Program - Wagner's The Ring Without Words

CLASSICS 2017/18 Colorado Symphony 2017/18 Season Presenting Sponsor:

WAGNER: THE RING WITHOUT WORDS COLORADO SYMPHONY BRETT MITCHELL, conductor Saturday's Concert is Gratefully Dedicated to Raymond and Suzanne Satter

Friday, April 20, 2018, at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 21, 2018, at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, April 22, 2018, at 1:00 p.m.

Boettcher Concert Hall

Leitmotif Demonstration

On the first half of the program, Mr. Mitchell and the orchestra will demonstrate how Wagner crafted and combined various musical themes to tell the sprawling saga of The Ring Cycle.

— INTERMISSION —

WAGNER The Ring without Words

The Rhine Gold

Greenish twilight at the bottom of the Rhine Valhalla: Home of the Gods Nibelheim: Home of the Dwarves Donner’s thunderbolt

The Valkyrie Siegmund and Sieglinde Wotan’s rage Ride of the Valkyries Wotan’s farewell

Siegfried Mime’s terror Siegfried forges the magic sword Forest murmurs Siegfried slays the dragon Twilight of the Gods Dawn Siegfried and Brünnhilde Siegfried’s Rhine journey Hagen summons the Vassals Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens Siegfried’s death and funeral march Brünnhilde’s immolation

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CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES BRETT MITCHELL, conductor Hailed for delivering compelling performances of innovative, eclectic programs, Brett Mitchell was named the fourth Music Director of the Colorado Symphony in September 2016. He served as the orchestra’s Music Director Designate during the 2016/17 season, and began his fouryear appointment in September 2017.

Mr. Mitchell concluded his tenure as Associate Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra in August 2017. He joined the orchestra as Assistant Conductor in 2013, and was promoted to Associate Conductor in 2015, becoming the first person to hold that title in over three decades and only the fifth in the orchestra’s hundred-year history. In this role, he led the orchestra in several dozen concerts each season at Severance Hall, Blossom Music Center, and on tour. Mr. Mitchell also served as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra (COYO) from 2013 to 2017, which he led on a four-city tour of China in June 2015, marking the ensemble’s second international tour and its first to Asia.

In addition to his work in Cleveland and Denver, Mr. Mitchell is in consistent demand as a guest conductor. Recent and upcoming guest engagements include his debuts at the Grant Park Music Festival in downtown Chicago, with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Auckland and Wellington, and the San Antonio Symphony, as well as appearances with the Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, National, and Oregon symphonies, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, among others. He has collaborated with such soloists as Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Rudolf Buchbinder, James Ehnes, Augustin Hadelich, Leila Josefowicz, and Alisa Weilerstein.

From 2007 to 2011, Mr. Mitchell led over one hundred performances as Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony, to which he frequently returns as a guest conductor. He also held Assistant Conductor posts with the Orchestre National de France, where he worked under Kurt Masur from 2006 to 2009, and the Castleton Festival, where he worked under Lorin Maazel in 2009 and 2010.

In 2015, Mr. Mitchell completed a highly successful five-year appointment as Music Director of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra, where an increased focus on locally relevant programming and community collaborations resulted in record attendance throughout his tenure.

As an opera conductor, Mr. Mitchell has served as music director of nearly a dozen productions, principally at his former post as Music Director of the Moores Opera Center in Houston, where he led eight productions from 2010 to 2013. His repertoire spans the core works of Mozart (The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute), Verdi (Rigoletto and Falstaff), and Stravinsky (The Rake’s Progress) to contemporary works by Adamo (Little Women), Aldridge (Elmer Gantry), Catán (Il Postino and Salsipuedes), and Hagen (Amelia). As a ballet conductor, Mr. Mitchell most recently led a production of The Nutcracker with the Pennsylvania Ballet in collaboration with The Cleveland Orchestra during the 2016-17 season.

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CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES In addition to his work with professional orchestras, Mr. Mitchell is also well known for his affinity for working with and mentoring young musicians aspiring to be professional orchestral players. His work with COYO during his Cleveland Orchestra tenure was highly praised, and he is regularly invited to work with the highly talented musicians at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the orchestras at this country’s high level training programs, such as the National Repertory Orchestra, Texas Music Festival, and Sarasota Music Festival.

Born in Seattle in 1979, Mr. Mitchell holds degrees in conducting from the University of Texas at Austin and composition from Western Washington University, which selected him as its Young Alumnus of the Year in 2014. He also studied at the National Conducting Institute, and was selected by Kurt Masur as a recipient of the inaugural American Friends of the Mendelssohn Foundation Scholarship. Mr. Mitchell was also one of five recipients of the League of American Orchestras’ American Conducting Fellowship from 2007 to 2010.

For more information, please visit www.brettmitchellconductor.com

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CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES Richard Wagner (1813-1883): The Ring without Words Orchestral Highlights from Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) Arranged by Lorin Maazel (1930-2014) Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig and died on February 13, 1883 in Venice. Der Ring des Nibelungen was composed in 1853-1857 and 1869-1874. The complete four-opera cycle was premiered August 13-17, 1876 at Wagner’s purpose-built Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Germany, conducted by Hans Richter. The Ring without Words was arranged in 1987 and premiered in December 1987 by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Lorin Maazel. The score calls for piccolo, three flutes (third also doubling piccolo), three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, eight horns (four doubling Wagner tubas), three trumpets, bass trumpet, four trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, and strings. Duration is about 75 minutes. This is the first performance of the work by the orchestra.

Wagner’s cycle of “music-dramas,” The Ring of the Nibelung, is unique in the history of art: an ancient mythological tale spread over four interdependent operas; the capstone of Romantic orchestration, harmony and emotional expression; a nodal point in the history of music; and a profound influence on Western thought, art, drama, culture, society and politics.

The vast and complex story of The Ring is told by the singers on stage, but their underlying motivations as well as the cycle’s dramatic and musical continuity are entrusted to the orchestra, whose unprecedented scale, power and importance created a sensation throughout the music world when the operas were new and set a precedent that has continued unabated since.

Wagner himself, an excellent and pioneering conductor, began the practice of performing orchestral excerpts from The Ring in concert, and instrumental selections from all four of the operas comprising the cycle have remained standard concert fare. These pieces were programmed as separate selections until 1987, when Cleveland-based Telarc International asked Lorin Maazel, a dedicated Wagnerian who had been the first American to conduct the complete Ring at the Festspielhaus (the theater Wagner had specially built in Bayreuth, Germany to stage the cycle), to weave them into a continuous work for a recording with the Berlin Philharmonic.

Maazel set himself some rules in arranging his seventy minutes of orchestra-only excerpts from The Ring’s seventeen hours of music: “ONE: The synthesis must be free-flowing (no stops) and chronological, beginning with the first note of Rheingold and finishing with the last chord of Götterdämmerung.

“TWO: The transitions must be harmonically and formally justifiable, the pacing contrasts commensurate with the length of the work.

“THREE: Most all of the music originally written for orchestra without voice must be used, adding those sections with a vocal line essential to a synthesis but only where the line is either doubled by an orchestral instrument or when it can be reproduced by an instrument.

“FOUR: Every note must be Wagner’s own.”

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CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES The recording of Maazel’s The Ring without Words was praised upon its release in 1987 and at its public premiere with the Berlin Philharmonic that December, and has since been performed frequently across Europe and America. * * * Das Rheingold — The Rhine Gold, the treasure that confers the power to rule the world on its possessor — is the dramatic engine of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen [Prelude: Greenish twilight at the bottom of the Rhine]. In the one-act opera Das Rheingold (composed 1853-1854) that opens the cycle, the dwarf Alberich braves the mighty river and steals the golden treasure from its protectors, the Rhinemaidens. Meanwhile, Wotan, chief of the gods, has charged the giants Fafner and Fasolt with building a magnificent new castle as the gods’ abode [Valhalla, Home of the Gods]. When the giants agree to accept the Rhine’s golden treasure as payment for their work, Wotan journeys to the subterranean cavern where Alberich has enslaved the race of the Nibelungs, whom he forces to mine and melt gold to add to his hoard [Nibelheim: Home of the Dwarves. The smithy Mime, Alberich’s brother, has made a magic helmet from the gold that allows its wearer to assume any form he wishes. Wotan tricks Alberich into changing into a toad, captures both the transformed dwarf and the gold, and returns with them to his mountaintop.

When Alberich refuses to take the ring from his finger, Wotan removes it by force. Alberich, infuriated, lays a solemn curse on the ring, that it may bring death to all who own it. The curse begins its devastating effect when the giants struggle over the treasure and Fafner strikes Fasolt a fatal blow. The gods’ new castle — Valhalla — is seen in the distance, beckoning as a haven of safety [Donner’s thunderbolt ]. A rainbow appears as a bridge over the valley to the castle, and the gods enter majestically into their new home while the distant cries of the Rhinemaidens for their lost gold make Wotan apprehensive about the course of future events.

In the time between Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, Wotan has come to believe that only a great hero, one free of knowledge of the past and without fear, would be able to win the Rhinegold and its power for the gods. To set his plan into motion, Wotan goes among mortals and conceives twins — Siegmund and Sieglinde — with a woman of the Volsung tribe. It is they whom he intends to bear the redeeming hero: Siegfried. The life Wotan decrees for Siegmund and Sieglinde is hard. They are violently separated in childhood: Siegmund lives for a time in the forests with his father and then alone and roughly, with frequent battles and much hardship; Sieglinde is married against her will to Hunding, of the savage Neiding tribe. * * * At the beginning of Die Walküre — The Valkyrie, (1854-1856), Siegmund is driven by a violent storm to find shelter in the house of Sieglinde and her husband, Hunding. Sieglinde comforts him, and invites him to share their meal. Hunding, however, recognizes Siegmund as his enemy, but the laws of hospitality dictate that guests remain unharmed under his roof. Later, after Sieglinde has drugged Hunding into a deep sleep, she comes to Siegmund and they sing of their love and desire [Siegmund and Sieglinde]. She tells how she was carried away by Hunding during a raid and forced to become his bride, and how her father, Wotan, had promised her she would SOUNDINGS

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CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES be rescued one day by a hero who could free a sword (called Nothung — “Need”) that the god had thrust into a tree when he unexpectedly appeared at her wedding. Memories are stirred, and the connections between the lover-twins are revealed to them in their full significance. With one powerful motion, Siegmund frees the sword and displays it to the enraptured Sieglinde.

They embrace fervently and rush into the night [The Lovers Flee]. Hunding, intent on fighting Siegmund, pursues them. Wotan and Brünnhilde, his favorite among of his nine warriordaughters known as Valkyries, watches him gaining on them. Brünnhilde tells her father that she will protect Siegmund from Hunding, but he orders her not to interfere. She tries to disobey him but he allows Siegmund to be slain and Nothung, his sword, to be shattered. Wotan then strikes Hunding dead. After gathering together the shards of Nothung, Brünnhilde flees with Sieglinde, pregnant by Siegmund with Siegfried. Wotan angrily runs after them [Wotan’s rage].

The Valkyries, having taken fallen heroes to Valhalla on their flying horses, gather on a rocky mountaintop [Ride of the Valkyries]. Brünnhilde gives Sieglinde the pieces of the shattered sword and sends her to a nearby forest where she can safely deliver Siegfried. Wotan enters and punishes Brünnhilde for her disobedience by making her mortal and putting her to sleep on the mountaintop. He bids his beloved daughter a poignant farewell and surrounds her with a magic fire that can only be penetrated by a hero worthy of her love [Wotan’s farewell]. * * * Siegfried (1856-1857, 1869-1871), the third of the Ring operas, is devoted to the young hero, raised since the death of his mother by the smithy dwarf Mime. As Siegfried begins, the treasure is in the possession of the giant Fafner, who, by using the magical golden helmet, has changed himself into a dragon to guard it. Mime, coveting Fafner’s hoard for himself, tries repeatedly to forge a sword for Siegfried strong enough to slay the fearsome monster, but the mighty youth smashes each one [Mime’s terror], so Siegfried creates a weapon for himself from the shards of Nothung, the sword of his father [Siegfried forges the magic sword]. Mime and the swaggering youth appear before Fafner’s cave. Blasts from Siegfried’s horn awaken the dragon, who emerges to confront the intruders. Siegfried plunges his sword into the monster’s heart [Siegfried slays the dragon]. Drops of the dragon’s blood burn his hand, and when he licks them off he can miraculously understand the song of the Forest Bird [Forest murmurs]. The Bird tells Siegfried that the treasure is now his but that he should be wary of Mime, who intends to poison him to gain the gold for himself. Siegfried can now understand the true intent behind Mime’s honeyed words, and slays the dwarf. The Forest Bird has yet another message for Siegfried — the Valkyrie Brünnhilde sleeps on a rock surrounded by fire, to be awakened only by the kiss of one who knows no fear. “That is I,” shouts the ardent Siegfried, who follows the Forest Bird to find the woman for whom he is filled with longing. Siegfried beholds Brünnhilde for the first time and awakens her with a kiss that ignites their rapturous love. * * *

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CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES In Götterdämmerung – Twilight of the Gods,1869-1874), dawn breaks after the preceding nighttime scene during which the three Norns (the Fates of northern mythology) foretell the inevitable cataclysm and the downfall of the gods. Morning finds Siegfried and Brünnhilde emerging from the cave in which they spent their bridal night [Dawn]. Reluctantly, Brünnhilde urges her lover to set out on further deeds of valor. They exchange pledges of undying love and precious gifts — Brünnhilde receives the fated ring made from the gold of the Rhine; Siegfried gets the noble steed Grane [Siegfried and Brünnhilde]. With ecstatic protestations of love, Siegfried departs [Siegfried’s Rhine journey]. Meanwhile, Hagen, who, like his father, the dwarf Alberich, also lusts after the ring, gathers his cohort to wrest it from Siegfried [Hagen summons the Vassals]. When Siegfried appears, Hagen gives him a potion that makes him forget his love for Brünnhilde. Siegfried journeys back to their cave [Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens], and takes the accursed ring from the stricken Valkyrie. Brünnhilde follows Siegfried to the Hagen’s abode.

Hagen arranges a hunting expedition during which he slays Siegfried and commands his vassals to bear the body back to his hall [Siegfried’s death and funeral march]. In the closing scene of The Ring cycle, Brünnhilde receives the slain body of Siegfried with the realization that he was the instrument through which the gods worked to release the world from the curse of the ring. She orders a huge funeral pyre erected and her noble steed, Grane, brought forth. In a sweeping monologue [Brünnhilde’s immolation], she vindicates Siegfried’s valor and actions, then draws the ring from the hero’s finger as he is lifted onto the pyre. Grabbing a torch, she ignites the platform and hurls the firebrand at Valhalla. She mounts Grane and vaults into the flames to die with her beloved. The Rhine surges over its banks, allowing the Rhine Maidens to reclaim the ring, thereby ending its awful curse. The purging waters recede and Valhalla, home of the gods, can be seen burning in the distance as the final curtain descends. ©2018 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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