SIR ANDREW DAVIS | ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER MID-SEASON GALA 23 JUNE 2018 CONCERT PROGRAM Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis conductor Anne-Sophie Mutter violin, Soloist in Residence* Stacey Alleaume soprano Jeremy Kleeman bass-baritone Stravinsky The Fairy’s Kiss: Divertimento Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto INTERVAL Williams Markings Nielsen Symphony No.3 Sinfonia Espansiva * Supported by Mr Marc Besen AC and Mrs Eva Besen AO Running time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including a 20-minute interval In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone. The MSO acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are performing. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from mso.com.au other communities who may be in attendance. (03) 9929 9600 2 MELBOURNE SYMPHONY SIR ANDREW DAVIS ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR Established in 1906, the Melbourne Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew arts leader and Australia’s longest- Davis is also Music Director and running professional orchestra. Chief Principal Conductor of the Lyric Opera Conductor Sir Andrew Davis has of Chicago. He is Conductor Laureate been at the helm of MSO since 2013. of both the BBC Symphony Orchestra Engaging more than 4 million people and the Toronto Symphony, where he each year, the MSO reaches diverse has also been named interim Artistic audiences through live performances, Director until 2020. recordings, TV and radio broadcasts In a career spanning more than and live streaming. 40 years he has conducted virtually The MSO works with Associate all the world’s major orchestras Conductor Benjamin Northey and and opera companies, and at the Cybec Assistant Conductor Tianyi Lu, major festivals. Recent highlights as well as with such eminent recent have included Die Walküre in a new guest conductors as Tan Dun, John production at Chicago Lyric. Adams, Jakub Hrůša and Jukka-Pekka Sir Andrew’s many CDs include Messiah Saraste. It also collaborates with non- nominated for a 2018 GRAMMY® classical musicians such as Elton John, Award, Bliss’ The Beatitudes, and a Nick Cave and Flight Facilities. recording with the Bergen Philharmonic of Vaughan Williams’ Job/Symphony No.9 nominated for a 2018 BBC Music Magazine Award. With the MSO he has just released a third recording in the ongoing Richard Strauss series, featuring the Alpine Symphony and Till Eulenspiegel. 3 ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER STACEY ALLEAUME VIOLIN SOPRANO Anne-Sophie Mutter is a four- Praised for her voice of remarkable time GRAMMY® Award winner. beauty, warmth, character and Contemporary composers such expression, Australian-Mauritian Soprano as Krzysztof Penderecki, Sofia Stacey Alleaume is embarking on a Gubaidulina, Wolfgang Rihm and promising and exciting operatic career. John Williams have all composed for In 2016, she received the Dame Joan her. She premiered Sir André Previn’s Sutherland Scholarship for outstanding The Fifth Season at Carnegie Hall in Australian operatic talent and became a March 2018. Future performances member of the Moffatt Oxenbould Young include a recital of Mozart, Brahms and Artist Program at Opera Australia. In her Franck sonatas with Daniel Barenboim first season with the company, Alleaume and performances of Beethoven, performed as Micaëla in Carmen, Unsuk Chin (a world premiere) and Flower Maiden 1 in Parsifal and Violetta John Williams’ Markings at Berlin’s Valery in La Traviata. In the current Philharmonie. season, Alleaume returns to Australia as Valencienne in The Merry Widow, Micaëla Anne-Sophie Mutter dedicates herself in Carmen, Fiorilla in Il Turco in Italia and to numerous benefit projects and, Violetta. She will also cover the role of since 2011, has regularly shared the Gilda in Rigoletto. stage with The Mutter Virtuosi, an ensemble formed from former and Stacey Alleaume joined the Performance current scholarship-holders of the Program at The Opera Studio Melbourne Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. Her in 2010. Since then, the soprano’s artistic latest disc is a recording of Schubert’s development has been supported by Trout Quintet with Daniil Trifonov, numerous awards and accolades. In Maximilian Hornung, Hwayoon Lee 2011, Alleaume received grants from and Roman Patkoló. the PPCA Performers’ Trust Foundation and Opus 50 Charitable Trust. She was The MSO is thrilled to host Anne- awarded the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Sophie as 2018 Soloist in Residence. Trust Scholarship in 2010 and was honoured again in 2012 with the Melba Opera Trust’s Amelia Joscelyne Reserve Scholarship and the Ruskin Family Opera Award. 4 JEREMY KLEEMAN BASS-BARITONE A graduate of Victorian Opera’s Developing Artist Program and of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Jeremy Kleeman has also been a Melba Opera Trust Scholar, the recipient of the Dame Heather Begg Award and has received both Helpmann and Green Room Award nominations. Jeremy has performed with Opera Australia (title role, The Marriage of Figaro), Victorian Opera (The Cunning Little Vixen), State Opera of South Australia (Cloudstreet), Sydney Chamber Opera (The Rape of Lucretia), Pinchgut Opera (The Coronation of Poppea), Brisbane Baroque (Faramondo), Musica Viva (Voyage to the Moon), Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Consort of Melbourne, Melbourne Bach Choir and the Canberra International Music Festival. Jeremy’s 2018 engagements include Walter Furst in William Tell and Albert in The Magic Pudding (Victorian Opera), and Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia at Dark MoFo, Hobart, Nielson Symphony No.3 with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Opera by the Lakes and Second Elder (Susanna) for Handel In The Theatre, Canberra. 5 Unfold the musical legacy of legendary American composer and conductor, Leonard Bernstein. WEST SIDE STORY FILM WITH LIVE ORCHESTRA 27 JULY | 7.30pm SOLD OUT 28 JULY | 1pm SELLING FAST Benjamin Northey conductor BERNSTEIN CLASSICS 15 AUGUST | 7.30pm Bramwell Tovey conductor BERNSTEIN ON BROADWAY 18 AUGUST | 7.30pm Bramwell Tovey conductor Talks, films, concerts and more. All ages. Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall mso.com.au/bernstein Leonard Bernstein by Paul de Hueck, Courtesy of the Leonard Bernstein Office 6 PROGRAM NOTES Diaghilev was mounting his lavish production of The Sleeping Beauty at London’s Alhambra Theatre, Stravinsky IGOR STRAVINSKY declared, in a letter to the Times, (1882-1971) that Sleeping Beauty was ‘the most The Fairy’s Kiss: Divertimento convincing example of Tchaikovsky’s great creative power’. He arranged two Sinfonia numbers for the London production, Swiss Dances and Waltz and his affection for this music is still Scherzo apparent in the 1963 rehearsal of Pas de deux the ‘Bluebird pas de deux’ included on CBS’s complete set of Stravinsky Stravinsky first established his Conducts recordings. Rubinstein gave reputation in the West through his Stravinsky free rein to choose both association with Sergei Diaghilev’s the subject matter and scenario of the legendary Ballets Russes, for whom ballet. He fashioned a storyline from he composed the ballets which have Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Ice remained his most popular works – Maiden, and decided to base his work The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) on a selection of Tchaikovsky’s non- and The Rite of Spring (1913). orchestral pieces – mostly piano and vocal works. Towards the end of 1927, the dancer Ida Rubinstein, who was planning The scenario is intended to be taken to establish a dance company of as an allegory of Tchaikovsky’s her own, approached Stravinsky’s creative life. A child, separated from publishers to enquire whether she his mother, is found and kissed by a might include his new ballet Apollon Fairy, then taken away to be looked musagète in her repertoire. She was after by villagers. At a village fête told that the European rights rested some 18 years later, the young man with Diaghilev, so she submitted to is celebrating with his fiancée when Stravinsky two ideas for new works, the Fairy, disguised as a gypsy, enters one of which he liked immediately. and tells the young man his future, This was to compose a score inspired promising good fortune. The young by the music of Tchaikovsky who had man and his fiancée dance by a mill, been a childhood idol. but when the fiancée goes away to put on her bridal dress, the Fairy appears, Stravinsky cherished memories of and lures the young man away with Tchaikovsky, pointed out to him by her. She bestows her fatal kiss on the his father Feodor at the Mariinsky young man, and encloses him forever Theatre during the 50th anniversary in the land of Eternal Dwelling. production of Ruslan and Ludmila in 1893, two weeks before Tchaikovsky Stravinsky chose about half of the died. But Stravinsky’s lifelong regard complete ballet for inclusion in the for Tchaikovsky was founded on a four-movement Divertimento. In the great love for his music. In 1921, when Sinfonia, the Fairy kisses the child and 7 disappears; Swiss Dances and Waltz what may be called ‘aboriginal’ Russian is the village fair and the young man’s and Ukrainian folk material in The Rite betrothal. The Fairy leads the young of Spring. In the 1920s, as Stravinsky man to his fiancée, playing round began to pare down his style and games with her friends, in the Scherzo, subscribe to the values of Classicism, and the young couple dance together he also began to align himself with the in the Pas de deux. more cosmopolitan strand of Russian culture, and he dedicated the short one- It could be said that the scenario act opera Mavra (1921) to the ‘trinity’ of reveals some ambivalence towards Glinka, Pushkin and Tchaikovsky. In The Tchaikovsky’s art. The Fairy who Fairy’s Kiss, Stravinsky’s expression of bestows the kiss turns out to be malign. love for an honoured predecessor, there Lawrence Morton has suggested that, is a curious and moving warmth.