UMS Concert Program, April 16, 1972: New York Pro Musica -- Paul Maynard

Concert: Fifteenth
Complete Series: 3771
Power Center For The Performing Arts Ann Arbor, Michigan

The University Musical Society
y
The University of Michigan
Presents
NEW YORK PRO MUSICA
PAUL MAYNARD, Musical Director
Sunday Evening, April 16, 1972, at 8:00
Power Center for the Performing Arts
Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
An Entertainment for Elizabeth
being A Most Excellent Princely Maske of the Seven Motions
or Terpsichore Unchain'd
Cast (In order of appearance)
MUSICIANS OF THE CONSORT
Lute................Lucy Cross
Recorder, Krummhorn, Viol..........Herb Myers
Viols..............Mary Springfels
Flute, Recorder, Krummhorn, Rauschjeije.....Shelley Gruskin
Harpsichord, Organetto, Regal........Frederick Renz
Cornetto, Trumpet, Recorder, Krummhorn......Richard Cook
THE COURT
Pattern...............Ray DeVoll
Variety...............Sean Daniel
Queen Elizabeth............Roberta Senn
Ladyinwaiting...........Elizabeth Humes
Ladyinwaiting............Judy Hubbell
Courtier..............Daniel Collins
Courtier.............Rodney Godshall
Decca Gold Label Records Fifteenth Concert International Presentations in Power Center Complete Concerts 3771
THE MASKERS
Pages..............Cathy Kaminski
Gregg Vierra
Terpsichore.............Marsha Davis
Up, revealed as Apollo..........Alex Kotinsky
Down, revealed as Ike Moon.........Victoria Brown
Left, revealed as Venus...........Andrea Stark
Right, revealed as Mars..........Edward Androse
Back, revealed as Earth...........Frances Loeb
Forth, revealed as Saturn..........Charles Garth
Around, revealed as Jupiter.........Myron Curtis
PROGRAM NOTES by Jean Knowlton
In Elizabethan and early Stuart England the masque was a type of theatrical performance at court and in great households on festive occasions, especially in honor of a highranking guest. In form the masque resembled a pageant rather than a drama. Unified by an allegorical or mythological concept the masque presented, in poetry, song, and dance, a progress from the chaos caused by the absence of some virtue to the triumphant vindication of that virtue and often to a glorification of the monarch who embodied it.
As its name suggests, the masque centered around the masked or "vizarded" dancers, titled performers whose dancing transformed into the beauty of motion the philosophy the poet had expressed in the beauty of his lines. Dances performed for the dramatic portion of the masque ranged from processional dances at the beginning and end, to disorderly dances done in the time of chaos, to elaborate patterned dances intended to celebrate the triumph of virtue by showing forth the beauty of design in an orderly world. The revels interrupted the theatrical part of the masque to bring the audience into the allegorical context as partners of the performers, with stage dancers and audience joining in the social dances of the day.
An Entertainment for Elizabeth sets out to recreate the splendor of such a private masque as it might have been performed in honor of Queen Elizabeth I nearly 400 years ago. Since an authentic Elizabethan masque text would have required undue explanation to clarify the topical allusions for a modern audience, the American poet John Hollander was commissioned to write a text after the manner of an Elizabethan masque. The text of An Entertainment for Elizabeth, like its models, uses the allegorical framework and the contemporary references in the service of a neoPlatonic ideal of order and beauty. All other aspects of An Entertainment for Elizabeth are as accurately Elizabethan as modern scholarship can make them, presented with the care for con?tinuity and dramatic immediacy that has become a hallmark of New York Pro Musica productions.
The dance research whose results are seen in An Entertainment for Elizabeth is a relatively new field of scholarly activity. Julia Sutton, a recognized authority on dance manuals of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, planned the dances and trained the dancers for the original production, with Elizabeth Kurtz serving as dancing mistress. Thoinot Arbeau's Orchesographie, a French publication of 1589, together with the Italian publications of Fabritio Caroso (II Ballerino, 1581, and Nobilita di Dame, 1600), and Cesare Negri (Le Gratie d'Amore, 1602), supplied most of the dance steps and floor patterns for the courtly dances of An Entertainment for Elizabeth. English sources supplied some of the social dances. The meticulous research extended beyond dance steps and floor patterns, even to details of walking and bowing, to the way a man held his hat or led his lady across the floor.
Dances chosen for An Entertainment for Elizabeth vary from a popular kissing game to the showy and difficult galliards, from the slow branles that could be danced by the oldest and most sedate members of the audience to the daring La Volta, where the man swung his partner high in the air, at some risk to her modesty. Other dances include the canaries (a Renaissance idea of exotic savage dancing), a sword dance, a pavane, an alman, and of course the figure dance that climaxes the transformation scene.
Music for the current production was taken from the Mulliner Book, the Dublin Virginal Manuscript, the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, the English School of Lutenist Song Writers, and the English Madrigal School. The music is played on instruments known to have been in use at the Elizabethan court, and where needed the bagpipe and the pipe and tabor have been added to the usual courtly instruments of the New York Pro Musica consort.
Text and Contrajacta by John Hollander Production Conceived by John Reeves White
PRODUCTION STAFF
Musical Direction.................Paul Maynard
Musical Research.................John White
Dance Constructions................Julia Sutton
Dance Consultant................Jean Knowlton
Stage Direction................William Woodman
Scenic Design...............Will Steven Armstrong
Costume Design.................Anne Hollander
Lighting Design.................Len Alexander
Production Stage Manager...............James Greek
Assistant to Dr. Sutton...............Elizabeth Kurtz
Company Manager.................Mark KinS
Wardrobe Supervisor................Cookie Blecher
Master Electrician.................Bob LoBianco
Costumes executed by Ray Diffcn Stage Clothes and Grace Costumes Masks and Fans by Frederick S. Nihda
The Prague Symphony concert in the Choral Union Series of February 27 will be on delayed broadcast over WUOMFM on Monday evening, May 1, at 8:00 p.m. Recordings will be available on tapes and discs, with the Festival Chorus in Sinetana's "Czech Song," the complete Dvorak Symphony No. 5 in F major, and the three encores of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances. Watch for further announcement by the Musical Society.
ANN ARBOR
The Philadelphia Orchestra at all concerts--Eugene Ormandy and Thor Johnson, conductors
May 4--Harris: Symphony No. 3; Mahler: Kindertotenlieder, Dietrich FischerDieskau, baritone; Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique.
May 5--Mozart: Vespers, K. 339, Festival Chorus, Noelle Rogers, soprano, Eliza?beth Mannion, contralto, Waldie Anderson, tenor, Willis Patterson, bass; Wallace Berry: Intonation; Schumann: Concerto in A minor, Susan Starr, pianist.
May 6--AllBrahms program: Tragic Overture; Symphony No. 3; Concerto in D major, Mayumi Fujikawa, violinist.
May 7--(2:30) Mozart: Symphony No. 29, K. 201; Szymanowski: Stabat Mater, Festival Chorus, Noelle Rogers, soprano, Elizabeth Mannion, contralto, Leslie Guinn, baritone; Weber: Concerto No. 2, Malcom Frager, pianist.
May 7--Bach: Toccata, Adagio and Fugue; Rossini: three arias; Wagner: excerpts from Die Gotterdammerung, Marilyn Home, soprano.
(All Festival concerts at 8:30 unless otherwise noted)
Series tickets: $36, $30, $25, $20, $15 (five concerts) Single concerts: $8.50, $7.50, $7, $6, $5, $3.50
Next year's International Presentations have been announced. Brochure describing all 35 events, seat locations, and ticket prices are available at the Musical Society offices. Orders for series tickets now being accepted.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Gail W. Rector, President William L. Brittain Harlan Hatcher
?Roscoe O. Bonisteel, VicePresident Allen P. Britton Paul K. Kauper
Erich A. Walter, Secretary Douglas D. Crary Wilbur K. Pierpont
E. Thurston Thieme, Treasurer Robben W. Fleming Daniel H. Schurz
? Died, February 25,1972