THE OSCHOLARS
___________

Vol. IV

No. 10

Issue no 42: October/November 2007

Click for the main pages of the current issue of THE OSCHOLARS

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'MAD, SCARLET MUSIC'

A monthly page dedicated to Oscar Wilde and Music, compiled by Tine Englebert, with contributions from Danielle Guérin, Lucia Krämer, Sandra Mayer and D.C. Rose.

Additionally, we will be looking at some of the other operas of the period, or inspired by it.

To go to previous pages of Mad, Scarlet Music, click as appropriate

Note: for the time being only the pages since February 2007 are posted at www.oscholars.com.

Earlier pages are at www.irishdiaspora.net, but will be transferred over as time permits. There is difficulty in accessing these directly, which is why we are transferring them.

Before July 2002, ‘Mad, Scarlet Music’ was incorporated in the main pages of THE OSCHOLARS.

Click in the Table of Contents for direct access to the information about each item.

WILDE NIGHTS AT THE OPERA
1. Salome
2. A Florentine Tragedy
3. Dorian Gray
BEYOND THE WILDERNESS
Maeterlink / Debussy
RESEARCH
A new section on research into the music of the period

I. WILDE NIGHTS AT THE OPERA

1. SALOME

A new production is announced for The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 21st February 2008 to 12th March 2008. Booking opened 10th October 2007. It will be sung in German with English surtitles. We are told (warned? promised? encouraged?) that ’This opera contains scenes of nudity and violence’.

Salome	Nadja Michael
Herodias	Michaela Schuster
Page to Herodias	Daniela Sindram
Herod	Thomas Moser
Narraboth	Joseph Kaiser
Jokanaan	Michael Volle
Philippe Jordan	Conductor
David McVicar	Director
Es Devlin	Designs
Wolfgang Göbbel	Lighting
Andrew George	Choreography

In our last edition we published some notes on the first Covent Garden production of Salome (8th, 10th, 12th (m), 14th December 1910), with Ackté in the title role, from Charles Reid: Thomas Beecham – An Independent Biography. London: Victor Gollancz 1961.

A new edition (bilingual, French and German) of the libretto of Salome for the Strauss opera has been published (15th September 2007) by L'Avant-scène Opera, no.240. As with so many versions of Salome, it presents an interesting example of translation studies, for it is translated into French by Georges Pucher from the original German libretto by Hedwig Lachmann from Oscar Wilde’s French. 25.00 €. 145 p. with illustrations in black and white and colour. Bibliography, Discography, Filmography. ISBN 978-2-84385-239-8.

For the new 2007/08 season, the Vienna Staatsoper will continue its Richard-Strauss-focus, including four performances of Salome on 6th January, 22nd and 24th April, and 23rd May 2008 in a production by Boleslaw Barlog.

Salome	Camilla Nylund
Herodias	Janina Baechle/Daniela Denschlag
Herod	Michael Roider/Wolfgang Schmidt
Jokanaan	Peter Weber/Terje Stensvold/Alan Titus
Stefan Soltesz	Conductor
Boleslaw Barlog	Director

For more detailed information, including a short video extract, see:

http://www.staatsoper.at/Content.Node2/home/spielplan/spielplan_detail_werkbeschreibung.php?eventid=497976#

In the course of research for her article on the first Vienna production of Salome, which we published in our edition of April-September 2007, Sandra Mayer found some photographs of the Hungarian soprano Alice Guszaléwicz as Salome, taken from Marie Luise Becker. "Salome-Darstellerinnen auf der modernen Bühne". Bühne und Welt 9.1 (1907): 444. She is of course now best known for not being Oscar Wilde. We print these below, and below these, the familiar Salome (we apologise for the poor definition). Remarkably little seems to be known about this diva; like Lina Munte, the first Salome of all, she seems to have founded no career on having played the part although she lived until 1940, dying just after her sixty-first birthday.

Salome/Das Gehege

Bayerische Staatsoper, München

21st, 24th, 28th, 30th October 2007

Directed by William Friedkin

Musical Director: Kent Nagano

Sung in German with German surtitles

‘Yearning, power, love drive the woman into an enclosure. There she conducts dialogues with an eagle. She liberates the bird so she can kill it. Absurd, paradoxical? Killing the thing we love? No doubt: with these questions, the woman in the enclosure is a sister in spirit to the Salome of a hundred years before. Das Gehege, a gigantic, monomaniacal piece. Written for singing actress Gabriele Schnaut by Wolfgang Rihm, one of the most successful contemporary composers, and based on a play by Botho Strauss. Opera is that thrilling, art that shattering! On the podium: Kent Nagano, staged by the director of The Exorcist, William Friedkin. Witness a world première!

Whatever Salome wants Salome gets! So far. Having grown up at the court of her degenerate mother Herodias and her asocial stepfather Herod, it’s perfectly understandable, with this family background, that Salome absolutely refuses to accept the fact that there might be something she can’t have: the kiss of the prophet John the Baptist, Jochanaan! Salome’s beauty and seductiveness leave him completely cold, but Salome finally gets her way. With a strip tease she coerces her stepfather to have Jochanaan beheaded so that she can finally kiss his mouth. But she pays for this kiss with her life. But “what’s the difference”? She finally got her kiss! Perverse? Insane? Or was this woman just unrelenting and thus understandable?’

Herod	Wolfgang Schmidt
Herodias	Iris Vermillion
Salome	Angela Denoke
Jochanaan	Morten Frank Larsen
Narraboth	Kevin Conners
Page	Daniela Sindram
Kent Nagano	Conductor
William Friedkin	Director
Hans Schavernoch	Set design
Petra Reinhardt	Costumes
Mark Jonathan	Lighting
David Bridel	Choreography
Peter Heilker	Dramaturgy

Salome

Opernhaus Dortmund

Dir. Alexander Schulin

Opened 21st September; 5th, 26th October, 24th November, 2nd December 2007; 13th January, 22nd February 2008.

Herod	Hannes Brock/Jeff Martin
Herodias	Szilvia Rálik
Salome	Valérie Suty
Jochanaan	Simon Neal
Narraboth	Charles Kim/Thomas Piffka
Page	Maria Hilmes/Franziska Rabl

2. A FLORENTINE TRAGEDY / Eine florentinische Tragödie

James Conlon & Chicago Symphony, Ravinia Festival, 11th July 2007

Bianca	Christine Brewer
Simone	James Johnson
Guido Bardi	Anthony Dean Griffey

Alexander von Zemlinsky

For a review in Opera News by Thomas Ketterman, click the image.

The Dwarf and A Florentine Tragedy, received their first U.S. joint professional production, at Bard College, New York. This was directed by Olivier Tambosi, founder of the Neue Oper Wien. Sets and costumes were by the ‘Edwardian’ design team of McDermott & McGough. The operas were sung in German with English surtitles, for five performances between 27th July and 5th August. This double bill has been reviewed for THE OSCHOLARS by Bruce Bashford, in this edition’s The Critic as Critic.

3. Dorian Gray

Center City Opera Theater, in Philadelphia, PA, USA, has given the world premiere of the chamber orchestra version of Lowell Liebermann's opera, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Performances took place on Wednesday 6th June, Saturday 9th June, Sunday 10th June and Tuesday 12th June 10 at the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center.

Basil	Matthew Curran (6/6 & 10/6), Richard Ziebarth (9/6 & 12/6)
Lord Henry	Raymond Ayers (6/6 & 10/6), Jason Switzer (9/6 & 12/6)
Dorian	Jorge Garza
Sibyl Vane	Jody Sheinbaum (6/6 & 10/6), Megan Marie Hart (9/6 & 12/6)
James Vane	Joseph Specter
Geoffrey	Olindo Marseglia
Whore	Jennifer Harris
Gamekeeper	Jeffrey Chapman

For more information, including sound clips, click

Lowell Liebermann

For a review in Opera News by David Shengold, click the image.

II. BEYOND THE WILDERNESS

A glance at some of the other operas with which Wilde’s contemporaries (and sometimes Wilde himself) would have been familiar; and those that derive from the works of the period.

Maeterlinck / Dukas : ARIANE Et BARBE-BLEU

Opéra Bastille, Paris

13th, 17th, 21st, 24th, 28th September; 2nd, 6th October

Willard White	Barbe-Bleu
Deborah Polaski	Ariane
Felicity Palmer	Nurse
Diana Axentii	Sélysette
Iwana Sobotka	Ygraine
Hélène Guilmette	Mélisande
Jaël Azzaretti	Bellangère
Conductor	Sylvain Cambrelin
Director, set, costumes	Anna Viebrock
Lighting	David Finn
Dramaturge	Malte Ubenauf
Choirmaster	Peter Burton
Orchestra & Choir of the Orchestre National de Paris

Maeterlinck / Debussy : Pelléas et Mélisande

Pelléas et Mélisande

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Opened 29th April 2007; 17th, 28th September, 3rd, 20th, 24th October 2007

Arkel	Liang Li
Pelléas	Will Hartmann
Golaud	Oliver Zwarg
Geneviève	Helene Schneiderman
Mélisande	Alla Kravchuk
Yniold	Sunhae Im
A doctor	Marko Spehar
Tetsuro Ban	Conductor
Jossi Wieler	Director
Kazuko Watanabe	Set designer
Kazuko Watanabe	Costume designer
Sergio Morabito	Dramaturg

Pelléas et Mélisande

Staatstheater Darmstadt

Opens 22nd September, 26th September, 14, 30th October 2007

Directed by John Dew

Musical Direction: Martin Lukas Meister

Pelleas und Melisande

Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf

8th, 12th, 19th, 22nd, 28th September, 4th, 7th October 2007

Arkel	Malcolm Smith
Pelléas	Dmitri Vargin
Golaud	Tomasz Konieczny
Geneviève	Nadine Denize
Mélisande	Catrin Wyn-Davies
Yniold	Lea Pasquel
A doctor	Daniel Djambazian
Andreas Stoehr	Conductor
Christof Nel	Director

Tyroler Landestheater, Innsbruck

Tiroler Symphonieorchester Spring 2007

Pelléas	Bernd Valentin	Golaud
Mélisande	Christine Buffle
Golaud	Sébastien Soules
Arkel	Michael Dries
Geneviève	Shauna Elkin
Yniold	Anja Scholz
Dietfried Bernet	Conductor
Brigitte Fassbaender	Director
Helfried Lauckner's	Set
Michael D. Zimmermann	Costumes

For a review by Larry L. Lash in Opera News, click the image.

Orchestre National de France
Choeur de Radio France

Conducted by Haitink, Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées

14th, 16th, 18th, 20th, 22nd June.

This was broadcast on the Franco-German televeison channel Arte on 22nd September 2007.

Mélisande, Golaud

For a review by Stephen Mudge in Opera News, click the image.

Arkel	Gregory Reinhart
Pelléas	Jean-François Lapointe
Golaud	Laurent Naouri
Geneviève	Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Mélisande	Magdalena Kožená
Yniold	Amel Brahim Djelloul
Bernard Haitink	Conductor
Jean-Louis Martinoty	Director
Hans Schavernoch	Set designer
Yan Tax	Costume designer
André Diot	Lighting designer

III. RESEARCH

In our last edition, for the first time, we listed some of the doctoral research on the music of the period being undertaken at British Universities; and are very grateful to Dr Katherine Ellis for drawing this to our attention. The first resort for Great Britain is http://www.rma.ac.uk/register/register.asp.

We hope to expand and internationalise this list in future, and would be glad of assistance.

Click for the main pages of the current issue of THE OSCHOLARS

For the Table of Contents, click | To hub page | To THE OSCHOLARS home page

April-October 2007	October 2003	April 2003	October 2002
March 2007	September 2003	March 2003	September 2002
February 2007	August 2003	February 2003	August 2002
January 2007	July 2003	January 2003	July 2002
November/December 2006	June 2003	December 2002
November 2003-October 2006	May 2003	November 2002