From Francesca Zambello, Artistic Director
“Everything now changes and grows grander
What pure air!
In the distance, a boundless horizon…
Liberty descend again from heaven.”
In Rossini’s William Tell, the community sings this prayer of thanks as they throw off the yokes of tyranny and oppression. Rossini’s opera was based on a play inspired by the great 18th-century German playwright Friedrich Schiller, whose work always captured something essential about the human spirit. This final chorus still resonates today, declaring the start of a new, hopeful era.
As we began speaking with artists about this concert, two important themes began to emerge. Many of my colleagues were inspired by representations of artists on the opera stage. So often, these arias of characters – some historical, some imagined – encapsulate truths about an artist’s life. One of these truths is the idealism that inspires an artist’s work. In this program, we begin with stories of individual artists, then consider the larger ideals that drive all of us who work to create art.
Sometimes we see the artists as a misunderstood outcast, and other times as a hero. Wagner’s powerful and touching overture of Meistersinger (the Master Singers) is a perfect way to celebrate the return of artists to the stage. The opera tells the story of a contest, one that occurs within a small community as it comes together to celebrate not only music making, but also the virtues of family and being together.
And what better place to be together than our beautiful Opera House. To me it feels both grand and intimate. I always look forward to greeting it again at the start of each season – and especially now, after a long silence. The next selection in our Wagner trilogy will be Elizabeth’s heroic ode “Dich, teure Halle” (O, hail to you great hall!) from Wagner’s Tannhäuser. We conclude this section with Meistersinger’s Prize Song, with which Walther wins the contest and the girl.
When we asked Isabel Leonard to share with us her thoughts, she came back quickly with Richard Strauss’s celebratory aria “Sein wir weider gut” from Ariadne auf Naxos, in which the character of the young Composer sings of the glory of music.
Isabel, also a superb interpreter of American musicals offered up Jeanine Tesori's witty piece of comedy made famous by Kristen Chenoweth, “The Girl in 14G.” We turn next to Offenbach’s one serious, grand opera, The Tales of Hoffman. The character of Antonia is literally compelled to sing and cannot stop herself even if it will kill her. In Gluck’s Orphee et Euridice, Orphee’s song is powerful enough to release his wife from the underworld – for a moment, at least.
Composer Carlos Simon first came to our attention when he applied for a spot in the 2019 American Opera Initiative. We were so impressed by his 20-minute opera, Night Trip, that we commissioned him to write another work for us. More recently he has been named Composer in Residence for The Kennedy Center.
No composer embodies idealism more than Verdi, who was famously political. This famous chorus from Nabucco has become a sort of anthem -- a powerful song of the displaced, who, like artists, are continually seeking their rightful place in the world.
Every day I walk into the Kennedy Center I think about what John F. Kennedy gave this country, and how much he and his wife valued the arts. At WNO we are proud to serve our country through our work in this building. But a building is nothing without the people and the principles that we strive to maintain. In our own lives as artists, we all were fortunate to be in the sphere of the great judge, scholar, and arts lover Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her commitment to the arts was as potent as the letter of the law she strove to define and uphold.
One of Justice Ginsburg’s favorite works was Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio. In this section, we showcase our Cafritz Young Artists Program. We begin with the aria of Florestan, who is unjustly incarcerated by a dictator with no trial and seemingly no hope, until his wife assumes a disguise as a man and comes to the prison to rescue him. In the heart wrenching quartet “Mir ist so wunderbar,” Leonore longs to find her husband, while we hear three conflicting views of life in prison.
Justice Ginsburg was also a lover of comic operas, and we were thrilled when she agreed to perform the role of the Duchess of Krakenthorpe in Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment. Her examination of the marriage contract brought down the house. In honor of her performance, we have asked American bel canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee to sing “Ah! Mes amis.” With nine killer high Cs in the span of two minutes, it’s a feat that would leave Caeleb Dressel breathless.
The athleticism of opera singing is sometimes forgotten, since making it look easy is part of the job. In Verdi’s La traviata, Violetta sings “Sempre libera,” refusing to be bound by the expectations of society. Verdi skillfully maps the human heart in all his music, both the light and the dark. In Macbeth, we see how ambition can lead to murderous tyranny.
Justice Ginsburg spoke brilliantly about the intersection of her two passions, opera and the law. She often pointed to Carmen’s successful “plea bargain,” in which she won her freedom from José at the end of Act One. For Carmen, nothing was more important than freedom, not even life itself. Isabel Leonard will give us a preview of what promises to be a powerful performance for this spring when she debuts the role on this stage.
Finally, the evening closes with a thoughtful and hopeful message from Rossini’s William Tell, a prayer that looks to the future. As we “come home” to our beautiful opera house, we are filled with hope and determination to live up to the ideals of all who have made this evening possible.
—Francesca Zambello, Artistic Director
