ON SITE OPERA PRESENTS JUNE 14-16, 2016 632 ON HUDSON TABLE OF CONTENTS: CAST, PRODUCTION TEAM & ORCHESTRA | PROGRAM NOTE ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES | ABOUT ON SITE OPERA | UPCOMING PRODUCTIONS SUPPORT ON SITE OPERA | ON SITE OPERA DONORS | SPECIAL THANKS @ONSITEOPERA WWW.OSOPERA.ORG Jesse Blumberg as Figaro at 632 on Hudson. Photo by Rebecca Fay. The North American Premiere of MARCOS PORTUGAL’s (1762-1830) LA PAZZA GIORNATA O SIA IL MATRIMONIO DI FIGARO (THE CRAZY DAY OR THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO), 1799 Libretto by GAETANO ROSSI based on the play by BEAUMARCHAIS Sung in an English translation by GILLY FRENCH and JEREMY GRAY, with dialogue translated and adapted by JOAN HOLDEN Presented in partnership with The New School’s Mannes College of Music and The Portuguese Consulate in New York. CAST (in order of vocal appearance) FIGARO Jesse Blumberg, baritone SUSANNA Jeni Houser, soprano MARCELLINA Margaret Lattimore, mezzo-soprano DON BARTOLO David Langan, bass-baritone CHERUBINO Melissa Wimbish, soprano COUNT ALMAVIVA David Blalock, tenor DON BASILIO Ryan Kuster, bass-baritone COUNTESS Camille Zamora, soprano ANTONIO/GUSMANO Antoine Hodge, bass baritone CECCHINA Ginny Weant, soprano PRODUCTION TEAM MUSIC DIRECTOR Geoffrey McDonald STAGE DIRECTOR Eric Einhorn SPACE CONSULTANT & PROP DESIGNER Cameron Anderson COSTUME DESIGNER Haley Lieberman LIGHTING DESIGNER Shawn Kaufman HAIR & MAKEUP DESIGNER Gabrielle Vincent PRODUCER Jessica Kiger PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER Melissa Bondar ASST. CONDUCTOR/PIANIST Dmitry Glivinskiy ASST. COSTUME DESIGNER Matthew Pederson ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Kailie White PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Olivia Schechtman LOGO DESIGNER Derek Bishop ORCHESTRA VIOLIN Victoria Paterson CLARINET Nick Gallas OBOE Keve Wilson CELLO Ali Jones ACCORDION Will Holshouser CLASSICAL GUITAR Meliset Abreu PORTUGUESE GUITAR José Luis Iglésias Orchestration by José Luis Iglésias and Geoffrey McDonald Critical edition prepared by members of the Marcos Portugal Project, under the supervision of David Cranmer, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. PROGRAM NOTES A NOTE ON THE ORCHESTRATION By Geoffrey McDonald An intimate, site-specific production such as On Site Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro one necessitates a lean and limber instrumental ensemble. We were, therefore, faced with the challenge of rendering the grand strokes and bold gestures of a bona fide 18th- century musical comedy with reduced forces. Rather than simply miniaturize Marcos Portugal's original orchestra, we opted, instead, to re-arrange the work for a band comprised of orchestral instruments (violin, cello, oboe, and clarinet) alongside instruments found in a traditional Portuguese “fado” ensemble (accordion, guitar, and the distinctive, mordant-toned Portuguese guitarra). We sought to honor the composer's elegance of musical phrase and crisp comic timing while, at the same time, evoking his heritage and imbuing this new orchestral “character” with its own distinctive personality. The result is an unconventional and unique orchestration that is tailor-made for this production and this space. Jeni Houser as Susanna at 632 on Hudson. Photo by Pavel Antonov. LA PAZZA GIORNATA O SIA IL MATRIMONIO DI FIGARO By David Cranmer Introduction In the 21st century we are accustomed to the notion of a repertoire of operatic works drawn from the past, of recognised interest and merit, that have come to constitute a ‘canon’. Were we to go back to 18th-century Italy, we would find a very different picture. There was no repertoire or canon as such. Operas were composed and performed, one after another. Some would be successes. This would mean that they would then be copied (by hand) and performed in other theatres in other Italian cities and possibly in other European cities that had Italian theatres, such as London, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Munich, Vienna, Prague, St. Petersburg, and so on. Others were fiascos and never heard again. More rarely a work would be heard in just a few theatres before being consigned to oblivion. Success or failure depended on many factors beside the actual quality of the work. Much depended on the singers, their capabilities and how far they themselves believed in and championed the works they performed. Equally often, however, it depended on that great unforeseeable: the whim of the audience and claques, paid or not to cheer or make a commotion. But even successful operas would, as a rule, have only a relatively brief period of popularity, lasting ten or perhaps twenty years (rarely more) before disappearing to make way for new waves of popular works. PROGRAM NOTES CONTINUED It is also a characteristic of the ‘canon’ repertoire that we have gradually grown used to over the past two hundred years that it does not admit within its midst more than one opera on the same theme. Thus operas that were popular at one time have had to give way to others, as in the case of Paisiello’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, replaced in public affection by Rossini’s, and Rossini’s Otello by Verdi’s. Similarly, despite the recognised qualities and success of Leoncavallo’s La bohème, it gradually lost ground to Puccini’s. Sadly, the ‘other’ Barber, or Otello or Bohème are too often seen now as curiosities rather than the works of considerable dramatic and musical merit that they are in their own right. And yet it would be quite wrong to criticise this curiosity, since it is precisely this that leads to revivals of neglected operas, hidden by the shadows of the great pillars of the ‘canon’: by way of example, the many Don Giovanni operas, of which Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s once popular version, in particular, has received justified attention, and the Fidelio operas – Mayr’s L’amor conjugale and Paer’s Leonora, which have both been revived in recent decades. It is in this spirit of allowing the ‘other’ to speak that we may now enjoy the Marriage of Figaro by the Portuguese composer Marcos Portugal, first performed in Venice on Boxing Day, 1799. The original play and its first operatic adaptation The career of the dramatist, musician, pamphleteer, spy, arms dealer – and profound believer in true justice – Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-99) was by any standards remarkable. Having achieved considerable success with his comedy Le barbier de Séville, premiered in Paris in February 1775, he rapidly conceived a sequel, as we know from the partial outRE: of the plot that he included in the first official printed edition of Le barbier. This sequel, La folle journée ou Le mariage de Figaro (The follies of a day or The Marriage of Figaro, as the title was first translated into English) was probably finished as early as 1778 and was already accepted for staging at the Comédie Française in Paris in 1781. However, owing to its ‘political’ content, it took six applications as well as lobbying from court sources for it finally to receive approval from the censors and King Louis XVI. The fact that it had for so long been banned guaranteed that when the play did eventually come to be premiered, on 27 April 1784, a succès de scandale was guaranteed. The success it had, however, went far beyond this, for in the weeks that followed it had an uninterrupted run of 68 performances. It was quickly printed in pirated editions and quickly spread abroad. It was performed in English in London at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, on 21 February 1785, less than a year after the original production. A production was also planned in Vienna that same month, but, once again because of the ‘political’ content, the Emperor Joseph II refused to authorise its staging without substantial cuts and the project was abandoned. Curiously, he allowed it to be printed without alteration later the same year. What then, was this dangerous content that so worried the French and Austrian monarchs? Indeed, it is not difficult to understand. Even reading the play in a 21st-century democracy, we are impressed by its daring in relation to injustices and immorality of various kinds. Its virulent satire with regard to the functioning of the courts, for example, which occupies much of Act III, reminds us of the corruption and caprice that were endemic in the judiciary of the playwright’s time, something from which he had personally suffered. However, it must certainly have been some of the speeches of Figaro (the author’s mouthpiece) that caused greatest concern. At one point, for example, he makes a scathing attack on the hypocrisy of politicians – it makes us laugh still today, because politicians have not changed. Coming but a few years before the French Revolution, as it did, we, looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, cannot but be struck by Figaro’s long soliloquy in the final act, particularly what he has to say about the Count’s attempts to seduce Susanna: […] No, Count, you shan’t have her…, no, you shan’t. Since you are a great lord, you think you’re a great genius! … nobility, fortune, position; all this makes you proud. What did you do to earn so much? Put yourself to the trouble of being born, and nothing more! Otherwise, a man just like any other. It is not that Beaumarchais wished to change the world order – if we can accept what he tells us in his extensive preface to the first edition. He simply wished to be critical of abuses wherever they might be. The players of this drama do not seek to deceive the Count as such; they are forced to use this as a strategy to put an end to his own deceit. And although he has, necessarily, to be humbled, there is no hint of any contempt for him, only a gladness that morality and justice have prevailed. PROGRAM NOTES CONTINUED The idea of turning Beaumarchais’ play into an opera seems to have come from the then Viennese court poet, the Abbé Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838).