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A Message from the Chairman and General Manager Dear Friends, I am very proud to welcome you to OPERA San Antonio’s final production of our inaugural season at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. OPERA San Antonio is honored to be the resident opera company at the spectacular Tobin Center. This great new addition to the cultural landscape of San Antonio provides all the resident companies with an ideal venue where they can showcase and present their talents. We are delighted to partner with our orchestra, the San Antonio Symphony, and Ballet San Antonio to bring the greater San Antonio community the highest caliber of opera our area has ever seen. The performance sponsor of Il segreto di Susanna and La voix humaine is Valero Energy Corporation. None of our productions would have been possible without the extraordinary partnership between our Board of Directors, the City’s Department for Culture and Creative Development, Bexar County, the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, The Tobin Endowment, Russell Hill Rogers Fund for the Arts, Charles E. Butt, H-E-B, Frost Bank Charitable Foundation, Charles Schwab, the Greehey Family Foundation, many other business and corporations, and each and every one of YOU! Every production in our inaugural season has been brand new and specifically designed to showcase our company in the Tobin Center. Our two productions so far this season each featured a large array of national and internationally acclaimed artists, and we are highly gratified by their enthusiastic reception. None of this would have been possible without your support during this inaugural season, and we are indebted to you and thankful to have such a wonderful audience. The rarely performed double bill combining Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari and Francis Poulenc makes for an artistically satisfying way to end our very first season. I hope you will enjoy the extraordinary artistry of Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci as she makes her Texas debut — and brings our season to a perfect close! OPERA San Antonio is committed to bringing you today’s finest possible opera productions, all brought to life by acclaimed singers, directors, and designers. It is only with the support of our community that we can continue to offer great opera in the world-class venue San Antonio deserves. We hope you enjoy this final production of our inaugural season, and we look forward to your continued support of the various artistic and educational events sponsored by OPERA San Antonio. OPERA San Antonio’s future will be possible only through your continued enthusiasm and support. Please be generous now and throughout the year, so that whatever we dare to imagine we may also strive to achieve. With sincere appreciation,
Mel Weingart, Chairman and General Manager
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OPERA San Antonio
Board of Directors Mel Weingart, Chairman Charles Forster, Vice Chairman John Asel, Treasurer Margaret King Stanley, Secretary Natalie Beller Sheldon Braverman Karen Diaz Maryanne Guido Linda Hardberger Blair Labatt James Nester Eduardo Parra Marc Raney Terry Touhey Kathleen Weir Vale Ex-Officio Members Bebe Canales Inkley, President – Opera Guild of San Antonio James McCutcheon, Legal Counsel International Advisory Board Edgar Foster Daniels David Gockley Nathan Gunn Desmond Heeley Eric Owens Patricia Racette Dolora Zajick Nancy Zeckendorf 8
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2014-2015 Season Donors
Thank you!
The Board of Directors, artists and staff of OPERA San Antonio gratefully acknowledge the generous support from our donors: (Donations received by March 1, 2015) Founder’s Circle ($100,000 and above)
Charles C. Butt City Of San Antonio – Dept. for Culture and Creative Development Kronkosky Charitable Foundation The Tobin Endowment Terence W. Touhey
Chairman’s Circle ($50,000 to $99,999) Bexar County Commissioner’s Court Frost Bank Charitable Foundation The Greehey Family Foundation H-E-B Russell Hill Rogers Fund for the Arts
Underwriter ($25,000 to $49,999) Charles A. Forster Blair and Barbara Labatt The Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation The Tobin Theatre Arts Fund Mel and Sandra Weingart
Sponsor ($10,000 to $24,999)
Asel & Associates Dr. Barry and Natalie Beller Dr. Karen Diaz and Joe Johnson Tom Edson Frost Bank The Gorman Foundation Guido Brothers Construction Marie Halff John C. and Susan Kerr Jim McCutcheon Marshall B. Miller and Claudia Huntington Gerald and Pat Schulz Dr. Kimberly Terry Albert and Kathleen Weir Vale
Patron ($5,000 to $9,999) Michael and Molly Amini Anonymous Dr. Sheldon Braverman Charles Schwab & Co. James F. and Janet Dicke The Fletcher Jones Foundation Tom and Pat Frost The Jim and Agnes Lowe Fdn. James and Aurora Nester Eric Owens
Alice C. Simkins SRO Associates, Inc.
Benefactor ($2,500 to $4,999)
Ann Griffith Ash Al and Mary Jane Ely Israel Fogiel Hon. Phil and Linda Hardberger Kendra Scott Patrick J. and Joan Kennedy The John and Florence Newman Foundation Margaret King Stanley Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Sue E. Turner The Watson Foundation Keith and Mary Young
Fellow ($1,000 to $2,499)
Arthur G. Augustine, Atty. J. Scott and Karin Beckendorf Marion Bell James R. and Ruth Berg Mike and Beverly Birnbaum Dr. Ronald K. Calgaard James Calvert Lance W. Cameron Bebe Canales Inkley Michael Christopher James and Gloria Clingman Barbara Condos Lisa S. Cox Richard W. Evans, Jr. Five and Dime General Stores, Mr. and Mrs. Earl Potter Mike and Barbara Gentry Stephen L. and Libby Golden Herrmann Family Charitable Foundation Lamont Jefferson Plato and Dorothy Karayanis Ronald Keller Joseph B. and Carolyn Labatt David and Kathleen Meriwether Bill and Camilla Parker Eduardo Parra Linda Purcell, in honor of Dr. and Mrs. George Edward Purcell Marc and Gail Raney Carolyn B. Sanders Philip J. Sibley Dr. Edward R. Staffel Jean Stein Terracina Family Foundation
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Fellow (continued)
Dr. Emily Ellen Volk Loren S. Weingart and John F. Mooney Dr. John A. Williamson Mr. C. Thomas Wright Bartell and Molly Zachry
Contributor ($500 to $999)
Aaron Asel Betty Barnes Phillip F. and Sarah Alice Benson Margie Boldrick Michael Davis Dr. Harry Eastman Ian and Dr. Cecilia Alejandra Garcia-Mitchell Dr. James Griffin Sarah E. Harte Gary and Angela Hoeffler Dr. Gregory Jackson Joe Johnson V Rosemary Kowalski Joan Lynch Neiman Marcus Anastasia McKenna Dr. Michael Ozer Dr. Carmen Perez Matilda Perkins and Michael Freeburger Patricia Pratchett Chere Reneau Ira and Susan Ross Iris Rubin Leland Rudofsky Linda Seeligson Ruth Eilene Sullivan Harry Swearingen Mrs. Janelle Tye Sergio and Alice Viroslav Joe and Janet Westheimer
Supporter ($250 to $499) Ben and Janet Adams A J Anderson Margie Arlitt Roger Bessey Mary Ann Bruni Shirley W. Bryan Arturo Camacho Dya Campos Raymond and Keena Cole Mrs. Markley Crosswell A Baker and Sally Duncan Dr. Charles H. and Elinor DuVal Richard and Toni Goldsmith Mary Jane Howe Ed B. Hymson Norman and Linda Idleberg Judith Lachman Elizabeth McMillian Joseph P. Murgo
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Daniel O’Connor George and Margo Olson Jane Cheever Powell Kendall Purpura Epitacio R. V. Resendez Dr. Morton and Marianne Schreiber Sam and Lynn Stahl Rachel Stalnaker Keith Swinney Steven Tyler Coella Walk Brian Weiner Michael and Margaret Wiederhold Lyle Williams Mrs. Leon C. Wulfe, Jr.
Friend ($100 to $249)
Dr. Horatio Aldredge Cristina Ortega Alton Bradford R. and Peg Breuer Dr. Terry Burns Dr. William J. Chiego Harriet E. Christian Francisco Cigarroa Anne Connor Sally T. Cooper Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Drought Mildred Ehrenberg Rafael Escandon Roger Foxhall Kathleen Garrison John R. and Joella Gordon Dr. Nichols Grimes Thomas Guggolz Arthur Gurwitz Ruth Jean Gurwitz Diana S. Hamner Friedrich W. and Marie Hanau-Schaumburg William L. Heffner Emma Heymann Yvette Kalter Stephen Kowalski Glen J. Krueger Dr. Carl Leafstedt Dr. Christine Mayer-Varela Aren Murray James Nelson Benita Newman Amy Phipps Nathan Poerner Dr. Arthur and Bari Rosenthal Judith Sobre Elsie Steg MacGregor Stephenson Carol Sugarman Shaun Sullivan Elizabeth Venson Dr. Yilmaz Yetmen Dr. Leopoldo Zorrilla
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Opposites Attract: Opera Close-Up on a Comic-Tragic Double Bill In the pioneering days of film, the new medium borrowed a great deal from the acting style of the opera stage. Opera performers had long been versed in the art of conveying larger-than-life emotions in a universal language. And the big gestures, impressive stage sets, elaborate costumes, and voices soaring above a powerful orchestra — grand opera nineteenth-century style, in short — are what still spring to mind immediately for many when they think of opera in general. But opera actually began as a performance art for the intimate spaces of Italian courts. In the four centuries and counting of its history, opera — like film, for that matter — has evolved into many subgenres, and each has its particular strengths and ways of moving an audience. This final production of OPERA San Antonio’s inaugural season brings yet another perspective on the opera experience, following Tobais Picker’s Fantastic Mr. Fox and Richard Strauss’s Salome. Instead of the epic, the focus here is close up and personal — an ideal way to showcase the legendary talents of Anna Caterina Antonacci, an artist renowned not only for the beauty of her voice but for her theatrical presence as well. (See our interview starting on p. 24.) In fact, this kind of chamber opera — as these intimate works calling for small casts are sometimes called — has become an area of remarkable innovation in the American opera scene today. And chamber opera is especially well-suited to the atmosphere of the Carlos Alvarez Studio Center in the new Tobin Center. Along with the work of Anna Caterina Antonacci and Wayne Tigges (Susanna’s husband Gil in Il segreto di Susanna), the performance space allows you to enjoy the finely detailed work of the much-in-demand young director James Darrah and his design team. Operas don’t have to be epic in terms of their length or the sweep of their drama, either. There’s something deliciously satisfying about a story line condensed into the arc of a single act. Although they are much bigger in scale, Pagliacci and Cavalleria rusticana (by Ruggero Leoncavallo and Pietro Mascagni, respectively) were phenomenally successful from the start and remain two of the most popular operas in the repertory to this day — typically performed in tandem as a double bill. Both “Cav” and “Pag” breathe the same air of tragic melodrama. It was the example of their success together — first presented by the Metropolitan Opera as a double bill — that gave Giacomo Puccini the idea of an evening of one-act opera, which eventually became Il trittico (“the Triptych”). But instead of the same tone for each, he mixed tragedy and melodrama with the comic, farcical Gianni Schicchi. OPERA San Antonio’s production similarly blends comedy and tragedy to create a whole larger than the sum of the parts. The iconography of the twin masks — one laughing, the other pained by sorrow — has become the international symbol for theater itself. Already in the theater of the ancient Greeks (where the use of masks in this context was customary) Aeschylus established a famous convention pertaining to the performance of tragic plays. To alleviate the intensity of tragedy, an amusement would be presented as a foil, a kind of emotional palate cleanser. Hours spent immersed in a trilogy of interrelated tragic plays thus culminated in a short satyr play, likewise written by the tragedian; not exactly a comedy, the satyr play was a rowdy, earthy burlesque that parodied the same mythic sources used straightforwardly in tragedy. In today’s culture, we’ve become accustomed to ambiguous mixtures that rupture the barriers between the tragic and comic — think Breaking Bad or the deadpan style of the Coen Brothers’ films — but there’s a very different quality to the experience of the tragic being overlaid on the comic in a sequence of performances. Which is why OPERA San Antonio’s special double bill (fondly nicknamed “Segroix” in-house) makes for such an intriguing way to end the company’s inaugural season. In place of the natural sense of resolution encouraged by comedy, our program’s order comedy —-> tragedy traces a very different emotional journey. 11
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Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna premiered in Munich in 1909, while Francis Poulenc’s La voix humaine opened a half century later in 1959 in Paris. Both were immediate successes, yet each was written under vastly different circumstances. Anna Caterina Antonacci recalls how she was struck by the overall effect both works had on audiences when she first took part in performances of these operas side by side as a double bill a few years ago at the Opéra-Comique in Paris — the very venue where Poulenc’s opera had had its premiere. “The Human Voice is so much about interiority and psychological intimacy; Secret is situational and comedic,” remarks Darrah, “so, on the surface, there’s not a lot in common between them. But as we began the design process, we started talking about what these operas do share in exploring the visceral relationships of love. So, without wanting to hit the audience over the head or to introduce anything that would be untrue to either piece, we decided to create a world onstage that works for both characters in an intimate space.” What if, in other words, Susanna and Elle are in fact the same woman on some level? One thing to keep your eye out for in this production might be clues suggesting a deeper connection. Take that striking wool cape and oxblood dress Susanna doffs at her first entrance…. Although Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948) might seem to be an obscure composer nowadays, his operas were all the rage a little over a century ago, in the decade before the First World War. Il segreto di Susanna — which remains his best-known work — was being staged all over the place and reached New York three years after its premiere. (Curious fact: it was first performed in a German translation, as Susannens Geheimnis, before being given in the composer’s original Italian version.) Wolf-Ferrari’s father, August Wolf, was a Bavarian painter, and the son was groomed to follow in August’s footsteps until he opted to make music his career instead: “At 16 I went to Rome to study painting” but ended up composing “fugues when faced with naked female models,” as he described it in an early verbal self-portrait. He tended toward a conservative but melody-rich style precisely when this was going out of fashion among the avant-garde — another reason for his eventual neglect. Starting with the triumph of his 1903 comic opera, Le donne curiose (“The Inquisitive Woman,” based on a classic comedy by Carlo Goldoni), Wolf-Ferrari became box-office gold, a contender with the likes of his peer Puccini. One critic announced that this young composer had achieved an epochal breakthrough, and even declared that “at long last a savior has appeared who can teach us to laugh in music.” Yet the talented composer endured a great deal of sadness in his own life. The unusual name encodes his dual nationality as the son of a German father and an Italian mother, and Ermanno’s allegiance to both cultures led to a serious, lasting depression when the two countries went to war with each other in 1914. It seemed like a personal affront, and he was unable to compose for years; the winning streak came to an end. Wolf-Ferrari did resume productivity in the ensuing decades and in fact left behind a trove of chamber music works along with some 13 mature operas. (Another which is sometimes encountered today is Sly, a treatment of portions of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew from 1927.) He died and was buried in Venice, the city of his birth. In Il segreto di Susanna — which he calls an intermezzo, i.e., an interlude — Wolf-Ferrari hit on just the right ingredients, and in pleasing proportions, to create an enduring piece of music theater. Fans of the verismo style of the “Cav-Pag” double bill and of Puccini have a special treat in store here, since Secret affectionately parodies the violent, “real-life” melodrama that became verismo’s signature — particularly in the setup of Conte Gil’s jealous motivation and his reaction to Susanna’s presumed adultery. Yet Secret also pays homage to the earlier tradition of Italian opera buffa (the style we know and love from Mozart’s and Rossini’s Figaro operas). Passages of relaxed, speech-like recitative alternate with lyrical outpourings, while Wolf-Ferrari enlivens the most trivial, ordinary details with theatrical pacing and musical poetry. (Another one-act opera treating domestic misunderstanding in a very ordinary setting is Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti.) Sometimes a cigarette is just a cigarette, but sometimes … it is a gorgeous aria. 12
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Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) made his name as a debonair stylist, an enfant terrible given to sly charm and easy-going musical pleasure. The openly gay composer liked to wink at the charges of superficiality often lobbed against him, famously confessing a taste for “adorable bad music” he had inherited from his mother, who first taught her gifted son piano. His grandfather’s successful business in the pharmaceutical industry ensured a comfortable upbringing and a well-rounded education — although, curiously, Poulenc had relatively little formal training in composition. The style he initially cultivated seemed typical of a prevailing interwar attitude — of an era grown impatient with what had come to be regarded as the bloated trumpery of Romantic egoism. Poulenc started out as part of the avant-garde circle around Erik Satie, the maverick who had made a career of puncturing holes in the armor of Serious Art. Still, the glittering surfaces of many of Poulenc’s scores are signs of an attempt at detachment that never fully conceals his longing for “old-fashioned” expressiveness. The critic Andrew Porter once made the sharp observation that, at heart, Poulenc “was a Romantic and sentimental composer who never quite let himself go” and that it is precisely this tension that is “the source of that ambiguity which gives his music its piquancy and distinctive tone.” La voix humaine is rife with a haunting sense of ambiguity: in its psychological subtexts and in Poulenc’s harmonic language and approach to the singing/speaking/reflecting voice. Indeed, for all the surface simplicity of its plot of a couple’s breakup in the course of a phone call, the work seems to continually raise more questions than it answers. It began as a spoken play by the writer, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), with whom Poulenc had collaborated very early in his career and who became an unofficial spokesman for the aims of Poulenc and like-minded composers in Paris between the two world wars. Cocteau’s monologue was premiered by the Belgian actress Berthe Bovy in 1930 (creating something of a minor scandal at the time). When it came time for the opera in 1959, Cocteau served as set and costume designer, director, and personal coach to Poulenc’s soprano, Denise Duval. Poulenc made one contribution to the grand opera tradition with Dialogues des Carmélites (premiered in 1957), the second of his three operas. His first, Les Mamelles de Tirésias (“The Breasts of Tiresias,”1947), drew from a gender-bender farce by Surrealist forefather Apollinaire and is as utterly different in tone from the other two as one of the above-mentioned Greek satyr plays would have been from the tragic trilogy to which it was appended. Although La voix humaine — classified by the composer as a “tragédie-lyrique” — was written for soprano and orchestra, Poulenc prepared a piano version, not just a “reduction” of the score, which he himself performed on occasion. This is the version we hear in OPERA San Antonio’s presentation of the work. (A recording of the piano version is available on a Champs Hill DVD featuring Felicity Lott as Elle and Graham Johnson on piano.) The relentless closeup on the protagonist Elle as she addresses her unseen “Chéri” in Voice forces Poulenc to deal with several unusual theatrical and musical challenges but never becomes gimmicky. He gives the audience tiny doses of a spectrum of emotional reactions Elle experiences — in his own way, transforming the “prosaic” details of everyday life into a rare, haunting poetry. Rather than a vast, 40-minute-long aria, Voice presents a musical psychogram. (Is Elle, perhaps, speaking to herself after all?) “The ambiguity at the end of La voix humaine can be beautiful,” says Darrah, “as long as it has the thread of truth and doesn’t invalidate what we have seen up to that point. I really believe that the audience can tell if something feels trumped up, and whether the artists who are bringing the production to life have invested in the truth of their characters.” —Thomas May, OPERA San Antonio’s contributing writer, is an internationally published essayist and journalist on the arts and blogs at memeteria.com. 13
OPERA San Antonio
PRESENTS an Italian/French Double Bill Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Il segreto di Susanna libretto by Enrico Golisciani Francis Poulenc
La voix humaine
libretto based on the play by Jean Cocteau Sponsored in part by Valero Energy Corporation
Thursday March 12, 2015 7:30pm │ Sunday March 15, 2015 2:00pm Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater │ Tobin Center for the Performing Arts Conductor
Production
Andrés Cladera
Chromatic
Director James Darrah
Scenic, Lighting and Properties Designers Emily Anne MacDonald Cameron Jaye Mock
Co-Director and Costume Designer Peabody Southwell Production Stage Manager Michelle Engleman
Wig and Make-up Designer Stephanie Williams
Il segreto di Susanna is performed using the chamber orchestration by Maria Carmela Corso as prepared by Andrés Cladera. La voix humaine is performed using the composer’s own version of the score for solo piano accompaniment.
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Il segreto di Susanna Susanna Conte Gil
Piano
Anna Caterina Antonacci Wayne Tigges Aaron Likness
Members of the San Antonio Symphony Music Director, Sebastian Lang-Lessing Associate Conductor, Akiko Fujimoto │ Music Director Emeritus, Christopher Wilkins Violin I Bonnie Terry
Flute Martha Long
Violin II Mary Ellen Goree
Oboe Paul Leuders
Viola Emily Freudigman
Clarinet Ilya Shterenberg
Cello Ken Freudigman
Bassoon Sharon Kuster
Horn Jeff Garza Director of Orchestra Personnel, Karina Bharne │ Stage Manager, Robert Mines
La voix humaine
Woman
Piano
Anna Caterina Antonacci Donald Sulzen
The performance will last two and a half hours, including one 20-minute intermission. The use of cameras, cell phones, and any kind of recording equipment is strictly forbidden. PLEASE TURN OFF AND REFRAIN FROM USING ALL ELECTRONIC DEVICES. 15
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Production Credits Costumes Constructed in Los Angeles by Draper Scenery Constructed by
Chromatic Emily Anne MacDonald Dallas Stage Scenery
Thomas May Greg Harrison Deborah Vandergrift Raul McGinnes, SRO Associates, Inc. Dr. William McCrary Miguel Roberts Rex Harder Emily Pease Juyla Jara Andrew Thornton
Program Content Writer Company Photographer Production Manager Wardrobe Supervisor Pre-Performance Lecture Supertitles Properties Production Assistant Production Runner Body Double
Marketing and Public Relations by LHA Public Relations, Laura Hernandez Aplin Graphic Design by Full Nelson Productions, Jennifer Nelson Program Advertising by Traveling Blender, Louis Doucette Special Thanks Opera Guild of San Antonio Karen Miller The Tobin Theatre Arts Fund Founding Artistic Director, Tobias Picker Management & Staff, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts
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Synopsis - Il segreto di Susanna The jealous Count Gil rushes home after believing he has seen his young wife, Susanna, out in the street without him. Upon arriving, he sees Susanna playing the family piano and sighs in relief. But his relief is short-lived. Gil smells tobacco; he doesn’t smoke, nor does Susanna or the servant. She must have a smoking lover. He tells Susanna of his suspicion, which she dispels. Ashamed, Gil embraces his wife, but then smells smoke on her clothing, arousing Gil’s jealousy again. Susanna gives in; she has a secret, but doesn’t want to tell her husband. Infuriated and suspecting the worst, Gil rummages through the house, looking for clues of the lover’s visit. As the enraged Count leaves to cool off, Susanna brings him an umbrella, and the two reconcile. Gil leaves. Susanna takes out the pack of cigarettes she had been hiding and has a smoke. Gil comes back, and, smelling the smoke, is sure he has finally caught Susanna in the act; he looks for the lover but to no avail. Deliriously he leaves again and the saucy Susanna lights up another. Gil, waiting to pounce, bursts back in, convinced he will find the lover at last, and, grabbing Susanna’s hand, is burned by the cigarette. Husband and wife kiss and make up — and have a smoke together.
Synopsis - La voix humaine Elle sits alone in her room, nervously waiting while she stares at the phone. Her ex-lover finally calls. She speaks with him about their past relationship, its problems, her jealousy, her mistakes, his mistakes, and the reasons they are no longer together. The phone line goes dead, and Elle suspects that her ex is surreptiously calling from his new girlfriend’s place. When he calls back, she reveals her suspicion but gets no clear answer. She then reveals to her ex that she even attempted suicide over their ended relationship, and that the phone itself has become an obsession for her. The call drops again, and when he calls back, Elle reveals that she has the phone cord tied around her neck; she tells him one more time that she loves him, then drops the phone.
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Artist Biographies Anna Caterina Antonacci* (Elle and Susanna) Soprano
Established as one of the finest sopranos of her generation, Anna Caterina Antonacci launched her career winning prestigious prizes at the Voci Verdiane, Callas, and Pavarotti Competitions. Following the brilliant Rossini of her early years, she moved on to Rossini’s opera seria roles in such works as Mosè in Egitto, Semiramide, Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra, and Ermione. Antonacci also introduced Donizetti’s queens, Mozart’s Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Elektra (Elektra) and Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito) into her repertoire. These were followed by Gluck’s Armide, which was staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi and directed by Riccardo Muti and which opened the 1996-97 season at La Scala in Milan; Alceste in Parma and Salzburg; and Cherubini’s Medea in Toulouse and at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Antonacci’s triumph as Cassandra in the Châtelet’s 2003 production of Les Troyens with Sir John Eliot Gardiner signaled a shift toward the great heroines of the French repertoire, following in Régine Crespin’s footsteps. In La Juive and Carmen, at Covent Garden under Pappano and at the Opéra-Comique under Gardiner, respectively, she revived a tradition of French singing in the spirit of the legendary Pauline Viardot. Antonacci’s portrayal of two roles — Poppea and Nero (L’incoronazione di Poppea), in Paris and Munich — inspired Era la notte, her one-woman show based on Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. Equally accomplished in the recital hall and on the operatic stage, Antonacci’s relationship with the pianist Donald Sulzen has allowed her to increasingly focus on song, whether Italian (Tosti and Respighi) or French — most notably by Fauré (L’horizon chimérique), Debussy, and Reynaldo Hahn. With the premiere of La voix humaine and concerts of Fauré’s Pénélope and Reyer’s Sigurd, 2013 was a landmark year. Highlights of the past year have included Carmen at the Royal Opera, conducted by Daniel Oren; Les Troyens at La Scala; and Antonacci’s debut in Iphigénie en Tauride at the Grand Théâtre de Genève.
Wayne Tigges* (Conte Gil) Bass-baritone
Lauded by the Chicago Sun-Times for his “rich, dark tone and beautiful legato,” Wayne Tigges also makes his company debut with this production. In the current season he sings Der fliegende Holländer (Milwaukee), Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress (Santiago), Gustavo in Handel’s Faramondo (Brisbane), and Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviiglia, as well as Justice Sir Alfred Wills and Colonel Henry B. Isaacson in Morrison’s Oscar (Philadelphia). He also sings Verdi’s Requiem as a guest artist at Princeton University. Recent operatic engagements have included Tobias Picker’s Dolores Claiborne (San Francisco Opera, world premiere); Giulio Cesare (Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago); Le nozze di Figaro (Ongaku-Juku Festival); Carmen (Glyndebourne Festival, San Diego Opera); The Makropolous Case (Opéra National de Paris); Les contes d’ Hoffmann, Alceste, Il barbiere di Siviglia, and La donna del lago (Santa Fe Opera); Das Rheingold (Los Angeles Opera); Le nozze di Figaro and Il barbiere di Siviglia (Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera Colorado); Hamlet (Minnesota Opera); Albert Herring (Toulouse Opera); Don Giovanni (Pittsburgh Opera); Le comte Ory (Des Moines Metro Opera); Don Giovanni and Tosca (Austin Lyric Opera); and Salome (Arizona Music Festival and the Philadelphia Orchestra). Tigges’ concert engagements include appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Cincinnati May Festival, Cleveland Orchestra, and Washington Chorus. *OPERA San Antonio debut 18
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Aaron Likness* (Il segreto di Susanna) Aaron Likness is an active pianist and collaborator in the New York and Boston metropolitan areas, hailed for “superb clarity” and “effortless elegance” in performances of a wide variety of classical, avant-garde, and contemporary music. Recent seasons have included appearances with Callithumpian Consort, Collage New Music, Discovery Ensemble, Dr. Faustus, East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, the Fidelio String Quartet, and members of the Boston Symphony in such venues as Boston’s Goethe-Institut, Jordan Hall, and Sanders Theatre, and New York’s (le) poisson rouge. His performances have also been broadcast on WGBH’s Live from Fraser series. An enthusiastic advocate of new music, Likness has worked with such leading composers as Hanspeter Kyburz, Tristan Murail, Tobias Picker, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Christian Wolff. He has also performed U.S. and world premieres of works by Beat Furrer, Jonathan Howard Katz, Ryan Krause, Katarina Miljkovic, Stratis Minakakis, Wolfgang Rihm, Vanessa Wheeler, and other composers of the new generation. His adventurous performances and collaborations have included Rzewski’s Coming Together with poet Saul Williams, Cage’s raucous masterpiece Concert for Piano and Orchestra with conductor Stephen Drury, video and multimedia works, music for amplified toy pianos, and performances of traditional Javanese music with Gamelan Nyai Saraswati and Boston Village Gamelan. Likness is a member of Boston’s acclaimed new-music sinfonietta, Sound Icon. A native of Durham, NC, Likness attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning the school’s most prestigious awards in performance and composition. He went on to pursue graduate studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he was named recipient of the John Cage Award for outstanding performances of contemporary music. Currently based in New York, Likness is a DMA candidate at CUNY Graduate Center. His principal teachers have been Thomas Otten, Stephen Drury, and Ursula Oppens.
Donald Sulzen* (La voix humaine) Donald Sulzen is one of the few pianists who have attained highest international recognition in two realms of classical music. Not only is he a collaborator with some of the world’s most celebrated singers, such as Anna Caterina Antonacci, Laura Aikin, Thomas Cooley and James Taylor, but he is also the pianist of the renowned Munich Piano Trio. His extensive concert activity includes tours through the most prestigious recital halls of Europe, the U.S., South America, and Japan. Numerous recordings for radio and television as well as thirty CD productions document the high artistic level of this pianist. After teaching for several years at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst “Mozarteum” in Salzburg, he accepted a professorship for the instruction of song duos at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, where he presently resides. Donald Sulzen’s passion to combine the musicians of his trio with his vocal artists is revealed through unique CD recordings involving works of Joseph Haydn, Alberto Ginastera, Ned Rorem, and Astor Piazzolla.
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Chromatic* Chromatic is a new Los Angeles-based production company led by director James Darrah, whose collective of interdisciplinary artists collaborate to create aesthetic theatrical experiences across blurring media. Comprised of directors, production designers, illustrators, fine artists, photographers, writers, and performers, the group combines their prismatic skills for original projects within the realms of theater, opera, film, design, special events, and visual curation. In the past year, members of Chromatic have participated on projects with Relativity Media, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Beth Morrison Projects, Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, PBS, Opera Omaha, wildUp, Pacific Musicworks, LA Opera, Los Angeles Theater Center, HBO Network, the Sundance Institute, San Francisco Opera, and San Francisco Symphony, with whom Chromatic’s production of Britten’s Peter Grimes was described as “one of the strongest, most theatrically imaginative, musically and dramatically compelling productions of the work I have seen” by the Wall Street Journal.
Andrés Cladera Conductor
A native of Uruguay, South America, Andrés Cladera is the Resident Conductor at OPERA San Antonio, Artistic Director of Emerald City Opera, and Artistic Director of The Microscopic Opera Company. He has prior conducting experience with OPERA Antonio, Opera Colorado, Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic, Edgewood Symphony, Pittsburgh Early Music Consort, and Chatham Baroque. Cladera holds a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from Carnegie Mellon University and Bachelors of Fine Arts degrees in Piano and Vocal Performance from College of Charleston. Cladera was awarded the 2007 Outstanding Young Conductor of the Association of Choral Directors of America.
James Darrah* Director
Los Angeles-based director, designer, and visual artist James Darrah makes his OPERA San Antonio debut with this double bill of Il segreto di Susanna and La voix humaine. He leads the new LA-based production and design company Chromatic. Darrah’s credits this year have already included curating the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Hommage à Klaus Nomi and HK Gruber’s “Frankenstein!!” both of which were conducted by John Adams, as well as a new staged production of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis conceived and conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, which Darrah directed in a co-production between the LA Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony. Other recent projects include a new production of John Adams’s A Flowering Tree in conjunction with Chromatic’s yearly collaboration with Opera Omaha, a new staging of Don Giovanni by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra with conductor Edo de Waart, a highly lauded new production of Peter Grimes for the San Francisco Symphony and Tilson Thomas, Handel’s Saul for Trinity Wall Street’s 12th Night Festival, Zappa’s 200 Motels with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, his directing debut at Lincoln Center with Handel’s Radamisto for The Juilliard School, and collaborations with Peter Sellars in staging John Adams’s The Gospel According to the Other Mary in Los Angeles and on tour to London, Paris, and the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. Darrah has taught theater and performance for the Adler Fellowship Program of San Francisco Opera and at the Cornish College of the Arts and the University of California, Los Angeles. He was also recently named as a nominee for the 2015 “Newcomer” award at the International Opera Awards. This spring Darrah will direct a new production of Strauss’s Daphne with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra.
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Michelle Engleman
Production Stage Manager Michelle Engleman is pleased to be returning to OPERA San Antonio. Recently, she stage managed The Nutcracker & Romeo & Juliet for Ballet San Antonio and Fantastic Mr. Fox for OPERA San Antonio; she also assisted on the Celebration of the Arts Performance for the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. Englemen lives and works in Pittsburgh as the Production Stage Manager for the Microscopic Opera Company and is the Events Assistant Manager for Pittsburgh Opera. She has also worked for Opera Theater Pittsburgh’s Summer Fest, Bricolage Production Company, Quantum Theatre, the August Wilson Center, and New Hazlett Theater and has been a part of National and Independent Film shoots in Pittsburgh. Nationally, Engleman has worked with Northern Stage, ECU/Loessin Summer Theatre, Missouri State Tent Theatre, People’s Light & Theatre Company, and Actors Theatre of Louisville and has toured nationally with Chamber Theatre Productions in the past. Englemen holds her B.A. in theater from Indiana University and is a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association.
Emily Anne MacDonald*
Scenic and Properties Designer
Emily Anne MacDonald’s most-recent collaboration as scenic designer was with Opera Omaha on their new production of John Adams’s A Flowering Tree. Other recent work as scenic and costume designer has been with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for their new production of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in a co-production with San Francisco Symphony. Other notable production credits include scenic design for Radamisto with The Juilliard School, Semele with Pacific MusicWorks in Seattle, Agrippina with Opera Omaha, the world premiere of The Classical Style at the Ojai Music Festival, Peer Gynt and Peter Grimes with San Francisco Symphony, Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Don Giovanni with San Francisco Opera’s Merola program, and Saul with Trinity Wall Street; and design and direction of a staging of Schubert’s Winterreise. MacDonald is an active painter, printmaker, and sculptor, having been a resident artist at Burren College of Art in County Clare, Ireland, and at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California. She is also a founding member of the new Los Angeles-based production company Chromatic.
Cameron Jaye Mock*
Scenic and Lighting Designer Cameron Jaye Mock’s most-recent design collaborations include as scenic and lighting designer for a new production of John Adams’s A Flowering Tree at Opera Omaha and as scenic designer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for their new production of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in a co-production with San Francisco Symphony. Other recent notable productions include Peter Grimes and Peer Gynt with San Francisco Symphony, Don Giovanni with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Don Giovanni with San Francisco Opera’s Merola program, Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Radamisto with The Juilliard School, Semele with Seattle’s Pacific MusicWorks, the world premiere of The Classical Style at the Ojai Music Festival, Agrippina with Opera Omaha, Saul with Trinity Wall Street, and a multi-year project with the Latino Theater Company and Los Angeles Theater Center. Additional opera credits include Dialogues des Carmélites, L’incoronazione di Poppea, the West Coast premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Flight, Dido and Aeneas, Giasone, Albert Herring, Peter Brooks’ Bizet adaptation La tragédie de Carmen, L’enfant et les sortilèges, Così fan tutte, The Golden Vanity, All the King’s Men, and L’ elisir d’amore, as well as a staging of Handel’s oratorio L’Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato. Mock is also a founding member of Chromatic, a new Los Angeles-based production company.
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OPERA San Antonio
Peabody Southwell*
Co-Director and Costume Designer Peabody Southwell is thrilled to join OPERA San Antonio as costume designer and co-director. In addition to her performances as a mezzo soprano at opera houses and symphony halls internationally with conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, James Conlon, and Robert Spano, she has established herself as a versatile artist in a range of creative endeavors. As an actor, she can be seen with Relativity Films and PBS. As a co-founder of the LA-based production company Chromatic with longtime collaborator James Darrah, she has functioned as a director, designer, and writer on works for San Francisco Symphony, the LA Philharmonic, Opera Omaha, and wild Up. She recently curated Chromatic’s immersive multimedia installation of Pulp for wild Up and Santa Barbara Arts and Lectures on the iconic grounds of the Music Academy of the West, an experimental event the LA Times described as “the future of classical music.” She maintains private clients in Los Angeles for interior, fashion, and lifestyle aesthetics.
Deborah Vandergrift* Production Manager
Deborah Vandergrift has more than twenty-five years of experience in performing arts management, including project, production, and stage management. Among the companies she has worked for are the Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, DC), Hartford Stage, Glimmerglass Opera, New Jersey Shakespeare, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, the National Theatre of Great Britain, the National Theatre of Scotland, and many others. She is particularly adept at producing new and innovative work, and she has had the privilege of facilitating the work of Michael Kahn, Joanne Akalaitis, Mark Lamos, Michael Wilson, Anne Bogart, Jonathan Munby, and Richard Foreman, among many others. Vandergrift holds an M.F.A. in Theatre Stage Management from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.A. in English and Theatre from Oberlin College.
Stephanie Williams
Wig and Make-up Designer
Based in New Braunfels, Texas, Stephanie Williams returns to OPERA San Antonio after being part of the design team for Fantastic Mr. Fox last September and Salome in January. She is Assistant Department Head of Wig and Makeup at Santa Fe Opera, Resident Wig Designer at Pegasus Theatre, and Associates/Wig and Makeup Artist at Opera Philadelphia. Recent credits include Carmen, Don Pasquale, Fidelio, Impresario/Le Rossignol, and Dr. Sun Yat-Sent at Santa Fe Opera; and Ainadamer and Don Giovanni at Opera Philadelphia. Upcoming engagements include designer in Another Murder, Another Show! at Pegasus Theatre and associate designer in Yard Bird at Opera Philadelphia.
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OPERA San Antonio
The Multifaceted Anna Caterina Antonnaci OPERA San Antonio is proud to be presenting Anna Caterina Antonacci in her first-ever performances in Texas. Acclaimed both for the arresting beauty of her voice and for a stage presence that rivets audiences, the Italian soprano — born in Ferrara and raised in Bologna — remained a rarity on this side of the Atlantic while her legend continued to grow over the past quarter century in Europe. In fact, it wasn’t until 2012 that Antonacci gave her first American recital tour. A New York Times profile at the time observed that she established her reputation through her gift for “[transforming] the coloratura of roles like Rossini’s Ermione into unforgettable characters, capturing opera’s grand suspension between naturalism and stylization.” This OPERA San Antonio production marks Antonacci’s American stage debut in the Double Bill she first introduced in Paris in 2013. Shortly before arriving in San Antonio from her current home base in Geneva, the soprano spoke about the challenges and rewards of this unusual pairing of roles.
Q: What made you decide to place these two operas together on the same bill: one comic, the other tragic — and in that order, as if to warm up the audience for the tragedy to come? ACA: It can be much more difficult to start with the deep torment and emotions of Poulenc’s La voix humaine. So the first part of the bill is funny and light. I discovered that when these operas were put together this way as I did them in Paris, the public really loved it. Q: You face an unusual task with these two one-act operas. In the first, there is only one other character besides your own who is given words — Susanna’s husband — while in the second you have to hold the stage all by yourself. How do you manage the dramatic challenge of the Poulenc in particular? ACA: When I started studying La voix humaine musically and theatrically, I found the most useful inspiration was from the movies: I discovered an English version of the original play, starring Ingrid Bergman [made for ABC Stage 67 in 1966], and it was a fantastic performance. You see only her [as Elle] and a dog in this room, and it gave me many ideas that helped me understand the Cocteau text better. I think for this piece you really need the help of a great actress.
Q: With this double bill you have to be able to manage the transition between two characters who are incredibly unalike — all in the course of a single evening. And even in the case of Poulenc’s Elle, the role calls for a variety of personalities as she reacts to each developing scenario during the phone conversation. 24
Photo Credit: © Benjamin Ealovega
w w w. o p e ra s a n a n t o n i o . c o m ACA: This is a very gratifying opportunity for me as an interpreter to show a large range of feelings and deep emotions. Poulenc gives me a very special and unique way to be dramatic that doesn’t look like anything else.
Q: What do you enjoy most about Wolf-Ferrari’s Susanna character? ACA: It’s a very funny and original story that is written in a way quite close to the verismo style of Puccini or Mascagni. I especially think of Puccini’s [trilogy of one-act operas] Il Trittico — but of course in a lighter style. The theme of Susanna’s smoking as forbidden and shocking [for a woman] at the beginning of the twentieth century might seem old-fashioned, but it’s actually become strangely relevant again today — especially in the United States! I mean, the idea that smoking in general is now frowned on. The opera shows how Susanna dreams about smoking as a moment of peace and calm: the cigarette for her is like a good friend when she’s alone at home. But this “secret” turns into a very clever comedy — funny and sparkling — when her husband mistakenly thinks she has a lover. The melodies are very lovely, a bit in the manner of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi [the comic one-act from Il Trittico].
Q: Poulenc’s emotionally tormented Elle meanwhile allows for quite a bit of interpretation and ambiguity. ACA: This story about an abandoned lover — Cocteau in fact originally wrote it based on a homosexual couple — is a universal one: it’s about the sorrow of a love being broken. A human being is left abandoned so the story involves the solitude and loneliness of breaking up — all those feelings people normally experience, which is why it is so moving. Here, too, I initially worried that this might seem to be an old-fashioned story from the era before cell phones, that it wasn’t up to date. But in performing it I realized how the story is more like the myths of a Medea or Cassandra. It has not aged at all but has an eternal quality. 25
OPERA San Antonio
OPERA San Antonio Staff
Chairman and General Manager Mel Weingart Resident Conductor AndrĂŠs Cladera Artistic and Production Coordinator Stephanie McCranie Administrative and Development Coordinator Rhanda Luna Administrative Assistant Cecille Martinez
OPERA San Antonio is supported by the City of San Antonio’s Department for Culture and Creative Development
Charles C. Butt
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OPERA San Antonio 417 8th Street San Antonio, Texas 78215 (210) 673-7270