Da Camera Sarah Rothenberg artistic and general director A Proust Sonata 7 tableaux en musique Conceived and Directed by SARAH ROTHENBERG Texts from Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and the memoirs of Céleste Albaret, Monsieur Proust with Narrator Tenor HENRY STRAM NICHOLAS PHAN Céleste/Francoise String Quartet NANCY HUME Jackson GUILLEN**, violin JAE-WON BANG**, violin Violinist JILL VALENTINE**, viola BOSON MO* SONYA MATOUSSOVA**, cello Pianist SARAH ROTHENBERG Scenic and Costume Design Text Adaptation MARINA DRAGHICI SARAH ROTHENBERG Lighting Design Production Manager JENNIFER TIPTON C. TOWNSEND OLCOTT, II Projection Design Projection Programmer and Engineer HANNAH WASILESKI CHONGREN FAN Sound Design Stage Manager BART FASBENDER MARY SUSAN GREGSON A Proust Sonata was developed in part at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College and 3-Legged Dog Art & Technology Center in New York. * Da Camera Young Artist Alumnus ** Member of Da Camera Young Artists program @ 1 3 I. Combray Claude Debussy Préludes, Book 1 (1909-10) (1862-1918) Des pas sur la neige Robert Schumann Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 (1837) (1810-1856) Des Abends Gabriel Fauré Ici-bas! (1874) (1845-1924) II. CHEZ Madame LEMAIRE Reynaldo Hahn Rêverie (1888) (1874-1947) Mai (1889) Si mes vers avaient des ailes (1888) from Portraits de peintres: Antoine Watteau (1894) Léon Delafosse from Chauves-souris (pub. 1895) (1874-1955) Chauves-souris Baisers Mensonges Reynaldo Hahn Fêtes galantes (1892) III. THE VINTEUIL Sonata Gabriel Fauré Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Op. 13 (1875-76) (1845-1924) Allegro molto Andante Allegro vivo Allegro quasi presto INTERMISSION IV. BALBEC Maurice Ravel Une barque sur l’océan (1904-05) (1875-1937) V. TIME REGAINED Frédéric Chopin Berceuse, Op. 57 (1843-44) (1810-1849) Claude Debussy Harmonie du soir (1887-89) (1862-1918) VI. A VIEW OF DELFT Ludwig van Beethoven from String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135 (1826) (1770-1827) Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo CÉLESTE’S INTERLUDE VII. PROUST’S TEA @ 22 3 @ 2 3 A Conversation with Sarah Rothenberg Q: When and how did your fasci- the book. And so bringing this to life my studies at the Curtis Institute of nation with Marcel Proust and his with a performance in which we hear Music, I lived in Paris for a year and works begin? the musicality of the texts, we experi- studied with French pianist Yvonne ence the music of Proust’s world and Loriod, the wife of noted French com- A: Like many people, my relationship we see vividly the paintings and peo- poser Olivier Messiaen. My husband with Proust developed over many ple that inspired him felt like a natural is French, my children are bi-lingual, years with several starts, stops and re- idea to me. It also felt like a way of and our family lives a bi-national life. starts. At first I read only the first vol- bringing people closer to a work that Yes, the decoration from the French ume. Then I focused on excerpts that they may think is unapproachable; government was a great surprise and related to music -- I was amazed by of trying to find a way to share with felt like official recognition of the role Proust’s ability to capture in words the others these art forms that have been that France has played in my life and elusive experience of listening to mu- deeply meaningful to me. work. sic. And that was my way into Proust. The opportunity to collaborate Q: And you live somewhat of a dual Most readers enter into a relationship with this fantastic team of creative artistic life as a musician and as a with Proust through excerpts of his designers has been a dream. It really writer. writing long before tackling his com- begins to feel like a kind of chamber plete opus. Ultimately, the experience music where instead of combining A: Although my predominant public becomes a very personal one. several instruments, it is the music, profile is definitely as a pianist, writ- In the novel, toward the end of text, images and sounds that interact, ing has always been important to me In Search of Lost Time, the Narrator each like an instrument in and has been part of my professional a quartet, to create a whole. life as well. I write about music, art, That’s what we are working and literature, often within the frame towards. of memoir. These are the same themes Q: Why do you think Proust that appear in A Proust Sonata, and in continues to be relevant? fact creating the scenario of text, im- age and music, and then directing the A: The theme with which piece, is a way of bringing to life the Proust is most associated is same ideas I write about. that of memory, of trying Q: Can you talk about the struc- to recapture the past. For ture of A Proust Sonata? How did Proust, there are magical mo- you come up with seven tableaux or ments where a scent, a taste, scenes? a musical theme suddenly bring back with vivid sensa- A: For A Proust Sonata, I selected spe- tions an experience from the cific scenes and texts that I felt were past; in these moments, there essential to the Proust story and, at is no past and no present. the same time, leant themselves to They exist simultaneously. becoming musically significant. Ev- thinks about his future readers and This is true of human experience and ery line spoken by actor Henry Stram, says: “it seemed to me that they would it is universal. And now we call such in the role of the Narrator, is from In not be ‘my’ readers but the readers of moments “Proustian.” We are made Search of Lost Time. I also wanted to their own selves, my book being mere- of our memories, and in the course of represent the overall arc of In Search ly a sort of magnifying glass… It would one day, our interior lives move fluidly of Lost Time, which is a very musical be my book, but with its help I would between past and present. No matter structure, symphonic in scope. furnish them with the means of read- how much we text, tweet and other- Q: Is In Search of Lost Time autobio- ing what lay inside themselves…” That wise change the way we live, our emo- graphical? is really the experience I have had. tional lives will always be made up of Q: What made you want to create a both past and present. A: Proust very deliberately confuses music theater performance based on Q: It seems that you’re deeply at- the line between fiction and memoir; Proust? tracted to France. And you received the book feels like a true story and yet it is not. The life of the “Narrator” A: Proust is remarkably sensitive to the medal of Chevalier in Arts and Letters in 2001? parallels the life of Marcel Proust in music, but also to painting and to liter- many ways, but in others veers greatly ature. The three arts of music, painting A: France is important to me – both away. One small example: if you visit and writing are tremendous themes in the language and the culture. After @ 24 3 @ 3 3 the childhood home where Proust to hear a thing. His bedroom was Morel, just as the Baron Robert de spent his summers, as I did (and some lined with cork to block out all outside Montesquiou, who writes the poems of my photos end up in the projec- sounds. Céleste would get up, make we hear in Delafosse’s Chauves-souris tions of A Proust Sonata) -- the house coffee and wait for Proust to ring the (Bats), became a model for the fiction- corresponds to the fictional home of bell. There were days when she waited al Baron de Charlus. Proust’s aunt, but when you look out hour after hour in absolute silence. Q: What is the Vinteuil Sonata? the bedroom window and find a dif- Céleste and Proust’s relationship ferent view than what you read, your is a really interesting one. She was A: The Vinteuil Sonata is a fictional immediate response is “the view is completely devoted to Proust. It was chamber work that reoccurs through- wrong.” There is continual confusion far from a love affair, which is why out In Search of Time. It carries sig- about the commingling of fact and fic- their connection is quite moving de- nificant emotional meaning for both tion. Proust was inspired by the peo- spite the servant-master dynamic. It the Narrator and for one of the main ple and places around him, he often was a very reserved relationship on characters, Swann. There’s been a lot creates composite characters based one level and very intimate on anoth- of sleuthing about what the real so- on multiple real life people, but in the er. Although the lines, the boundaries, nata could have been. Proust hints at end it is a work of fiction. are drawn, she was closer to him than many possibilities in his correspon- anybody in the last years of his life. dence. Many scholars think it’s the Q: How is Proust -- his work and his When she was in her 80s, Céleste Saint-Saens sonata, although the Fau- life -- represented in your produc- decided to tell her tale. She dictated ré sonata, Franck string quartet, and tion? the book, Monsieur Proust, which I use Franck sonata, are also mentioned as A: I wanted to try to show both fact to create the character of Céleste in A possible models.