Cal Performances & San Francisco Opera Present Program Thursday, December 11, 2008, 7:30pm Friday, December 12, 2008, 8pm Three Decembers Sunday, December 14, 2008, 3pm Zellerbach Hall Patrick Summers conductor Leonard Foglia* director & designer Three Decembers Cesar Galindo* costume designer (West Coast Premiere) Brian Nason* lighting designer Bryndon Hassman musical preparation Morgan Robinson assistant stage director Gina Hays* stage manager Tracy Davis orchestra manager Carrie Weick orchestra librarian * San Francisco Opera debut 2 PROGRAM The action takes place in San Francisco, Hartford, Barbados and New York. Part One (1986) INTERMISSION Part Two (1996) An Opera in Two Acts Part Three (2006) Music by Jake Heggie Libretto by Gene Scheer The performance will last approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes. Based on Some Christmas Letters (and a Couple of Phone Calls), an original play by Terrence McNally. 2 (Sung in English with English supertitles) Commissioned and co-produced by Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances. First performance: Houston, February 29, 2008. San Francisco Opera Three Decembers is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation. David Gockley, General Director was developed with generous support from Cal Performances, Meet the Composer, Three Decembers Donald Runnicles, Music Director and Principal Conductor Betty Freeman and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Nicola Luisotti, Music Director Designate These performances are made possible, in part, by Annette Campbell-White and Dr. R. Naumann-Etienne. Wells Fargo Bank is the 2008–2009 Season Sponsor of Cal Performances and San Francisco Opera. 6 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 7 Cast A Message from the Composer Three Decembers At last, to be identified! At last, the lamps upon thy side The rest of Life to see! CAST —Emily Dickinson (in order of appearance) Charlie Keith Phares* hortly after the premiere of my opera Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Beatrice Kristin Clayton SDead Man Walking in 2000, Terrence McNally Opera generously offered to commission the op- Madeline Mitchell Frederica von Stade told me about a short play he had written for an era. Robert Cole at Cal Performances had been a AIDS benefit in December 1999. I am interested in staunch champion of the piece from the start and * San Francisco Opera debut anything and everything that Terrence writes, so I he wanted to see it through. Director Lenoard asked to see it. He gave me a copy and sent me on Foglia had joined the process in 2005 and was ea- ENSEMBLE my way, but of course I couldn’t wait. So I found ger to take it to the stage. Patrick Summers fell in a nearby pizza parlor, ordered a slice, sat in a win- love with the original play and was eager to see it piano Jake Heggie dow, and read. Instantly, this gem of a play worked come to life on the opera stage. Flicka told me she Patrick Summers its magic. It sang to me, and I started sketching was committed to creating the role of Madeline. violin Kay Stern, Concertmaster musical ideas in the margins. It felt so true, hon- Terrence gave us permission to base the opera on est and right. And I knew exactly who I wanted his original story, and, to everyone’s great good Laura Albers, Associate Concertmaster to write it for: Flicka. The great American mezzo- fortune, wonderful Gene Scheer agreed to write Heidi Wilcox, Assistant Concertmaster soprano, Frederica von Stade. She read it and fell in a libretto. cello David Kadarauch love with it, too. In January 2007, Gene and I got started. He bass Joseph Lescher Titled Some Christmas Letters (and a Couple crafted his libretto the first few months of the year oboe, English horn Janet Archibald of Phone Calls), the play was produced one time and I started writing music in July. I completed a clarinet, bass clarinet Anthony Striplen only in 1999: at Carnegie Hall with the astonish- draft in early November. After some revisions, and soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, flute David Henderson ing cast of Julie Harris (Madeline), Cherry Jones then a workshop in December with further revi- percussion Patricia Niemi (Beatrice) and Victor Garber (Charlie), with mu- sions, I orchestrated the work. After seven years of sic performed by the Gay Men’s Chorus of New development, the opera was composed and orches- York. A brief but powerful 14 pages long, the play trated in six months. is about the stormy emotional lives of three people: The piece takes place in 1986, 1996 and 2006, the famous stage actress Madeline Mitchell and her with the first dramatic event of each part having two adult children, Bea and Charlie. Told through taken place in December. Part One (1986) be- letters and phone calls, it follows these three char- gins in December with Bea and Charlie reading Education & Community Event acters through three Decembers in three different their famous mother’s Christmas letter. Part Two decades of their lives. (1996) begins in February, but with Charlie re- Key Notes: Three Decembers It is a play about identity. Identity as a member flecting on a death in the December just passed. December 12, 2008, 5–6:30pm of the family one is born into and within the ones Part Three (2006) takes place in December at a Zellerbach Hall Lobby Mezzanine we create—the truth of who we are and who our Broadway theater. parents are. It is a very big theme in all our lives, The original title, Last Acts, was agreed upon Composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer talk about their and certainly one that inspires me deeply. It perme- before Gene and I had written anything. After new chamber opera, presented in association with San Francisco ates every one of my stage works, songs or scenes. the workshop in December 2007, we decided, Opera and Houston Grand Opera. The piece needed to be a chamber opera that along with Terrence McNally, that a more fit- would focus entirely on the emotional lives of three ting title would be Three Decembers. A recording characters. I decided that the sense of a clear, spare from the original production will be released by identity would extend to the orchestra, with just Albany Records. eleven instrumentalists: two pianos (the conductor at one of them), percussion, five strings and three wind players: one doubling oboe and English horn, Jake Heggie one on clarinets, and one on flute and saxophones. 8 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 9 A Message from the Librettist Program Notes ake heggie and i had done a number of line to both ring true and to inspire music, which A Life of Many Acts about quadruple Tony Award-winner Terrence Jprojects together when he approached me with in the end is where the greatest poetry in opera is McNally as librettist and Susan Graham and the idea of turning Terrence McNally’s play Some to be found. Conductor Patrick Summers looks into the Flicka as the stars. “What do I think? I think you Christmases (and a Couple of Phone Calls) into a When Jake mentioned that Madeline Mitchell music—and the mind—of Three Decembers need to realize that not everyone’s first opera is like chamber opera. I knew that Jake had been consid- was to be played by the great Frederica von Stade, composer Jake Heggie. this.” We laughed. Terrence produced a fascinating ering at various times and in various forms using I was truly overwhelmed with excitement. Keith list of potential projects. For Jake the choice was music to explore Terrence’s play. One of Jake’s great Phares and Kristin Clayton round out an excep- erdi, wagner, massenet and puccini quick: Dead Man Walking hit him immediately as gifts is his instinct for understanding what story or tional cast. All three of these extraordinary per- V wrote only opera, though they each made the right choice, the most precise moral tale, and play might be interestingly explored through mu- formers have dedicated themselves to breathing life brief forays into other forms—I classify Verdi’s he was drawn by the spiritual journey in this work. sic. I was not surprised, therefore, to discover that into this new opera. I am so grateful for their en- monumental Requiem as his finest work. The fo- After all, Dead Man Walking is not about the death when he sent me Terrence’s script, I shared his en- thusiasm and for the chance to benefit from their cus of Handel’s and Bach’s lives was vocal music. penalty any more than Romeo and Juliet is about thusiasm for this beautiful play and for the musical profound talents. Mozart, the exception to every rule, was creatively suicide. It asks a simple moral question by never possibilities it presented. The writing of this piece has been a great joy. inspired by every musical genre and master of all of answers it: what does killing someone who kills The libretto is filled with many of Terrence’s Terrence’s original play, written for an AIDS ben- them, though he seemed to hold the most affection say about killing? Jake and Terrence unfolded the beautiful words. But of course an opera libretto efit in New York, is both touching and important. for stage works. But almost no one these days sets tale from every angle. The parents of the murdered is different from a play. As Jake and I expanded Jake’s score is inspired in the way in which it re- out to be a composer of operas. “Opera composer” children want “closure,” and through their grief the story, as arias, duets, and trios were written veals the soul’s pulse while it is having, as Robert is a vocation that must seek you and call you to it.