a u d i e n c e student night at the opera p r e v i e w g u i d e wednesday, october 11 7:00 PM valentine theatre

Transcription

1 a u d i e n c e p r e v i e w g u i d e student night at the opera wednesday, october 11 7:00 PM valentine theatre

2 The Story and Characters the long story short Best friends become rivals over a forbidden beauty; sacrilege, sacrifice, and sultry singing ensue. the characters Leila - a beautiful, young woman becomes a priestess whio is supposed to abjure the company of men and dedicate her life to prayer. Long ago, her bravery saved Zurga s life. Nadir - a fisherman, also likes to hunt beautiful women. Zurga - Nadir s childhood friend, is the chosen leader of the pearl fishers. Nourabad - the local high priest. where & when A fishing community in ancient times on the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

3 The Action the long story, not so short ACT I The fishermen are preparing for pearl diving season and the village has elected Zurga as their King. He welcomes Nadir, a friend that he has not seen in many years. Long ago, these friends promised to put aside their love for the same girl in order to keep their friendship. The priests of the temple of Brahma (a Hindu god) arrive, bringing their new priestess who has been chosen for her purity and goodness. The priestess is veiled, hiding the fact that she is Leila, the very same girl Nadir and Zurga renounced many years ago. Zurga orders the priestess to remain isolated on a cliff, without friends, without lovers, and to sing so that the gods may kept happy, ensuring the safety of the village s fishermen; if she does not she will be cursed and put to death. Leila hears Nadir s voice and immediately recognizes it. She still loves him and knowing that he is in the village brings fear to her heart. She composes herself and pledges to fulfill her duties as priestess. Nadir has also recognized Leila as being the lost love he has so often dreamed about. As he hears Leila singing the evening prayer, Nadir declares his renewed love for her, which she returns as the Act I curtain falls. ACT II It is late in the evening. The pearl fishermen have safely returned with their catch, and the High Priest, Nourabad, thanks Leila for her devotion. She reassures Nourabad of her fidelity by telling him that, when she was a girl, she saved a man who was fleeing brutal pursuers, by hiding him in her home. When they came to find him, she bravely told them nothing, and the man was saved. To thank her, this unknown fugitive gave her a necklace that she never removed. Nourabad leaves and Leila s thoughts turn to Nadir. She knows he is near, hiding in the forest, and waiting to come to her. She sings of her days gone by, and of her love and Nadir replies from the forest with a serenade of love. Nadir climbs over the temple walls to be with Leila. She tries to resist him but cannot and they agree to meet each night in the shadows. Nourabad discovers Nadir leaving the temple and, calling to the village s people, he declares that the temple has been disrespected. The people cry for the lovers to be put to death, and they are about to carry out their threat when Zurga enters and declares that he alone will judge their fate. Zurga is about to let Leila and Nadir go when Nourabad commands her to lift her veil and reveal her identify to everyone. When she does, Zurga recognizes Leila as the girl he renounced for his friendship with Nadir, and in his jealous fury he condemns them both to death as the people sing for mercy to Brahma. Act III A storm breaks overhead, a sign of the sea s wrath now that the priestess Leila has been disgraced. Zurga is alone in his tent. He laments that he has condemned his friend Nadir to die at dawn. Leila, accompanied by guards, enters to plead with Zurga for Nadir s life. Unsuccessful in securing Nadir s release, and resigned to her fate, Leila asks him to give her necklace to her mother once she is dead. Zurga recognizes it as the one he gave to the child who saved his life so long ago. To repay this debt, he helps the lovers by setting the village on fire. The fishermen are distracted and, despite the attempts of Nourabad, the lovers escape. Zurga is left to accept the consequences of his sacrifice, as the final curtain falls. Used by permisson of Opera Carolina

4 The Composer georges bizet ( ) The life of the young Georges Bizet (real name Alexandre César Léopold Bizet) was filled with music. Both his parents were musicians, and just before he turned ten he entered the Paris Conservatory. He studied with Gounod and the other important French opera composers, won all sorts of prizes in school, and made some money on the side arranging scores and playing piano at opera rehearsals. One of his first, frothiest, and most operetta-like compositions, Docteur Miracle, won the Prix de Rome, and Bizet followed his luck to Italy for three years, where he soaked up the Mediterranean sun and Mediterranean musical culture. While there he made an unsuccessful attempt at writing a comic opera in the Italian style, Don Procopio. He also had trouble writing in the more lofty German style. He was always coming up with ideas for operas, including such substantial stories as Hamlet, Macbeth, Don Quixote, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but he never got very far. He even attempted to write his own opera libretto, an adaptation of a play by Molière, but gave up before finishing it. His first successful opera, the exotic The Pearl Fishers of 1863, demonstrated his gift for writing beautiful melodies; but, it was only performed eighteen times, probably due to the inferiority of its libretto. The libretto rehashes the plots of two earlier operas, Bellini s Norma and Spontini s La Vestale. The librettists later confessed that they would have worked harder on The Pearl Fishers if they had understood the scope of Bizet s genius. According to theatrical legend, their inability to agree on an ending for the story infuriated the producer, who, at a late-night post-rehearsal meeting, screamed at them to throw their libretto onto the fire. Misunderstanding this comment, they created the scene at the

5 The Composer, continued end, when Zurga sets fire to the village in order to create a diversion so Nadir and Leila can escape. To this day, there exist several competing versions of the opera s final scene. Bizet spent many years writing but no major work materialized. He had trouble concentrating; although he had plenty of great ideas, they never seemed to add up to anything. He was plagued by uncertainty about the value of his work and found dealing with the business and management side of the theater extremely aggravating. Eventually, all these issues hindered his ability to compose. He wrote a total of seventeen operas, almost half of which were never performed. The Work THE PEARL FISHERS Written in 1863 Composed by Georges Bizet Libretto by Michel Carré & Eugène Common First performed on September 30, 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris Toledo Opera Premiere ARTISTIC TEAM John Baril, Conductor Bernard Uzan, Director Nigel Burgoine, Choregrapher Bernard Uzan and Michael Baumgarten, Set Designers Michael Buamgarten, Lighting/Projection Designer Betsy Blackmore, Costume Designer STARRING Danielle Pastin (Leila) Yi Li (Nadir) Luis Ledesma (Zurga) Kevin Langan (Nourabad) His personal life, too, was plagued by bad luck. His disastrous affair with his mother s maid resulted in a son he couldn t acknowledge, and in 1869 he married the twenty year old Geneviève Halévy, the mentally unstable daughter of his teacher. Together they had a son who later committed suicide. Danielle Pastin Yi Li Georges Bizet died at the tragically early age of 36, three months after the unsuccessful opening of Carmen. When he died, he believed he had failed again; the poor man had no idea of the immense popularity Carmen would enjoy today. Many historians of music speculate that Bizet Luis Ledesma Kevin Langan was headed for a brilliant career full of successful operas. PRODUCTION SPONSORED BY ProMedica BCI Used by permisson of Seattle Opera

6 World History events surrounding bizet s world 1838 bizet born alexandrfe cesar leopold bizet queen victoria is crowned in england, one penny postage is established 1840 mount saint helens erupts in washington state 1842 brigham young delcared mormon church head 1844 mexican-american war bgins 1846 gold is discovered in california 1848 moby dick is published 1850 peter roget s thesaurus first published 1852 anthony foss patents the accordion 1854 mendelssohn s wedding march premieres st audio recording made (10 seconds long) 1860 the pearl fishers premieres lincoln gives gettysburg address first u.s. military draft st photo taken of the moon 1841 china cedes hong kong to the british 1843 dickens a christmas carol is published 1845 self-raising flour invented st u.s. postage stamp sold in nyc 1851 isaac singer patented sewing machine st potato chip prepared in ny state borax is discovered in california temporary insanity 1st used as a defense flush toilet patented by thomas crapper lincoln assassinated by john wilkes booth first yacht race across the atleantic 1866 national women s suffrage assoc. formed in u.s.1869 blue jeans are patented strauss blue danube waltz premieres 1872 metropolitan musuem of art opens in ny camen premieres 1875 bizet dies

7 The Music of The Pearl Fishers The music of The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) will forever be compared to Bizet s Carmen and will inevitably be seen as the lesser work. Carmen is extraordinary in every way: the musical characterizations approach the work of the mature Mozart or middle-period Verdi, melodic interest never wanes, the libretto is filled with human truth, the dramatic structure is as solid as any opera written before or since, it is brilliantly orchestrated, and it is virtually indestructible. Carmen is what every opera composer strives to achieve in terms of authentic music drama. On top of all that, while it endures as one of the three or four most popular operas in the repertoire, it has tunes which have entered the consciousness of people from every strata of society, in virtually every country in the world. On those terms, The Pearl Fishers can hardly compete. But Bizet s earlier opera (his sixth by most accounts, although only his second staged work) has its treasures. It certainly has no lack of melodic interest. There is, of course, the big tune, the climax of the first act duet between Zurga and Nadir, Au fond du temple saint. There are other moments which are just as memorable: Nadir s romance Je crois entendre encore, Leila s aria Comme autrefois (which is so reminiscent of Michaëla s aria in Carmen), Nadir and Leila s second act duet, and Zurga s aria O Nadir. While not the steady stream of hits that makes up the fabric of Carmen, it is still a remarkable outpouring for a composer so young in the business of writing opera. Perhaps the thing that captured the first audience s imagination in 1863 is what keeps the piece alive today: its exoticism. There are elements in the music that make it very much a part of the mid to late nineteenth century aesthetic that looked to the Middle or Far East for inspiration. (This was a typically French preoccupation, even from the earliest epoch of French operatic writing, e.g. Rameau s Les Indes galantes.) Certainly there is Here are a few highlights to listen for (minutes from the act start) ACT I 2: Sur la greve en feu The chorus sings of their fishing trip ahead and leads us in the election of Zurga as leader. 15: Au fond du temple saint The most famous duet from the opera, Nadir and Zurga sing of their friendship and keeping it faithful (i.e. not letting Leila get between them) until death do they part. 31: Brahma, divin Brahma The Chorus sings a beautiful number to their god, Brahma, as the priestess heads to the temple. 39: Le ciel est bleu! The finale. The scene ends with Leila and Nadir confessing their love. ACT II 15: De mon amie Leila sings of days gone by and Nadir replies to her from the forest. ACT III 7: J ai voulu te parler Zurga is sulking in his tent and Leila comes in to ask for guidance. 22: Ami, prends ce collier Leila s request to save Nadir is unsuccessful; she gives her necklace to the young fisher and Zurga later recognizes it and realizes just who this priestess is. 33: Plus de crainte The finale. Zurga frees the lovers and they walk off stage singing their love duet. Zurga is left to contemplate his decision as the curtain falls. the requisite battery of percussion instruments in order to communicate local color, including cymbals, kettledrums, and tambourine. But exoticism is also expressed through the heavy ornamentation of certain instrumental and vocal lines. The oboe introduction to Nadir s appearance in the second act is a case in point, as is Leila s recitative in the same act and her incantation to Siva at the end of Act I. Although Bizet didn t seek ethnic authenticity to the point that Puccini did in Madama Butterfly and Turandot, The Pearl Fishers still succeeds as an early example of exoticism, and audiences expectations are as much fulfilled by this work as by Delibes Lakmé or Saint-Saëns Samson et Dalila. One thing that sets this opera apart from efforts by other composers of the time is the sense of drive and melodic interest that exists in the recitative portions of the opera. The barriers that normally exist between numbers and recitative in French opera at this time are broken down by Bizet using various means, most interestingly through the use of fully developed melodies that carry the ear from recitative to aria or ensemble. This makes the opera move quickly and gives a greater intensity to the drama. In that this is so, The Pearl Fishers has it over Carmen because the music for the recitatives for the later opera weren t written by Bizet but by Guiraud. As someone who has always favored the opéra comique version of Carmen with spoken dialogue, I wonder what the opera would have been like with melodically driven recitatives by the composer himself! Reprinted courtesy of San Diego Opera Education and Outreach Program: Operapaedia

8 An Activity the pearl fishers: more than meets the ear painting with words? Bizet let the meaning and emotional content of the words in his operas control the music, rather than fitting the words into rhtyhms and metrical patterns already written. This is called word painting because the music paints or illustrates the word s meaning. Examples: Garth Brooks Friends in Low Places Notice how the word low in the melody is sung on a low note? Tom Petty s (covered by John Mayer) Free Fallin The melody falls when he sings the word falling in the chorus In what other songs - from today or the past - can you identify word painting? Where in the opera can you spot word painting? Hint: There are translations (called supertitiles) above the stage to help you understand what the characters are singing! Used by permission of Opera Carolina

9 Historical Context bizet and orientalism The Pearl Fishers is what s known as an orientalist work of art, a work created by the west, during the days of their colonial empires, depicting not the east itself, but rather western perceptions of the east. In nineteenth-century France, artists and audiences were crazy about this kind of subject. It allowed them to be an armchair (or opera-house box seat) traveler, to enjoy learning a little about the vast world that was opening up around them, and more importantly to fantasize about subjects (usually sexuality, despotism, and their intersection) that were taboo in western culture but theoretically out in the open in the Orient. Bizet dealt with orientalist subjects in his other operas as well. Before writing The Pearl Fishers, he was at work on an opera called The Guzla of the Emir. His short opera Djamileh is about a slave girl who s in love with and manages to win the heart of her master, a wealthy Ottoman Turk. And Bizet s masterpiece, Carmen, celebrates the threateningly bold sexuality of an extremely non-western Spanish gypsy, and shows how a repressed Catholic boy disintegrates upon coming into contact with her. Spain, Istanbul, ancient Ceylon... you could locate your exotic or orientalist story wherever you liked, so long as it was far away from Paris, the geographic center of the artists and audience s world. Originally, The Pearl Fishers was supposed to take place in pre-colombian Mexico; but as the opera was being produced for the first time, diplomatic relations between Second Empire France and Mexico were breaking down. A year later, the French army would invade Mexico on behalf of France, Britain, and Spain and set up the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg Emperor Franz Josef s little brother as Emperor Maximilien I. (Four years later, he was executed by the Mexican Republic of Benito Juárez). In an effort to avoid rubbing the French government the wrong way, the canny producers at the Théâtre Lyrique switched the location of The Pearl Fishers from ancient Mexico to ancient Sri Lanka. Obviously, they knew very little about Sri Lanka, ancient or modern. The nonsense of ancient Sri Lankans worshipping their god with French Catholic music is compounded by the fact that the libretto has them worshipping the Hindu gods Brahma and Shiva. Sri Lanka, and especially the famous temple in Kandy referenced in the tenor-baritone duet, is by and large Buddhist. But then again, whoever said Orientalist works were accurate sources of information about eastern nations? orientalism Used by permisson of Seattle Opera Orientalism is a term used to describe works of art - visual, musical or literary - that depict how Westerners perceived the East and its cultures. Be sure to check out other works too! To get you started, try these names: Eugene Delacroix & Matisse Victor Hugo s Les Orientales and Leo Tolstoy s Hadji Murat Alexander Rimksy-Korsakov s Polovetsian Dances (Prince Igor) and Mozart s Rondo alla turca

10 An Activity fishing for pearls Oddly enough, switching the location of the opera from Mexico to Sri Lanka makes sense in terms of the opera s title; people have been diving for oysters and looking for pearls in many parts of the Americas, and in the Indian Ocean, for millennia. Sri Lanka (originally called Ceylon in English, after a name given to the island by Portuguese explorers) looks across the Gulf of Mannar to southern India. These waters have long been famous for their oysters; in fact, Sri Lanka itself has been called the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. In some cases, pearl fishers are lucky enough to find oysters on shallow shelves. But more frequently, they re found at depths of 100 to 125 feet. And in the days before modern scuba gear, that made a pearl fisherman s job dangerous indeed. There s evidence that the Chinese developed long tubes that enabled pearl fishers to breathe back in the seventeenth century. Elsewhere, however, pearl fishers had to be able to grease themselves up, take a deep breath, and keep their eyes open in freezing cold salt water, while diving and collecting oysters with a net. If you survived the waves, the cold, the current, and the sharks, there was still the danger of blacking out because of the change in pressure. It was an extremely hazardous way to make a living. That s why, in the opera at least, the pearl fishers wanted to have the prettiest girl available in seclusion, praying for their safety! Used by permisson of Seattle Opera no way to make a living! What made the work of fishing for pearls dangerous in the 1800s? What are some dangerous occupations today? Why would a person want to do this type of work? How is the work made safer in the 21st century?