HANDEL'S MESSIAH

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Friday, December 16, 2022 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, December 17, 2022 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, December 18, 2022 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Marisa Karchin, soprano

Alessandra Visentin, contralto

Duke Kim, tenor

John Brancy, baritone

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus / Cheryl Frazes Hill, director

Messiah, HWV 56

PART I

1. Sinfonia (Overture)

2. Arioso (Tenor): Comfort ye my people

3. Aria (Tenor): Ev’ry valley shall be exalted

4. Chorus: And the glory of the Lord

5. Recitative (Baritone): Thus saith the Lord

6. Aria (Mezzo): But who may abide the day of his coming?

7. Chorus: And he shall purify Recitative (Mezzo): Behold, a virgin shall conceive

8. Air and Chorus (Mezzo): O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion

9. Arioso (Baritone): For behold, darkness shall cover the earth

10. Air (Baritone): The people that walked in darkness

11. Chorus: For unto us a child is born

12. Pifa (Pastoral Symphony)

Recitative (Soprano): There were shepherds abiding in the field

13. Arioso (Soprano): And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them Recitative (Soprano): And the angel said unto them

14. Arioso (Soprano): And suddenly there was with the angel

15. Chorus: Glory to God

16. Air (Soprano): Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion

18. Chorus: His yoke is easy, and his burthen is light

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

INTERMISSION

PART II

19. Chorus: Behold the Lamb of God

20. Air (Mezzo): He was despised

21. Chorus: Surely he hath borne our griefs

22. Chorus: And with his stripes we are healed

23. Chorus: All we like sheep have gone astray

24. Arioso (Tenor): All they that see him laugh him to scorn

25. Chorus: He trusted in God

26. Recitative (Tenor): Thy rebuke hath broken his heart

27. Arioso (Tenor): Behold, and see if there be any sorrow

28. Recitative (Soprano): He was cut off out of the land of the living

29. Air (Soprano): But thou didst not leave his soul in hell

30. Chorus: Lift up your heads, O ye gates

33. Chorus: The Lord gave the word

34a. Air (Soprano): How beautiful are the feet of him

35a. Chorus: Their sound is gone out

36. Air (Baritone): Why do the nations so furiously rage together?

37. Chorus: Let us break their bonds asunder Recitative (Tenor): He that dwelleth in heaven

38. Air (Tenor): Thou shalt break them

39. Chorus: Hallelujah

PART III

40. Air (Soprano): I know that my Redeemer liveth

41. Chorus: Since by man came death

42. Recitative (Baritone): Behold, I tell you a mystery

43. Air (Baritone): The trumpet shall sound

47. Chorus: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

This weekend’s media sponsor is WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO.

The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes. Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on Telarc, Koss Classics, Pro Arte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout recordings. MSO Classics recordings (digital only) available on iTunes and at mso.org. MSO Binaural recordings (digital only) available at mso.org.

Guest Artist Biographies

Marisa Karchin, soprano

Marisa Karchin

Soprano Marisa Karchin is an acclaimed performer of art song, opera, and contemporary works. An avid proponent of new music, Karchin performed Unsuk Chin’s tour de force Akrostichon - Wortspiel this fall with Juilliard’s AXIOM ensemble at Alice Tully Hall, and she recently joined the East Winds Quintet in a centennial performance of Earl Kim’s Ratting On, in addition to collaborations with the Da Capo Chamber Players, Brooklyn New Music Collective, Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, and Westchester Philharmonic. Karchin has premiered music by composers including Helen Grime at the Chelsea Music Festival and Paul Salerni with Lehigh University’s Very Modern Ensemble. Karchin is the grand prize winner of the 2018 Joy in Singing International Art Song Competition and presented her debut recital at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. Recent artist residencies include Dayton Opera and Opera Saratoga, with operatic roles including La Fée (Cendrillon), Mabel (Pirates of Penzance), Shirley Temple (Dust), and Nanetta (Falstaff). Karchin is a doctoral student at The Juilliard School and holds degrees from Yale University and Mannes School of Music. She is a founding member of the Glass Clouds Ensemble, a chamber trio with a focus on environmentalist collaborations and commissions.

Alessandra Visentin, contralto

Alessandra Visentin

One of the most fascinating voices on today’s opera and concert stages, Alessandra Visentin has appeared in some of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals, among them the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Teatro San Carlo, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées de Paris, Opera Royal de Versailles, the Salzburg Festival, the Ravenna Festival, Anima Mundi, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Festival of Macerata, Teatro Luciano Pavarotti in Modena, Opera de Reims, Festival Opera Rara and Misteria Paschalia Kraków, Umbria Musicfest, and the Performing Arts Center in Seoul, South Korea. Visentin has worked with renowned conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Frizza, Gianluca Martinenghi, Christopher Hogwood, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Ottavio Dantone, and Andrea Marcon. Recent operatic highlights feature Visentin as the Musician in Manon Lescaut at Teatro Alla Scala (Riccardo Chailly conducting) and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly at Teatro San Carlo (Gabriele Ferro conducting with staging by Ferzan Özpetek).

Previous seasons featured Visentin in The Girl of the Golden West at Teatro San Carlo (conducted by Juraj Valčuha with staging by Hugo de Ana) as well as performances of Vivaldi’s Gloria and Dixit Dominus at Teatro Manzoni conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli.

Duke Kim, tenor

Duke Kim

Tenor Duke Kim is a Grand Finals Winner of The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition (2021), a second-place winner of the Operalia Competition (2022), and a recent graduate of the Cafritz Young Artist Program at Washington National Opera.

In 2022.23, Kim debuts with Seattle Opera for La traviata (Alfredo); The Glimmerglass Festival, Florentine Opera, and Opera San Antonio for Roméo et Juliette (Roméo); The Atlanta Opera for Don Giovanni (Don Ottavio); and returns to Palm Beach Opera for Così fan tutte (Ferrando). Future engagements include debuts with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Pittsburgh Opera.

2021.22 engagements included Come Home: A Celebration of Return (soloist), Carmen (Le Remendado), and a workshop of Jeanine Tesori’s new opera Grounded (Eric) at Washington National Opera. On the concert stage, he debuted with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Noseda in Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem and Eine kleine Freimaurer - Kantate, KV 623, and Bach’s Magnificat; The Santa Fe Symphony for A Night at the Opera; and Grant Park Music Festival in Haydn’s Creation.

He is a graduate of Chapman University and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.

John Brancy, baritone

John Brancy

During the 2022.23 season, Grammy Award-winning baritone John Brancy makes his role debut as Escamillo in Carmen with MasterVoices at Jazz at Lincoln Center in a newly translated English version by Broadway legend Sheldon Harnick directed by Sammi Cannold; takes on the role of Franz Wolff-Metternich in the world premiere of La Beauté du monde, by playwright Michel Marc Bouchard and composer Julien Bilodeau, at Opéra de Montréal; and performs as a soloist with Theater Erfurt in conductor/composer Alexander Prior’s arrangement of Schubert’s Winterreise for orchestra. Brancy will also reprise Heroes for NYFOS in collaboration with Charles Yang and Peter and Kara Dugan.

Brancy also released a self-produced collaborative album with Avie Records and Vocal Arts DC, The Journey Home: Live from the Kennedy Center which presented Brancy and pianist Peter Dugan in a recital program inspired by the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The recital was filmed and aired on the new PBS app AllArts TV. Brancy also sang and recorded selections from Hanns Eisler’s Hollywooder Liederbuch with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra in Los Angeles as well as joined forces with Tony Award–winning composer Adam Guettel to create a short film titled Medusa as part of his song cycle Myths and Hymns, produced by MasterVoices, which has also featured artists Dove Cameron, Renée Fleming, and Cheyenne Jackson.

Program notes

by J. Mark Baker

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

Born 23 February 1685; Halle, Germany • Died 14 April 1759; London, England

Messiah, HWV 56

Composed: 1741

First performance: 13 April 1742; Dublin, Ireland

Last MSO performance: December 2021; Ken-David Masur, conductor; Alisa Jordheim, soprano; Ginger Costa-Jackson, mezzo soprano; David Portillo, tenor; Ethan Vincent, baritone

Instrumentation: 2 oboes; bassoon; 2 trumpets; timpani; harpsicord; organ; strings

Approximate duration: 2 hours and 5 minutes

In a manic white heat, the 56-year-old Handel composed his beloved, best-known work in just over three weeks: Messiah was written between 22 August and 14 September 1741. Despite the appropriation and adaptation of music written earlier – most notably, several Italian love duets from July 1741 – the feat remains a miracle in the history of Western music. The master himself led the Dublin premiere the following spring. The proceeds went to several worthy causes, including the Charitable Musical Society for the Relief of Imprisoned Debtors. To this very day, Messiah continues to impact the social and cultural fabric of society.

When he penned Messiah, Handel had been a part of London musical life for some 30 years, mainly as a composer of Italian opera. With the growth of the middle class, that genre started to fall into disfavor, a clear sign of opposition to the nobility, its principal patrons. Handel – a German in England creating stage works in Italian – then began also to write oratorios in English. Success came, though not immediately, with Messiah

Among Handel’s oratorios, Messiah is an anomaly: 1) There are no characters such as one finds in, say, Sampson or Saul or Solomon; 2) There is no plot in the ordinary sense; in other words, Messiah is not a sequence of scenes from the life of Jesus linked together to form a dramatic whole; 3) The words are taken entirely from the Bible, a characteristic shared only with Israel in Egypt (1739).

The Scripture selections, compiled by art collector and music patron Charles Jennens (17001773), are divided into three parts.

· Part I: The coming of the Messiah is foretold by the prophets and brought to fruition in the birth of Jesus.

· Part II: Humanity is redeemed by Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross.

· Part III: The power of death is destroyed by Christ’s mighty resurrection.

In Messiah, Handel uniquely fuses several musical traditions: Italian opera, the English anthem, and the German passion. He gleans the fruits of a lifetime’s musical experience, writing masterfully for the soloists and orchestra. But arguably it is the astonishing power and variety of the choruses that raise the work to a higher level altogether. A man of the theatre, Handel knew how to lay hold on the dramatic potential of a given text, cogently pointing up its significance.

280 years since its first performance, Messiah remains one of the greatest oratorios of all time, an icon in the history of European music. Its ability to speak to millions of people – regardless of culture or creed – remains forever undiminished.