WILLIAM WALTON An extravaganza in One Act based on the play by Anton Chekhov Northern Ireland Tour March 21 – 26 “There’s a real buzz and sense of purpose about what this company is doing” ~ The Guardian Welcome Welcome to this evening’s performance of The Bear. Tonight’s programme showcases not only a rarely performed jewel of an opera, but also brings to Northern Ireland three wonderful singers who are making a real name for themselves on the world stage. Anna Burford and Andrew Rupp are performing with NI Opera for the first time following recent engagements at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and English National Opera. Those of you who saw our production of Tosca back in 2011 will remember John Molloy who sang the roles of Angelotti and Sciarrone then, and sings the role of Luka tonight. We are also delighted that some of Northern Ireland’s finest choirs are appearing in the first part of tonight’s programme, singing a selection of George Shearing’s beautiful Songs and Sonnets from Shakespeare. The combination of Northern Irish talent, internationally-renowned singers and innovative programming has been highly evident throughout our 2012/13 season, which draws to a close with this tour. From commissioning exciting new short operas from leading Irish composers and playwrights, to performing a children’s opera in Belfast Zoo and at the Beijing Music Festival, to bringing a home grown production of a Wagner opera to the Belfast stage for the first time ever, this has certainly been a year to remember. 2012/13 has also seen NI Opera make its debuts at the prestigious Buxton Festival and in the Irish Republic, whilst our programmes for nurturing the best young Irish talent – particularly our Young Artists’ Programme and our annual Festival of Voice in Glenarm – continue to prosper. It is also very gratifying that our achievements are being recognised by respected opera critics in the media, and by high profile international opera awards. This time last year we won the Irish Times Theatre Award (ITTA) for Best Opera Production for Tosca, and 12 months later we were nominated for this award again for The Turn of the Screw. In addition, Artistic Director Oliver Mears was nominated in this year’s ITTA in the Best Director category, and was also nominated for an Achievement in Opera award by the Theatre Management Association for his leadership of NI Opera. Furthermore, Oliver has been shortlisted as Best Newcomer in the highly prestigious 2013 International Opera Awards. As ever, I would like to end by thanking the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for its continuing and unstinting support, as well as everyone who has been to see one of our productions this year. Our exciting new season will be unveiled shortly after Easter, and I hope you enjoy the fantastic new productions of contemporary and traditional operas that we will be performing across Northern Ireland and beyond. Sign up for our free newsletters at www.niopera.com to hear more. Roy Bailie Chairman Sir George Shearing As a painstaking perfectionist and a slow Director’s Note (1919 – 2011) worker, however, Walton’s complete body George Shearing was an of work is not large, and his compositions Premiered at the 1967 Aldeburgh Festival in the Jubilee Hall, where Anglo-American jazz pianist, received mixed reviews during his lifetime. arranger and composer, Initially regarded as something of a so many Britten works had their first outings, The Bear was the whose music found enormous commercial modernist, Walton’s work came to be seen as second of only two operas written by Walton (the first, Troilus and success from the 1950s through to the old fashioned by the time he moved to the Cressida, was completed over a decade earlier). Chekhov’s one-act 1990s. Shearing’s harmonically complex Italian island of Ischia in 1949. His work was farce was very different to the playwright’s later (and lengthier) style, which mixed elements of swing, bop re-evaluated towards the end of his life, and mood pieces such as The Cherry Orchard, even if the piece shares and classical, was influenced by artists such is now regularly performed and recorded. one of Chekhov’s persistent themes – the inability of human beings as Teddy Wilson, Fats Waller and the Glen Miller Orchestra. He wrote over 300 pieces, Born into a musical family in Oldham, Walton to understand and empathise with each other. In fact, Chekhov including the classic Lullaby of Birdland, studied at Oxford, where his talents were (who always regarded drama as his ‘mistress’ and prose as his which has become a jazz standard. spotted by Hubert Parry. Following university, ‘lawful wife’) frankly wrote for laughs in this play, something which Walton moved to London, where he had suited Walton after his lengthy and exhausting attempt at grand Born blind in London in 1919, Shearing his first success with Façade, although the operatic tragedy in the 1950s. The topic had been suggested to began his career playing in a Lambeth pub press at the time seemed unsure of what to Walton by Peter Pears, and suited Walton’s gift for parody (already before emigrating to the United States in make of the work, which comprised verse 1947. Here, his career caught fire, particularly recited through a megaphone, accompanied evidenced in youthful pieces such as Façade), a gift influenced as after he formed the George Shearing by Walton’s music. In 1926 Sir Henry Wood it surely was by Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, the exemplar of Quintet in 1949. During the 1950s and programmed Portsmouth Point into The twentieth century operatic pastiche. Puccini, Britten, Strauss and 1960s his love of Satie, Delius and Debussy Proms, but it was the Viola Concerto of 1929 Bizet are just some of the composers Walton references in an opera led him to perform with concert orchestras that propelled Walton to the forefront of that wears its Russian origins lightly. Sadly, the early death of his as well as jazz bands, and later in his career British classical music. collaborator/librettist Paul Dehn (who Walton met on his island his collaboration with singer Mel Tormé resulted in two Grammys – the first in 1983, Belshazzar’s Feast, the First Symphony, and home of Ischia in Italy) meant that a companion piece for The Bear, followed by another in 1984. Nine years the Violin Concerto followed in the 1930s, as one of his most successful pieces with both critics and audiences, later he received an Ivor Novello Lifetime well as a commission to compose a march for was never written. Achievement Award. the coronation of George VI in 1937. After the war Walton turned his attention to opera, Oliver Mears Twice married, Shearing died in composing Troilus and Cressida in 1954, March 2013 February 2011. which was received warmly if not entirely enthusiastically, and The Bear in 1967 which Sir William Walton found greater acclaim. (1902 – 1983) William Walton was one As Walton grew older he found it increasingly of England’s foremost difficult to compose, and he died in 1983 composers of the 20th at the age of 80. After his burial on Ischia, century. Over a 60 year career he composed a commemorative plaque was unveiled orchestral, operatic, chamber and choral in Westminster Abbey, close to those works, including Belshazzar’s Feast and the honouring Elgar and Britten. Viola Concerto. Programme Creative team Acknowledgements Conductor – Nicholas Chalmers Andrew Smith From Songs and Sonnets from Shakespeare, Director – Oliver Mears Ann McCarthy by George Shearing (1919 – 2011) Set and Costume Designer – Arts Council of Northern Ireland Simon Holdsworth 1. Live with me and be my love Brendan McCrisken 2. When daffodils begin to peer Lighting Designer – Kevin Treacy Brian McNamee 3. It was a lover and his lass Répétiteur – Chris Hopkins Capella Caeciliana 4. Who is Silvia Assistant Conductor – Eugene Monteith Colette McAllister 5. Hey, ho, the wind and the rain Donal McCrisken Enniskillen Light Operatic Society Interval Production team Fermanagh Choral Society Production Manager – The Bear, by William Walton (1902 – 1983) Geraldine Smyth Patrick McLaughlin Grosvenor Chorale Madame Popova, an attractive young widow, is in mourning for her late husband. Stage Manager – Jeanne Munroe Her servant, Luka, urges her to begin living life again: her husband was unfaithful Kate Watkins Mark Chambers and did not deserve her loyalty to his memory. Assistant Stage Manager – Patsy Hughes Omagh Community Youth Choir They are interrupted by Grigory Smirnov, a huge bear of a man, who bursts in Omagh Music Society Costume Supervisor – demanding the immediate repayment of a debt incurred by Popova’s husband. Melanie Carmichael Oonagh Harran Smirnov joins Luka in urging Popova to throw off her mourning, but an argument soon develops over whether men or women are more faithful in love. As tempers rise, Wigs & Make-up Supervisor – Pauline Flanagan Smirnov, attracted by Popova’s feisty spirit, challenges her to a duel… Carole Dunne Rachel Armstrong Master Carpenter – Rachel Bingam This production was first produced by the National Reisopera, Holland, as part of the Steve Anderson Renaissance Grachten Festival, Amsterdam, August 2009. Set Construction – Richard McBride Songs and Sonnets from Shakespeare, copyright 2001@ Hindon Publications. Jim Carson The Bear by Sir William Walton and Paul Dehn © Oxford University Press 1967, 1968, 1977. Roe Valley Singers Performed by arrangement with Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Scenic Artist – Stewart Smyth Chris Hunter Transport – Phillip Goss The Cast