“WEIR’S SCORE WAS, IN TRUTH, HARD TO SEPARATE FROM THE RIVETING PERFORMANCE IT RECEIVED BY SOPRANO ELIZABETH KEUSCH” From Odyssey, big works in small packages The Boston Globe “PARTICULARLY BEAUTIFUL...
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Kings, Queens, Saints, and Sinners
Five Monodramas
LENNOX BERKELEY: FOUR POEMS OF ST. TERESA OF AVILA, OP. 27
For contralto and strings
Featuring Stephanie Kacoyanis
RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT: OPHELIA
Cantata for countertenor and ensemble
Featuring Martin Near
BENJAMIN BRITTEN: PHAEDRA, OP. 93
Cantata for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
Featuring Erica Brookhyser
JUDITH WEIR: KING HARALD’S SAGA
Grand Opera in Three Acts for solo soprano
Featuring Elizabeth Keusch
PETER MAXWELL DAVIES: EIGHT SONGS FOR A MAD KING, OP. 39
Musical theatre work for male voice and ensemble
Featuring Thomas Meglioranza
From Britten to Weir, 12th-century Icelandic saga to Romantic tragedy, five rising stars of opera command the stage in the ultimate display of vocal prowess and charisma: solo drama. Works by five iconic British composers of the 20th and 21st centuries delve into the minds and souls of mythical and historical figures. Britten’s Phaedra explores the fate of the queen of Greek myth as reimagined in the 17th century by Racine. Bennett’s Ophelia inhabits the pale robes of Rimbaud’s tragic, waterborn maiden, while Berkeley’s Four Poems of St. Teresa of Avila set poetic spiritual raptures of the 16th-century Spanish mystic. Weir’s King Harald’s Saga is a microcosm of a three-act opera for unaccompanied soprano, chronicling the attempted Norwegian invasion of England in 1066. And Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King ricochets through the tortured mind of King George III in an extended, virtuosic mad scene that challenges perception and reality.
“Particularly beautiful playing”
– The Boston Musical Intelligencer
Cast and Creative
Stephanie KacoyanisFour Poems of St. Teresa of Avila
Martin NearOphelia
Erica BrookhyserPhaedra
Elizabeth KeuschKing Harald’s Saga
Thomas MeglioranzaEight Songs for a Mad King
Gil RoseConductor
Background
Lennox Randal François Berkeley (1903-1989) was introduced to music by his father’s pianola rolls, a godmother who had studied piano and singing in Paris, and an aunt who was a salon composer. He read music and French at Merton College, Oxford, while coxing for the crew team and was the first composer to set the poetry of his friend W. H. Auden. From 1926-1932, Berkeley studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, attending and reviewing concerts and socializing with the Diaghilev circle. He had met Francis Poulenc at Oxford, and they formed a lifelong friendship that resulted in visits, arrangements of each other’s works, and written tributes.
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