UMS Concert Program, February 9, 1980: International Presentations Of Music & Dance --

Season: 101st
Concert: Forty-seventh
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Leontyne Price
Soprano DAVID GARVEY, Pianist
Saturday Evening, February 9, 1980, at 8:30 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
Bist du bei mir..........Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750)
If thou be near, go I with gladness to Death and to eternal Peace. Ah, how content were thus my ending, if thy dear hands were laid upon me and gently closed my faithful eyes.
Recitative and Aria: "Piangero la sorte mia,"
from Giulio Cesare.......George Frederick Handel
(1685-1759)
Cleopatra, sentenced to imprisonment, sings: "Thus in one day I am robbed of all my splendor. Lost is all I treasured. Caesar is drowned, Cornelia and Sextus in prison. No friend is left. Eternal Gods! I am left alone. All hope is fled. But night and day I shall be as a spectre to torment my brother. I must weep at my cruel fate."
Allerseelen (Hermann von Gilm)........Richard Strauss
(1864-1949)
Beside me set the ruddy glowing heather, the last autumnal asters bring today, and let us tell again of love together, as once in May. Give me thy hand, that I may fondly press it. Should others see, I care not what they say; let one fond glance, love, fill my heart and bless it, as once in May. On every grave today sweet flowers are glowing, so every year we give the dead one day; come to my heart, thy love again bestowing, as once in May.
Schlagende Herzen (Otto Julius Bierbaum).......Strauss
Over mountain and dale goes a youth, a ring on his finger. Cling, clang, loud beats his heart! O meadows, O woodlands, O valleys, so fair! How the sun shines golden. Merrily the youth hastens along with the soft spring breeze, whispering: "My heart is all aglow for thee, sweet maid." In the flowering meadow the maiden stands. Cling, clang, loud beats her heart! She waits for him, thinking: "O that he were here!" Cling, clang, loud beats her heart!
Freundliche Vision (Bierbaum)..........Strauss
Not in slumber did the dream arise, but in day's broad light I saw it all: Just a meadow full of budding daisies, and a sunny house half hid in foliage; forms divine are lurking in the thicket. And I walk with her whose love I cherish; tranquilly we enjoy the coolness of this sheltered cottage, full of beauty, full of peace that waiteth on our coming. And I go with her whom I cherish to the peace and the beauty.
101st Season -Forty-seventh Concert 101st Annual Choral Union Series
Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten (Friedrich von Schack) .... Strauss
Why should we keep our love a secret No, let it soar in happy flight! Yes, open wide our hearts' recesses, let all men know our deep delight!
"Un bel di," from Madame Butterfly......Giacomo Puccini
(1858-1924)
In "Un bel di" Butterfly looks forward with misguided trust to the day when she will see the ship appearing, which she believes will restore to her arms her long absent lover, Pinkerton.
INTERMISSION
Four Songs to poems by Paul Eluard......Francis Poulenc
translated by E. S. Seldon (1899-1963)
(sung without pause)
Rien que ce doux petit visage
Nothing but that gentle little face,
Nothing but that gentle little bird
On the faraway pier where the children get fainter
At winter's exit
When the clouds begin to burn
Like always.
When the fresh air takes color . . .
Nothing but that youth which flees ahead of life.
Main dominee par le coeur Hand ruled by heart Heart ruled by lion Lion ruled by bird Bird that a.cloud effaces Lion that the wastes make dizzy Heart that death inhabits Hand closed again in vain
No help, it all is going.
I see what was disappearing
I understand that I have nothing
And I can just see myself
An absence between walls
And then exile among the shadows
Eyes pure head still.
Tu vois le feu du soir
You see the evening light as it leaves its shell And you see the forest buried in coolness
You see the bare plain nestling in a staggling sky
Snow as high as the sea
And the sea high up in the blue
Perfect stones and sweet woods veiled relief You see cities tinged with melancholy Gilded with pavements full of excuses A square where solitude has its smiling statue And love a house alone
You see the animals
Sly doubles of each other, to each other sacrificed--
Immaculate brothers whose shadows merge
In a desert of blood
You see a fine little boy when he plays when he laughs
He is much smaller
Than the smallest bird on the branches' tip
You see a landscape scented with oil and water
From which rock has been excluded where earth abandons
Her greenery to summer who covers it with fruits.
Women stepping down out of their ancient mirror Bring you their youth and their faith in your own And one her limpidity the sail that draws you on Secretly lets you see the world without yourself.
Je nommcrai ton front
I will give a name to your effrontery
I will make a flaming pyre of it on top of your sobs
I will call the pain that cuts through you
Like a sword in a silk curtain
I will demolish your secret garden Full of poppies and precious water I'll bind you hand and foot with my whip
There was never anything in your heart but subterranean glimmers There will be nothing in the pupils of your eyes from now on but blood
I will give a name to your mouth and your hands last of all Your mouth a spoiled echo your hands counterfeit pennies I will break in pieces the rusty keys they control
If I should some day become profoundly calm again If I should forget that I did not know how to conquer At least you will have known the greatness of my hate.
Song Cycle: Despite and Still........Samuel Barber
(b. 1910) A Last Song (Robert Graves)
A last song, and a very last, and yet another
O, when can I give over
Must I drive the pen until blood bursts from my nails
And my breath fails and I shake with fever,
Or sit well wrapped in a many colored cloak
where the moon shines new through Castle Crystal Shall I never hear her whisper softly: "But this is truth written by you only, And for me only Therefore, love, have done."
My Lizard (Theodor Roethke)
My lizard, my lively writher,
May your limbs never wither,
May the eyes in your face
Survive the green ice of envy's mean gaze;
May you live out your life
Without hate, without grief,
And your hair ever blaze,
in the sun, in the sun,
when I am undone When I am no one.
In the Wilderness (Robert Graves)
He, of his gentleness, thirsting and hungering
Walked in the wilderness;
Soft words of grace he spoke
Unto the lost desert folk that listened wondering.
He heard the bittern call from ruined palace wall,
Answered him brotherly;--
He held communion with the she pelican of lonely piety
Basilisk, Cockatrice, flocked to his homilies
With nail of dread device,
With monstrous barbed stings,
With eager dragon eyes,
Great bats on leathern wings and old, blind broken things
Mean--in their miseries.
Then ever with him went
Of all his wanderings
Comrade, with ragged coat, gaunt ribs, poor innocent
Bleeding foot, burning throat,
The guileless young scapegoat:
For forty nights and days followed in Jesus' ways,
Sure guard behind him kept,
Tears like a lover wept.
Solitary Hotel (from Ulysses by James Joyce)
Solitary hotel in mountain pass. She writes.
Autumn,--Twilight,--Firelit. She sighs.
In dark corner young man seated. Wheels and hoofs.
Young woman enters. She hurries out.
Restless. Solitary He comes from his dark corner.
She sits. He seizes solitary paper.
She goes to window. He holds it towards fire.
She stands. Twilight.
She sits. He reads.
Twilight. Solitary.
She thinks. What--In sloping, upright and backhands:
On solitary hotel paper---she writes. Queen's hotel, Queen's hotel, Queen's ho. . .
She thinks.
Despite and Still (Robert Graves)
Have you not read the words in my head And I made part of your own heart We have been such as draw the losing straw You of your gentleness, I of my rashness,
both of despair
Yet still might share this happy will: To love despite and still. Never let us deny the things necessity But, oh, refuse to choose
When chance may seem to give loves an alternative To love despite and still.
Round about the Mountain........arr. Roland Hayes
Ride on King Jesus..........arr. Hall Johnson
RCA Red Seal, London, Angel, and Columbia Records.
About the Artist
Leontync Price, universally regarded as one of the greatest artists of our time, made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1961 to an unprecedented 42-minute ovation. Triumphant engage?ments in starring roles followed at Salzburg, La Scala, Covent Garden, Verona, the Chicago Lyric, Paris Opera, Teatro Colon, and the Metropolitan which presented her in seven different roles during her first year. In addition to singing in the great opera houses of the world, she performs with major symphony orchestras and in recital in leading cities around the globe. Miss Price's honors and awards are numerous. Among them: America's highest civilian award, the Medal of Freedom; a televised recital, "Leontyne Price at the White House," for which she was awarded a TV Emmy from the National Academy of Television and Sciences; an American representative at the Egyptian-Israeli peace signing ceremonies at the White House; included in Life Magazine's Bicentennial issue--"Remarkable American Women 1776-1976"; elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; honorary doctorates from Howard University, Dartmouth College, Fordham University, and Columbia University; the recipient of the Republic of Italy's Order of Merit, and the San Francisco Opera's Silver Medal; and a library named for her in her home state of Mississippi. Of historical significance, she premiered the role of Cleopatra in Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra on opening night of the new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center.
Tonight is Miss Price's sixth appearance in Ann Arbor. She first performed here in the May Festival of 1957, returning for the Festivals of 1960, 1965, and 1971, and most recently appeared in recital on this stage in 1978.
Important Concert Change
The Krasnayarsk Dance Company from Siberia, scheduled for February 29, has cancelled its tour to the United States. We're pleased to announce the following attraction as a replacement on I he same date:
Masscnkoff Russian Folk Festival--Nikolai Massenkoff, bass, and his California-based ensemble of folk dancers and balalaika players, all of Russian heritage, in a program spanning a thousand years of Russian history--ballads, war songs, love songs, and dances--Friday, February 29 at 8:30, in Hill Auditorium.
Krasnayarsk tickets should be used for admission to the Massenkoff Folk Festival. Additional tickets are also available, from $4 to $9. Ticket exchanges, if desired, may be made up to two days prior to the performance.