UMS Concert Program, October 24 & 25, 2019 - Zauberland (Magic Land): An Encounter with Schumann's Dichterliebe

13th and 14th Performances of the 141st Annual Season International Theater Series
UMS Song Remix

Thursday Evening, October 24, 2019 at 7:30 Friday Evening, October 25, 2019 at 8:00

Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre Ann Arbor

ZAUBERLAND

(MAGIC LAND)

An Encounter with Schumann's Dichterliebe A production of

C.I.C.T. - Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord

Robert Schumann and Bernard Foccroulle

Music

Heinrich Heine and Martin Crimp

Text

Katie Mitchell

Director

This week’s performances are supported by the Renegade Ventures Fund, established by the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Endowment Fund; the Maurice and Linda Binkow Vocal and Chamber Arts Endowment Fund; and the Ilene Forsyth Theater Endowment Fund.

Media partnership provided by Metro Times.

Special thanks to Natalia Cuevas, Sheila Garcia, Scott Piper, Matthew Thompson, Stephen West, and the U-M Department of Vocal Performance for their participation in events surrounding this week’s performances.

In consideration of the artists and the audience, please refrain from the use of electronic devices during the performance.

The photography, sound recording, or videotaping of this performance is prohibited.

CAST

Soprano / Julia Bullock
Piano / Cédric Tiberghien
Actors / Ben Clifford, Natasha Kafka, David Rawlins, Raphael Zari

CREATIVE TEAM

Music / Robert Schumann and Bernard Foccroulle Text / Heinrich Heine and Martin Crimp
Stage Direction / Katie Mitchell
Set and Costumes / Chloe Lamford

Lighting / James Farncombe
Associate Directors / Dan Ayling and Gilles Rico
Costume Buyers / Zeb Lalljee and Sabia Smith
Props Buyers / Fiona Albrow and Sarah Longson Rehearsal Pianist and Coach / Bretton Brown
Intern Director / Irene Yang
Special thanks to / George Fletcher and Tom Mothersdale

PRODUCTION TEAM

Technical/Deputy Stage Manager / Véronique Kespi Lighting Programmer/Operator / Nicolas Simonin Assistant Stage Manager / Marie-Anne Mérat
Props Manager / Elodie Huré

Dresser / Laura Le Hen

Production and Commissioner / C.I.C.T. — Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord Co-production and Co-commissioners / Royal Opera, London; La Monnaie /

De Munt, Bruxelles; Opéra de Lille; Lincoln Center for the Performing
Arts, Inc., New York; Opéra de Rouen Normandie; University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Le cercle des partenaires des Bouffes du Nord

With support from / Lyrical Creation Fund (SACD)
This evening’s performance is approximately one hour and 15 minutes in duration

and is performed without intermission.

Following Thursday evening’s performance, please feel free to remain in your seats and join us for a post-performance Q&A with members of the company.

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SYNOPSIS

A young woman, five months pregnant, is forced to leave Syria and make the long journey to live in Germany. She leaves behind her husband and family
in war-torn Aleppo. She settles in Cologne where she gives birth to her daughter and continues her career as a professional opera singer. On the eve of her husband's death, she has a strange dream where singing a concert of Schumann’s Dichterliebe is mixed up with the trauma of her journey from Syria and her life in Aleppo before the war.

STRUCTURE

There is an unsolved mystery about Schumann’s Dichterliebe (1844) — settings of poems from Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo from his Buch der Lieder (1827).

Originally a sequence in manuscript of 20 songs, four songs (two groups of two) were cut before publication to make the famous “cycle” of 16 we currently know. While scholars have argued that this was an aesthetic decision by the composer, no contemporary evidence exists as to why Schumann made these cuts.

Foccroulle and Crimp have therefore taken the two points where songs were removed as an invitation to intervene in — and finally to extend Dichterliebe itself. On the one hand this is a radical modern gesture — but on the other, it alludes to original 19th-century performance practice, in which it was common to break up performances of so-called “cycles” with other music.

In the course of the evening, the 16 lieder of Dichterliebe will be performed in their entirety — but in dialogue with a specially composed sequence of 19 new songs.

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ARTIST STATEMENTS

Zauberland explores the relationship between a 19th-century romantic sensibility and world view and
our 20th-century reality of mass migration and violence.

This performance also aims
to investigate how our Western European society tries to insulate itself from bigger world events, like mass migration, and fails. It takes the model of presenting classical music in a concert format as a metaphor for a society trying to hold global change at bay, only to discover that the barriers we put up to stop that change are porous, and whatever
we do, change will happen and new people from other societies will be invited in.

—Katie Mitchell, director

Poetry without borders

European poetry has a rich tradition — but many of its deepest roots are in the Near and Middle East.No. 22 quotes the Song of Songs (third/ fourth-century BC), while the last poem in our sequence — “The sweet smell of jasmine” — is derived from a celebrated sixth-century AD Arabic poem by Mâlik B. Asma of Fazâra.

The complexity of Europe’s relationship with “the other” is starkly revealed in its ambiguous reception of the poetry of Heinrich Heine. At the beginning of the 20th century the critic Karl Kraus notoriously called Heine’s work a “French disease” and poured scorn on his verse (Poem No. 25). Heine did not escape antisemitic attack during his life or after it. But even the poet of Dichterliebe — quintessence of German romanticism — found his place within the European tradition. His right, in a certain sense, to have “crossed the border,” was called into question.

—Martin Crimp, text

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ARTISTS

Widely regarded as the greatest romantic composer, Robert Schumann (composer) considered poetry itself as music. After Schubert and before Brahms, he was one of the lied masters. He made the rules of classic forms more flexible and broke them in his short pieces, but instead of blowing up the structure and tending to inflation

of dimensions, as his romantic and post- romantic successors, he worked on more tightened forms, heralding impressionism in French music at the end of the century.

Schumann loved to identify with two complementary heroes: the brave Florestan and the dreamer Eusebiuss, of which he made the pianistic portrait in Carnaval (1853). We find these two characters in all his music, and in his texts as well, which were often signed with one of these names.

In 1840, the year of his wedding to the pianist Clara Wieck, he composed Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love), a cycle of 16 lieder based on Heinrich Heine’s poems. After that, he composed more than 200 lieder and was committed to chamber music, symphonic, and concert music.

Bernard Foccroulle (composer) was born in Liège in 1953. His international career as an organ player started in the 1970s with a vast repertoire encompassing music from the Renaissance to music of our time. He gave world premieres to works of several dozens of composers such as Philippe Boesmans, Betsy Jolas, Xavier Darasse, Jonathan Harvey, and Pascal Dusapin. As a soloist he made 40 recordings, for most of which he received prizes.

For 25 years Mr. Foccroulle has been active in the opera world and directed
le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie from 1992–2007. Since 2007 he has directed the Festival d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence.

Apart from works for organ, he has written for voices accompanied by orchestra, instrumental ensemble, and piano. Rilke, Verlaine, De Luca, and Dante have been his inspiration for several song cycles as well as instrumental pieces. He is doctor honoris causa of the Montreal University and the University of Aix-Marseille.

Heinrich Heine (text) is considered as the last romantic poet and as the one who overcame romanticism at the same time. Few poetic works in German language were translated and adapted for music

as often as Heine’s were. Simply entitled Poems (Gedichte), his first collection was published in Berlin in 1822. Those plays, ballads, and sonnets form today the first part of The Book of Songs (Das Buch der Lieder), his most famous work. In 1823, Heine published the Intermezzo (Tragödien nebst einem lyrischen Intermezzo), a book composed by two historic tragedies in the Walter Scott style, and a lyric interlude where we can find some of the short and lightning love complaints which inspired Robert Schumann.

Martin Crimp (text) is a British dramatist whose play Attempts on her Life (1997) established his international reputation. Since then his work has been performed at major theaters across Europe where he has worked with stage directors such as Thomas Ostermeier, Luc Bondy, and Katie Mitchell. An encounter in 2005 with composer George Benjamin led

to collaboration on three new works, including the highly acclaimed Written on Skin (2012).

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Katie Mitchell’s (director) recent
theater credits include Shadows
(Eurydice Speaks), Ophelia’s Zimmer, Lungs, The Yellow Wallpaper, Fraulein
Julie (Schaubuhne, Berlin); 2071, Ten Billion, Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal
Court, London); Reisende auf einem
Bein, Happy Days, 4:48 Psychosis, The Rest Will Be Familiar to you from Cinema (Schauspielhaus, Hamburg); Reise durch die Nacht, Rings of Saturn, Die Wellen,Wunchkonzert (Schauspielhaus, Cologne); Forbidden Zone (Salzburg Festival/ Schaubuhne, Berlin); and Cleansed, Waves, Women of Troy, Iphgenia at Aulis (National Theatre, London).

Recent opera includes Pelleas et Melisande, Alcina, Trauernacht, The
House Taken Over, Written on Skin (Aix en Provence Festival); Lucia di Lammermoor, Clemency (Royal Opera House); Le Vin Herbe, Neither (Staatsoper, Berlin); Al GranSole Carico D’Amore (Staatsoper, Berlin and Salzburg festivals); Orest (De Nederlandse Opera); and The Way Back Home (ENO/ Young Vic).

Ms. Mitchell has been an associate director at the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, and The Royal Court Theatre. She was awarded an OBE
in 2009 for services to drama and was appointed as the visiting chair in opera studies at Oxford University in 2016–17. In April 2019, she received the International Opera Award as “Best Stage Director of the Year 2019.”

James Farncombe’s (lighting designer) work with Katie Mitchell includes Lessons in Love and Violence (Royal Opera House); Miranda (Opera Comique); Jenufa(Nationale Opera and Ballet Amsterdam); Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court); The

Maids (Toneelgroep, Amsterdam); Pelléas et Mélisande, Trauernacht, The House Taken Over, Alcina (Aix-en-Provence Festival); The Cherry Orchard (Young
Vic); The Way Back Home (ENO); Alles Weitere kennen Sie aus dem Kino (Hamburg Schauspielhaus); and Le Vin herbé (Berlin State Opera).

He has also designed lighting for productions at the National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Young Vic,
Royal Court, Lyric Hammersmith, Old
Vic, Hampstead Theatre, and Royal Shakespeare Company. Opera and
dance credits include Uit Het Leven Van Marionetten, Ibsen Huis (Toneelgroep Amsterdam); Il barbiere di Siviglia (Glyndebourne Festival); Dernière nuit (Opéra de Lyon); Tabanich’s Benjamin, Aridodante, The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North); Pelléas et Mélisande (Norwegian National Opera); Der fliegende

Holländer (Scottish Opera); and Liam Scarlett’s Carmen and The Firebird (Norwegian National Ballet).

Chloe Lamford (set and costumes)
trained in theater design at Wimbledon School of Art. Awards include the Arts Foundation Fellowship Award for Design for Performance in Set and Costume, and Theatrical Management Association Award for “Best Theater Design” (Small Miracle).

Ms. Lamford is an associate designer for the Royal Court Theatre where her work includes Unreachable, Ophelia’s Zimmer, The Twits, How to Hold Your Breath, God Bless the Child, 2071, The Internet is Serious Business, and Circle Mirror Transformation.

Designs for theater include Victory Condition & B (The Royal Court);
1984 (Broadway, Australia and West

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End/Headlong/Almeida UK and international tour); Road (The Royal Court); Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour (West End and National Theatre
Scotland); The Maids (Toneelgroep, Amsterdam); Amadeus, Rules for Living, The World of Extreme Happiness (National Theatre); Atmen, Ophelia’s
Zimmer (Schaubühne, Berlin); Het Hamilton Complex (Hetpaleis, Antwerp); The Tempest (Donmar Warehouse); Salt, The History Boys (Sheffield Crucible); Root and Roe (Donmar Warehouse); The Events (ATC and Young Vic); Disco Pigs, Sus (Young Vic); My Shrinking Life, Appointment
with the Wicker Man, Knives in
Hens (National Theatre Scotland); Praxis Makes Perfect, The Radicalization
of Bradley Manning (National
Theatre Wales); Boys (Headlong Theatre); The History Boys (Sheffield Crucible); Cannibals, The Gate Keeper (Manchester Royal Exchange); It Felt Empty... (Clean Break); and Small Miracle (Tricycle/ Mercury, Colchester). Designs for opera and dance include Miranda (Opera Comique); Pelleas et Melisande and Alcina (Aix en Provence Festival); Verklarte Nacht (Rambert); The Little Sweep, Let’s Make An Opera (Malmo Opera House, Sweden); The Magic Flute (English Touring Opera), and War and Peace (Scottish Opera/ RCS).

American vocalist Julia Bullock (soprano) is “a musician who delights in making
her own rules” (New Yorker). Combining versatile artistry with a probing intellect and commanding stage presence, she has, in her early 30s, already headlined productions and concerts at some of the preeminent arts institutions worldwide. An innovative programmer whose artistic curation is in high demand, she serves
as 2019–20 artist-in-residence of San Francisco Symphony, while her other past,

present, and future curatorial positions include collaborative partner of Esa- Pekka Salonen in his inaugural season
as music director of that orchestra in 2020-21, opera-programming host of new broadcast channel All Arts, founding core member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), and 2018–19 artist- in-residence of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Chosen as one of WQXR’s “19 for 19” artists to watch this year, Ms. Bullock is also a prominent voice of social consciousness and activism. As Vanity Fair notes, she is “young, highly successful, [and] politically engaged,” with the “ability to inject each note she sings with a sense of grace and urgency, lending her performances the feel of being both of the moment and incredibly timeless.”

Ms. Bullock has made key operatic debuts at San Francisco Opera in the world premiere of Girls of the Golden
West, Santa Fe Opera in Doctor Atomic, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Dutch National Opera in The Rake’s Progress,
and the English National Opera, Spain’s Teatro Real, and Russia’s Bolshoi Theatre in the title role of The Indian Queen. In concert, besides headlining the Bernstein centennial gala with Andris Nelsons to launch the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2017–18 season, she has collaborated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert, Japan’s NHK Symphony and Paavo Järvi, and both the Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle. Her recital highlights include appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, Boston’s Celebrity Series, Washington’s Kennedy Center, and the Mostly Mozart and Ojai Music festivals,

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where she joined Roomful of Teeth and the International Contemporary Ensemble for the world premiere of Josephine
Baker: A Portrait. This was the original prototype for Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, a work conceived by Bullock
in collaboration with Peter Sellars, and written for her by Tyshawn Sorey and Claudia Rankine. Ms. Bullock’s growing discography includes Doctor Atomic, recorded with the composer conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and West Side Story, captured live with Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, both of which were nominated for Grammy Awards.

Ms. Bullock was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Bard College’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, and New York’s Juilliard School. She lives with her husband, conductor Christian Reif, in Munich.

Cédric Tiberghien (piano) is a French pianist who has established a truly international career. He has been particularly applauded for his versatility, as demonstrated by his wide-ranging repertoire, interesting programming, an openness to explore innovative concert formats, and his dynamic chamber music partnerships.

Performances this season include
the London Symphony Orchestra
with François-Xavier Roth (Debussy’s Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra) and
the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (Messiaen’s Turangalila). He will also undertake an extensive tour to Japan and Korea including solo and duo recitals,

the latter with Alina Ibragimova. Their numerous performances this season also include the Pierre Boulez Saal (Berlin) and Wigmore Hall (London). Mr. Tiberghien has

a particularly strong relationship with the latter, where he will be performing a total of five times this season, in both solo and duo recital.

During the 2016–17 season he returned to the Cleveland, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, and City of Birmingham symphony orchestras as well as to the BBC Proms
in London, performing Saint-Saëns and Franck with Les Siècles. He also had an extensive residency with the Orchestre
de Bretagne during which he performed concertos by Saint-Saëns, Mendelssohn, and Mozart (the latter directed from the piano). Other recent collaborations have included the Boston Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Hamburg Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestras. His conductor collaborations have included Karina Canellakis, Myung-Whun Chung, Stéphane Denève, Christoph Eschenbach, Edward Gardner, Ludovic Morlot, and Simone Young.

Mr. Tiberghien recently presented
a major focus on the music of Bartók, culminating in a three-volume exploration of his solo piano works for the Hyperion label which has received huge critical acclaim. His solo discography also includes Szymanowksi’s Masques & Études, Franck’s Symphonic Variations
and Les Djinns (Liège Philharmonic/ François-Xavier Roth), Brahms’ Concerto No. 1 (BBC Symphony/Bělohlávek), and many recital discs on Harmonia Mundi including repertoire by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and Debussy. He has been awarded four Diapason d’Or awards for his solo recordings on Hyperion.

Ben Clifford (actor) trained as an actor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow and has since worked in television and film, BBC radio drama,

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and the theater. Recent projects
include contemporary opera Written
On Skin, also with Katie Mitchell and Martin Crimp; and David McKenzie’s feature film Outlaw King, which played the 2018 Toronto and BFI London Film Festivals. Other recent credits include The Worst Was This (Wild Goose Chase at The Hope Theatre, London); Tribes (Solar Bear); Aladdin (Plutôt la Vie); Blackout (New Room Theatre); Save The Lap Dance For Me, Fishwrap (A Play, A Pie
And A Pint); and The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Love’s Labour’s Lost (Bard in the Botanics). On television, he appeared in Outlander (Left Bank/
Tall Ship/SONY), and on the radio, in Rebus and McLevy (BBC Radio 4). His first film, BB, was nominated for the Channel 4 Award for Innovation in Storytelling
and screened at the London Short Film Festival.

Natasha Kafka (actress) trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Theater credits at Mountview includes Rosalind in As You Like It; Sally Bowles
in Cabaret; Various in Oh, what a lovely war!; Marina in Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Angel Gabriel in The Nativity; Nicola in The Positive Hour; and Fiddler/Chava in Fiddler on the Roof. Additional theater credits include Marta in Europe After the Rain at The Mercury Theatre; and Ellie the Elf in Santa’s Polka Dot Pirate for Imagine Theatre at the Harlow Playhouse.

Ms. Kafka has filmed a Fanta commercial and recorded a number
of videos and voiceovers for Oxford University Press. She has also worked on a research and development project at The Bush Theatre on The Lost Ones.

David Rawlins (actor) attended a training course at the City Literary Institute in London. In theater, he appeared in Lessons in Love and Violence at the Royal Opera House and at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. He also acted in Common at the National Theater, in The Divine Chaos of Starry Things at the White Bear Theater in London, and in Meltemi at the Moors Theater. He has appeared in Matryoshka’s Journey at Baron’s Court Theater, in The Trial at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and in Judgment Day at John Lyon’s Theater.
He has made a few appearances in films, including Immure, Good Morning, Morning, Desmond, Life, and Mister 49. Mr. Rawlins is also on the bill of the TV show Top Boy on Netflix.

Raphael Zari (actor) trained as an actor
at the University of Arts in Berlin, as well as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In theater, he has appeared in #BerlinBerlin (2018–present). The show was nominated for the 2019 Friedrich-Luft-Preis Award (Theatre Strahl, Berlin). He also appeared in Black and White Ain’t No Colors (Theatre Strahl, Berlin/Lyasa Inkululeko Yabatsha School of Arts, Bulawayo); Danton’s
Death (Theater für Niedersachsen); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre Strahl, Berlin); 13 by Mike Bartlett (Tron Theatre, Glasgow/Cockpit Theatre, London); and Titus Andronicus (Dundee Rep Theatre, Scotland). He has made appearances
in films including Arme Ritter (drama
short 2018); Der Lange Sommer Der Theorie (feature 2016), and as Mark in Kaempfergeist (web series 2015).

UMS welcomes the cast and team of Zauberland as they make their UMS debuts this week.

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Lobby Installation: Yo Tengo Nombre by Natalia Cuevas

From October 2000 through September 2016, Border Patrol documented 6,023 deaths along the US Mexican border. Still, there are countless more who remain nameless and lost along a path lined by the dead.

This piece serves as an exploration of migrant deaths along the US Mexican border, focusing specifically on unidentified border crossers and their families. I seek to expose the reality of increasing migrant deaths by emphasizing the scale of the crisis and humanizing individual stories through objects and intimate narratives. Each milk crate serves as a grave that honors and memorializes migrant bodies through recreations of personal items found along the South Texas area. Each item is based on information from Yo Tengo Nombre, a visual and bilingual database of found objects intended for families and friends

of missing people to scour through and identify loved ones. Through a fabrication of illegality, I seek to understand the systems and institutions that perpetuate violence against immigrants as a reminder of the fate that awaits so many, but also of the hope and resilience of the human spirit. I dedicate this piece to those who have lost their lives crossing.

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THANK YOU TO SUPPORTERS OF THIS WEEK’S PERFORMANCES

Lead Presenting Sponsors

Renegade Ventures Fund, established by the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation

—

Presenting Sponsors

Maurice and Linda Binkow Vocal and Chamber Arts Endowment Fund

—

Patron Sponsor

Ilene Forsyth Theater Endowment Fund

MAY WE ALSO RECOMMEND...

11/2 11/22–23 1/10 & 12

John Cameron Mitchell: The Origin of Love Tour
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Tickets available at www.ums.org.

ON THE EDUCATION HORIZON...

10/26 You Can Dance: Sankai Juku
(Ann Arbor Y, 400 W. Washington Street, 1:30 pm) Registration opens 45 minutes prior to the start of the event.

11/1 Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series: John Cameron Mitchell (Bethlehem United Church, 423 S. Fourth Avenue, 7:00 pm)

15. 11/15  Post-Performance Artist Q&A: Teaċ Damsa (Power Center)

    Must have a ticket to that evening’s performance to attend.

16. 11/16  You Can Dance: Teaċ Damsa
    (Ann Arbor Y, 400 W. Washington Street, 1:30 pm) Registration opens 45 minutes prior to the start of the event.

Educational events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.