella and Jack discuss their future together. They witness three symbolic dances: in the first, The Earth in Autumn, Strephon is a Hare escaping a Girl-as-Hound; in the second, The Waters in Winter, he is a Fish escaping a Girl-as-Otter; in the third, The Air in Spring, he is a Bird to a Girl-as-Hawk. The third dance, implying the Bird’s demise, upsets Bella, but she calms herself by redoing her makeup and hair. The Chorus of men and women conclude the act, singing “She must leap and he must fall.” 8 PROGRAM noTES By Robert Kirzinger The Midsummer Marriage was Michael Tippett’s first mature opera, completed when Davis Malm the late-blooming composer was nearing fifty. The scenario and libretto are original to Tippett, who wrote the piece between 1946 and 1952; it was first performed at the Royal is proud to sponsor the Opera, Covent Garden, in January 1955. The production was inadequate to the piece, however, and Tippett’s lingering reputation as an iconoclastic naïf likely made it easier to dismiss the work itself as technically unskilled and dramatically misshapen. Further Boston Modern performances in the 1960s, including a radio performance under Norman Del Mar and a Covent Garden production and subsequent recording under Colin Davis, gradually allowed The Midsummer Marriage to establish itself as one of the most original and personal Orchestra Project dramatic works of the century and a cornerstone of English opera. Without waiting for that success, however, Tippett forged ahead with further ambitious works, ultimately writing and its performance of The Midsummer Marriage. four more operas—King Priam, The Knot Garden, The Ice Break, and New Year, the big cantata The Mask of Time, and other works, including several piano sonatas, symphonies, and string quartets, resulting in a confident body of work unassailable in its quality and individualism. This, too, helped rehabilitate The Midsummer Marriage. We congratulate the Orchestra on its Musically, The Midsummer Marriage springs from the English pastoral tradition, found successful mission of changing the course of in Dowland and Purcell as well as in Handel, resurrected in Elgar, and in the twentieth century emerging most fruitfully in Vaughan Williams and Britten. Tippett, too, was a classical music and discovering new music. fundamentally English composer; his first musical experiences were hearing his mother sing traditional English songs, although his parents had virtually no contact with classical music. He had piano lessons, and his decision to become a composer was triggered by hearing a performance of Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite.