Poulenc & Friends
Poulenc & Friends
Featuring the Vocalis Consort & Friends:
Paul Appleby, tenor
Elise Brancheau, soprano
Rochelle Ellis, soprano
Bridgette Gan, soprano
Melanie Heyn, soprano
Scott Johnson, baritone
Barbara Rearick, mezzo-soprano
Christopher Sierra, tenor
Paul Sperry, tenor
Martin Néron, piano
Saturday, February 18 3:00 p.m.
Gill Chapel
Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ
Introductory Program Note
The Vocalis Consort, joined for the occasion by sopranos Rochelle Ellis and Melanie Heyn, mezzo-soprano Barbara Rearick, and tenors Paul Sperry and Paul Appleby, celebrates Francis Poulenc through his songs and operas. Various settings of Apollinaire, Louise de Vilmorin, Éluard, Aragon, Max Jacob, and Bernanos showcase his most significant collaborations, while the esthetic of Les Six is manifested in the music and poetry of his friends Milhaud, Cocteau, and Durey. Completing the program are two songs by Isabelle Aboulker, living proof that French mélodie is still thriving 60 years after Poulenc’s passing.
Vocalis Consort strives to feature musical works that have been traditionally overlooked, helping performers and audiences find and broaden the scope of the art song recital beyond the “traditional” Western European canon. You can learn more about Vocalis Consort at www.vocalisconsort.com
Thank you for being part of this special musical sharingwe hope you enjoy it!
Program
Caramel mou Op. 68 (Jean Cocteau)
Darius Milhaud
Paul Sperry & Martin Néron
Au-delà (Louise de Vilmorin)
Francis Poulenc
C’est ainsi que tu es
Le garçon de Liége
Aux officiers de la garde blanche
Elise Brancheau & Martin Néron
Bleuet (Guillaume Apollinaire)
Francis Poulenc
C (Louis Aragon)
Christopher Sierra & Martin Néron
From Le Bestiaire Op.17 (Apollinaire)
Louis Durey
La chèvre du Thibet
Le chat
Le lapin
L’Éléphant
La souris
La mouche
La puce
La sauterelle
Le dauphin
Le poulpe
La méduse
L’Écrevisse
Barbara Rearick & Martin Néron
From Banalités (Apollinaire)
Francis Poulenc
Hôtel
Fagnes de Wallonie
Sanglots
Scott Johnson & Martin Néron
Les mamelles de Tirésias (Apollinaire)
Poulenc
Non, monsieur mon mari
Bridgette Gan & Martin Néron
Francis
Parisiana (Max Jacob) Francis Poulenc
Jouer du Bugle
Vous n’écrivez plus?
Paul Sperry & Martin Néron
Le lion devenu vieux Isabelle Aboulker
Escale à Rio
Rochelle Ellis & Martin Néron
Tel jour telle nuit (Paul Éluard) Francis Poulenc
Bonne journée
Une ruine coquille vide
Le front comme un drapeau perdu
Une roulotte couverte en tuiles
À toutes brides
Une herbe pauvre
Je n’ai envie que de t’aimer
Figure de force brûlante et farouche
Nous avons fait la nuit
Paul Appleby & Martin Néron
Dialogues des Carmélites (Georges Bernanos) Francis Poulenc
Mes chères filles j’ai encore à vous dire … Ave Maria
Melanie Heyn, Carmélites, & Martin Néron
Program Notes, Text, and Translations:
Jean Cocteau
Cocteau flirts with Dada esthetic with this nonsensical text, added to Milhaud’s unapologetically French pastiche of American Jazz. The text is far from being random though, for Cocteau and Dadaists did not mix well. Caramel mou refers to the vendors who would yell “Caramel mou, bonbon acidulé, pastille de menthe” during the intermission at the circus. Cocteau is faithful to his mission to bring French art back to its popular roots and suggests the gloom of the working class suburbs, an atmosphere its inhabitants attempted to elude in the illusion of the circus.
Soft Caramel
Take a young girl. Fill her with ice and gin, shake it all up to make it androgynous And return her to her family Hello, hello, operator don’t cut me off Ah! how sad it is to be the king of animals, Nobody says a word Oh! Love is the worst of evils Take a young girl, Fill her with ice and gin Put a slight drop of angostura on her mouth I knew a man very unhappy in love Who played Chopin’s nocturnes on the drum Hello, hello, operator don’t cut me off I was talking to....I was talking to the....hello, hello? Nobody says a word. don’t you find that art is a bit..... We tell children to wash their hands. We don’t tell them to wash their teeth..... Soft caramel
Louise de Vilmorin
“Few people move me as much as Louise de Vilmorin: because she is beautiful, because she is lame, because she writes French of an innate purity, because her name evokes flowers and vegetables, because she loves her brothers like a lover and her lovers like a sister. . . . Loves, desire, joy, illness, exile, financial difficulties, are at the root of her genuineness.” Francis Poulenc about Louise de Vilmorin
“Her poems gave a soul and a voice to a desperate charm; alone, they awoken feminine emotions of thousand years, not from life, but from a fairylike dimension in fact freed from it, but which comes together in love and in nostalgia.” André Malraux about Louise de Vilmorin
“Within ourselves, we have, in our own way, all the possibilities to create our happiness through our imagination; but it is the outside world that makes our imagination real . . . . . . that concretizes something which, without being an abstraction, is nevertheless not in reality. . . . . . I cannot say that I await happiness; I cannot say that I do not expect it. It is part of those “absentee” that have the power to appear.” Louise de Vilmorin
Au- delà
Spirits, beyond
At the time of pleasure
To pick is not to betray
I pick this one.
I pick this one.
Who knows to make me laugh
With a finger here and there, As we do to write, As we do to write, He goes here and there
Without that I venture to tell him
Without my venturing to tell him
I love very much that game
I love very much that game
That one breath brings to an end. Until the last breath
I choose that game
C’est ainsi que tu es
Your flesh, imbued with your soul
Entangled hair
Your foot shifting eagerly
Your shadow stretching out And whispering to my temple
There it is, it is your portrait
It is thus that you are
And i wish to write it to you
So that once night comes
You may believe and say That I knew you well.
Le garçon de Liége
A young boy of fairytale
Has given me a great salutation self-assured In the open wind, on the side of an alley, Standing under the tree of the Laws. The birds of autumn
Were up to their old tricks, notwithstanding the rain
And seized with my own preposterousness
I dared to tell him: “I am bored.”
Without saying a sweet word of liar
At night in my room of sadness
He came to comfort my paleness
His shadow made me promises. But it was a young boy from Liége.
As light, as light as the wind
Who does not get himself caught in any trap
And scamper through the meadows of the good times.
And in my nightdress
Ever since then, when I wish to laugh
Ah! Handsome young man I am bored. Ah! In my nightdress, I am bored to death.
Aux officiers de la garde blanche
Officers of the guard white, Protect me from some thoughts at night, Protect me about all from him Who persistently entices me
Towards the venture of loving touches And the elsewhere of water which glisten. Save me the torments in turmoil
To love him one day more than now, And the cold moistness of the awaiting That will compress to the windows and the doors
My profile of a lady since dead. Officers of the guard white, I do not want to cry for him
On earth, I want to cry as rain
On earth, on his star ornate with boxwood, When later on I will hover, transparents, Over the up and down pacing of boredom. Officers of the consciences pure, You who make the faces beautiful, Entrust, in the space, to the flight of the birds, A message for the seekers of proportions And forge for ourselves some chains without links
Two War Songs
Bleuet
Ilestdix-septheuresettusauraismourir….that mysterious moment when leaving the mortal remains in the vestiary, the soul flies away after a long, last look at the gentleness of olden times.
Francis PoulencYoung man of twenty years old
Who has seen things so atrocious
What do you think of the men from your youth?
You know bravery and stratagems
You have faced death hundreds of time
You don’t know what life is about
Hand down your intrepidness
To those who will come
After you.
Young man,
You are joyful; your memory is bloodstained,
Your soul is also red
Of joy.
You have absorbed the life of those who died near you
You have determination.
It is five o’clock and you would know
To die,
If not better than your elders, At least more piously
For you know death better than life.
O gentleness of olden times
Immemorial slowness
C
It is during the twelfth century that in the poetry appears for the first time the meaning ‘French,’ the patriotism of the words which speak of our country with all the fondness and the tenderness of love.
Louis AragonI went across Les-Ponts-de-Cé
Everything started there
A song of former times
Tells about a wounded knight
About a rose on the roadway
And about an unlaced bodice
About an insane duke’s castle
And about the swans in the ditches
About the meadow wherein an everlasting fiancée
Comes to dance
And I drank like iced milk
The long ballad of distorted glories
The Loire carries away my thoughts
Along the overturned cars
And the defused weapons
And the poorly-erased tears
O my France, o my forsaken one
I went across Les-Ponts-de-Cé
Guillaume Apollinaire
Poetsarenotonlymenofbeauty.Theyarealsoandforemostmenoftruth .
Guillaume Apollinaire.
Guillaume Apollinaire has always been associated with the avant-garde of his time, and labels such as modernist, fantasist, futurist, cubist, or surrealist have been associated with his work during his lifetime and after his death. Serge Ferat, co-director with Apollinaire of the periodical Soirées de Paris set things straight at once in an attempt to shut down all misinterpretation of his friend’s art: “Guillaume Apollinaire’s fantasy
has never been anything else than a profound care for truth, a minutious care for truth. There is nothing beautiful beside what is true…” In a letter to André Breton (1916), Apollinaire declares that each one of his poems commemorates a personal life event. It would be a mistake to read his poetry as a journal and ignore the creative process at play.
Onecanstartfromadailyevent:adroppedhandkerchiefcanbeforthepoet theleverthatwillliftawholeuniverse.Weknowwhatthefallofanapple seenbyNewtonbecameforthisscientistthatwecancallapoet.Guillaume Apollinaire, Esprit nouveau
The Bestiary
Apollinaire wrote Le bestiaire when he was 28 years old. Filled with fastidious erudite references that showcase his encyclopedic knowledge, they also often refer to Marie Laurencin, with whom he shared his life at the time.
The Tibetan Goat
The fleece of this goat, and even that golden one, for which Jason took such pains, Are worthless compared to the locks with which I am smitten.
The Cat
I wish there to be in my house: A woman possessing reason, A cat among books passing by, Friends for every season Lacking whom I’m barely alive.
The Rabbit
There’s another cony I remember That I’d so like to take alive. Its haunt is there among the thyme In the valleys of the country of Tendre.
The Elephant
I carry treasure in my mouth, As an elephant his ivory. At the price of flowing words, Purple death!...I buy my glory.
The Mouse
Beautiful days, mice of Time
You nibble at my life little by little. My God! I am going to be twenty-eight years old,
And poorly lived, to my fancy.
The Fly
The songs that our flies know Were taught to them in Norway By flies who are they say Divinities of snow.
The Flea Fleas, friends, even lovers those who love us are cruel! Our blood flows for them the well-loved are unfortunate.
The Locust
Behold the dainty locust: the food of Saint John. Let my verses be, like them, a delicacy for the finest people.
The Dolphin Dolphins, you play in the sea, but the current is always fierce. Once in a while, joy bursts forth, but life is always cruel.
The Octopus
Hurling his ink at skies above, Sucking the blood of what he loves And finding it delicious, Is myself the monster, vicious.
The Jellyfish
Medusas, miserable heads With hairs of violet You enjoy the hurricane And I enjoy the very same.
The Crayfish
Uncertainty! O pleasures, you and I, we go along Like crayfish: backwards…backwards.
HereistheMontparnassethathasbecomeforpaintersandpoetswhat Montmartrewasforthemfifteenyearsago:Therefugeofbeautifuland emancipatedsimplicity.
My room is shaped like a cage, The sun unfolds its arm through the window. However I who wish to smoke
To make some smoke figures
I light my cigarette in the blazing sunshine
I do not wish to work
I wish to smoke.
Belgium's Peat Bog
This song reveals a young Apollinaire in his first encounter with Northern landscapes, during his stay in the town of Stavelot in Belgium, from July to October 1899. Within those few months, isolated within this new world in which he enters alone, he explored the surrounding towns and the near-by Germany, studied the Walloon dialect, and wandered in the fagnes and through the vast plateau, the dark peat bogs, the forests of fir trees, and the heathlands filled with berries.
Such an unmitigated sorrow
Seized my heart at the dreary bogs
When, weary, I rested amid the fir tree forest
The weight of the kilometers, while
The west wind was growling.
I had left the pleasant woods,
The squirrels remained there;
My pipe attempted making clouds of smoke
In the sky,
Which remained stubbornly unpolluted.
I did not entrust any secret, except an enigmatic song
To the soggy peat bog,
The heather, being fragrant of honey, Were enticing the bees
And my sore feet
Were treading down the bilberries and the whinberries.
Tenderly unified
North
North
There, life twists itself
Into trees,
Strong and twisted; There, Life bites
Death
Hotel
Voraciously
While the wind is hissing.
Sobs
Sanglotwas published accompanied by Bleuetand, like Bleuet , finds its inspiration in the events of World War I. We are far removed from the “banalités” of HôtelandVoyageàParis… Sanglots is a dual poem, and the translation highlights each poem separately.
PoemA
Our love is ruled by the calm stars
Thus we know that many men dwell in us
Who came from far away and are one within ourselves Dear pride, bear all those memories in mind, Of the seamen who sang like conquerors
Of Ultima Thule, of the tender skies of Ophir
Of the ill-fated sick, of those who run from their shadow
And of the fortunate emigrants’ joyful return
You will not break the chain of those causes
Which are the effects of other causes
Here are our hands, enslaved by life
Thus all things ensue
And nothing will be free before the end of time.
PoemB
It is the dreamers’ song
Who had torn out their hearts
And carried them upon their right hands
Blood ran from this heart
And the dreamer proceeded, thinking About his wound
Delicate and sore, and said to us
My dear heart, my broken heart
Just like the heart of all men, Has died of love, or it seems, Died of love and here it is
Tear out yours as well.
Let us give up all to the dead
And conceal our sobs.
No my good husband (Thérèse)
No my good husband
You will not make me do what you want
I am a feminist
And I do not recognize the authority of man
Furthermore, I wish to act
According to my fancy
It’s long enough that men have been doing what pleases them After all, I too want to go fight against the enemy
I want to be a soldier, One two three four I want to make war And not babies!
No my dear husband
You will not command me anymore! It is not because you courted me in far Connecticut That I must cook for you in Zanzibar
(The husband)
Give me some bacon, I tell you, give me some bacon!
(Thérèse)
You hear him, he thinks only of love
But you do not suspect, idiot, that after having been a soldier I want to be an actress, I wish also to be a congressman, a lawyer, a cabinet minister, a president of public affairs; and I want, as a doctor, either physician or psychiatrist, to give the sweats according to my taste to Europe and America
Making babies
Making meals
No! It’s too much!
I want to be a mathematician, A restaurant page, A little telegrapher
And I want, if it pleases me To keep on a yearly basis that old danseuse who has so much talent
(The husband)
Give me some bacon; I tell you, give me my bacon!
(Thérèse)
You hear him, he thinks only of love
But it seems to me that my beard is beginning to grow. My bosom is coming loose!
Ah!
Fly away, birds of my frailty.
How pretty they are, feminine charms
They’re tiny but ripe, good enough to eat
How pretty they are
But a truce to stupidities, let’s not go in for aeronautics. There is always some advantage
in practicing the virtues;
Vice is after all is a dangerous thing
That is why it is better to sacrifice a beauty which may be the occasion for sinning. Let’s get rid of our breasts!
But what is this?
I’m growing not only a beard, but a moustache too?
What the devil, I look like a field of wheat waiting for the mowing machine I feel as manly as the devil! I am a stallion from head to hooves, now I’m a bull, now I’m a bull-fighter
But let’s not spread out my future in the light of day
(The husband)
Give me bacon, I tell you!
(Thérèse)
Eat your own pig feet Sainte-Menehould style.
(The husband)
What is this? It’s not Thérèse my wife. What oaf has put on her clothes? No question about it, it’s a murderer and he’s killed her.
Thérèse, my little Thérèse, where are you?
But as for you, vile character who have disguised yourself as Thérèse I will kill you!
(Thérèse)
You are right; I am no longer your wife, your woman. And yet, it is I who am Thérèse
But a Thérèse who is no longer a woman
(The husband)
This is just too much (Thérèse)
And since I’ve become a handsome lad...
(The husband)
A detail I was unaware of...
(Thérèse)
In the future I shall bear a man’s name; Tirésias !
(The husband)
Farewellsias !
Max Jacob
“He is the simplest poet and yet he appears to be the oddest. This contradiction will easily be understood when I explain that Max Jacob’s lyricism is paired with a delightful style, self-assertive, rapid, brilliant and oftentimes gently humorous, but something makes it inaccessible to those who consider rhetoric instead of poetry.” Guillaume Apollinaire about Max Jacob
“Max Jacob leads the way to a cohort of young poets, more or less surrealist, who will combine the sortileges of the dreams and of the fantastic realms, to the whims of the burlesque, of the drolleries, of humor: Blaise Cendrars, Aragon, Philippe Soupault, Desnos, Michaux, Prévert.” André Calas, 1971
“Very modern art is already not so modern when he who crafts it, starts to understand it. When those who would be able to understand it begin to not want to understand it, and when those who first understood it wish for an art they have not yet understood.” Max Jacob
Playing the Bugle
Max Jacob was obsessed with astrology, and the enigmatic content of “Jouer du bugle” is no longer so random when read through the lenses of his book Miroir d’astrologie, a character guide for the twelve signs of the zodiac that includes Max Jacob’s masculine and feminine character sketches, corresponding to each of the three décans of each sign. Indeed, if one regards the three ladies of Taurus as representing the mother figure, the second décan of Scorpio as the father, and third décan of Cancer as the child, “Jouer du bugle” makes perfect sense!
The three ladies who played the bugle
Late in their bathroom
Have as a master some boor
Who is only there in mornings,
The blond child who grabs crabs
Some crabs with his hand
Does not say one syllable
He is an adulterine son.
Three mothers for this bald child
One lone was enough indeed.
The father is a nabob, biut is poor. He treats him like a dog.
Heart of the Muses, you are blinding me
It is now I that one sees playing the bugle
On the lena bridge, on Sunday
A sign around the arm.
You no longer write?
Vousn’écrivezpluslooks back at Jacob’s years of hardship, throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, with a bit of humor. A corrected proof of a manuscript version of “Vous n’écrivez plus?” resurfaced in an auction sale in 2014.
Among the several lines that were dismissed in the final version, there were two that concluded the poem and brought a conclusion to Jacob’s argument, which are worth citing:
Theshoreline,theSeine,thebridgeswithitsitinerants,thesandpilesandits rags, Obscurelibrarians,torest,aremorecomfortablethanyourdisplaycasesand yourshelves.
Did you know me when I was selling newspaper
At the Barbès subway station and beneath the subway line
To persevere towards the Institute of France
I would need courage
My novels make no sense
And I have no personality.
Did you know me when I was selling chestnuts
At the corner of Coquillère Street?
I left that job, the other one is mad at me. Did you know me when I was selling tickets
Restroom attendant
I say it without any malevolence
Helper at the foire au pain d’épice
Defender at the police court magistrate Butler, or as they say, service staff
At the café Richelieu and at the café La Paix
The Lion Grown Old
A lion, mourning, in his age, the wane Of might once dreaded through his wild domain, Was mock’d, at last, upon his throne, By subjects of his own, Strong through his weakness grew. The horse his head saluted with a kick; The wolf snapped at his royal hide; The ox, too, gored him in the side; The unhappy lion, sad and sick, Could hardly growl, he was so weak. In uncomplaining, stoic pride, He waited for the hour of fate,
Until the ass approached his gate; Whereat, ‘This is too much,’ he saith; ‘I willingly would yield my breath; But, ah! thy kick is double death’
Paul Éluard
“The voice of Paul Éluard was merged with his poetry. Poetry spoke in him, through him. Too many times have I heard him recite his poems not to be able, twenty-six years after his death, to read them without hearing himself. The quavering of his voice, I do not forget it. I have oftentimes asked myself
about that quavering, noticeable in the gestures and tone of the poems. I believe it manifested a concern not to do violence, nor to break, nor to force. I discover in it the proof of a great respect, a boundless tenderness. Éluard talks about beings and things in the same way a teenager rests for the first time his hand, his lips, on the flesh of the first love.” Max Pol Fouchet about Paul Éluard.
Éluard became, with Breton and Aragon, a pioneer of surrealism and explored the new possibilities arising out of the subconscious. However, he quickly became the black sheep of the movement, unable to limit his poetry to a system or an ideology; his poetry is alive, and appeals to the senses before the intellect. Furthermore, he never complied with the deeply prejudiced tenets and the blatant intolerance of the surrealists, and was eventually thrown out of the movement by Breton.
Tel jour telle nuit
Tel jour telle nuit is the first set of songs Poulenc clearly conceived as a cycle. Each of its nine songs plays a deliberate and noninterchangeable role in relation to the others: the unfolding of the different poems exemplifies a succession of color and mood that suits the character of each song as called for by the overall organization of the cycle.
Éluard’s poetic images are primarily inspired by Nusch, with whom he shared his life between 1929 and 1946, the year of her untimely death. She became his muse, and her essence would live in the heart of his poetry. Through her own vision, which embodied the living forces that brought the poet’s existence to life, she allowed Éluard to connect to her love and consequently to the universe.
1. Bonne journée
A good day! I saw again whom I do not forget
Whom I shall never forget
And fleeting women whose eyes
Outlined a hedge of honor for me
Their smiles enveloped them.
A good day! I saw my friends without any worry
The men did not weight much
One who passed by,
His shadow transformed into a mouse, Slipped away in the gutter.
I saw the very wide sky
The beautiful gaze of those shorn of everything
Distant shore where no one ever lands.
A good day! Day which began gloomy
Dark under the green trees
But which suddenly immersed in the light of dawn
Broke into my heart by surprise.
2. Une ruine coquille vide A ruin, empty shell
Weeps into its base
The children who play around it Make less noise than flies. The ruin gropes its way out
To look for its cows in a meadow. I have seen the day, I see that Without being ashamed. It is midnight, like an arrow In a heart within reach Of the blithe nocturnal glimmers Which contradict sleep.
3. Le front comme un drapeau perdu
The brow like a lost flag
I lug you when I am by myself Along cold streets
Dark rooms
Screaming of distress.
I do not want to release them
Your clear and intricate hands
Born in the enclosed mirror of my own. All the rest is perfect
All the rest is even more unavailing Than life.
Dig in the ground beneath your shadow. A sheet of water near the breasts
Wherein to drown oneself
Like a stone.
4. Une roulotte couverte en tuiles A trailer roofed with tiles
The horse dead, a child in control
Thinking, the brow towering of rage
Of two breasts pouncing on him
Like two fists.
This melodrama pulls
The reason from our hearts.
5.
À toutes brides
At full tilt you, whose phantom
Prances at night on a violin, Come rule over the woods.
The pillars of the hurricane
Seek their way through you. You are not one of those
Whose desires one fancies. Come drink a kiss over here; Give in to the fire which drives you to despair.
6. Une herbe pauvre
One frail grass
Wild Sprung up amid the snow It was health.
My mouth was exhilarated From the taste of fresh air it had. It was withered.
7. Je n’ai envie que de t’aimer
I only long to love you; A storm fills the valley, A fish the river; I have conceived you tailored to my solitude, The whole world to hide; Days and nights to understand one another, To no longer see anything in your eyes But what I think of you, And of a world at your own image, And of days and nights, set by your eyelids.
8. Figure de force brûlante et farouche
Countenance of fervid and fierce might Black hair wherein gold trickles toward the south And its corrupted nights; Engulfed gold, impure star, In a bed never shared. To the veins of the temples
As to the tips of the breasts, Life denies itself. The eyes, no one can blind them, Drink neither their sparkle nor their tears; Blood above them triumphs for itself alone. Uncompromising, unbounded, Unavailing
This health builds a prison.
9. Nous avons fait la nuit
We have made the night I hold your hand, I lie awake I support you with all my strength, I engrave on a rock the star of your strengths. Deep furrows where the kindness of your body will blossom, I repeat to myself your concealed voice, your public voice;
I still laugh at the haughty woman Whom you treat like a beggar, At the fools you respect, at the petty people with whom you immerse yourself.
And in my head which gently reposes in harmony with yours, with the night I marvel at the stranger you become, An unknown woman resembling you, resembling everything that I love, Which is forever new
Dialogues of the Carmelites
MadameLidoine,theNewPrioress
My dear daughters, I don’t need to remind you of your terrible misfortune in losing your beloved Mother at the very moment when her courage and advice were most needed. We have doubtless left behind us all those calm and happy days. Sometimes it is far too easy to forget that we could ever come to harm, and that we are always in the hand of God. What fate awaits us now, what lies before us, I don’t know. And all we can ask from Almighty God in Heaven are those modest blessings, which the mighty of this world look down upon, in their scorn: good will to all mankind, endless patience, a generous and loving heart. Of all virtues there are no greater for humble women such as we. Now, truly there are many kinds of courage, but the courage of kings and princes is not at all that of simple folk. It would not enable them to survive. Many a servant will copy certain traits of his noble master, but they really will suit him no more than the finest of spices suit a common rabbit stew. May I repeat: we are poor and humble servants who have come to God in prayer. Now beware of all that turns our wayward roving hearts away from prayer. Put no trust in the joy of martyrs.Prayer to God is our whole life. Martyrdom is merely recompense. When a great king before his noble court desires a servant girl that she sit beside him on his golden throne, as though she were his loving wife, would it not be wiser if she should first refuse to believe her eyes and ears, and go on working as usual? I humbly ask your pardon for speaking in a simple manner, it’s how I’ve spoken all my life. Mother Marie of the Incarnation, might I ask you to conclude my poor humble words…
MotherMarie
My sisters, Her Reverence has explained to us all that our most important duty lies in prayer. So let us obey, not only with our tongues but with our hearts, obey the will of our Reverend Mother.
Ave Maria.
Carmelites
Gratia plena.
MotherMarie,Carmelites
Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus...
Carmelites
...et benedictus fructus ventris tui...
MotherMarie,Carmelites
Prioress
Sancta Maria.
Carmelites
Mater Dei.
Prioress,Carmelites
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus...
Carmelites
...nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.
All
Amen.
About the Artists
Admired for his interpretive depth, vocal strength, and range of expressivity, tenor Paul Appleby is one of the most sought-after voices of his generation. Metropolitan Opera productions include David in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Levine and Pappano), the title role in Pelléas et Mélisande (NézetSéguin), Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Levine), and in the lead role of Brian in the North American premiere of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys (Robertson). Paul Appleby’s calendar of the 2022-23 season includes the principal role of Caesar in the world premiere of Antony and Cleopatra by John Adams at San Francisco Opera conducted by Music Director Eun Sun Kim. Paul Appleby reprises his internationally acclaimed title role portrayal of Bernstein’s Candide for the Opéra de Lyon in a new production by Daniel Fish led by Wayne Marshall and returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for performances of Girls of the Golden West under the baton of the composer, John Adams. No less impressive is the tenor’s international concert diary, which includes Bach’s Matthäus-Passion both with the New York Philharmonic and Hong Kong Philharmonic conducted by Jaap van Zweden as well as performances in Chicago with Music of the Baroque and Dame Jane Glover; a collaboration with the Met Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in a presentation of Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings; performances with the American Modern Opera Company; and a recital at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
Elise Brancheau is a vocalist with an eclectic performance career. She has premiered several works and enjoys collaborating with composers, whether it be for art song, opera, musical theater, film scores or choral music. Elise is a core member of the Vocalis Consort, with which she regularly performs a broad array of repertoire, such as Joni Mitchell songs performed with theorbo, a cappella protest songs, Quechua and Catalan folk songs, French chanson, and more. She has won awards from multiple competitions, including the Metropolitan Opera Guild, the Giulio Gari Foundation Competition, the Fritz & Lavinia Jensen Competition, and more. Elise is a
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graduate of Mannes College The New School for Music (MM) and Westminster Choir College of Rider University (BM) and serves as the board president of coLAB Arts, an organization that engages artists, social advocates, and communities to create transformative new work.
Soprano Rochelle Ellis, has distinguished herself in a broad repertoire that extends from Bach and Beethoven to Verdi, Barber and Gershwin. Her Carnegie Hall debut was as soloist in Schubert’s Mass in G and Bach’s Cantata 140 with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the Westminster Choir conducted by Joseph Flummerfelt. The soprano was honored to give the world premiere of Hold Fast to Dreams composed by the late jazz great Dave Brubeck, based on poetry by Langston Hughes. Dr. Ellis has made her New York City Opera debut as “Serena” in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and has also performed operas with Chamber Opera Chicago and Skylight Opera Theatre. Internationally, she has performed the Verdi Requiem with the National Opera of China in Beijing, sung opera favorites at the Prague (Czech Republic) Autumn Music Festival, and performed solo recitals in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan. A member of NATS, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Dr. Ellis held the position of Governor of the New Jersey District Chapter for four years (2008-2012). She organized and facilitated the annual Doris Lenz music festival for high school students, the college/university level Festival of Singing and the biennial NATSAA auditions for aspiring artists. Currently, she is on the Board of Directors for NYSTA, the New York Singing Teachers Association.
Praised by the Washington Post for her “gorgeous singing,” Bridgette Gan is quickly establishing herself as a vibrant interpreter of opera, concert and crossover works. Bridgette will return to Wheeling Symphony twice in 2023, first for their SoundBites: A Night at the Italian Opera series and then as the soprano soloist for their Forces of Nature concert where she will perform Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915.” In the 2021/2022 season, Ms. Gan made her role and house debut as Valencienne in The Merry Widow with Opera Idaho, and presented recitals with the Federation of the Art Song and Vocalis Consort. Recent highlights include leading roles with Utah Festival Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Central City Opera and the Pacific Symphony. In addition to maintaining her thriving private voice studio in Ewing, NJ, Bridgette is proud to be a music fellow with Broadway Arts Education, where she teaches virtual lessons to students from Shanti Bhavan Project in Bangalore, India.
Roaring onto the operatic stage just last year, Mel anie Heyn made her Straussian and Wagnerian debuts as Salome & Brünnhilde, followed closely by a harrowing portrayal of Magda Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, The Consul.
Singing a vast repertoire of music spanning the opera, concert and folk worlds, her 33 divas recording project combining classic Wagner, Verdi &
Puccini roles with modern American opera heroines remains the #1 Most Funded Kickstarter for a Solo Classical Artist. A recent focus on orchestral lieder has led to performances of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen & Rückert-Lieder, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire & Gurre-Lieder, Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi & Harawi, Berg’s 7 Frühe Lieder and, most recently, Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder. Melanie has premiered the music of living composers and collaborated with a who’s who of fantastic chamber musicians. After early training in New York at the Manhattan School of Music, Melanie graduated from the University of Southern California and went on to study triple Master’s Degrees at the Konservatorium in Vienna, Austria. She can be heard on the soundtrack of the cult television series Battlestar Galactica.
Praised for his “handsome baritone” and “the clarity and nobility of both his sound and his interpretive choices,” Scott Johnson, baritone, is an active performer in the stage, concert, and sacred arenas. Awards include the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshanna Foundation, The Opera Foundation, the Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Foundation Competition, Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and the Fort Worth McCammon Competition. Highlights include appearances with Opera Philadelphia in their production of Cold Mountain, Florentine Opera for both La bohème and L’italiana in Algeri, and Nashville Opera for La fanciulla del West. He has performed multiple roles with Deutsche Oper Berlin and Teatro Regio di Torino, and appeared with the Staatsballett Berlin as the baritone soloist in Peer Gynt. Mr. Johnson had the opportunity to serve as an educational ambassador in Viterbo, Italy, bringing abridged versions of opera to middle- and high school-aged students. He holds voice performance degrees from the University of Southern California (BM) and the University of Wisconsin – Madison (MM).
Mezzo-soprano Barbara Rearick has established herself as one of today’s most versatile and fascinating artists. Her career has taken her around the world singing with orchestras including Chicago, Houston, American Symphony, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Buffalo, Colorado, Pasadena Pops, Wichita, Hallé, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional, Costa Rica and the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, Berlin. She has performed at the Virginia Arts Festival, Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Symphony Space, BAM with the Mark Morris Dance Group and sang in the premiere of Douglas Cuomo’s opera Arjuna’s Dilemma; The Blind with American Opera Project for the Lincoln Center White Lights Festival, Chicago Symphony’s “MusicNow” series performing Twice Through the Heart by Mark Anthony Turnage. Rearick has also performed at the Winter Park Bach Festival, Northwest Bach Festival and Shenandoah Bach Festival and with Dr. Dennis Keene and Voices of Ascension, NYC. Her chamber music credits include performances with The New York New Music Ensemble, The New York Chamber Ensemble and The Richardson Chamber
Players at Princeton. Ms. Rearick has appeared on BBC World Service Radio, WQXR and NPR.
Peruvian-American tenor Christopher Sierra is recognized for his artistic sensitivity and versatility in repertoire ranging from classical, musical theatre, to contemporary commercial music. Most recently, they were invited to sing the tenor solo in Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 with the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia and was a featured soloist in Peter Bjerring’s Song of the Salish Chief at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. They currently oversee the music program at the Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project in Tamil-Nadu, India and has taught developing musicians at the Tomas de Berlanga School on the island of Santa Cruz, Galapagos, as a member of Broadway for Arts Education, an organization committed to providing quality arts education to communities in need around the world.
Sought after for his research in crossing genres, Dr. Sierra has been invited to present lectures at College Conservatories and Universities throughout the United States, including The Hartt School of Music, Connecticut, Troy, Belmont, and Florida International University. His notable research and presentations also address vocal health, phonotrauma and rehabilitation, performance anxiety, and vocal pedagogy for gender expansive singers. Dr. Sierra teaches voice at Harvard University, Tufts University, The Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam and Longy School of Music of Bard College, where they also teach graduate courses in music education.
American lyric tenor Paul Sperry is that rarity in today’s musical world: a singer dedicated to preserving the song recital. Though his experience in opera extends from Monteverdi through Stockhausen, he continues to devote much of his time to the programming and performance of songs from every country and every period of music. Many of today’s leading composers have written works specially for him; Sperry has world premieres of works by more than thirty Americans to his credit. He premiered Leonard Bernstein’s “Dybbuk Suite” with the composer conducting the New York Philharmonic, Jacob Druckman’s “Animus IV” for the opening of the Centre Georges Pompidou at Beaubourg in Paris in 1977, and Bernard Rands’ Pulitzer Prize winning “Canti del Sole” with the New York Philharmonic in l983 under Zubin Mehta. Other composers whose works he has premiered include Robert Beaser, William Bolcom, Victoria Bond, Daniel Brewbaker, Tom Cipullo, Nathan Currier, Daron Hagen, Richard Hundley, William Kraft, Libby Larsen, Harold Meltzer, John Musto, Stephen Paulus, Russell Platt, Robert Rodriguez, Larry Alan Smith, Louise Talma, Francis Thorne, Nicholas Thorne, Dan Welcher, Richard Wilson and Charles Wuorinen and Judith Lang Zaimont. Because he is a passionate advocate for American music, Sperry has tried to ensure that many of the wonderful works he has unearthed will be easily available to others. To that end, he has compiled and
edited several volumes of American songs, both anthologies and single composer collections for G. Schirmer, Peer-Southern, Boosey & Hawkes, Carl Fischer and Dover Publications.
Martin Néron is on the faculty at Westminster Choir College. He is the artistic director of the Vocalis Consort, an ensemble which strives to showcase overlooked vocal works. He designed and managed Canto Latino CyberChallenge in 2021, an international competition which features and promotes vocal repertoire from Latin America. Martin has held residencies at WSU Pullman, SUNY Potsdam, UK Lexington, Tennessee TU, and Fundación Armonía (Ecuador), and gave masterclasses and lectures at Butler University, OSU Columbus, TCNJ, Hunter College, NATS, Arte Lírico, and Universidad Central del Ecuador. He was on the faculty at the Taos Opera Institute (2019-2021), and Vice-President of the Joy in Singing Foundation (2017-2019). He is co-founder, co-artistic director, and Vice-President of the newly incorporated Federation of the Art Song. Praised as “an attentive partner” (Opera News), Martin has collaborated on several recordings of art songs. His scholarly work is featured in the Journal of Singing and Leyerle Publications.
About Westminster Choir College
Located in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, Rider University is a private coeducational, student-centered university that emphasizes purposeful connections between academic study and real-world learning experience. Rider prepares graduates to thrive professionally, to be lifelong independent learners, and to be responsible citizens who embrace diversity, support the common good, and contribute meaningfully to the changing world in which they live and work.
The College of Arts and Sciences is dedicated to educating students for engaged citizenship, career success, and personal growth in a diverse and complex world. The college cultivates intellectual reflection, artistic creativity, and academic maturity by promoting both broad academic inquiry and in-depth disciplinary study, while nurturing effective and ethical applications of transferable critical skills. The College consists of four schools: the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the School of Communication, Media, and Performing Arts, the School of Science, Technology, and Mathematics, and Westminster Choir College.
Culturally vibrant and historically rich, Westminster Choir College has a legacy of preparing students for thriving careers as well-rounded performers and musical leaders on concert stages, in schools, universities, and churches, and in professional and community organizations worldwide. Renowned for its tradition of choral excellence, the college is home to internationally recognized ensembles, including the Westminster Symphonic Choir, which has performed and recorded with virtually all of the major orchestras and conductors of our time. In addition to its choral legacy, Westminster is known as a center for excellence in musical pedagogy and performance.
