here.
Conceptual Thoughts
By Garnett Bruce,
Stage Director for La Bohème
The painter Toulouse-Lautrec captured the fleeting moments of 19th Century Paris in a temporary medium: posters. There’s a certain chaos, even clutter, when you imagine walls covered (and covered over) with vibrant sketches promoting the latest club, cafe, dancer, even liquor as Parisians clamored for the attention of their customers. Our set design for this production of La Bohème by John Conklin uses this artwork to frame our collage of characters: The poet, the painter, the musician, the philosopher, the seamstress, the chanteuse. These are real people. This is a world Giacomo Puccini might have recognized.
Knowing that characters like these lived and walked and ate and loved in this context reminds us to keep our interpretations honest and energetic, open to experience and adventure. La Bohème is one of the finest examples of the verismo (slice of real life/truthful) school of opera compositions which made Puccini immensely successful. So, it is that honesty of character, of emotion, of inspiration that will frame the staging of our production. Music being a strong catalyst for our most nostalgic memories is further understood in a context which adds more depth to the tale. They sing and soar through this world as they have for over 100 years. And, above all, the allusions to the temporary poster medium also seem appropriate to this tale, where romantic idealism meets the harsh realities of illness, poverty and death – the temporary nature of our lives.
Click Here to download this artistic statement.
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Hansel and Gretel is Yummy
Taken from an article by Clive Barnes
of the New York Post
Engelbert Humperdinck (the composer, not the English pop singer) is usually regarded as a one-opera guy – which is not quite fair. There were other operas, and one Konigskinder, is not at all bad.
But he’s only really famous for Hansel and Gretel, and this, in turn, is usually regarded as a children’s opera – which again is not quite fair.
While based on the familiar fairy tale, it’s one that happens to be among the grimmer of the Grimms. Its story of a witch who delights in devouring children has a certain Hannibal Lector touch to it.
Humperdinck’s dear old opera considerably tones down the cheery horrors of the Brothers Grimm. As for the score itself, this could be described as an unexpectedly nice blend of German folk song with lush Wagnerian-style orchestration.
The production is sung in German and English with English Supertitles, and James Robinson’s inventive staging intelligently darkens Humperdinck’s sugar, spice and gingerbread, by setting the opera in a German immigrant New York at the time of its original premiere, 1983.
John Conklin’s marvelously evocative settings, largely etched in black and white with only sparing color, first place the siblings in their Lower East Side tenement, where they are set off by their desperate mother to scavenge for food.
They end up lost in a snowy Central Park, and after a night protected by very earthy angels, they proceed to a gorgeous Fifth Avenue mansion, where the owner is a witch with some unpleasant eating habits. Don’t worry – as ever, she ends up in her own oven.
Conklin’s designs, together with Anna Oliver’s costumes, perfectly catch the period.
This is probably a good first opera for kids – but, be warned, an operatic “Nutcracker” it’s not.
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As Sparkling as the Stars
By Sylvia Kahan,
Associate Professor of Music at City University of New York
Like the star for which the piece is named, Emmanuel Chabrier's The Star is a musical sparkler of an operetta. Its light, diverting tunes and witty, bantering dialogue (by Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo) represent the very essence of "opéra bouffe," a mid-19th-century genre created by Offenbach that was meant to entertain. The humor of the spoken text and the musical numbers is both broad and sharply sly. The use of parody and satire - especially in the numbers that poke fun at class mores and manners - alternates with outrageous slapstick. You might say that The Star is a Gallic counterpart to those delightful operettas being played during the same era on the other side of the English Channel, penned by a duo named Gilbert and Sullivan.
But The Star, like all of Chabrier's bouffe creations, is both sillier and more subtle than that of its British counterparts; its finely-spun melodies and sensual, lighter-than-air orchestration place it in a class well above similar comic works. It reflects, perhaps in part, the composer's unorthodox training as a composer and equally unconventional career path. Born in the Auvergne region of France, Chabrier (1841-1894) showed an early aptitude for music and studied piano with two refugee Spanish musicians who had settled in his native town. However, his rigidly conventional bourgeois parents discouraged him from pursuing his passion. At age 16, Chabrier, pressured into following in the footsteps of his lawyer father, dutifully left his home to study law in Paris. Four years later, he obtained a position as a clerk with the Minister of the Interior, a post that he would hold for the next eighteen years. He pursued music as a hobby, but learning a composer's skills did not come easily to him. He took occasional composition and piano lessons in his limited spare time and learned orchestration by copying out scores, including Wagner's Tannhauser. Long before "Wagner-mania" became all the rage among late-19th-century French cognoscenti, Chabrier's youthful love for the German composer placed him squarely in the ranks of the avant-garde. His friends included painter Edouard Manet, writer Emile Zola, and poet Paul Verlaine.
It was Verlaine - while they were in a cafe, no doubt, enjoying a glass of absinthe - that Chabrier composed, "somewhat haphazardly," a few strains of music to "texts from here and there." One of these verses was called, "O petite étoile" (Oh, little star); a second verse, "Couplets du Pal," featured an outrageous ode to impalement:
Le Pal
Est de tous les supplices
Le principal
Et le plus fécund en délices.
(Impalement is
Of all the forms of torture
The main one
And the richest in delights.)
In 1875, these verses would be rewritten by Chabrier in collaboration with the librettists Leterrier and Vanloo, who, at the moment of their first meeting with the composer, just happened to be completing an opéra bouffe libretto set in an Orient of the imagination, entitled The Star. The completed work received its premiere at Offenbach's own Théatre des Bouffes-Parisiens in November 1877; it would prove to be Chabrier's first masterwork.
The Star opens with a wonderfully tuneful overture, which presents a potpourri of the operetta's main themes. The zany, fantastical plot revolves around a king named Ouf who loves impalements, a charming peddler, Lazuli, who puts his faith in "lucky stars" - and sets his cap for Princess Laoula (the king's intended), and the court astrologer, Siroco, who saves the peddler's life by preventing his impalement. Along the way, an ambassador with the improbable name of Hérisson de Porc-Epic and his faithful secretary Tapioca extol the virtues of laboring as shopkeepers. Princess Laoula and her companion consire to awaken Lazuli with a delightful "tickling" duet, and King Ouf and Siroco join together in a drunken paean to green Chartreuse liqueur, a hilarious spoof of early-19th-century Italian opera. All of these goings-on are set to Chabrier's sweet, perfectly crafted melodies and refined orchestrations. The character of Lazuli is one of the most delightful "pants roles" in the entire operatic repertoire, and the peddler's entrance aria, "Je suis Lazuli," offers the woman playing the travesty part a wonderful opportunity to portray a confident, exuberant "enfant terrible."
The Star was well received by Parisian audiences at its premiere. The critics were divided: while some declared that Chabrier's "Wagnerian tendencies" produced convolution and eccentricity in the score, others lauded the new work, declaring that "this operetta will be the Star of the Bouffes for a long time." The Star played for 48 performances in all; it was withdrawn before the end of its projected run by the producer who didn't want to pay increased royalties to the librettists. The orchestral musicians were apparently disgruntled by the "difficulty" of the score: not only had Chabrier woven too many dissonances into the harmonic fabric, but he had committed the unpardonable sin of writing music for the second verses of arias that was different from that of the first verses! After its initial run, The Star disappeared from the repertory. It was not produced again during Chabrier's lifetime (he died at age 53), and posthumous productions in New York (under the title The Merry Monarch) and London in the 1890s bore scant resemblance to the original work. The best-known revival took place at Paris's Opéra-Comique, during the Nazi occupation.
It was not until several years after the production of The Star that Chabrier was finally able to quit his bureaucratic job and concentrate on composition. An 1883 performance of his brilliant short orchestral work Espana (1883) finally brought him a long-sought-after degree of fame, and yet for the rest of his life he struggled against the perception that he was not more than a talented amateur. Shortly after his death, a new generation of French composers - a group that included Satie, Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc - recognized belatedly the genius of their forebear. Of The Star, Reynaldo Hahn would write: "Nothing is left to chance; the delicate details of ornamentation, the mad pirouettes, the hubbub, and the confusion are all written down with equal care, showing unfailing conscientiousness and almost superhuman effort."
Chabrier was quoted as saying that "music must be beautiful all at once and all the time." The beauty of The Star is of a special, heavenly kind: its music is as warm as the sun, as luminous as the moon, and as sparkling as the stars.
Sylvia Kahan writes frequently on the interaction of music and culture in late 19th- and early 20th-century France. She is the author of the critically acclaimed biography Music's Modern Muse: A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac (University of Rochester Press, 2006).
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La Bohème
November 7, 11, 13, 15, 2009
In Italian with English Supertitles
Act 1
Marcello is painting while Rodolfo gazes out of the window. In order to keep warm, they burn the manuscript of Rodolfo's drama. Colline, the philosopher, enters shivering and disgruntled at not having been able to pawn some books. Schaunard, the musician of the group, arrives with food, firewood, wine, cigars, and money, and he explains the source of his riches, a job with an eccentric English gentleman. The others hardly listen to his tale as they fall ravenously upon the food. Schaunard interrupts them by whisking the meal away and declaring that they will all celebrate his good fortune by dining at Cafe Momus instead.
While they drink, Benoît, the landlord, arrives to collect the rent. They flatter him and ply him with wine. In his drunkenness, he recites his amorous adventures, but when he also declares he is married, they thrust him from the room — without the rent payment — in comic moral indignation. The rent money is divided for their carousal in the Quartier Latin.
The other Bohemians go out, but Rodolfo remains alone for a moment in order to finish an article he is writing, promising to join his friends soon. There is a knock at the door, and Mimì, a seamstress who lives in another room in the building, enters. Her candle has blown out, and she has no matches; she asks Rodolfo to light it. She thanks him, but returns a few seconds later, saying she has lost her key. Both candles are extinguished; the pair stumble in the dark. Rodolfo, eager to spend time with Mimì, finds the key and pockets it, feigning innocence. In two arias, they tell each other about their different backgrounds. Impatiently, the waiting friends call Rodolfo, but, while he suggests remaining at home with Mimì, she decides to accompany him. As they leave, they sing of their newfound love.
Act 2
A great crowd has gathered with street sellers announcing their wares. The friends appear, flushed with gaiety; Rodolfo buys Mimì a bonnet from a vendor. Parisians gossip with friends and bargain with the vendors; the children of the streets clamor to see the wares of Parpignol, the toy seller. The friends enter the Cafe Momus.
As the men and Mimì dine at the cafe, Musetta, formerly Marcello's sweetheart, arrives with her rich (and aging) government minister admirer, Alcindoro, to whom she speaks as she might to a lapdog. It is clear she has tired of him. To the delight of the Parisians and the embarrassment of her patron, she sings a risqué song, hoping to reclaim Marcello's attention. Soon Marcello is burning with jealousy. To be rid of Alcindoro for a bit, she pretends to be suffering from a tight shoe and sends him with it to the shoemaker to be fixed. During the ensemble that follows, Musetta and Marcello fall into each other's arms and reconcile.
The friends are presented with the bill and to their consternation find that Schaunard's money is not enough to pay it. The sly Musetta has the entire bill charged to Alcindoro. The sound of approaching soldiers is heard, and, picking up Musetta, Marcello and Colline carry her out on their shoulders amid the applause of the spectators. When all have gone, Alcindoro arrives with the repaired shoe seeking Musetta. The waiter hands him the bill, and, horror-stricken at the charge, Alcindoro sinks into a chair.
Act 3
Peddlers pass through the barriers and enter the city. Amongst them is Mimì, coughing violently. She tries to find Marcello, who lives in a little tavern nearby where he paints signs for the innkeeper. She tells him of her hard life with Rodolfo, who has abandoned her that night. Marcello tells her that Rodolfo is asleep inside, but he wakes up and comes out looking for Marcello. Mimì hides and overhears Rodolfo first telling Marcello that he left Mimì because of her coquettishness, but finally confessing that he fears she is slowly being consumed by a deadly illness. Rodolfo, in his poverty, can do little to help Mimì and hopes that his pretended unkindness will inspire her to seek another, wealthier suitor. Out of kindness towards Mimì, Marcello tries to silence him, but she has already heard all. Her coughing reveals her presence, and Rodolfo and Mimì sing of their lost love. They make plans to separate amicably, but their love for one another is too strong. As a compromise, they agree to remain together until the spring, when the world is coming to life again and no one feels truly alone. Meanwhile, Marcello has joined Musetta, and the couple quarrel fiercely: an antithetical counterpoint to the other pair's reconciliation.
Act 4
Marcello and Rodolfo are seemingly at work, though they are primarily bemoaning the loss of their respective loves. Schaunard and Colline arrive with a very frugal dinner and all parody eating a plentiful banquet, dance together, and sing. Musetta arrives with news: Mimì, who took up with a wealthy viscount after leaving Rodolfo in the spring, has left her patron. Musetta has found her wandering the streets, severely weakened by her illness, and has brought her back to the garret. Mimì, haggard and pale, is assisted into a chair. Musetta and Marcello leave to sell Musetta's earrings in order to buy medicine, and Colline leaves to pawn his overcoat. Schaunard, urged by Colline, quietly departs to give Mimì and Rodolfo time together. Left alone, they recall their past happiness. They relive their first meeting — the candles, the lost key — and, to Mimì's delight, Rodolfo presents her with the pink bonnet he bought her, which he has kept as a souvenir of their love. The others return, with a gift of a muff to warm Mimì's hands and some medicine, and tell Rodolfo that a doctor has been summoned, but it is too late to help their friend, who lapses into unconsciousness. As Musetta prays, Mimì dies. Schaunard discovers Mimì lifeless. Rodolfo cries out Mimì's name in anguish, and weeps helplessly.
Click Here to download this synopsis of La Bohème.
The Composer
"Puccini spoke a language that everybody understood – the dialect of our feelings."
Filippo Sacchi in Il Corriere della Sera, 1924
George Bernard Shaw, the music Critic for The World, wrote after hearing Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, “Italian opera has been born again.” Puccini would achieve both wealth and fame with this work after its premiere in 1893, but the pressure of being the crowned successor to Giuseppe Verdi would weigh heavily on him. He would spend three years painstakingly perfecting his next masterpiece, and La Bohème would prove to be a lasting and well-loved operatic staple. Based on Henry Mürger’s novel, Scènes de la vie de bohème, Puccini’s opera would be crafted by skilled librettists Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica to polish the now well-known poignant drama with its memorable characters. Puccini was a perfectionist and tried the patience of his publisher and his collaborators. Giacosa confessed to Ricordi, “With the continual revising, retouching, adding, correcting, cutting, abbreviating, fattening to the right so as to slim to the left, I’m dead tired.” But it is just this attention to detail that allowed Puccini to create the legacy of this enduring masterwork, and even Giacosa later admitted,” Puccini has surpassed all my expectations, and I now understand the reason for his tyranny over verses and accents.”
With a prestigious and well-dressed international crowd packing the theater in Turin on the opening night of La Bohème in 1896, expectations were high for this young composer’s new work. Puccini was deeply depressed by the lukewarm response, and admitted later to a biographer that when he returned to his hotel that evening: “There was in me a sadness, melancholy, a wish to cry...I passed a most miserable night.” But his beloved work that he described as loving boundlessly would within three years be produced in sold out houses in such diverse countries as Russia, South America, Egypt, and Algeria. It remains one of the most commonly performed and truly beloved operas in the world today.
Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy in 1858 into a family heritage of professional musicians with great expectations for his success. After a slow start in his musical studies, he was inspired at the age of eighteen by a performance of Verdi’s Aida, and he confidently declared that God had told him to write only for the theater. He would compose a dozen operas and leave a legacy of unforgettable musical heroines, including Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Turandot, and The Girl of the Golden West. His memorable melodies have been woven into our daily lives as commercials and movie soundtracks, and many of his operas remain in the top ten most currently performed. Puccini described himself as a composer with “more heart than mind”, and it is his talent for giving voice to the tragedies and triumphs of the human heart that will guarantee his music a place on the operatic stage for many generations to come. Luciano Pavarotti said simply, “I’m sure that a hundred years from now, all over the world, there will still be Rodolfos waiting for Mimis to come knocking on their doors. For as long as there will be opera, there will be La Bohème.”
Click Here to download this study guide on the composer of La Bohème, Giacomo Puccini.
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Dialogues of the Carmelites
April 18, 22, 24, 26, 2009
In French with English Supertitles
Act 1
The pathologically timid Blanche de la Force decides to retreat from the world and enter a Carmelite convent. The Mother Superior informs her that the Carmelite order is not a refuge: it is the duty of the nuns to guard the Order, not the other way around. In the convent, the jolly Sister Constance tells Blanche (to her consternation) that she has had a dream that the two of them will die young together. The Mother Superior, who is dying, commits Blanche to the care of Mother Marie. The Mother Superior passes away in great agony, shouting in her delirium that despite her long years of service to God, He has abandoned her. Blanche and Mother Marie, who witness her death, are shaken.
Act 2
Sister Constance remarks to Blanche that the Mother Superior's death seemed unworthy of her, and speculates that she had been given the wrong death, as one might be given the wrong coat in a cloakroom. Perhaps someone else will find death surprisingly easy. Perhaps we die not for ourselves alone, but for each other.
Blanche's brother, the Chevalier de la Force, arrives to announce that their father thinks Blanche should withdraw from the convent, since she is not safe there. Blanche refuses, saying that she has found happiness in the Carmelite order, but later admits to Mother Marie that it is fear (or the fear of fear itself, as the Chevalier expresses it) that keeps her from leaving.
The chaplain announces that he has been forbidden to preach (presumably for being a non-juror under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy). The nuns remark on how fear now governs the country, and no one has the courage to stand up for the priests. Sister Constance asks, "Are there no men left to come to the aid of the country?" "When priests are lacking, martyrs are superabundant," replies the new Mother Superior. Mother Marie says that the Carmelites can save France by giving their lives, but the Mother Superior corrects her: it is not permitted to become a martyr voluntarily; martyrdom is a gift from God.
A police officer announces that the Legislative Assembly has nationalized the convent and its property, and the nuns must give up their habits. When Mother Marie acquiesces, the officer taunts her for being eager to dress like everyone else. She replies that the nuns will continue to serve, no matter how they are dressed. "The people has no need of servants," proclaims the officer haughtily. "No, but it has a great need for martyrs," responds Mother Marie. "In times like these, death is nothing," he says. "Life is nothing," she answers, "when it is so debased."
Act 3
In the absence of the new Mother Superior, Mother Marie proposes that the nuns take a vow of martyrdom. However, all must agree, or Mother Marie will not insist. A secret vote is held; there is one dissenting voice. Sister Constance declares that she was the dissenter, and that she has changed her mind, so the vow can proceed. Blanche runs away from the convent, and Mother Marie finds her in her father's library. Her father has been guillotined, and Blanche has been forced to serve her former servants.
The nuns are all arrested and condemned to death, but Mother Marie is away (with Blanche, presumably) at the time. The chaplain tells Mother Marie that since God has chosen to spare her, she cannot now voluntarily become a martyr by joining the others in prison. The nuns march to the scaffold, singing Salve Regina. At the last minute, Blanche appears, to Constance's joy; but as she mounts the scaffold, Blanche changes the hymn to Deo patri sit gloria.
Click Here to download this synopsis of Dialogues of the Carmelites.
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Hansel and Gretel
April 24, 28, 30, May 2, 2010
In German and English with English Supertitles
Act 1
Hansel and Gretel are busy doing their chores. Gretel asks her brother to dance, but their fun is cut short when their mother, Gertrude, finds them playing instead of working. Furious, she knocks over a pitcher of milk and then breaks into tears over spilling the only food left in the house. She angrily sends the children out to scavenge for supper. Her husband, Peter, enters with provisions he has bought after a lucrative day of work. As they celebrate, Peter notices the children are gone. When he questions Gertrude, she tells him that she sent them off to find food. Peter expresses his fears for their safety, and the parents set out to look for Hansel and Gretel.
Act 2
The children are foraging for food, but eating more than they are collecting. As it grows darker, they become more and more frightened. They hear strange noises and believe they see shadows in the dark. As they lie down to sleep, a mysterious figure calms them. They sing their familiar evening prayer and fall asleep.
Act 3
At sunrise, a splendid house becomes visible in the background. The children are slowly awakened and become tempted by a cornucopia of sweets, to which they promptly help themselves. A gracious but sinister woman appears and invites them to follow her. She imprisons Hansel and Gretel so that they may work for her. When they refuse, she uses magic to paralyze and trap them. Exulting in her victory, she heats up the stove and tests Hansel to see if he is plump enough to eat. Gretel ingeniously frees her brother from imprisonment. She then asks the woman to show her how to use the stove; and when she opens the stove door, Hansel and Gretel shove her in. Hansel completes the reversal of the woman's spell, releasing many other children from bondage. Just then, Peter and Gertrude arrive and are reunited with Hansel and Gretel. Led by Peter, all assembled reflect upon God's kindness to those in need.
Click Here to download this synopsis of Hansel and Gretel.
The Composer
From an early age, Englebert Humperdinck showed a passion for music, playing the piano with discipline and enthusiasm as well as creating original music when he was only seven. Born in Siegburg in the Rhine Province of Germany in 1854, the young prodigy was discouraged from pursuing music as a profession by his family, but he received a scholarship to study with well-known music teachers in Munich, and became the first winner of the Mendelssohn Award. He traveled extensively in Europe and became a valuable teacher, taking positions in Barcelona, the Hoch Conservatory in Cologne, the Stockhausen Vocal School, and the Meister-Schule in Berlin.
Humperdinck’s life was changed dramatically when he met the composer Richard Wagner during a trip to Naples, Italy. He followed Wagner to Bayreuth and became his trusted assistant and musical tutor to Wagner’s son Sigfried. His first work with Wagner was assisting in the production of Parsifal in 1880. Involvement in Wagner’s legendary life and strong musical opinions had a heavy influence on Humperdinck, and his association with the famous composer helped with his own prestige and later success.
In 1890, Humperdinck’s sister asked him to compose music for a play for her children. This humble beginning led to Hansel and Gretel, Humperdinck’s timeless masterpiece and the sole reason for his continuing fame. Originally designing it as a singspiel based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, he later expanded it to a full operatic work complete with Wagnerian harmony and recognizable folk tunes. Premiering in Weimar in 1893, the famous composer Richard Strauss conducted the opera and declared it a uniquely German masterwork.
Hansel and Gretel has remained a favorite of the operatic stage, and in 1923 it was the first complete opera in history to be broadcast on the radio (from Covent Garden in London). Eight years later, the Metropolitan Opera chose Humperdinck’s much loved work as their first radio network broadcast. Humperdinck wrote five other operas, but none have achieved the lasting worldwide fame of the tale of two children triumphing over the Gingerbread Witch. Humperdinck died in September of 1921, secure in the knowledge that Hansel and Gretel would live on the operatic stage for many generations to come.
Click Here to download this study guide on the composer of Hansel and Gretel, Engelbert Humperdinck.
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Rigoletto
January 31, February 4, 6, 8, 2009
In Italian with English Supertitles
Act 1
As his courtiers enjoy their nightly course of wine and women, the Duke of Mantua entertains his friend Borsa with the details of his latest adventure: he has undertaken the pursuit of a beauty he followed home from church, whose virtue he plans to assault. When Borsa reminds him of the variety of ladies already within reach, the Duke propositions the beautiful Countess Ceprano, unfazed by her husband’s fury. Never one to miss such an opening, the Duke’s jester Rigoletto ridicules the luckless Count Ceprano in front of all the guests.
The party continues as another young nobleman, Marullo, arrives with scandalous news: he has discovered that Rigoletto, deformed monster that he is, has taken a mistress! Still stinging from the fool’s wicked jests, Ceprano and the nobles plot their revenge on him. They are interrupted as Count Monterone forces his way into the palace to confront the Duke for defiling his daughter. Incensed by the Duke’s indifference and Rigoletto’s merciless jibes, Monterone calls a curse down on both of them. The Duke orders that Monterone be imprisoned for his transgression, and only Rigoletto gives credence to the power of a father’s righteous curse.
As the jester walks home, he is accosted by the assassin Sparafucile, who offers his sword as a solution to Rigoletto’s problems. Rigoletto dismisses him, but not before learning how to find him again if needed. Once home, Rigoletto’s dark mood is dispelled when he greets his beloved daughter Gilda. Kept in seclusion by her father, the girl knows nothing of her family and little of the world. Rigoletto answers her questions about her long-dead mother but refuses to speak of his own past; when he hears someone in the street, the anxious father leaves to investigate, ordering Gilda and Giovanna to remain inside and open the gate for no one.
The Duke narrowly avoids discovery as Rigoletto passes him. He is surprised to learn that the beauty he followed home from church is, in fact, his own jester’s daughter. Disguised as a poor student, he calls out to Gilda and declares his love for her. Gilda is thrilled, but the encounter ends before it really begins as a crowd of men gathers near the house. The “poor student” departs, leaving Gilda to whisper the false name of her new-found love. Meanwhile, the courtiers finalize their plans to abduct the jester’s lover. When Rigoletto returns, Marullo convinces him that the Countess Ceprano is the object of the evening’s quest. Rigoletto is fitted with a mask – actually a blindfold – and holds the ladder as the band invades his own house and abducts his daughter. Realizing too late that he has, indeed, played the fool on this night, he races to aid his daughter.
Act 2
The Duke is upset to find that someone else has stolen his mysterious lady, but his disappointment is washed away when his courtiers offer him his jester’s “lover” for his amusement. Realizing that his prize has been delivered to him, he retires to enjoy his good fortune. Rigoletto comes to search for Gilda, raging at the malicious courtiers who bar his way. Hearing him, Gilda rushes in to confess her shame and beg her father’s forgiveness for her lover, the Duke; before he can answer, he must watch in numb horror as Count Monterone is led away to be executed. Feeling the same father’s anguish, Rigoletto vows to carry out the vendetta for both of them.
Act 3
Maddalena, Sparafucile’s sister and accomplice, has lured the Duke to their lonely inn on the banks of the Mincio River. Hidden outside, Rigoletto forces Gilda to witness her lover’s infidelity, then orders her to disguise herself as a boy and escape to Verona, where he will join her. When Gilda has left, Rigoletto finalizes his plans with the assassin, who agrees to kill the Duke and deliver the body to his client at the stroke of midnight; Rigoletto insists on reserving the pleasure of disposing of the body for himself.
As a storm approaches, the jester leaves the assassin to his work. Finding herself attracted to their intended victim, Maddalena asks her brother to spare him, but Sparafucile insists on fulfilling his contract. He finally agrees that should the storm provide another victim before midnight, he will substitute that body for the Duke’s. Gilda, who has defied her father and returned to the inn, overhears the fatal plans. Determined to save the life of her faithless lover, she knocks on the door and offers herself to the assassin’s blade.
At midnight, Sparafucile delivers a sack containing a body to the grimly exultant Rigoletto. As the jester savors a final moment with his fallen master, he is shocked to hear the Duke singing in the distance. Tearing open the sack, he finds the dying Gilda, who begs forgiveness for herself and the Duke. As his child dies in his arms, Rigoletto can only scream in horror at the terrible price exacted by Monterone’s curse.
Click Here to download this synopsis of Rigoletto.
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The Star
January 30, February 3, 5, 7, 2010
In French and English with English Supertitles
Act 1
King Ouf the First roams his city, in disguise, searching for a suitable subject to execute as a birthday treat. Herisson de Porc-Epic, an ambassador, and his wife, Aloes, arrive, accompanied by his secretary, Tapioca, and Laoula, the daughter of a neighboring monarch. They are traveling incognito, and the princess is being passed off as Herisson's wife. Their mission, of which Laoula is unaware, is to marry her to Ouf. Complications arise when Laoula and a poor peddler, Lazuli, fall in love at first sight. Scolded for flirting, Lazuli insults the disguised king and thus becomes a desired candidate for death by impalement. But Siroco, the king's astrologer, reveals that the fates of the king and the peddler are inextricably linked; the stars predict that they will die within 24 hours of each other. Fortunes change again, and Lazuli is escorted with honors into the palace.
Act 2
Lazuli, feted and well fed, grows bored with luxury and longs for Laoula. Ouf, still unaware of the disguises, furthers the lovers' hopes of marriage by imprisoning the supposed husband, Herisson. The lovers depart but Herisson escapes and orders the peddler shot. Gunfire is heard, but although Laoula is brought in, there is no sign of Lazuli. Ouf bemoans his fate.
Act 3
Lazuli, having escaped harm, overhears Ouf, Siroco and Herisson discussing the situation, and eventually reveals himself to Laoula. They plan a second elopement. Ouf, desperate to marry Laoula and secure an heir to the throne, tries to thwart the lovers again, but a further prediction from Siroco resolves the situation in Lazuli's favor.
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The Composer
“Even today I tremble with emotion in thinking of the miracle that was produced: a harmonic universe suddenly opened in front of me, and my music has never forgotten this first loving kiss.”
Francis Poulenc describing the first time he heard the music of Chabrier.
Emmanuel Chabrier’s legacy as a composer rests on his accessible and charmingly melodic works and a life filled with the rich culture of 19th Century Paris. Born in the Auvergne region of Central France in 1841, the young Chabrier began music lessons at the age of six and developed into a dramatic and technically stunning pianist. By the age of eight, he had begun composing for the piano, and his studies were enriched by lessons with the violinist and composer Tarnowski. Encouraged by his family to study law, Chabrier successfully graduated in this field and worked at the French Ministry of the Interior. Driven by his passion for music, he continued to play piano and create original works, and spent hours studying the music of the great composers of his day.
Chabrier was at the center of the vibrant creative life of Paris when he moved there in 1862. An integral part of the soirees where the avant-garde thinkers gathered, he became inspired by the poets and artists who became cherished friends. The list of his social circle is astonishing, and includes the painters Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, the composer Gabriel Fauré, and the poets of the Parnassian group, Paul Verlaine and Stephen Mallarmé.
Continuing his legal career with the French Ministry through the tumultuous times of the Commune and the Franco-Prussian War (1870 – 1871), Chabrier was finally lured into music as his sole passion when he heard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde on a trip to Munich. He would create three complete operas, five works for orchestra (including his popular España) inspired by a trip to Spain), many songs and vocal works, and a rich assortment of pieces for the piano. L’etoile (The Star) was his first stage work to be completed, and the successful run of 48 performances at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in 1877 brought him great acclaim.
Chabrier was inspired throughout his life by beauty and new ideas, and was fortunate to accumulate an impressive collection of art. He owned three paintings by Monet, a Cezanne, a Renoir, two by Sisley, and could even boast having Manet’s famous Un bar aux Folies Bergère. Many well-known artists produced his portrait, and his likeness is featured in large canvases by both Degas and Fantin-Latour. Chabrier inspired tributes by other composers, and was so important a figure to Francis Poulenc that he wrote a book about him. His final years were sadly clouded by ill health, depression, and financial challenges, and a year of general paralysis ended with his early death at age 53 in 1891. Chabrier’s music will no doubt continue to speak to us through its easy beauty, wit, and harmonic richness.
Click Here to download this study guide on the composer of The Star, Emmanuel Chabrier.
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