UMS Concert Program, Thursday Mar. 24 To Apr. 03: University Musical Society: Winter Spring 2011 - Thursday Mar. 24 To Apr. 03

Season: Winter Spring 2011
Hill Auditorium

WinterSpring 2011 Season 132nd Annual Seasor
General Information
On-site ticket offices at performance venues open 90 minutes before each performance.
Children of all ages are welcome at UMS Family and Youth Performances. Children under the age of 3 will not be admitted to regular, full length UMS performances. All children must be able to sit quietly in their own seats without disturbing other patrons. Children unable to do so, along with the adult accompanying them, will be asked by an usher to leave the audito?rium. Please use discretion in choosing to bring a child.
Remember, everyone must have a ticket, regardless of age.
While in the Auditorium
Starting Time Every attempt is made to begin concerts on time. Latecomers are asked to wait in the lobby until seated by ushers at a predetermined time in the program.
Cameras and recording equipment
are prohibited in the auditorium.
If you have a question, ask your usher. They are here to help.
Please turn off your cellular phones and other digital devices so that everyone may enjoy this UMS event disturbance-free.
In the interests of saving both dollars and the environment, please either retain this program book and return with it when you attend other UMS performances included in this edition or return it to your usher when leaving the venue.
Event Program Book
Thursday, March 24 through Sunday, April 3, 2011
Bach Collegium Japan
Thursday, March 24, 8:00 pm Hill Auditorium
Propeller 15
Shakespeare's Richard III
Wednesday, March 30, 7:30 pm Friday, April 1, 7:30 pm Saturday, April 2, 2:00 pm Sunday, April 3, 7:30 pm Power Center
Propeller 19
Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors
Thursday, March 31, 7:30 pm Saturday, April 2, 7:30 pm Sunday, April 3, 2:00 pm Power Center
St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra 33
Saturday, April 2, 8:00 pm Hill Auditorium
ums University Musical Society
Fall 2010
@@@@ September
9-
Oct3 Susurrus
25 Rosanne Cash
30 La Capella Reial de Catalunya with
Hesperion XXI and
Tembembe Ensamble Continuo
October
7-9 Paul Taylor Dance Company
9 Paul Taylor Dance Company
Family Performance
10 Mariinsky Orchestra with
Denis Matsuev, piano
14 Takacs Quartet: Schubert Concert 1
21 Jerusalem Quartet
23-24 Sankai Juku: Hibiki: Resonance from
Far Away
27 Venice Baroque Orchestra with
Robert McDuffie, violin
29 Django Reinhardt's 100th Birthday
Celebration: The Hot Club of San
Francisco and The Hot Club of Detroit
31 NT Live: A Disappearing Number
November
2 ONCE. MORE.: ONCE THEN
4 ONCE. MORE.: ONCE NOW
4 The Tallis Scholars
5 Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan
6 Assi El Helani
10 Murray Perahia, piano
18-20 Stew & The Negro Problem
December
3 Carolina Chocolate Drops
4-5 Handel's Messiah
Winter 2D11
@@@@ January
2 NT Live: Hamlet
14-15 Laurie Anderson's Delusion
16 Renee Fleming, soprano
21-22 Grupo Corpo
23 Joanne Shenandoah
27 Sequentia

30 I Baby Loves Salsa Family Performances 30 j NT Live: FELA!
February
1 i The Cleveland Orchestra with
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
2 ! Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with
Wynton Marsalis Canceled 4 ! New Century Chamber Orchestra with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violin
10 I Blues at the Crossroads: The Robert
Johnson Centennial Concert
Rafal Blechacz, piano
Vijay Iyer Trio and Rudresh Mahanthappa's i Apex
13 ; Concertante with Rafat Blechacz, piano 1-19 Merce Cunningham Dance Company:
i The Legacy Tour
20 Takacs Quartet: Schubert Concert 2 20 NT Live: King Lear
23 Kodo
March
9 I Scharoun Ensemble Berlin 1-13 : Druid and Atlantic Theater Company: Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan
19 Detroit Symphony Orchestra with the UMS Choral Union: i Mahler's Symphony No. S Canceled
24 Bach Collegium Japan: Bach's Mass in b minor
Propeller: Shakespeare's Richard III and The Comedy of Errors
April
2 St. Petersburg Philharmonic with Nikolai Lugansky, piano
; NT Live: Frankenstein
i Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Pineiro
de Cuba
Takacs Quartet: Schubert Concert 3
Tetzlaff Quartet
16 Tony Allen's Afrobeat Tour
23 Liebeslieder Waltzes (Songs and Waltzes of Love)
May
14 Break in' Curfew
July
17 NT Live: The Cherry Orchard
UMS Educational and Community Events
All UMS educational activities are free, open to the public, and take place in Ann Arbor unless otherwise noted. For complete details and updates, please visit www.ums.org or contact the UMS Education Department at 734.615.4077 or umsed@umich.edu. 9
Propeller
Shaking Up 21st-century Shakespeare: An Introduction to Propeller
Monday, March 28, 7:00 pm
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium
Guitars, gurneys, and gore all play a part in the all-male Shakespeare company Propeller's upcom?ing production of Richard III, and the Company likewise reinvents and reimagines The Comedy of Errors. Kick off Propeller's weeklong visit with this insider's look at contemporary Shakespearean performance and how Propeller creates new interpretations of the classics, led by University of Warwick Professor of English Carol Rutter.
A collaboration with the U-M Museum of Art.
From the Bard to the Boardroom: Part II
Tuesday, March 29, 5:30 pm
U-M Ross School of Business, Room 2240
University of Warwick Professor of English Carol Rutter leads a practical workshop for the Ross Leadership Initiative on the connections between Shakespeare, theatrical performance, and leader?ship in business practice. Open to the public for observation.
A collaboration with the Ross Leadership Initiative at the U-M Ross School of Business.
Post-Performance Q&A
Wednesday, March 30 and Thursday, March 31,
Post-performance Power Center
Following Propeller's performance, stay in your seats as audience members are invited to ask questions of members of Propeller's artistic staff and acting company. Must have a ticket to the performance to attend.
Brown Bag Panel: All-Male Shakespeare in Post-Modern England
Friday, April 1, 12:00 noon
U-M Lane Hall, Room 2239, 204 S. State Street
Join University of Warwick Professor Carol Rutter, U-M Professor Barbara Hodgdon, Propeller Artistic Director Edward Hall, and other company members for a panel discussion on gender roles in contemporary performances of Shakespeare. What are the challenges, questions, and opportunities when playing both male and female roles with an all-male cast The panelists will also discuss Propeller's overall post-modern approach to interpreting these classic texts.
A collaboration with the U-M Department of English and the U-M Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
Company Welcome Reception
Friday, April 1, Post-performance U-M Alumni Center Founder's Room
Join UMS in welcoming Propeller Theater Company to Ann Arbor! Complimentary light appetizers and cash bar provided.
Shakespeare Behind the Scenes: Unlocking the Magic of Propeller Theatre Company
Saturday, April 2, 5:15 pm Power Center
Audiences get the chance to observe the change?over of the set from Richard III to The Comedy of Errors. Members of the Company will discuss their technical process, their design, and how "theater magic" really happens.
St. Petersburg Philharmonic
PLAY Your Own Melody
Saturday, April 2, 7:00-8:00 pm and intermission Hill Auditorium Mezzanine Lobby
How does individual play and exploration trans?form the experience of watching an exceptional artist play their instrument And how does the challenge of making music on a variety of key?boards further help audiences celebrate their own music making UMS provides opportunities for audience members to try their hand(s), or feet, on a variety keyboards in the Hill Auditorium Mezzanine Lobby. Must have a ticket for the concert to attend.
ums University Musical Society
and
Forest Health Services
present
Bach Collegium Japan
Masaaki Suzuki, Artistic Director and Conductor
Hana Blazikova, Soprano Rachel Nicholls, Soprano Clint van der Linde, Countertenor Gerd Turk, Tenor Peter Kooij, Bass
Program
Johann Sebastian Bach
Thursday Evening, March 24, 2011 at 8:00 Hill Auditorium Ann Arbor
CMass in b minor, bwv 232
Tonight's concert will be performed with one intermission which will take place following the Cum Sancto Spiritu. Please refer to the text insert for a full list of the work's movements.
54th Performance of the 132nd Annual Season
132nd Annual Choral Union Series
The photographing or sound and video recording of this concert or possession of any device for such recording is prohibited.
Tonight's performance by Bach Collegium Japan is sponsored by Forest Health Services. Special thanks to Randall and Mary Pittmann for their leadership support of this UMS season.
This evening's performance is co-sponsored by Robert and Marina Whitman and Clayton and Ann Wilhite.
Special thanks to Honigman for their sponsorship of UMS Corporate Night prior to this evening's performance.
Media partnership is provided by WGTE 91.3 FM and WRCJ 90.9 FM.
Special thanks to Tom Thompson of Tom Thompson Flowers, Ann Arbor, for his generous contribution of lobby floral art for this evening's performance.
Bach Collegium Japan appears by arrangement in North America with International Arts Foundation.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Now that you're in your seat...
A
famous musician, when asked what his religion was, replied: "My religion is Johann Sebastian Bach." This statement is remarkable on several levels. It indicates not only that many musicians (and not only musicians) worship Bach with what approaches religious fervor; it also tells us that Bach's works offer a gateway to spirituality like few other musical compositions do. The Latin Mass has been set to music countless times, but never with the visionary power that Bach brought to these words in what is unquestionably one of his most grandiose creations. In many ways, the Mass is the summation of Bach's entire career; it is a unique landmark in the history of music and a perpetual challenge to performers. At the same time, even though it is about God, it is a deeply human work where suffering, triumph, and the concluding plea for peace (among many other emotions) are portrayed with a vividness that transcends the liturgical context and can be shared by all listeners regardless of their faith or religious background. When it comes to internalizing or reflecting upon the highest spiritual values, we are all disciples of J. S. Bach.
Mass in b minor, BWV 232 (1724-49) Johann Sebastian Bach Born March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany Died July 28, 1750 in Leipzig
Snapshot of History... In 1749:
George Frederic Handel writes Music for the Royal Fireworks
Johann Wolfgang Goethe is born in Frankfurt
The city of Halifax is founded in Nova Scotia
The first American repertory acting company is established in Philadelphia
Denis Diderot writes his tetter on the Blind
In 1817 the Swiss critic Hans-Georg Nageli praised Bach's Mass in b minor as "the greatest work of music of all ages and of all people." Despite the obvious hyperbole, Nageli's assessment typifies the remarkable veneration afforded this monument of western art music. The scope and proportions of the b-minor Mass are as colossal as its reputation: it is an uncontested masterpiece. It encapsulates Bach's choral artistry, as does no other composition, and offers a musical spectrum whose breadth and depth reveal both academic and spiritual penetration. All the more intriguing, then, is that it arose from rather mundane circumstances, and was completed only near the end of Bach's life as an intimate and private offering of faith.
On July 27, 1733, Bach wrote a letter to Friedrich August II, the new Elector of Saxony at the court in Dresden, stating: "In deepest Devotion I present to your Royal Highness this trifling product
of that science which I have attained in Music..." This "trifling product" was a beautifully prepared score of a Missa, comprising the Kyrie and Gloria sections of what is now known as the Mass in b minor. Bach hoped to receive in return some kind of honorary title (it was eventually bestowed on him in 1736), which he could use as leverage in the ongoing tussle with his employers in Leipzig. The Missa pairing of Kyrie and Gloria was an acceptable mode for Lutheran worship in the early 18th century, and this form allowed Bach to compose a sacred piece of music suitable for the Catholic court at Dresden without transgressing the boundaries of the Lutheran faith. Bach scholar and enthusiast Joshua Rifkin speculates that this Missa was composed in haste, and that most, if not all of it was based on earlier works: "To write the Missa, therefore. Bach had little to do but select an appropriate series of movements and fit them to the requisite portions of the Mass text." Bach delivered the elegant score and individual parts to his patron in Dresden in person, but kept a copy of the full score for himself.
Between 1747 and 1749, near the end of his creative career, Bach seemed to have become interested in completing a Missa tota, or setting of the complete text of the Mass Ordinary, using the Dresden Missa of 1733 as the starting point. In the process of adding the other movements of the Roman Mass (the Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) Bach nevertheless created a work that was not performable in the liturgy of either the Roman or Lutheran churches, perhaps not even intended for performance at all. Rifkin claims that this complete Mass "could equally well have represented a
composition that unfolds as a totality not in concrete time but on a conceptual plane alone." The manuscript for this Missa tota, the largest work Bach ever wrote, is without a title, but for more than 50 years before the first edition was even published in 1845, musicians had already begun to refer to it as Bach's Mass in b minor.
It is only superficially off that Bach, a commit?ted Lutheran, should have composed a Roman High Mass. While Luther had sought to reform points of doctrine, he did not oppose the liturgy of the Roman Church. His Formulae Missae of 1523 retained the five musical portions of the Latin Mass Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei). Although Luther's Deutsche Messe of 1526 provided an alternate German vernacular mass, he almost certainly considered the Latin Mass a high?er form of worship. But the immense dimensions alone of the Mass in b minor disqualify it from the Lutheran service. Even in Bach's day when the main church services lasted approximately three hours there would have been insufficient time to present a work of this scope (the sermon itself usu?ally lasted more than an hour.) Neither is the work,
though nominally in the form of the Roman Mass, suitable for the liturgy of the Roman Church. Bach reordered the first sections of the Mass Ordinary into an idiosyncratic arrangement of four sections, combining the Kyrie and Gloria and shifting the Os-anna and Benedictus movements from the Sanctus into the Agnus Dei. By making the Mass non-per-formable in either church's rite, Bach focuses very personally on the contemplation of Christianity's central mystery, which transcends denomination. As Wilfred Mellers notes, Bach at this time "was composing for no master, but for himself and God, as a servant of the church universal."
The Mass in b minor is often juxtaposed with Bach's other great sacred utterances, the Passion settings, as representative of his Catholic and Lu?theran learnings respectively. If the Passion pres?ents the story of the Christian Church, then the Mass encapsulates its doctrine. For Bach, though, drama and dogma were not opposed poles, and the Mass in b minor is as much a synthesis of these elements as it is of the Catholic and Protestant rites, of human frailties and infallible divine order, of the physical and the metaphysical.
The broad scope of the complete Mass setting can be seen in summary in the structure of the Dresden Missa from 1733. The expansive five-part choral writing, the large orchestral forces, and the varied organization of individual movements pre?figure the breadth and magnitude of the b-minor Mass as a whole. The initial Kyrie eleison bears a similarity to the opening of the St. John Passion, representing humanity's joint plea for mercy. The opening stately chords were apparently a later ad?dition to the movement, and lead directly into an expansive fugue with obligato orchestral accom?paniment. The Christe eleison is cast in the style of a Baroque operatic duet, perhaps in reference to the duality of Christ's divine and human natures, and his position as second member in the Trinity. The final initial Kyrie eleison returns to an older style of vocal polyphony, this time the orchestral parts simply doubling the voices.
Scholars have questioned whether the Mass in b minor is really in the key of b minor, perhaps a trivial point, but certainly the issues of key and har?monic relationships figure importantly in the work, especially in this opening tripartite Kyrie. The three sections, differentiated in style and compositional technique, establish a sequence of key relation?ships, b minor, D Major, and f-sharp minor, built on the notes of the b-minor triad. Bach also seems to have associated specific affects or emotional characteristics with certain keys, and b minor is his key of passive human suffering, the natural state of all humanity as they implore God's mercy in the Kyrie. But in the Mass as a whole, the key of "D," the relative major of b minor, is an equally impor?tant harmonic center, and is Bach's key of power and glory. Although the Mass begins in b minor, it ends in D Major, synthesizing suffering and glory as central tenets of Christian belief.
The Gloria continues the stylistic diversity of the Kyrie, and in addition to the four large choral movements (Gloria in excelsis DeoEt in terra pax, Gratias agimus tibi, Qui tollis peccata mundi, Cum sancto spiritu), contains four equally large solo or duet movements with different instrumental obligatos (violin, flute, oboe, and horn). This ar?rangement was important to the musical unity of the 1733 Missa, as the Kyrie and Gloria sections together contain at least one solo part for each orchestral group.
When Bach set about composing the Credo or Symbolum Nicenum some time between 1747 and 1749, he conceived it as a nine-movement symmet?rical structure. The pairs of choral movements at the
beginning and end of the Credo section are based on liturgical chant melodies, used as a cantus fir-mus. Contained within these outer framing sections are two solo movements that surround the Christo-logical nucleus of the Credo: three choruses on the incarnation of God (Et incarnatus est), the crucifix?ion (Crucifixus), and the resurrection (Ff resurrexit). Stephen Daw writes that this Credo "somehow involves the community musically: its performance is ours even as we listen, whereas all that has gone before has been sung and played on our behalf."
Throughout the entire Mass, but particularly in the Credo, Bach encodes the music with hid?den references, using numerology and the natu?ral number alphabet: A=1, B=2, C=3, and so on. According to this numerical alphabet, the number of the word CREDO is 43 (C=3, R=17, E=5, D=4, 0=14, remembering that "I" and "J" have the same number since they were interchangeable in 18th-century German). There are 43 entries on the plainsong melody in the Credo section. Elided with the Patrem omnipotentem that follows, there are 129 measures of music, or the CREDO num?ber multiplied by the number of the Trinity (43 x 3). By this Bach encodes the profession of faith, "I believe in one God," with the implicit doctrine of the godhead as a Trinity. Likewise, the number for the word CHRISTUS is 112, and the Credo section taken as a whole has 784: the CHRISTUS num?ber multiplied by 7, the traditional number of the Church and also the number of times the Christus is repeated in the text. These interrelationships of number and doctrine were not at all meant to be perceived by the listener, but rather were an in?tensely private form of devotion Bach incorporated into the music, intended perhaps only to be under?stood by himself and his God.
The Sanctus and following movements also be?long to the 1747-1749 completion of the Mass, but nearly all have earlier origins. The Sanctus itself was written for a Christmas service in 1724, in a version for three sopranos, alto, tenor, and bass. The Osanna is the only double-chorus in the Mass, and is a remodeling of the opening chorus from the secular cantata Preise dein Glucke, BWV 215. The Benedictus is presumed to be a reworking of a now-lost piece. The Agnus Dei began as a parody of a movement from the Ascension Oratorio, BWV 11, but in addition to some radical alterations there are extensive passages of newly composed mate?rial. This concluding Dona nobis pacern repeats the music of the Gratias agimus tibi, emphasizing Bach's conception of this movement as an expres-
sion of gratitude. The celebratory musical style for this final chorus still alludes to the particulars of its model: a chorus from a cantata celebrating the 1731 election of the Leipzig Town Council.
The original manuscript of the Mass in b minor concludes with the simple inscription "DSG," sig?nifying Deo soli Gloria, or "To God, alone, the glo?ry." Perhaps that devotion, above all else, is what inspired Bach to compile this grand summa of his sacred compositional voice. As the aging com?poser himself stated, "the final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than the glorification of God and the refreshment of the human spirit."
Program note by Luke Howard.
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ach Collegium Japan was founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki, its inspiring Music Director, with the aim of introducing Japanese audiences to period instrument performances of great works from the baroque period. Bach Collegium Japan is comprised of both baroque orchestra and chorus, and their major activities include an annual concert series of Bach's cantatas and a number of instrumental programs.
Since 1995 they have acquired a formidable international reputation as one of the world's most exceptional ensembles of its kind through their acclaimed recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach's Church Cantatas for the BIS label. By October 2010 they had already released 47 CDs of Bach's Church Cantatas.
Bach Collegium Japan has shared their noted interpretations on the international music scene with appearances at major festivals in Edinburgh, Santiago de Compostela, Tel Aviv, Leipzig, and Melbourne. In recent seasons they have been heard in Europe's major music centers including concerts in Italy and Spain.
Bach Collegium Japan made a highly successful North American debut in April 2003 with seven concerts in six cities all across the US: at Carnegie Hall in New York, in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, and Boston, performing Bach's St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion. In May 2005, Bach Collegium Japan performed in Seoul, and in August, appeared in Germany at Ansbach Bachwhoche and Schleswig Holstein Music Festival.
In 2006, Bach Collegium Japan toured the US with an instrumental ensemble in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Bethlehem (Pennsylvania), Washington DC, and New York (Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall). In
May 2006, the ensemble performed 10 concerts in five countries in Europe including their debut in Madrid, Amsterdam at the Concertgebouw, and London at the Barbican performing Bach's Mass in b minor and Magnificat. In August 2007, Bach Collegium Japan performed the St. Matthew Passion at two festivals in Schwabisch Gmund and Ansbach in Germany, and made their BBC Proms debut with a Cantata program.
Their November 2008 return to Europe in?cluded debuts in Paris, Berlin, and Brussels and in 2009, the ensemble appeared at the Canary Islands Music Festival, the Bremen Music Festival, and the Edinburgh International Festival. Highlights of the current season include 20th anniversary concerts in Tokyo and a tour of the US, as well as a visit to the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
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ince founding Bach Collegium Japan in 1990, Masaaki Suzuki has established himself as a leading authority on the works of Bach. He has remained their Music Director ever since, tak?ing them regularly to major venues and festivals in Europe and the US and building up an outstanding reputation for the expressive refinement and truth of his performances.
Maestro Suzuki is now regularly invited to work together with renowned European period en?sembles, such as Collegium Vocale Gent and the Freiburger Barockorchester, and modern instrument orchestras in repertoire as diverse as Britten, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Stravinsky. Forthcom?ing engagements include the Boston Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, the Mel?bourne Symphony, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Zurich Tonhalle, and return visits to the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. Maestro Suzuki's impressive discography on the BIS label, featuring Bach's complete works for
Masaaki Suzuki
Phoio Marco Bocggrpve
harpsichord and his interpretations of Bach's ma?jor choral works and sacred cantatas with Bach Collegium Japan (of which he has already com?pleted over 40 volumes of a project to record the complete series), have brought him many critical plaudits--The New York Times wrote: "it would take an iron bar not to be moved by his crispness, sobriety, and spiritual vigour."
Maestro Suzuki combines his conducting ca?reer with his work as organist and harpsichordist. This year he gives solo performances at Carnegie Hall and the Hong Kong Festival. Born in Kobe, he graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music with a degree in composition and organ performance and went on to study harp?sichord and organ at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam under Ton Koopman and Piet Kee. Founder and head of the early music department at the Tokyo University of the Arts, he is currently Visiting Professor of Choral Conducting at the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and the conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum.
In April 2001, Maestro Suzuki was decorated with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
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native of Prague, Hana Blazikova gradu?ated in 2002 from the Prague Conserva?tory in the class of Jifi Kotout. She under?took further study with Poppy Holden, Peter Kooij, Monika Mauch, and Howard Crook.
Ms. Blazikova specializes in the interpretation of Baroque, Renaissance, and Medieval music, performing with ensembles and orchestras around the world, including Collegium Vocale Gent, Bach Collegium Japan, Sette Voci, Gli Angeli Geneve, La Fenice, Tafelmusik, Collegium 1704, Collegium Marianum, and Musica Florea.
She has sung the role of Susanna in Mozart's La Nozze di Figaro at the Karlovy Vary Theater, and appeared as Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni at
the Estates Theater. Ms. Blazikova has performed at many European festivals, including Prague Spring, Oude Muz-iek Utrecht, Reso-nanzen (Vienna), Tage Alter Musik (Regensburg), Fes-
tival de Sable, Festival de La Chaise--Dieu, and Festival de Saintes. She is a member of the Tibur-tina Ensemble. She also plays gothic harp and presents concerts in which she accompanies her?self on the harp.
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orn in Bedford, England, Rachel Nicholls is one of the most versatile sopranos of her generation, with a huge repertoire ranging from J. S. Bach and Handel to Schoenberg and Errollyn Wallen. She made her BBC Proms debut in 2008 singing Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music and returned in 2009 for The Mask of Orpheus--The Arches. She has appeared with the Royal Opera, London; English National Opera; the Early Opera Company; Scottish Opera; and the Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing; as well as in concerts throughout the UK, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the US.
Ms. Nicholls has worked with conductors in?cluding Martyn Brabbins, Stephen Cleobury, Chris?tian Curnyn, Thomas Dausgaard, Sir Andrew Da?vis, Sir Colin Davis, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Valery Gergiev, Martin Gester, Richard Hickox, Adrian Leaper, Pieter Jan Leusink, Sir Roger Norrington (as featured soloist for his 75th birthday concert with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at Lon?don's Royal Festival Hall), Sir Simon Rattle, Steven Sloane, and Masaaki Suzuki.
She has appeared in recital at Wigmore Hall, and her broadcasts include the Christmas Oratorio with Le Parlement de Musique, Jauchzet Gott and ritorno di Tobia with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Dvorak's Stabat Mater with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the roles of Dorinda in Orlando and Sally in Flashmob--The Opera with La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roy for Radio France, Schoenberg's Quartet No. 2 with the Quatuor Pa-risii, and In Tune and South Pacific for the BBC.
With Bach Collegium Japan, she has recorded Mass in b minor and two volumes of Cantatas (BIS).
Further recordings include Dorinda in Orlando (K617), Metella in Silla (Somm), Hummel's Mass in d minor (Chandos), two volumes of Music by Cecilia McDowail (Dutton), and Paul
Hana Blazikova
Rachel Nicholls
Spicer's Easter Oratorio (Birmingham Bach Choir).
Ms. Nicholls is represented by James Black Management Limited.
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lint van der Linde started singing at the Drakensberg Boys' Choir School at the age of 10. As a boy soprano soloist, he per?formed with most of the major orchestras in South Africa. He studied at the Royal College of Music where he obtained a bachelor's of music and a postgraduate diploma, both with distinction.
Mainly in early music and contemporary music, Mr. van der Linde has worked as a soloist under and alongside many leading groups and artists world?wide such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlight?enment, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hanover Band, Academy of Ancient Music, Kings College Cambridge, The Kings Consort, London Handel Orchestra, II Fondamento, Le Musiche Nove, Com-battimento Consort Amsterdam, Stuttgart Baroque Orchestra, Salzburg Camerata, Israel Camerata, and Lautten Compagney, and with conductors such as Frieder Bernius, Stephen Cleobury, Paul Dombrecht, Wolfgang Katschner, Robert King, Nicholas Krae-mer, Gerard Korsten, Sir Roger Norrington, Claudio Osele, Peter Schreier, and Jan Willem de Vriend.
His opera stage experience includes title roles in Handel operas Lotario, Ottone, and Flavio; Dardano in Amadigi; and Judas in the Brockes-Passion. In November 2001, he sang the role of Oberon in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was the launch of the Benjamin Britten Opera School, and also performed the role in the Royal Opera House in Copenhagen in 2004. Mr. van der Linde made his debut in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in Handel's Agrippina with the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam. He also re?corded the title role of Francesco Conti's David with the Lautten Compagney and has appeared at the Crown Hall in Jerusalem, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and major concert halls in Spain, Portugal, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Mr. van der Linde has taken part in various festivals such as the Ludwigsburger Schossfestspiele performing Carmina Burana under the direction of Wolfgang Gonnenwein, as well as the Halle Handel Fest-spiele, Bach Festival in Leipzig, Kissinger Sommer Festival, and the Cuenca Festival, Spain.
Recent activities include the title role in Han?del's Rinaldo with Bach Collegium Japan under Maasaki Suzuki at the Edinburgh Festival 2009,
the title roles in Tolomeo and Fla-vio with the English Touring Opera in fall 2009, a tour in Australia of Handel's Messiah conducted by Stephen Layton with the Melbourne Symphony Orches-
tra and the Queensland Orchestra, and Androni-co in Tamerlanoat the Gottingen Handel Festival 2010 under Nicholas McGegan. In 2011 he will sing Messiah concerts in Japan and embark on two US tours, singing Mass in b minor with Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki and Handel's Orlando with Philharmonia Baroque and Nicholas McGegan.
Mr. van der Linde is represented by Alferink Artists Management.
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erd Turk began his vocal training as a member of the Limburger Domsingknaben (Boys Choir of the Limburg Cathedral in Germany). He went on to study music education, church music, and choral direction at the Frankfurt Conservatory of Music with Helmuth Rilling and Arleen Auger. After a two-year lectureship at the Speyer Institute of Church Music, Mr. Turk devoted his attention entirely to singing. Studies of Baroque singing and interpretation at the renowned Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (with Rene Jacobs and Rich?ard Levitt) and master classes with E. Haefliger, K. Equiluz, and N. Shetler, led to a career as a sought-after soloist and touring in Europe, southeast Asia, Japan, North and South America, and Australia.
Mr. Turk has performed at the most prestigious concert halls, including the Concertgebouw Am?sterdam, Berlin Philharmonic, Palais Gamier Paris, Teatro Colon, Musikverein Wien, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, under the baton of such con-
ductorsas Philippe Herreweghe, Rene Jacobs, Ton Koop-man, Jordi Savall, Michel Corboz, Masaaki Suzuki, and Frans Bruggen. Mr. Turk has been a member of vari?ous ensembles,
Clint van der Linde
Gerd Tiirk
amongst them Cantus Colin, Germany's leading vo?cal group, and Gilles Binchois (France), renowned for its interpretation of Medieval music. Mr. Turk has also been active on the opera stage, having been invited to perform in Montpellier, Innsbruck, Barcelona, Antwerp, and Madrid.
With Sony, Erato, BIS, BMG, Virgin, and Harmo-nia Mundi France labels, Mr. Turk has recorded more than 100 CDs including Bach's Oratorios, Montever?di's Vespers, Mozart's Requiem, and Lieder by Carl Orff, which have received numerous awards (Edison, Gramophone Award, Cannes Award, Grand Prix du Disque, and Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik). He is regularly involved in the complete recordings of Bach's vocal music with Bach Collegium Japan, which have been highly acclaimed by the interna?tional press and the public.
Mr. Turk currently holds a professorship at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland and gives master classes in numerous countries, most no?tably Japan (Tokyo National University of Music and Fine Arts), Germany, Spain, and South Korea.
P
eter Kooij started his musical career at age 6 as a choir boy and sang many solo soprano parts in concerts and recordings, but start?ed his musical studies as a violin student. He re?ceived a scholarship from Max van Egmond at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, which led to the award of a diploma for solo performance.
Mr. Kooij has been an active soloist all over the world in the most important concert halls in?cluding Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Musikverein Wien, Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall London, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, Berliner and Kolner Philharmonie, Palais Gamier in Paris, and Suntory
and Casals Hall in Tokyo, where he has performed with conductors includ?ing Philippe Her-reweghe, Ton Koop-man, Frans Bruggen, Gustav Leonhardt, Rene Jacobs, Sigiswald Kuijken, Roger Nor-
Peter Kooij
Bach Collegium Japan
Masaaki Suzuki, Artistic Director and Conductor
Hana Blazikova, Soprano Rachel Nicholls, Soprano Clint van der Linde,
Countertenor Gerd Turk, Tenor Peter Kooij, Bass
Soprano I
Hana Blazikova Minae Fujisaki Yoshie Hida Kristen Witmer
Soprano II
Rachel Nicholls Naho Kashiwabara Aki Matsui Eri Sawae
Alto I, II
Hiroya Aoki Chiharu Takahashi Beat Duddeck Tamaki Suzuki Sumihito Uesugi
Tenor I, II
Yusuke Fujii Hiroto Ishikawa Satoshi Mizukoshi Yosuke Taniguchi
Bass I, II Daisuke Fujii Chiyuki Urano Bart Vandewege Yusuke Watanabe
Trumpet
Jean-Fran;ois Madeuf Gilles Rapin Joel Lahens
Timpani
Robert Howes
Horn
Olivier Darbellay
Flute
Kiyomi Suga Liliko Maeda
OboeOboe d'amore Masamitsu San'nomiya Yukari Maehashi Ayaka Mori Bassoon Kiyotaka Dosaka Yukiko Murakami
Violin I
Ryo Terakado, Leader Azumi Takada Mika Akiha Yoko Kawakubo
Violin II
Natsumi Wakamatsu Yuko Araki Yukie Yamaguchi
Viola
Yoshiko Morita Hiroshi Narita
Cello
Hidemi Suzuki Emmanuel Balssa
Double Bass
Takashi Konno
Harpsichord
Masato Suzuki
Organ
Naoko Imai
Staff
Kyoko Ohtomi Kazunori Fukahata
The Bach Collegium Japan US tour is supported by: The Agency for Cultural
Affairs Government
of Japan in the fiscal
year 2010 & The Kao Foundation for
Arts and Sciences The Mitsubishi UFJ Trust
Foundation for the Arts Rohm Music Foundation
rington, Michel Corboz, and Ivan Fisher. His wide and varied repertoire includes music from Schiitz to Weill and he has made over 100 CDs for Philips, Sony, Virgin Classics, Harmonia Mundi, Erato, EMI, and BIS. His recordings in the complete series of Bach Cantatas with Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan have received wide acclaim. His performances of Bach's Cantatas and Passions are unusually sympathetic, assisted by a soft-grained timbre and an eloquent verbal delivery.
Mr. Kooij is Artistic Director of the Ensemble Vocal Europeen. From 1991-2000 he was a pro?fessor at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amster?dam and from 1995-1998 he was a lecturer on the faculty at the Musikhochschule in Hannover. Since 2000 he has been a guest teacher at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music. He has given master classes in Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Finland, and Japan. For more information, please visit ww.peterkooij.de.
UMS Archives
T
This evening's performance marks the second UMS appearances made by Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki, Gerd Turk, and Peter Kooij. The ensemble, Maestro Suzuki, Mr. Turk, and Mr. Kooij made their UMS debuts in April 2003 at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion.
UMS welcomes Hana Blazikova, Rachel Nicholls, and Clint van der Linde as they make their UMS debuts tonight.
urns
presents
by William Shakespeare
A production of
Propeller
In association with
The Touring Partnership
Directed by Edward Hall
Designed by Michael Pavelka
Lighting by Ben Ormerod
Music by Propeller
Additional Arrangements and Original Music by Jon Trenchard
Program
Wednesday Evening, March 30, 2011 at 7:30 Friday Evening, April 1, 2011 at 7:30 Saturday Afternoon, April 2, 2011 at 2:00 Sunday Evening, April 3, 2011, at 7:30 Power Center Ann Arbor
This performance is approximately 160 minutes in length and is performed with one intermission.
55th, 57th, 58th, and 61st Performances of the 132nd Annual Season
International Theater Series
The photographing or sound and video recording of this performance or possession of any device for such recording is prohibited.
The Wednesday evening performance is sponsored by Robert and Pearson Macek. The Friday evening performance is sponsored by Loretta Skewes and Dody Viola.
Media partnership is provided by WEMU 89.1 FM, Between the Lines, Michigan Radio, and Metro Times.
Special thanks to Benjamin Allen and the U-M Ross School of Business's Ross Leadership Initiative, Barbara Hodgdon and the U-M Department of English, the U-M Museum of Art, the U-M Alumni Association, and the U-M Institute for Research on Women and Gender for their support of and participation in events surrounding these performances.
This production of Shakespeare's Richard III was first presented at The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry on November 18, 2010.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Cast
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III
George, Duke of Clarence, his brother
King Edward IV, also his brother
Queen Elizabeth, Edward's wife
Lord Rivers, her brother
Lord Hastings
Sir Richard Ratcliffe
Lady Anne
Duke of Buckingham
Queen Margaret, widow of King Henry VI
Sir William Catesby
Two Murderers
Duchess of York, Richard's mother
Bishop of Ely
Edward, Prince of Wales, Edward IV's son
Richard, Duke of York, Edward IV's son
Duke of Norfolk
Lord Stanley
Earl of Richmond, his stepson
Richard Clothier John Dougall Robert Hands Dominic Tighe Kelsey Brookfield Thomas Padden Dugald Bruce-Lockhart Jon Trenchard Chris Myles Tony Bell David Newman Sam Swainsbury Richard Frame Kelsey Brookfield Wayne Cater Sam Swainsbury Richard Frame Thomas Padden John Dougall Robert Hands
Other parts played by members of the Company.
Propeller and Shakespeare's Histories
P
ropeller has a long and happy association with Shakespeare's histories. Its roots go back to Henry V at The Watermill Theatre. Newbury, in 1997, a production which subse?quently toured all over the world. This was fol?lowed in 2001 by Rose Rage, a condensing of the three parts of Henry VI into two. Initially intended to have a handful of performances at The Water-mill, it was such a success with both press and public that a national tour and London season fol?lowed, with further performances in Chicago and New York. That sequence did not, however, culmi?nate with Richard III, so the current production en?ables Richard Clothier to complete his earlier Rich?ard with the full-dress version; it also means that several members of the present company will be able to draw on their experience of playing scenes in Henry VI that are referred to in Richard III. This usefully underlines the importance of the histories for Propeller: as ensemble plays, they are especially suited to an ensemble company, particularly one where continuity is so important.
Richard III is the final chapter--for now. Propel?ler plans to complete the cycle in the near future with Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry i--returning to Propeller's starting point in 1997.
Richard III--A Requiem Mass
Propeller's music is either written by the company or sourced from music we know. We play or sing our suggestions to Edward, and he decides what goes into the production, and at what point in the play. Having adapted Rose Rage from the Henry VI plays, Edward wanted Richard III to have a simi?lar soundscape--English choral music, especially madrigals and church music--and, as I used to sing in a cathedral choir, I ended up arranging and coordinating most of the music.
I wanted to give Richard III the feeling of a Re?quiem Mass. The Dies Irae, a 13th-century Latin poem about Judgement Day, used to be recited at Catholic funerals, and we sing arrangements of the original plainsong tune to underscore execu?tions and curses--"A day of wrath that day will be, when the age will dissolve into dust." We are also using the final words of the poem Pie Jesu to bookend the production--"Blessed Lord Jesus, grant them eternal rest." Most of our music for
Richard III has been chosen because the lyres seem appropriate to the play, but I have also tried to fo?cus on two musical themes: descending scales and semi-tone intervals.
Edward initially said to me that this production might track Richard's descent into hell, so descend?ing scales were an obvious choice: Down among the dead men, an 18th-century British folk tune and our theme for the murderers, repeats the word "Down" as the pitch descends; Locus Iste, a 19th-century motet by Bruckner, underscores various scene changes in the first half and has an eerie bass line which descends chromatically (Irrep-rehensibilis est); our modern arrangement of Dies Irae at Buckingham's death uses the same down?ward chromatic scale but with higher voices.
Chromaticism and the juxtaposition of semi?tone intervals (notes that are very close in pitch) are central to modern harmony. My brother and I were both choir boys, and we used to play out our sibling rivalry by one of us singing a note, and the other singing the semi-tone next to it: the resultant dis?cord forced one of us to change note. I wanted to use the same modern, semi-tone discords to reflect the rivalry of Richard and Richmond for the crown.
For Richmond "the Welshman," we use a tradi?tional Welsh hymn tune (Judge Eternal, throned in splendour, Rhuddlan), complete with 19th-century lyrics about "purging the realm" and "cleansing the nation"--disturbing words to us in the mod?ern era. Hopefully, in my harmony arrangement the semi-tones clashing and resolving enhance this ambiguity in Richmond's character--morally dis?turbing, yet beautifully persuasive. The older songs we sing, Now is the Month of Maying (a 15th-cen-tury madrigal by Thomas Morley) and the Coventry Carol (from a 16th-century mystery play depicting King Herod's massacre of innocent children) both oscillate between major and minor keys, hinging around a semi-tone difference in harmony, with the result that the listener feels either delightfully surprised or deeply unsettled.
--Jon Trenchard, Composer
Please refer to page 21 for additional program notes and company biographies.
urns
presents
The Comedy of Errors
by William Shakespeare
A production of
Propeller
In association with
The Touring Partnership
Directed by Edward Hall
Designed by Michael Pavelka
Lighting by Ben Ormerod
Music by Propeller
Additional Arrangements and Original Music by Jon Trenchard
Program
Thursday Evening, March 31, 2011, at 7:30 Saturday Evening, April 2, 2011 at 7:30 Sunday Afternoon, April 3, 2011 at 2:00 Power Center Ann Arbor
This performance is approximately 140 minutes in length and is performed with one intermission.
56th, 59th, and 60th Performances of the 132nd Annual Season
International Theater Series
The photographing or sound and video recording of this performance or possession of any device for such recording is prohibited.
The Sunday afternoon performance is sponsored by Jane and Edward Schulak.
Media partnership is provided by WEMU 89.1 FM, Between the Lines, Michigan Radio, and Metro Times.
Special thanks to Benjamin Allen and the U-M Ross School of Business's Ross Leadership Initiative, Barbara Hodgdon and the U-M Department of English, the U-M Museum of Art, the U-M Alumni Association, and the U-M Institute for Research on Women and Gender for their support of and participation in events surrounding these performances.
This production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors was first presented at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield on January 19, 2011.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Cast
The Duke of Ephesus
Aegeon, a merchant of Syracuse
Antipholus of Syracuse, Aegon's twin sons
Antipholus of Ephesus, Aegon's twin sons
Dromio of Syracuse, their twin servants
Dromio of Ephesus, their twin servants
Adriana, wife of Antipholus of Ephesus
Luciana, her sister
Balthasar, a merchant
Angelo, a goldsmith
Officer
Courtesan
Pinch, a conjurer
Aemilia, the Lady Abbess
Richard Clothier John Dougall Dugald Bruce-Lockhart Sam Swainsbury Richard Frame Jon Trenchard Robert Hands David Newman Wayne Cater Thomas Padden Dominic Tighe Kelsey Brookfield Tony Bell Chris Myles
Other parts played by members of the Company.
Director's Note
Propeller is an all-male Shakespeare company which mixes a rigorous approach to the text with a modern physical aesthetic. We look for as many ways as possible to inform the physical life of the production with the poetry of the text, and we give as much control as possible to the actor in the telling of the story.
The company is as all companies should be: defined by the people in it and not owned by an individual. Indeed, I find it hard to describe Propeller when we are in between shows, as I become aware of our identity only when looking at our work, which I hope changes all the time.
We want to rediscover Shakespeare simply by doing the plays as we believe they should be done: with great clarity, speed, and full of as much imagination in the staging as possible. We don't want to make the plays "accessible," as this implies that they need "dumbing down" in order to be understood, which they don't. We want to continue to take our work to as many different kinds of audiences as possible, and so to grow as artists and people. We are hungry for more opportunity to explore the richness of Shakespeare's plays and, if we keep doing this with rigor and invention, then I believe the company, and I hope our audiences too, will continue to grow.
This year marks the exciting launch of two new productions of a pair of Shakespeare's most popular plays. Richard III sees us return to the Histories for the first time since Rose Rage, and The Comedy of Errors gives us a chance to flex our funny bone. One comedy and one tragedy. But which is which...
We hope you enjoy watching the shows as much as we have enjoyed making them.
--Edward Hall, Artistic Director
Richard III and The Comedy of Errors
The two plays presented by Propeller in its 1011 season are at once closely linked and sharply contrasted. Both belong to the outset of Shakespeare's career. Richard III was probably written in 1592, immediately after the Henry VI trilogy (1591-1592). The Comedy of Errors was performed, presumably by Shakespeare's company, at Gray's Inn on December 28, 1594.
Was it then a new play The London theaters were closed because of a virulent outbreak of plague from July 1592 to April 1594, during which time Shakespeare wrote his two narrative poems; he may also have written Richard III and The Comedy of Errors at that time, ready for performance when the theaters reopened. Errors used to be regarded as an even earlier work, perhaps written for local performance before he left Stratford; but this view reflected a low estimate of the play, and modern performances have shown it to be a brilliant piece of theatrical mechanism. It is hard to see how this could have been achieved without the experience of working in the professional theater.
The two plays are also closely linked in their language. The basic style of both is a very regular blank verse, formal and patterned (especially in Queen Margaret's curses in Richard III), with much use of rhyme. A particularly striking feature is the rapid, quick-fire exchange of single lines. In the middle of wooing Lady Anne over the bleeding corpse of Henry VI, for example, Richard refers to the "keen encounter of our wits." Such wit-combats are also central to The Comedy of Errors, as in the debate between Adriana and Luciana about a wife's duties, or the almost music-hall cross-talk between Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse. And the plays share a striking detail. Trying to keep control of his own identity amongst the confusions of Errors, Antipholus of Syracuse says "if that I am I"; and after his nightmare on the night before Bosworth, Richard tries to steady his nerves by self-assertion: "Richard loves Richard: that is, I am I." In this speech, regular verse very effectively breaks into fragments to express Richard's loss of his usual control.
In other respects, however, the plays diverge. Errors is Shakespeare's shortest play, Richard III his longest, apart from Hamlet. (It has been radically shortened for this production.) And of course the subject matter is quite different: Errors is a comedy of mistaken identity, Richard the culmination of Shakespeare's dramatization of the Wars of the Roses which he had begun in the three parts of Henry VI. It has, therefore, two main focus points: it concludes the story of those wars, and presents a full-length portrayal of Richard himself. These two aspects are indissolubly linked. The characters constantly refer back to events of the past, especially to Queen Margaret's ritual slaughter of Richard's father York and his
Photo Manuel M.vJ.ln
young brother Rutland, and to Richard's (and his brothers') murder of Margaret's son at the battle of Tewkesbury, which saw the final defeat of Henry VI, Margaret, and the House of Lancaster. There is a strong sense of the past coming home to roost. One by one, characters reap what they have sown; and while some of them blame or curse Richard, he embodies in himself what they have been: he is the inevitable outcome of their destructive violence.
To this extent, Richard III dramatizes the "Tudor myth," history as the Elizabethan chroniclers presented it, culminating in the battle of Bosworth, where Richmond--the future Henry VII and so the
grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I--ends a century of civil strife with the establishment of the Tudor dynasty. But as always, Shakespeare complicates the pattern. Richard is apparently a classic image of villainy, symbolized by his (unhistorical) deformity: a crippled mind in a disabled body. Yet he is not only the center of dramatic vitality, he is also charming, sympathetic even, as the "virtuous" characters who oppose him are not: from his celebrated opening speech and his candor about his aims, he lures the audience into complicity with him. We become his accomplices in his bid to seize power. Truthful to us, he exposes, with great sophistication, the vanity and hypocrisy of the political and social world.
The first half of Richard III dramatizes Richard's rise, the second his fall and his defeat at Bosworth. An important aspect of this defeat is that the character who tricks so many others is himself tricked--by Stanley's treachery, but still more by Queen Elizabeth, the widow of King Edward IV. In a central scene, Richard woos Elizabeth to agree to his marriage with her daughter (sister of the princes in the Tower whom he has just had murdered), in order to secure his political safety. This scene employs the same line-by-line cut-and-thrust of Richard's wooing of Lady Anne, and Richard thinks that, as with Anne, he has won the encounter, contemptuously dismissing Elizabeth as he had earlier dismissed Anne: "Relenting fool, and shallow changing woman." But he is wrong. Elizabeth is a tougher opponent than
Anne had been; we subsequently learn that she has promised her daughter not to Richard, but to his opponent Richmond. The supreme irony of the play is that the great trickster is himself the victim of a trick. Is the glorious conclusion of the play more equivocal than it seems
Just as Shakespeare reinterprets the Tudor myth in Richard III, he also treats his main source for 77ie Comedy of Errors, the Menaechmi by the classical dramatist Plautus, in an entirely personal way. His interest in this play may be traced to his schooldays. The main concern of Elizabethan schools was the teaching of Latin; and in pursuit of this aim, pupils were allowed to perform Latin plays, including the
Menaechmi. Shakespeare may well have got to know the play by acting in it--but he made substantial changes. To begin with, he gave the twin masters of the Menaechmi twin servants, thus doubling the potential for confusions and mistaking. Then he moved the setting from Epidamnum to Ephesus, which was famous--or notorious--in the ancient world, and in the Bible, as a center of witchcraft, so that Antipholus of Syracuse half-expects strange things to happen to him.
But Shakespeare's most crucial and most personal changes modify the tone of his original. He enclosed the central confusions within a framework--the story of Aegeon and his ultimate reunion with his wife and family--taken from a very different kind of story, the legend of Apollonius of Tyre, to which he returned at the end of his career in Pericles. Still more significant, he introduced an element of romance into the mistakings in the wooing of Luciana by Antipholus of Syracuse, where the language looks forward to his later comedies and connects with his own love poetry in the Sonnets. Antipholus calls Luciana "mine own self's better part," a phrase which echoes Shakespeare's calling his lover "the better part of me" in Sonnets 39 and 74. His interest in twins, both here and in Twelfth Night, may also derive from personal considerations. He was the father of twins, and this may have informed Antipholus of Syracuse's sense of loss and of personal disorientation when separated from his twin:
[Shakespeare] challenges every preconceived notion about people, about morality, about what it is to be human. --Edward Hall
I to the world am like a drop of water That in the ocean seeks another drop. Who falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself. So I, to find a mother and a brother, In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.
The Comedy of Errors is technically a farce; but one of the most interesting aspects of farce is how painful it often is, and how often the audience is invited to laugh at other people's misfortunes, as in the repeated beating of the Dromios or Adriana's sense of marital betrayal. But again, Shakespeare has it both ways: the scene in which Adriana pours out her resentment to the wrong Antipholus is a perfect example of comedy of mistaking; but at the same time we feel for her in her unhappiness. When it comes to the play's treatment of money, like its Plautine original. Errors takes place in a primarily mercantile society, symbolized by the theatrical props: Antipholus's bag of gold, and especially the golden chain which leads to so many of the confusions in the second half of the play. Yet the topic of money may serve to indicate the distance that Shakespeare has traveled from his rather inhuman Plautine model, most obviously in the final scene of each play. In Menaechmi, the equivalent of Antipholus of Ephesus offers his wife for sale; Errors ends with the warmth and reconciliation of a multiple family reunion.
--Roger Warren, Text Adaptation
Designer's Note
Designing with, as distinct from for, the ensemble of people who create a Propeller show, is unique and special. The job of set and costume design can easily be perceived as decorator of the event; 50 years back one would often see the credit "decor by" on theater posters. It's true that ultimately it is the designer's responsibility that everything you will see on stage looks right; but good design isn't just about the visual and theater design even more so in that it effects a hundred other aspects of a production--with Propeller, you can double that! Charles Eames, the innovative furniture designer said that design is "a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose." Throughout the duration of a live performance, that "purpose" is constantly moving and changing. The pace of transformation
and revelation in a Propeller production, as the company's name suggests, is dynamic. Planning how the scenography can support change, throughout the course of rehearsal and during the intensity of the performance itself, is both challenging and exciting. I regard design in this respect as shaping the process rather than shaping the scenery and clothes.
As with actors in the rehearsal room, designers, directors, and technicians have to be prepared to be fleet-of-thought, flexible in their approach, and so ready to sacrifice their "babies" to the greater good of the project. The challenge for stage designers is to trust that performance will animate their unforgiving material world of wood, steel, and plastic. In an ensemble, the matrix of possible change is multiplied many-fold and the map of the design, the territory of possibility, stretches to the imagination's horizon.
At the start of rehearsal, the design is less of an original blue print for the architecture of the production so much as a tool kit with which to build the foundations--collaboratively. I've never understood Alec Issigonis's joke about the camel being a horse that has been designed by committee; the thing is that a camel is brilliantly designed...ask a Bedouin.
My role has been, to an increasing extent over the span of the company's work, to strategically harness the ideas of others and sculpt them into some sort of visual cohesion. I aspire to being the design equivalent to Mr. Cellophane or The Invisible Man; aspiring to the maxim that "good design is obvious, but great design is transparent." The key driver of the editing process is that the design has to support the storytelling and not just to sum everything up by fixing a definitive image on the page and then translate that to the stage.
Likewise, a costume design isn't complete until a performer is using it. So a costume drawing, particularly one that involves an actor crossing boundaries of age or gender is simply a graphic way of positioning ideas, posing questions, and starting a collective debate. The result is, hopefully, an interesting collision of contrasting ideas in a memorable image that is flexible in performance and so harmonizing with Shakespeare's layered narrative.
Working within this very particular, all-male "ensemble de personnes" brings with it a common bond and a consequently negotiated, but shared, vision. Knowing many of the performers, having returned from previous Propeller productions, gives me a head start. I know their shape, the sound of
their voice, hair color, shoe size--I'm working with friends rather than colleagues.
Ultimately, mutual trust is the essential ingredient; particularly if you're talking about engineering what amounts to a character transplant or, for some, a public sex change!
--Michael Pavelka, Designer
@@@@E
dward Hall (Director) is Artistic Director of Propeller Theatre Company and Hampstead Theatre where his production of Shelagh Stephenson's Enlightenment recently premiered. In 2009 his Propeller productions of The Merchant of Venice in tandem with a revival of his highly successful production of A Midsummer Night's Dream completed a UK and international tour. Other theater credits include: Two Men of Florence with Edward Herrmann (Huntington Theatre, Boston), The Deep Blue Sea with Greta Scaatchi (Vaudeville Theatre), For Services Rendered (Watermill Theatre Newbury), The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night (Propeller, RSC, Old Vic, and World Tour--Drama Desk Award nomination in New York), Mark Ravenhill's Dick Whittington (Barbican), Once In A Lifetime with David Suchet (National Theatre), A Streetcar Named Desire with Natasha Richardson and John C. Reilly (Roundabout Theatre, New York), The Winter's Tale (Propeller, National and World Tour), A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (National Theatre--Olivier Award Nomination for "Outstanding Musical Production"), Calico (Duke of York's), Edmond with Kenneth Branagh (National Theatre), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Propeller, Comedy Theatre; Watermill Theatre Newbury; UK Tour--TMA Award for "Best Touring Production"), The Hinge of the World (Guildford), Macbeth with Sean Bean and Samantha Bond (Albery Theatre), Rose Rage adapted with Roger Warren from Henry VI Parts I, II, and (Propeller, Haymarket Theatre, Watermill Theatre, UKInternational Tour, and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; Duke's Theatre, New York--Olivier Award Nomination for "Best Director" and TMA Award for "Best Touring Production"), The Constant Wife (Apollo), Putting It 7bgefier(Chichester), Julius Caesar (RSC), Tantalus (Denver Centre and UK Tour), Henry V (RSC--The South Bank Show Award for Theatre for The Histories), Twelfth Night (Propeller, Watermill Theatre Newbury--Winner of the TMABarclays Theatre "Best Director" Award), Sacred Heart (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs), Ceane (Hampstead Theatre), The Two Gentleman of Verona (RSC), The Comedy
of Errors and Henry V (Propeller, Watermill Theatre, Newbury; Pleasance Theatre London; RSC--The Other Place, Stratford and International Tour), That Good Night (Yvonne Arnaud Tour), Othello (Propeller, Watermill Theatre Newbury, and the Tokyo Globe), Richard III (Tokyo Globe), and Cain (Minerva Studio, Chichester). Mr. Hall's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream for Propeller which played in London at the Comedy Theatre in 2003, went on to play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in early 2004, where both he and the production were nominated for Drama Desk Awards. His American production of Rose Rage, which he directed for the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in 2003 transferred to the Duke's Theatre in New York in September 2004, where it won four Jeff Awards including "Best Play," "Best Director," and "Best Ensemble Cast." Television credits include: Strike Back, Spooks (US title MI5, nominated for the BAFTA "Best Drama Series" Award in 2009 and 2010), Kingdom, Trial and Retribution XI, Miss Marple--Sleeping Murder starring Geraldine McEwan, Cutting Edge: Safari Strife, and Richard III (NHK in Japan). Mr. Hall's radio productions include Dear Exile, Eveline, Into Exile (all Radio 4). Mr. Hall is also an Associate at the National Theatre, the Old Vic, and the Watermill Theatre.
Propeller Artistic Staff
Michael Pavelka {Production and Costume Designer) trained at Wimbledon College of Art where he has since returned to lead the Design for Performance course and is a University of the Arts London (UAL) Reader in Theatre. He is one of the founding members of Propeller and has designed all but one of their productions. He also designed Rose Rage at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater which transferred to 42nd Street in New York and for which he was nominated "Best Costume Design" at Chicago's Jeff Awards. His other theater work among over 100 productions includes two plays for the late Lindsay Anderson: The Fishing Trip and Holiday (Old Vic Theatre). At the Library Theatre Manchester his many designs include: The Life ofGalileo(" Best Design" Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Best Production MEN Awards), Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and more recently, The Good Soul of Szechuan.
Mr. Pavelka co-produced a Young People's Shakespeare Festival in Ulan Bator, Mongolia
and designed the first African language Mother Courage and Her Children in Kampala, later playing the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and Grahamstown Festival in South Africa. He recently designed Revelations and Off the Wall with Liam Steel and physical theater company Stan Won't Dance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank. Mr. Pavelka's many West End productions include: Absurd Person Singular, The Constant Wife, How the Other Half Loves, Other People's Money, Leonardo, Blues in the Night (also performed in Dublin, New York, and Tokyo after two West End seasons), Macbeth starring Sean Bean, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and A Few Good Men with Rob Lowe (Theatre Royal Haymarket) directed by David Esbjornson. His other productions with Mr. Esbjornson include Twelfth Night (Seattle Repertory Theatre) and Death of a Salesman (Gate Theatre, Dublin). Designs for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford and at the Barbican include: The Odyssey, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Henry V, Julius Caesar, and Edmond starring Kenneth Branagh for the National Theatre in the Olivier. Mr. Pavelka won the TMA's "Best Set Design 2009" for Propeller's The Merchant of Venice.
Ben Ormerods (Lighting Designer) previous productions for Propeller include: A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Rose Rage (also New YorkChicago), The Winter's Tale, and Twelfth Night.
Other theater includes: Onassis (West End Derby); Zorrol (West EndUK tourParisJapan Holland); Serious Money, Last Easter (Birmingham Rep); Dimetos (Donmar Warehouse); Two Men of Florence (Boston--nominated for "Best Lighting" by Boston's Independent Reviewers of New England); Treasure Island (Rose Theatre, Kingston); The Dresser (Watford); The Sanctuary Lamp (Bspoke); Macbeth (starring Sean Bean) and Legal Fictions (West End); The Last Days of the Reluctant Tyrant (Abbey Theatre, Dublin--nominated for "Best Lighting" in the Irish Times Theatre Awards); The Changeling, Hedda Gabler, The Doll's House, John Gabriel Borkmann, The Masterbuilder, The Seagull, Macbeth, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream (ETT); Carmen--The Musical (Pimlico); The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Druid, GalwayRoyal CourtBroadway); Macbeth, The Revenger's Tragedy, Henry V, Julius Caesar, and The Spanish Golden Age Season (Royal Shakespeare Company); Bent, Uncle Vanya, The Winter's Tale, and In Remembrance of Things Past (National).
Opera includes La traviata (Danish National Opera); Jeanne d'Arc au Bucher (Rome); Falstaff, Cosi fan tutte, II trovatore (Scottish Opera); La traviata (ENO); The Turn of the Screw (Bath and Wessex); Baa Baa Black Sheep (Opera NorthBBC2); and Punch and Judy (Aldeburgh) and The Mask of Orpheus (BBC Symphony Orchestra). Dance includes Ballet Shoes (London Children's Ballet); Frameof Wew(Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, New York); See Blue Through (Ballet Gulbenkian, IntrodansPhoenix); fender Hooks (SkSnes Dans TeaterBallet Gulbenkian) and Cinderella (Goteborg); Essence (Walker Dance Park Music); and Journey (Candoco).
Roger Warren's (Adaptation) numerous publications include books about A Midsummer Night's Dream and Shakespeare's Late Plays in performance, and editions of Twelfth Night, Cymbeline, Henry VI Part II, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Pericles for the Oxford Shakespeare series. His theater work includes extensive collaboration with Peter Hall at the National Theatre, at Stratford-upon-Avon, for his American Shakespeare Company in Los Angeles, and most recently A Midsummer Night's Dream with Judi Dench at the Rose, Kingston. His collaborations with Edward Hall include Julius Caesar at Stratford in 2001, and Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, and a two-play adaptation of the Henry VI cycle Rose Rage at the Watermill in Newbury, on tour, and in the West End. Mr. Warren is a University Fellow at the University of Leicester.
Paul Hart (Associate Director) trained as a director at Rose Bruford College. His most recent credits as a director inlcude: Heroes (Watermill Theatre); John Bull, an Englishman's Fireside (Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds); Othello, Twelfth Night, Wasps, Clouds, Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty (Touring); The Natural Cause (Battersea Arts Centre); Measure for Measure (Pleasance Theatre, Islington); The Tempest (Schools Tour); and Sons of Bond (Theatre Royal, Haymarket). As an Assistant Associate Director his most recent credits are: Red (John Golden Theatre, Broadway); Dimetos, A Doll's House, A Streetcar Named Desire, Life is a Dream, and Red (Donmar Warehouse). Other credits include The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Propeller), They're Playing Our Song (Menier Chocolate Factory), and The Sea (Theatre Royal Haymarket).
David Gregory (Sound Designer) trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. As a Sound Designer, his most recent sound design credits include Wages of Thin (Old Red Lion), Ordinary Lads (ETC Theatre) which was also nominated in 2010 for Off-West End "Sound Design of the Year," Sudden Loss of Dignity (Bush Theatre, Lattitude Festival, and UK Tour), S-27 (Finborough Theatre) Waiting for Romeo (Pleasance, London and Edinburgh), Strippers and Gentlemen (ICA), The Zoo (Finborough Theatre), and An Artist and a Mariner (Minack Theatre). As a Sound Engineer for The Old Vic, London, Mr. Gregory's most recent credits include: Design For Living, Prisoner on Second Avenue, The Bridge Project (The Old VicTeatro Espanol Avilles), The Real Thing, Six Degrees of Separation, Inherit the Wind, The Bridge Project (The Old VicGreece Epidaurus), Dancing at Lughnasa, Complicit, The Norman Conquests, Speed the Plow, and Gaslight. Other credits include: Bird Song (The Comedy Theatre), Ditch (Old Vic Tunnels), Pressure Drop (Wellcome Centre), Ghosts (Duchess Theatre), Endgame (The Duchess Theatre, London), Dreams of Violence (UK Tour), Haunted (The Arts Theatre), Contains Violence (Lyric Hammersmith), Rough Crossings(UK Tour), and The Container (London and Edinburgh). Mr. Gregory also worked as a Production Engineer and Apprentice for CueOne from 2006-2009, building, installing, and maintaining sound systems for theater productions both in the West End and in UK regional and touring venues.
Andy Purves (Tour Re-lights) is a lighting designer and creative technician working primarily in visual and movement-based theater, circus, and on projects in found space. He trained in sound and lighting engineering at the University of Derby and has an MA in lighting design and theater-making from Central School of Speech and Drama, where he also tutors in lighting. Lighting design projects include: Beautiful Burnout (Frantic AssemblyNational Theatre of Scotland), Stockholm (Sydney Theatre Company Frantic Assembly), Babel (Stan Won't Dance), The Erpingham Camp (HydrocrackerBrighton Festival), Ida Ban and Office Party (Barbican), Frankenstein (Northampton Royal), Home Inverness (National Theatre of Scotland), Outre and Ren-Sa (Array). He has worked with Spymonkey, Frantic Assembly, National Theatre of Scotland, Circus Space, Brighton Festival, Company FZ, Tangere Arts, Greenwich and Docklands Festival, and on La Clique at The Roundhouse and in the West End.
Hannah Lobelson {Costume Supervisor) originally trained as a fashion designer at the Sydney Institute of Technology in Australia where she graduated as "Student of the Year." Very soon after this in 2001, she was featured in Australian Harper's Bazaar as an evening wear designer and milliner. Since deciding to move into costume, Ms. Lobelson has worked as a costume maker for Opera Australia, The Lion King, and Jim Henson productions. Following her relocation to London in 2004, she has worked as PA to the costume department on Steven Spielberg's Munich, and has made costumes for feature films Pride and Prejudice and Casanova. Since 2005 Ms. Lobelson has held the role of Head of Wardrobe at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and has also worked as costume supervisor on their 2010 education de?partment's production of Macbeth. In addition to this she has worked as assistant costume supervisor for the Royal Ballet on The Nutcracker and May-erling, the Royal Shakespeare Company on Julius Caesar, and the National Theatre's production of The White Guard. She has worked previously with Propeller as costume supervisor on their 2008 pro?ductions of A Midsummer Nights Dream and The Merchant of Venice.
Company
Tony Bell (Queen Margaret I Pinch) Mr. Bell's recent theater credits include: The Grapes of Wrath (Chichester and Tour), Treasure Island (Haymarket Theatre), The English Game (National Tour), Billy in The Conservatory (Old Red Lion), and Sancho in Don Quixote (West Yorkshire Playhouse). For Propeller: Feste in Twelfth Night and Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew (RSC, Old Vic, National, and International Tour), Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Comedy Theatre London, National and International Tour), Autolycus in The Winter's Tale (National Tour), Cade and Warwick in Rose Rage (Haymarket Theatre London), and Fluellen and Burgundy in Henry Iand Egeon and Balthasar in The Comedy of Errors (Watermill Theatre and International Tour). Additional theater includes: The Bee (Soho Theatre and Tokyo), Breakfast with Johnny Wilkinson (Menier Chocolate Factory), A Man for All Seasons (Haymarket Theatre), Red Demon (Tokyo), Ghostward (Almeida), Bouncers (Hull Truck), The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist and The Promised Land (Sheffield Crucible), Angel Among The Trees (Nottingham), Macbeth, Perfect Days, Up N' Under, Travels with my Aunt, A Doll's
House, The Mysteries, Derek, and Celebration. Television credits include: Midsommer Murders, Holby City, Trail of Guilt, Trial and Retribution, The Bill, Peak Practice, Coronation Street, and Doctors. Radio includes: The Caretaker, Stories From Italy, Love Among the Haystacks, Into Exile, White Peacock, and Death of a Teenager.
Kelsey Brookf ield (Lord Rivers, Duchess of York I
Courtesan)
Mr. Brookfield trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His most recent work includes playing Cheshire Cat in Alice in The Walled Garden (Sixteenfeet Productions), Women Beware Women (National Theatre), Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Snout in A Midsummer Night's Dream (both for Propeller, National and International Tour), Ferd in Don't You Leave Me Here (West Yorkshire Playhouse), and Thomas in Ernest and Pale Moon (Soho Theatre). Television credits include Paul Dean in Law and Order (ITVKudos). Film credits include Graham Stone in the short film Play the Game. Radio includes Incident. While training, he appeared in The American Clock, A Clockwork Orange, Tartuffe, The Threepenny Opera, A Midsummer Night's Dream, All's Well that Ends Well (Redgrave Theatre and tour), and Macbeth.
Dugald Bruce-Lockhart (Sir Richard Ratcliffe I
Antipholus of Syracuse)
Mr. Bruce-Lockhart trained at RADA. His most recent theater credits include: Hannay in The 39 Steps (Liverpool PlayhouseTour), Teddy Lloyd in ThePrimeof Miss Jean Brodie (Northampton Royal Theatre), Webb in For King and Country (ACT), Freddie in Deep Blue Sea (BathVaudeville Theatre, London). For Propeller: Petruchio in Taming of The Shrew and Olivia in Twelfth Night (RSC.OId VicBAM New York), Valmont in Les Liasions Dangereuses and Mephistopheles in Faust (Royal Lyceum Theatre), Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Nottingham Playhouse), Orsino in Twelfth Night (English Touring Theatre), Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Comedy Theatre London, National and International Tour), Edward IV and Talbot in Rose Rage (Watermill Theatre), Dauphin in Henry V (Watermill Theatre), and Dromio of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors (Watermill Theatre). Additional credits include: Nikolai Ivanovich in Three Girls in Blue (White Bear), Sir Percival Dillon in The Prince's Play (Royal National Theatre), Nick Enrique Morales in Reader (Traverse Theatre), Northumberland in Henry VI (RSC), and Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire (Byre). Television credits include: Walter's War,
Hotel Babylon, Alien Western, Trust, Foyle's War, Rockface, Midsommer Murders, Brookside, Wydiffe, The Demon Headmaster, The Bill, and Bugs II. Films include: From Time to Time, Hart's War, Plunge, and Alive and Kicking.
Wayne Cater (Bishop of Ely I Balthasar) Mr. Cater trained at Webber Douglas and is from Ammanford in southwest Wales. Theater includes: Nicholas Nickleby (Chichester FestivalNational TourWest EndToronto); Hamlet (Wales Theatre Company, Theatre in Wales Award 2005--"Best Actor" Nomination); Aladdin (OMTC ProductionsWelsh Tour); Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing (National Open Air Tour); Arden Of Faversham, Pygmalion, Noises Off, Mary Stuart, The Suicide, Arcadia, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, A Christmas Carol (Clwyd Theatr Cymru); The Taming Of The Shrew (Thelma Holt LtdPlymouth Theatre Royal-National Tour); Italian Idol (Old Fire Station, Oxford); Y Byd Yn Bedwar (One-Man Show at the National Eisteddfod Of Wales, written by Mr. Cater); Robinson Crusoe, A Slice Of Saturday Night (Oldham Coliseum); Pal Joey (Chichester Festival Theatre); As You Like It (Cheek By Jowl, International Tour and West End); Under Milk Wood, Volpone, Guys And Dolls, Peter Pan (National Theatre); and Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Jubilee, Roman Actor, Eastward Hoi, Edward III (Royal Shakespeare Company). Mr. Cater was a member of the RSC's Jacobethan Season in Stratford and the West End, recipients of the 2003 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement. Television includes: Gwaith Cartref, Tracy Beaker, Doctors, Gavin and Stacey, Holby City, Caerdydd, PobolYCwm, Doctor Who, Belonging, MIT: Murder Investigation Team, At Home With the Braithwaites, Dirty Work, Warriors, Disaster, Red Dwarf VIII, Stalag Luft, Bydd yn Wrol.Tu Fewn-Tu Fas, Glan Hafren. Films include: In Bruges, Small Hotel (also one of the writers), Very Annie Mary, Topsy-Turvy, and Dance of Shiva. Mr. Cater has written and directed three short films: A Dog's Life, Your Numbers Up, and Line Engaged (recipient of a Sgrin Gems Award 2001). In 2006, he set up his own theater company, Open Season Productions. He produced and directed Raspberry by Tony Marchant as the company's first production.
Richard Clothier (Richard III I Duke of Ephesus) Mr. Clothier is a long-standing member of Propeller. His appearances with the company include: The Comedy of Errors, Henry V, Twelfth Night, Rose
Rage, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale, and The Merchant of Venice. His other theater work includes: Enlightenment (Hampstead Theatre); Les Liasons Dangereuses (Salisbury Playhouse); The Promise (The Orange Tree); For Services Rendered (Watermill Theatre); Troilus and Cressida (RSC Edinburgh Festival); And Then There Were None (Gielgud Theatre); Rose Rage (Duke's Theatre, New York); A Doll's House, (Birmingham Rep and Tour); The Tempest (Sheffield Crucible); The Browning Version (Theatre Royal, Bath and Tour); Grace (Edinburgh Festival and Tour); Coriolanus (Mermaid Theatre); Salome (US Tour including BAMNew York); King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, The Dybbuk, and The Tempest (RSCStratford); Hamlet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Virtuoso, and The Alchemist (RSCBarbican); and Tango at the End of Winter (Piccadilly Theatre). Television includes: Above Suspicion, Law and Order UK, Spooks, Kingdom, City of Vice, Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, The Brontes, The Brief, Without Motive, The Knock, and London's Burning. Film includes: Hippy Hippy Shake, So This Is Romance, and Bye, Bye Columbus.
John Dougall (George Duke of Clarence, Lord
Stanley I Aegeon)
Mr. Dougall trained at The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. For Propeller, his theater work includes The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream. For Shakespeare's Globe: Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, The Winter's Tale, Measure for Measure, Coriolanus, and Under the Black Flag. For Royal Shakespeare Company: Hamlet, Love in a Wood, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, The Devil is an Ass, Faust, The Cherry Orchard, The Winter's Tale, and The Crucible. For the English Shakespeare Company: The Wars of the Roses, Richard II, Henry IV Parts I and II, Henry V, Henry VI Parts l-lll, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, The Winter's Tale, and Coriolanus. Other theater includes: Six Characters in Search of an Author (National Theatre of Scotland); The Cherry Orchard (Aldwych Theatre); Another Country (Queen's); Saint Joan (Strand); Shadow of a Gunman, John Bull's Other Island (Tricycle); Americans, Rose Bernd, Professor Bernhardi (Arcola); The White Devil (Menier); Doctor Faustus (Greenwich); The Cherry Orchard, Rookery Nook, Hay Fever (Oxford Stage Company); Private Lives (Ipswich); Present Laughter (Theatre Royal, Bath and tour); Arcadia (Northampton); Of Mice and Men (Birmingham); All My Sons (Leicester); Romeo and Juliet
(Nottingham); The Crucible (Sheffield); The Comedy of Errors, Translations (Lyric, Belfast); Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Edinburgh), The Tempest, and Much Ado About Nothing (US Tour). Television includes: Monarch of the Glen, Waking the Dead, He Knew He Was Right, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Negotiator, As Time Goes By, Dunrulin, The Houseman's Tale, Taggart, Holby City, The Bill, Macbeth, and Measure for Measure. Radio: Mr. Dougall has appeared in over 50 drama productions for BBC Radio including Dr Zhivago, Fortunes of War, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Arcadia, The Silver Fox, Conan Doyle, A Life in Letters, The Lamplighter, and Real Recordings in a Fictional City (Prix D'ltalia).
Richard Frame {Murderer, Richard Duke of York I
Dromio of Syracuse)
Mr. Frame trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School where he was awarded the Peter Akerman Memorial Comedy Prize. For Propeller, Mr. Frame has appeared as HermiaFlute in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Gratiano in The Merchant of Venice (National and International Tour); Most recent theater credits include: Martin in London Assurance (National Theatre), Jeff in Love You Because (Landor Theatre), Dean SwiftEd the Ted Verne in Absolute Beginners (Lyric Hammersmith), Bill Snibson in Me and My Girl (UK Tour), Chuck Baxter in Promises, Promises (Sheffield Crucible), Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (West Yorkshire Playhouse), and Emmo in Our House (West End). Other theater work includes: 77ie Beggar's Opera and A Chorus of Disapproval (Bristol Old Vic), Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Where's Charley (Regent's Park), and Sealife (New Vic Studio). Television includes: Kingdom, Ml High, Family Affairs, Wire In The Blood, Hearts and Bones, The Bill, Hope and Glory, and Robbie the Reindeer in Hooves of Fire. Radio includes: An Odd Body.
Robert Hands (Edward IV, Earl of Richmond I
Adriana)
Mr. Hands trained at Bristol Old Vic. His most recent theater credits include: Balmoral (Theatre Royal Bath), Robin in Spamalot (Palace Theatre, London), The Schumann Plan (Hampstead), Amos in Chicago (Aldephi Theatre, London), and Harry in Mamma Mia (Prince Of Wales Theatre, London). For Propeller: Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream Helena (Comedy Theatre London, National and International Tour), Margaret and Vernon in Rose Rage (Haymarket
Theatre, London and National Tour). Other credits include: Cecil in Lady Windemere's Fan (Theatre Royal Haymarket, London), Arcadia (Chichester Theatre), Cherry Orchard (English Touring Theatre), The Woman In Black (Fortune Theatre, London), Troilus and Cressida (Regents Park), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Regent's Park Theatre), A View From The Bridge (Greenwich Theatre), Mrs. Warren's Profession (Centreline Tour), Tess (Royal Exchange Manchester), The Importance Of Being Earnest (Old Vic Theatre), The Three Sisters (Chichester Theatre), Valentine's Day (The Globe, London and Chichester Theatre), As You Like It (Greenwich Theatre), Walpurgis Night (The Gate, London), Invisible Friends (National Theatre), Out Of The Sun (Southampton), Great Expectations (Liverpool Playhouse), Zoo Story, and The Wars of the Roses (ESC, Old Vic). Television credits include: Casualty, Doctor Who, Heartbeat, The Plot To Kill Hitler, The Dark Room, Peak Practice, Strike Force, The Vet, Sharpe's Battle, Which Way To The War, House Of Elliot. Films include: Hippy Hippy Shake, Pure, Charlotte Gray, Anna and the King, Shine, and Foreign Affairs.
Chris Myles (Buckingham I Aemilia) Mr. Myles trained at Central School of Speech and Drama and is delighted to be rejoining Propeller for this production, having appeared with the company for over a decade in the West End and on national and international tours in The Merchant of Venice (Nerissa), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Quince), Twelfth Night (Maria), The Taming of the Shrew (Gremio), The Winter's Tale (Old Shepherd), Rose Rage (Winchester), Comedy of Errors (Angelo), and Henry V (Nym). Most recently he appeared as Goebbels at the Arcola Theatre in 7936, a play about the Berlin Olympics. For Northern Stage he was Krogstad in A Doll's House. Other theater includes Shaw Cornered (Shakespeare) in India, Neville's Island (Neville) at the Watermill Theatre, and Marieluise (Bertolt Brecht) at the Gate Theatre. Film includes Lip up Fatty, Vigo, and Tuesday Night Story. On TV, Mr. Myles was a Neanderthal for the documentary Sex and The Neanderthals.
David Newman (Sir William Catesby I Luciana) For Propeller, Mr. Newman's most recent credits include: Pocket Dream (National Tour and Hampstead Theatre, London), The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream (National and International Tour), and The Canterbury Tales (Northern Broadsides). Other credits include: Tintin (Young Vic), Faust (Punchdrunk), Halflife (Blue Elephant), Wars of the Roses (Northern
Broadsides), The Graduate (New Vic Theatre), Heart of a Dog (Assembly Rooms), Mary Stuart (The Union), The Adding Machine (The Courtyard), Gogol's Underdogs (Rogue State Theatre Co.), The Waiting Game (Kings Head), and Ghosts in the Cottonwoods (The Arcola).
Thomas Padden {Lord Hastings, Duke of
Norfolk I Angelo)
Mr. Padden trained at the Guildhall School of Mu?sic and Drama. He is also a graduate of the Univer?sity of Bristol and he spent several seasons with the National Youth Theatre. Mr. Padden's most recent theater credits include: Oh What a Lovely War! (Northern Stage), Len in Privates On Parade (West Yorkshire Playhouse and Birmingham Rep.), Mar-ley in A Christmas Carol (Southwark Playhouse), Charley Kringas in Merrily We Roll Along (The Watermill), Trofimov in The Cherry Orchard (Clwyd Theatr Cymru), and Malcolm in Macbeth (Regent's Park). For Propeller: Theseus in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Aragon and Tubal in The Merchant of Venice (National and International Tour), and The Pocket Dream (National Tour and Hampstead Theatre, London). Other credits include: Lady Be Good and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Regent's Park); Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and A Winter's Tale, all at Shakespeare's Globe (Measure for Measure also toured in the US); James and the Giant Peach (Octagon Theatre); and The Lady in the Van (Theatre Royal Bath and Tour).
Sam Swainsbury (Murderer, Edward Prince of
Wales I Antipholus of Ephesus) Mr. Swainsbury trained at The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School where he was awarded the Laurence Olivier Bursary Award. His most recent theater credits include: Sandy in Hay Fever (The Rose Theatre, Kingston), Mark in A Day at the Racists (Finborough Theatre), and Fag in The Rivals (Southwark Playhouse). For Propeller: Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Salerio in The Merchant of Venice (National and International Tour). Mr. Swainsbury received an Ian Charleson Award Commendation for his performances. Other credits include: Nozze di Cana (Venice Biennale for Peter Greenaway), Slope (The Tramway), Dali in Hysteria (Birmingham Rep), and Haemon in Burial at Thebes (Nottingham Playhouse and Barbican, London). Film credits include: Simmons in Over The Anvil We Stretch. Television credits include: Tim in Harley Street (ITV) and Jekyll (Hartswood Films).
Dominic Tighe (Queen Elizabeth Officer) Mr. Tighe trained at The Central School of Speech and Drama. His most recent theater credits include: Hugo in Aspects of Love (Menier Chocolate Factory), directed by Trevor Nunn; Philip in All At Sea (National Theatre Studio); Nanki-Poo in Hot Mikado (Watermill Theatre, National and International Tour), directed by Craig Revel Horwood; and Algernon in The Importance of Being Ernest (Open Air Theatre, Regents Park). For Propeller: Sea Captain in Twelfth Night and The Tailor and The Widow in The Taming of the Shrew (RSC, The Old Vic, National and International Tour), directed by Edward Hall; Franklin in Arden of Faversham (White Bear); Dedrick in Orvin (SJT, Scarborough Theatre), directed by Alan Ayckbourn; Bernard in Jean de Florette (Centreline Productions); Curly in Oklahomal (NYMT and Peacock Theatre) and David in The Dreaming (NYMT and Royal Opera House, Linbury Studio). Television credits include: Tony Donald in Penned and Pledged, Guy in Hotel Babylon, and Will Shed in Footballers' Wives. Film credit: Daniel Spencer in The Donor. In 2008, Mr. Tighe received a Commendation at the Ian Charleson Award from the National Theatre and Sunday Times for his work with Propeller. With Blake, Mr. Tighe recorded 2 albums on Universal Records selling 200,000 copies in the UK. They were also released in Australia and Japan. Their debut album won "Album of the Year" at the Classical BRIT Awards in 2008.
Jon Trenchard [Lady Anne I Dromio of Ephesus) Mr. Trenchard trained at the London Academy of Performing Arts. His theater credits include: Oh What A Lovely War (Northern Stage); for Propeller: Pocket Dream (National Tour and Hampstead Theatre, London), Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Jessica in The Merchant of Venice (National and International Tour); Bianca in The Taming of The Shrew and The Priest in Twelfth Night (RSC, Old Vic, National and International Tour). Other credits include: Manfred in Sunset Boulevard (The Watermill); Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (New Vic Theatre); Mr. Bauman in Mack & Mabel (The Watermill, National Tour, and The Criterion, London); the title role in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 34 (Belfast Festival); Peter Pan (Oxford Playhouse); Todd! The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Kabosh Theatre, Irish Tour); Leonardo's Last Supper (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre); La Ronde (Pentameters Theatre);
various Pantomimes for Qdos, New World, and Jordan Productions; and the role of Puck in Benjamin Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream at the South Bank's Queen Elizabeth Hall. Mr. Trenchard also appeared in the feature film The Da Vinci Code. On television, he played Gary in My Family (BBC).
This week's performances mark Propeller's UMS debut.
For Propeller:
Edward Hall, Director
Michael Pavelka, Designer
Ben Ormerod, Lighting
Propeller, Music
Jon Trenchard, Additional Arrangements and Original Music
Tony Bell, Scrivener's Rap (Richard III)
Edward Hall and Roger Warren, Text Adaptation
David Gregory, Sound
Andy Purves, Tour Re-lights
Paul Hart, Associate Director
Nick Chesterfield, Company Manager
Nick Ferguson, Production Manager
Hannah Lobelson, Costume Supervisor
Laura Routledge, Deputy Stage Manager
Bryony Rutter and Charley Sargant, Assistant Stage Managers
Bridget Fell, Wardrobe Mistress
William Wollen, Education Consultant
Caro MacKay, Executive Producer
Peter Wilson, Executive Producer for The Touring Partnership
Manuel Harlan, Production Photographer
Helen Maybanks and Drew Hart Photography, Rehearsal Photos
TR2, Theatre Royal Plymouth Production Centre, Set and Props
Sian Willis, Puppets
Paul Mathew Transport Ltd, Transport
Anglo Pacific International PLC, Freight
Stage Electrics, Lighting Equipment
Sound Stage Services, Sound Equipment
Propeller gives special thanks to Angie Kendall, Deb Kenton, Shakespeare's Globe, Sophia Simensky, Clwyd Theatre Cymru, and Carol Rutter.
Propeller's tour is funded by Arts Council England and sponsored by Coutts & Co Ltd.
Propeller Board: James Sargant (Chairman), Susan Foster, Lynne Kirwin, Jodi Myers, and Peter Wilson.
For more information, please visit www.propeller.org.uk.
urns
and
Forest Health Services
present
St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Yuri Temirkanov, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Nikolai Lugansky, Piano
Program
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Saturday Evening, April 2, 2011 at 8:00 Hill Auditorium Ann Arbor
Piano Concerto No. 2 in c minor, Op. 18
Moderato Adagio sostenuto Allegro scherzando
Mr. Lugansky INTERMISSION
Scheherazade, Op. 35
Largo e maestoso--Lento--Allegro non troppo--Tranquillo Lento--Andantino--Allegro molto--Vivace scherzando--
Moderato assai--Allegro molto ed animato Andantino quasi allegretto--Pochissimo piu mosso--Come prima-
Pochissimo piu animato Allegro molto--Lento--Vivo--Allegro non troppo e maestoso--
Tempo come I
62nd Performance of the 132nd Annual Season
132nd Annual Choral Union Series
The photographing or sound and video recording of this concert or possession of any device for such recording is prohibited.
The 1011 Major Orchestras are sponsored by Forest Health Services. Spec al thanks to Randall and Mary Pittman for their continued and generous support of UMS.
This evening's performance is sponsored in part by Donald Morelock.
Media partnership is provided by WGTE 91.3 FM, WRCJ 90.9 FM, and Detroit Jewish News.
Special thanks to Logan Skelton, professor of piano, U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, for serving as guest speaker at this evening's Prelude Dinner.
Congratulations to the Center for Russian and East European Studies on their 50th anniversary. UMS welcomes their guests to tonight's Prelude Dinner and performance.
The Steinway piano used in this evening's performance is made possible by William and Mary Palmer and by the Steinway Piano Gallery of Detroit.
Special thanks to Tom Thompson of Tom Thompson Flowers, Ann Arbor, for his generous contribution of lobby floral art for this evening's performance.
The St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Yuri Temirkanov, and Nikolai Lugansky appear by arrangement with Opus 3 Artists, New York, NY.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Now that you're in your seat...
B
y the turn of the last century, the Russians were almost the only true musical Romantics left. The young Rachmaninoff's uninhibited, heart-on-the-sleeve poetry brought the pianism of Chopin and Liszt into a new era. At the same time, a mature Rimsky-Korsakov continued to explore the distant shores he had visited as a naval officer in his youth, this time in lushly orchestrated symphonic and stage works that were to inspire younger musical exoticists in Russia and abroad. Czarist Russia may have been a repressive police state, but in the two capitals-Moscow and St. Petersburg--the arts were flourishing, and in this time of calm before the Great Storm, we may witness an extremely sophisticated musical scene centered around the two great conservatories, one in each city. Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg and Rachmaninoff in Moscow were two of the greatest luminaries of this golden age.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in c minor, Op. 18
(1900-01) Sergei Rachmaninoff Born April 1, 1873 in Oneg, Russia Died March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills, California
Snapshot of History... In 1901:
Queen Victoria dies after a 64-year reign
Giuseppe Verdi dies at the age of 88
Theodore Roosevelt becomes President of the United States
Anton Chekhov writes The Three Sisters
Mahler's Symphony No. 4 is premiered
Rachmaninoff was born in the gloomiest period Russia had experienced for over a century. All the sublime efforts of the generation that had entertained such high hopes in the 1870s had ended in defeat. The great social reforms (including the abolition of serfdom in 1861) brought about by Alexander II were looked upon as grave mistakes. The reactionary elements that rallied around Alexander III after the assassination of his liberal-minded father in 1881 tolerated no opposition. The new emperor counteracted the liberalism of his father's reign by indication he had no intention of limiting or weakening the aristocratic power inherited from his ancestors. A feeling of hopeless despair was shared by the young "intellectuals," whose inability to solve problems of renovation or to break the inertia of the masses soon became tragically apparent. Their loss of faith in the future and the destruction of their illusions was impassively reflected in the short
stories of Vsevolod Garshin and in the nostalgic fiction and drama of Anton Chekhov.
Like so many young men living in Moscow at the turn of the century, Rachmaninoff suffered from the contagion of his times. His melancholy turn of mind and pessimistic outlook offered little protection against the disappointments and frustrations he met at the outset of his career as a composer. His first symphony, written in 1895 and produced in St. Petersburg, was a complete failure, receiving one performance and never heard again in his lifetime. (Whether or not he destroyed the score, it disappeared, and only during the 1940s was it reconstructed from the set of orchestral parts that had been kept in the Leningrad Conservatory.)
This failure of his symphony threw the young composer into the depths of despair. In his memoirs, he writes:
I returned to Moscow a changed man. My confidence in myself had received a sudden blow. Agonizing hours spent in doubt and hard thinking had brought me to the conclusion that I thought to give up composing. I was obviously unfitted to it, and therefore it would be better if I made an end to it at once. I gave up my room and returned to Satin's (a close friend of the composer). A paralyzing apathy possessed me. I did nothing at all and found no pleasure in anything. My only occupation consisted of a few piano lessons that I was forced to give in order to keep myself alive. This condition lasted more than a year. I did not live; I vegetated, idle and hopeless. The thought of spending my life as a piano teacher gave me cold shudders. Once or twice, I was asked to play at concerts.
I did this, and had some success. But of what use was it to me The opportunities came my way so seldom that I could not rely upon them for my existence. Nor could I hope that the Conservatoire would offer me a situation as a pianoforte teacher.
In 1898, Rachmaninoff had great success in London conducting and playing the piano, but continued to remain in a depressed mental state. In 1900, the Satins sent him to a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. N. Dahl:
My relatives had told Dr. Dahl that he must at all costs cure me of my apathetic condition and achieve such results that I could again begin to compose. Dahl had asked what manner of composition they desired and had received the answer, "a concerto for pianoforte," for this I had promised to the people in London and had given up in despair. Consequently I heard the same hypnotic formula repeated, day after day, while I lay half asleep in an armchair in Dahl's study. "You will begin to write your concerto... You will work with great facility...The concerto will be of excellent quality..." It was always the same, without interruption. Although it may sound incredible, his cure really helped me. Already at the beginning of the summer I began again to compose. The material grew in bulk, and new musical ideas began to stir within me--far more than I needed for my concerto--the Andante and Finale, and a sketch for a suite for two pianofortes. The two movements of the concerto I played during the same autumn at a charity concert directed by Siloti...they had a gratifying success. This buoyed up my self-confidence so much that I began to compose again with great keenness. By the spring I had already finished the first movement of the concerto and the suite for pianofortes. I felt that Dr. Dahl's treatment had strengthened my nervous system to a miraculous degree. Out of gratitude I dedicated my second concerto to him. As the piece had great success in Moscow, everyone began to wonder what possible connection it could have had with Dr. Dahl. The truth, however, was known only to Dahl, the Satins, and myself.
The Second Concerto needs no further explanation. It is among the most famous and familiar of all Rachmaninoff's compositions, and
its facile melodies have even found their way into the popular music of our day.
Program note by Glenn D. McGeoch.
Scheherazade, Op. 35 (1888) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Bom March 18, 1844 in Tikhvin, Russia Died June 21, 1908 in Lyubensk, near St. Petersburg
Snapshot of History... In 1888:
Susan B. Anthony organizes a Congress for Women's Rights in Washington DC
The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington DC
Vincent van Gogh begins painting his Sunflower series
Piotr Tchaikovsky writes his Symphony Wo. 5
August Strindberg writes his influential play Miss Julie
A Thousand-and-One Nights, also known as The Arabian Nights, is one of the best-known of Oriental stories. Originally written in Arabic and arranged in its present form in the 15th century, it became known in the West in the 18th century, when it was translated first into French and then into other languages. The splendid tales of AN Baba and the Forty Thieves, Sinbad the Sailor, and others have delighted many generations of readers, both young and old.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov had firsthand knowledge of the life of sailors, having taken a two-and-a-half-year cruise to the New World and throughout the Mediterranean as a naval officer in the early 1860s. About 25 years later, in 1888, he wrote Scheherazade, in which he strove to capture the general atmosphere of The Arabian Nights, but without trying to provide musical illustrations for individual stories. As he explained in his memoirs, he wished to create "an orchestral suite in four movements, closely knit by the community of its themes and motifs, yet presenting, as it were, a kaleidoscope of fairy-tale images and design of Oriental character."
In fact, the "community of themes and motifs" is one of the most striking features in the work. Although the four movements contrast strongly in tempo and character, two main motifs are
heard throughout the piece and are subjected to many variations that change the rhythm and the orchestration but never the basic melody. The first of these two motifs is announced at the very beginning of the piece by the strings in unison, the second immediately afterwards by the solo violin, which plays a prominent role in all four movements. The themes represent the two protagonists of the story, Sultan Shahriar and his wife Scheherazade.
At the beginning of the score, Rimsky-Korsakov summed up the story that serves as the starting point to all the other stories:
The Sultan Shahriar, convinced of the falsehood and inconstancy of all women, had sworn an oath to put to death each of his wives after the first night. However, the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life by arousing his interest in the tales that she told during the 1001 nights. Driven by curiosity, the Sultan postponed her execution day to day and at last abandoned his sanguinary design.
Scheherazade told miraculous stories to the Sultan. For her tales she borrowed verses from
the poets and words from folksongs combining fairy-tales with adventure.
As the various stories unfold, the two principal themes constantly remind us of Scheherazade telling them and Shahriar listening. Rimsky-Korsakov originally provided the individual movements with descriptive titles, later to be omitted from the printed score. Those titles were: "The Sea and Sinbad's Ship," "The Story of the Kalandar Prince," "The Young Prince and the Young Princess" and "Festival at Baghdad-The Sea--The Ship Goes to Pieces on a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior--Conclusion." Rimsky-Korsakov thought of these stories as "separate, unconnected episodes and pictures from the Arabian Nights, scattered through all four movements of my suite."
The brilliance of Rimsky-Korsakov's melodic imagination is matched in Scheherazade by his exceptional skill as an orchestrator: the numerous solos (violin, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, harp) are carefully chosen for their specific tone colors. The various instruments blend
in novel ways that influenced many composers of the subsequent generation, including Rimsky-Korsakov's most famous pupil, Igor Stravinsky.
Program note by Peter Laki.
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he St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Russia's oldest symphonic ensemble, was founded in 1882. In that year, on the Order of Alexander III, the Court Musical Choir was es?tablished--the prototype of today's Honored Col?lective of the Russian Federation. Thus, in 2007, the Orchestra celebrated its 125th anniversary. The Musicians' Choir was founded to perform in the royal presence--at receptions and official ceremo?nies and at the balls, plays, and concerts at the Royal Court. The pinnacle of this type of activity was the participation of the choir in 1896 in the coronation ceremony of Nicholas II. In 1897 the Court Choir became the Court Orchestra, its mu?sicians having been transferred from the military and given the same rights as other actors of royal theaters. In the early 20th century the Orchestra was permitted to perform at commercial concerts for the general public. Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 6 ("Pathetique") with the Orchestra shortly before his death. The series of concerts "Orchestral Collections of New Music" saw the first Russian performances of Richard Strauss's symphonic poems Ein Heldenle-ben and Also Sprach Zarathustra, Mahler's Sym?phony No. 1, Bruckner's Symphony No. 9, and Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy. Among the conductors were world renowned-musicians such as Richard Strauss, Arthur Nikisch, Alexander Glazunov, and Serge Koussevitsky.
In 1917 the Orchestra became the State Or?chestra and following the Decree of 1921 it was incorporated into the newly founded Petrograd Philharmonic, the first of its kind in the country. Shortly afterwards an unprecedented number of great Western conductors began to conduct the orchestra, including Otto Klemperer (who also con?ducted the subscription concerts), Bruno Walter, and Felix Weingartner. Soloists Vladimir Horowitz and Sergey Prokofiev (the latter performing his pi?ano concertos) also appeared with the Orchestra. On the initiative of foreign conductors, the Orches?tra began to play modern repertoire--Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Hindemith, Honegger, Poulenc, and continued to premiere the music of contem?porary Russian composers. In 1918, directed by
the composer, the Orchestra premiered Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony. In 1926 Shostakovich made his debut as a composer when Nikolay Malko con?ducted Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in the Great Hall of the Philharmonia.
In 1934 the Orchestra was the first in the coun?try to receive the title of the Honored Orchestra of the Republic. Four years later, Evgeny Mravin-sky, First Prize winner of the National Conductors Competition, joined the Orchestra and for the next 50 years gradually transformed it into one of the best orchestras in the world. The Orchestra rapidly became the model for the performance of Tchai?kovsky and Shostakovich symphonies. The class of the virtuoso orchestra permitted its recognition next to the orchestras of von Karajan and Walter and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw as the best interpreters of Mozart during the Viennese festival dedicated to Mozart's 200th anniversary. The cre?ative alliance of Mravinsky and Shostakovich was also unique in the musical world. Many of his sym?phonies were premiered by Mravinsky and they became the centerpieces of the repertoire, both at home and abroad on tour. We may imagine how deeply Shostakovich appreciated this collaboration when he dedicated Symphony No. 8 to Mravinsky. The Orchestra also performed in this period and beyond with other famous conductors including Leopold Stokowski, Igor Markevich, Kurt Sander-ling, Georg Solti, Arvid Jansons, Gennady Rozh-destvensky, Evgeny Svetlanov, and Mariss Jansons. In 1988 Yuri Temirkanov was elected by its mu?sicians to become the principal conductor of the Orchestra, a position he holds to this day.
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uri Temirkanov became Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in 1988. Looking back into Maestro Temirkanov's early career, a key event was his victory at the Second National Con?ductors Competition in 1966. From that moment onwards, Maestro Temirkanov, a graduate student of the Leningrad Conservatory (class of Professor Ilia Musin) entered the ranks of the most sought-after conductors of his generation. In early 1967 Maestro Temirkanov conducted a concert at the Philharmonic Hall and after this performance Evge?ny Mravinsky offered him the position of Assistant Conductor. From 1968 he was head of the Aca?demic Symphony Orchestra of the Philharmonia. He widened the Orchestra's repertoire and took them on tour to Europe, Japan, and the US.
In 1976 Maestro Temirkanov became Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Kirov (Mariin-sky) Theatre, where he created classic productions of War and Peace by Prokofiev, Eugene Onegin and Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky, as well as Peter I by Petrov and Dead Souls by Shchedrin. In the same period, he began his collaboration with many international orchestras. In 1978 he worked for the first time with the Royal Philharmonic Or?chestra and in 1992 became its Chief Conductor. From 1992-1997 he was Principal Guest Con?ductor of the Dresden Philharmonic. In 1998 he moved from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra where he remains Principal Guest Conductor. For six sea?sons (2000-2006), he was the Chief Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and from 2007-2008 he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre. For the 2009 Nobel Prize cer?emony, he was invited to conduct the Royal Stock?holm Philharmonic Orchestra. Maestro Temirkanov is also Music Director of the Parma Royal Theatre (Teatro Regio di Parma, Italy) through the Verdi Bi?centennial Festival in 2013.
For the past 20 years, Maestro Temirkanov has led the prestigious St. Petersburg Philharmonic
Orchestra. He regularly performs in St. Petersburg with the Philharmonic and, through his great lead?ership and artistic vision, has toured the Philhar?monic throughout the world, firmly establishing it as one of the most important orchestras perform?ing on the world's great concert stages. In 2005 Maestro Temirkanov and the Orchestra performed for the United Nations General Assembly in com?memoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. Under his direction, the Philharmonic be?came the first Russian orchestra to perform at the opening season concerts in Carnegie Hall.
Despite the intensity of his concert schedule, Maestro Temirkanov has made the preservation and nurturing of St. Petersburg's spiritual and cultural in?heritance the subject of an International Foundation for Cultural Initiatives in his name. In 1998 he cre?ated the Temirkanov Award for talented young mu?sicians, granted annually to outstanding students both of the Musical School of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and of the Conservatory itself.
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ikolai Lugansky has been hailed as the "next" in a line of great Russian pianists by his former teacher, renowned pedagogue Tatiana Nikolaeva. Known for his superb interpre?tations of Rachmaninoff, Mr. Lugansky has been a prizewinner in several international competitions, including the International Bach Competition in Leipzig in 1988, the All-Union Rachmaninoff Com?petition in 1990, and the Tchaikovsky International Competition in 1994. He made his American de?but at the Hollywood Bowl in 1996 as a part of a tour with the Kirov Orchestra and Valery Gergiev. Mr. Lugansky has appeared with major sym?phony orchestras worldwide, including the Or-chestre National de France; the Orchestre de Paris; the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, BBC Sym?phony, and Russian National Orchestras; the Ber?lin, Milan, City of Birmingham, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras; the Monte Carlo, Dresden, Los Angeles, Munich, Rotterdam, St. Petersburg, and Tokyo Philharmonics; and the Royal Concert-gebouw in repertoire as diverse as Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Grieg, Chopin, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, and Liszt.
He has worked with conductors including Paavo Berglund, Herbert Blomstedt, RiccardoChailly, Chris-toph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Marek Janowski, Neeme Jarvi, Paavo Jarvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Em?manuel Krivine, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Sakari Oramo, Mikhail Pletnev, Jukka
ums University Musical Society
Yuri Temirkanov
Pekka Saraste, and Yuri Temirkanov.
Forthcoming engagements include tours of Europe (with the Philharmonia Orchestra), North America (with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Or?chestra), and Asia as well as a return engagement with the Montreal Symphony. Most recently, Mr. Lugansky has appeared with the Pittsburgh Sym?phony under Marek Janowski both in Pittsburgh and on tour in Europe, with the San Francisco Sym?phony, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in both Cincinnati and on tour in Europe, and performed solo recitals in the US and Canada. In the 0910 season, he made return visits to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra, having made his debut at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in summer 2008.
An acclaimed recording artist, his latest solo release is an all-Chopin CD for Onyx which The Guardian described as "unquestionably thrilling." Later this year, Deutsche Grammophon will release a disc of chamber music recorded together with Vadim Repin with whom he has developed a long-lasting and fruitful musical partnership.
Mr. Lugansky studied at the Central School of Music in Moscow with his principal teacher Tati-ana Nikolaeva, and with the current director of the Tchaikovsky School of Music in Moscow, SergueT Dorensky.
UMS Archives
T
his evening's concert marks the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra's 11th appearance under UMS auspices. The Orchestra made its UMS debut in November 1962 at Hill Auditorium under the direction of music director Evgeny Mravinsky. The program for that evening noted that the concert was presented "as part of the Cultural Exchange program maintained by the Governments of the United States and the U.S.S.R." (The Orchestra was then named The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra.) The Orchestra last appeared at Hill Auditorium in April 2007 in a concert with Julia Fischer, under the direction of Yuri Temirkanov.
Tonight's concert marks Maestro Temirkanov's seventh appearance under UMS auspices. Maestro Temirkanov made his UMS debut in February 1977 at Hill Auditorium leading the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra. UMS welcomes Nikolai Lugansky, who makes his UMS debut tonight.
Nikolai Lugansky
Photo lames McMillan and Onyx
St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Yuri Temirkanov, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor
Violin I
Lev Klychkov,
Concertmaster Pavel Popov Alexander Zolotarev Yury Ushchapovsky Valentin Lukin Sergey Teterin Olga Rybalchenko Natalia Sokolova Alexey Vasilyev Alexander Rikhter Grigory Sedukh Nikita Novoselskiy Maria Irashina-Pimenova Nikolay Tkachenko Tatiana Makarova Mikhail Alexeev Anton Chausovskiy
Violin II
llya Kozlov, Principal Dmitry Petrov Tatiana Shmeleva Liudmila Odintsova Zhanna Proskurova Liubov Khatina Anatoly Babitsky Nikolay Dygodyuk Ruslan Kozlov Konstantin Basok Dmitry Koryavko Igor Zolotarev Olga Kotlyarevskaya
Viola
Andrey Dogadin, Principal Yury Dmitriev Artur Kosinov Yury Anikeev Dmitry Kosolapov Alexey Bogorad Roman Ivanov Konstantin 8ychkov Leonid Lobach Mikhail Anikeev Alexey Koptev Tatiana Gromova Elena Panfilova Denis Gonchar
Cello
Dmitry Khrychev, Principal Sergey Chernyadyev Mikhail Slavin Taras Trepel Yaroslav Cherenkov losif Levinzon Nikolay Matveev Alexander Kulibabin Stanislav Lyamin Nikita Zubarev
Double Bass
Artem Chirkov, Principal Rostislav lakovlev Oleg Kirillov Alexander Shilo Mikhail Glazachev Nikolay Chausov Alexey Ivanov Alexey Chubachin Nikolay Syray Arseny Petrov
Flute
Marina Vorozhtsova,
Principal Dmitry Terentiev Olga Viland Natalia Sechkareva
FlutePiccolo
Ksenia Kuelyar-Podgaynova
Oboe
Ruslan Khokholkov,
Principal Artsiom Isayeu Pavel Serebryakov
English Horn
Mikhail Dymsky
Clarinet
Andrey Laukhin, Principal Valentin Karlov Denis Sukhov Igor Gerasimov
Bassoon
Oleg Talypin, Principal Sergey Bazhenov Maxim Karpinsky
Contrabassoon
Alexey Silyutin
Horn
Igor Karzov, Principal Anatoly Surzhok Anatoly Musarov Vitaly Musarov Oleg Skrotsky Elena Akhmetgareeva
Trumpet
Igor Sharapov, Principal Mikhail Romanov Vyacheslav Dmitrov Alexey Belyaev
Trombone
Maxim Ignatyev, Principal Dmitry Andreev Denis Nesterov Vitaly Gorlitsky
Tuba
Valentin Awakumov
Percussion
Dmitry Klemenok Valery Znamensky Mikhail Lestov Konstantin Solovyev Ruben Ramazyan Alexander Mikhaylov
Harp
Anna Makarova Andres Izmaylov
Piano and Celesta
Maxim Pankov
Librarian
Leonid Voronov
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Alexander Novikov
Technician
Alexander Vinogradov
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Galina Logutenko
Executive Director
llya Teplyakov
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