Download program notes and libretto - WGBH

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The Boston Early Music Festival wishes to thank the following organizations and individuals for assistance with this production: the entire BEMF Niobe Directorial Team— including Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors; Gilbert Blin, Stage Director and Set Designer; Caroline Copeland and Carlos Fittante, Choreographers; Anna Watkins, Costume Designer; Lenore Doxsee, Lighting Designer; Kathleen Fay, Executive Producer; Abbie H. Katz, Associate Producer; and Ellen Hargis, Assistant Stage Director—for their painstaking and conscientious research and work preparatory to mounting Agostino Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe as the centerpiece production of the June 2011 Festival; Jörg Jacobi for editing our Boston Early Music Festival performing edition of Niobe, Regina di Tebe together with Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs; Ellen Hargis for the translation of the libretto; Andrew Sigel for his meticulous attention to detail as editor of our Festival publications including the libretto and essays throughout this Niobe section; the dedicated staff at the Cutler Majestic Theatre and Office of the Arts at Emerson College, especially Lance Olson, Thanks Sponsoring Organizations f e s t i va l o p e ra Associate Director, ArtsEmerson: The World On Stage; the staff at Emmanuel Church in Boston, especially Barbara Kroft, Parish Administrator, and The Reverend Pamela L. Werntz, Rector; High Output, Inc., and Advanced Lighting and Production Services, for providing lighting equipment; Jeff Bird and Brittany Burke, for their technical support; and United Staging, Emerson College, and Peterson Party Center for providing rehearsal props and equipment. The BEMF Choreographers would like to thank our colleagues for so generously pointing us in helpful research directions, namely Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Carol Marsh, Deda Colonna, Gloria Giordano, Barbara Sparti, Marie-Thérèse Mourey, Stephanie Schroedter, and Rose Anne Thom. Finally, BEMF Co-Choreographer Carlos Fittante would like to thank the following individuals and institutions for their assistance with movement research for Niobe: Martinez Academy of Arms; J. Allen Suddeth, Stage Combat Specialist; Islene Pinder,Founding Director of BALAM DanceTheatre; and Toshinori Hamada, Noh Theatre Actor and Martial Artist. ■ W Franco-Flemish double-manual harpsichord by William Dowd, 1974, after a Hans Ruckers transposer of 1638, courtesy of X James S. Nicolson Harpsichords of Belmont, Massachusetts. ■ Flying Effects provided by ZFX, INC. ■ Sets and Scenic Props built by the American Repertory Theatre Scene Shop, Cambridge, Massachusetts, under the direction of Stephen Setterlun, assisted by Chris Swetcky. ■ Fabric for Sets printed by Rose Brand, Secaucus, New Jersey. ■ Costumes made by The Huntington Theatre Company, in residence et Boston University: Nancy Brennan, Costume Director; Anita Canzian, Head Draper; Michelle Theresa Ross, Draper; Rebecca Hylton, First Hand; Denise Wallace, First Hand; Colin Jones, First Hand; Susie Moncousky, Stitcher; Virginia Emerson, Stitcher; Sally Ravitz, Stitcher. ■ Principals Costumes made by Annabel O’Docherty, Tracy Caulfield, and Sonja Harms, London, England. ■ Headdresses and hats made by Debbie Boyd, London, England. ■ Animal Costume provided by Western Costumes Company, North Hollywood, California. ■ Lighting Equipment provided by High Output, Inc., Canton, Massachusetts. 133 2 0 1 1 b o s t o n e a r l y m u s i c f e s t i v a l NIOBE, REGINA DI TEBE
f e s t i va l o p e ra Steffani, Opera, and Niobe Agostino Steffani (1654–1728) was a remarkable man—a natural musician who became a prominent diplomat, politician, and bishop, and an industrious Roman Catholic vicar. Furthermore, although he was born in Castelfranco, in the Veneto, he spent most of his life in Germany—at Munich (1667–1688), Hanover (1688–1703), Düsseldorf (1703–1709), and again at Hanover. The first two of these periods were dominated by music, the others by politics and religion. A contemporary of Corelli, Purcell, and Alessandro Scarlatti, Steffani was a choirboy at the Basilica del Santo in Padua and sang in Venetian opera at the ages of eleven and twelve. At the Bavarian court he was given keyboard and composition lessons by Johann Kaspar Kerll and opportunities to further his education elsewhere. From 1672 to 1674, he studied composition with Ercole Bernabei in Rome; there he published his earliest sacred works and wrote his first secular cantata.In 1678–1679 he visited Paris and Turin, where he absorbed the French style and was admired for his harpsichord playing.After his return to Munich, he was appointed Director of Chamber Music by Elector Maximilian II Emanuel, who also commissioned Steffani’s first opera for the Carnival season of 1681. During the 1680s, in addition to motets, cantatas, and chamber duets, Steffani composed five operas and the music for an equestrian ballet. Having presented Niobe in Carnival 1688, he moved in the summer to Hanover. His brief as Kapellmeister was to establish Italian opera in the magnificent new theater then nearing completion. At Hanover he composed seven full-length and two one-act operas and directed all but one in performance; Il Turno was premiered (as Amor vien dal destino) at Düsseldorf in 1709. He also achieved wider recognition. During the 1690s, six of his Hanover operas were translated into German and staged in public at Hamburg; arias from Roland (Orlando generoso) were printed at Lübeck in 1699, and instrumental music from all six operas was published at Amsterdam in ca. 1705. During the same period his numerous chamber duets circulated in manuscript throughout Europe. Although he devoted the last third of his life to affairs of church and state, he continued to compose and take an interest in music. Between 1703 and 1712 he met Handel; from 1720 he corresponded about singers and opera with Giuseppe Riva in London, and in 1727 he was elected president of the Academy of Vocal Music, for which he composed his last work—his Stabat mater, which he described as his masterpiece. a b Most of Steffani’s operas survive only in manuscript and have lain unperformed since the eighteenth century. The neglect is unmerited, not least because he took the composition of opera very seriously. In 1737 the Hamburg theorist and critic Johann Mattheson wrote: 134 m e t a m o r p h o s e s – c h a n g e a n d t r a n s f o r m a t i o n I once was told, of the world-famous and musically learned Steffani, that, before he even set pen to paper, he continually carried the opera, or the projected work [libretto], around with him for a period of time and, as it were, came to a complete agreement with himself as to how the whole thing might most suitably be organized. After that he committed his [musical] statements to paper. It is a good method, though I suspect that nowadays, when everything has to be done on the wing, there are few who take pleasure in exercising such deliberation. Mattheson was describing Steffani’s practice at Hanover, but it was at Munich that the composer developed his approach to musical drama. Most of his operas are based on ancient Greek or Roman history; four are concerned with medieval German history, and three draw on literary sources. Many are allegorical, reflecting the politics of the courts where they were written, and as in much court drama of the period, there is a heavy emphasis on spectacle. The music lies somewhere between Cavalli and Handel in style. The recitatives are shorter and more lyrical than in operas for Italy, and they often include rapid flourishes with difficult syncopation; only at moments of exceptional dramatic significance are they accompanied by orchestral strings. The arias, or ariette, are shorter and more numerous than those of Handel and his contemporaries, and not necessarily in da capo form. In some respects, however, Steffani is distinctive. Celletti describes him, along with Scarlatti, as“the late seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century composer closest to the Golden Age of bel canto singing.” His vocal parts are among the highest of the period, and his writing for tenor and bass is characterized by cantabile“grace and elegance.”His feeling for melody must derive from his experience as a singer and a linguist: there is an intimate relationship between his music and the words that inspired it. The principal sentiment is often captured in a musical“motto”(opening phrase) or a basso ostinato (ground bass)—a technique of which Steffani, like Purcell, was a master. His operas also feature an unusually high number and variety of ensembles, and in his duets, as Mattheson observed, the voices do not move simply in parallel but engage in imitative counterpoint—which is difficult to sing from memory on stage. Steffani’s love of textural variety is evident also in his use of instruments. His orchestra often includes oboes and bassoons and occasionally recorders, trumpets and drums are employed in royal or martial contexts, and Amor vien dal destino features chalumeaux. But his most original contributions of this kind are his use of one or more solo instruments, with or without orchestra, as an obbligato accompaniment to the vocal line, and the instruments are deployed in a variety of ways— sometimes playing throughout, sometimes alternating with the voice, and sometimes only used before or after the aria.
Page 1 and 2: f e s t i va l o p e ra extends hea
Page 3 and 4: f e s t i va l o p e ra Niobe, Regi
Page 5: f e s t i va l o p e ra Boston Earl
Page 9 and 10: f e s t i va l o p e ra Seven Keys
Page 11 and 12: f e s t i va l o p e ra his librett
Page 13 and 14: f e s t i va l o p e ra his offer t
Page 15 and 16: f e s t i va l o p e ra event of th
Page 17 and 18: f e s t i va l o p e ra Niobe, A Ch
Page 19 and 20: t i m e l i n e Historical Timeline
Page 21 and 22: s y n o p s i s notes on our editio
Page 23 and 24: s y n o p s i s The City of Thebes
Page 25 and 26: Ecco per ciò dalla famosa Reggia d
Page 27 and 28: Che bramando Anfione viver al ripos
Page 29 and 30: ATTO I. Scena I. Regale con Trono i
Page 31 and 32: Et in ozio trahesti, Nelle romite P
Page 33 and 34: Niobe E’ Felice il tuo Cor, ne sa
Page 35 and 36: Tiberino Suon di lontana Caccia Fà
Page 37 and 38: Manto Ahi quanto io più lo miro, e
Page 39 and 40: Creonte È Donna, ò Dea? Ahi, ch
Page 41 and 42: Scena XIV. Niobe, & Anone. Niobe An
Page 43 and 44: D’Encelado il gran Monte, Che ogn
Page 45 and 46: Scena XVIII. Nerea. Forsennato vane
Page 47 and 48: Scena XXI. Anone seguito da numeros
Page 49 and 50: Che con voglie arroganti Usurpar pr
Page 51 and 52: Manto Oh Tiranna. Tiberino Oh spiet
Page 53 and 54: Manto Si. Tiberino E gli sguardi al
Page 55 and 56: ATTO II. Scena I. Anteatro con gran
Page 57 and 58:
Niobe Che si tarda Clearte? Meco al
Page 59 and 60:
Niobe E tù più Rè non sei. Anone
Page 61 and 62:
E dal sidereo Trono Atterri il vost
Page 63 and 64:
Manto Quà mie de Compagne, ove rid
Page 65 and 66:
Marte dall’alte Sfere Di trar heb
Page 67 and 68:
Son solo gli affetti Del picciolo A
Page 69 and 70:
Per far miei di felici, Corran le F
Page 71 and 72:
Manto Hò troppo parlato, Ti basti
Page 73 and 74:
Scena II. Poliferno, e li Sudetti.
Page 75 and 76:
Anone Quanto à me fè palese Tires
Page 77 and 78:
D’una stolta eseguite? Così ante
Page 79 and 80:
Ad un subitaneo Terremoto si vedono
Page 81 and 82:
Scena XIII. À lieto suono di Tromb
Page 83 and 84:
Glossary Niobe, Regina di Tebe is d
show all

Download program notes and libretto - WGBH

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?