As a follow-up to my earlier post, regarding the Cleveland Institute of Music live stream of the Philip Glass-Robert Moran opera, “The Juniper Tree” – to be streamed again tonight at 7:30 EST on Vimeo – if you have trouble signing in, as I did yesterday, last night’s performance has been posted to CIM’s Facebook page. You can watch by clicking on the play button below.
Here’s a link to the printed program, with synopsis and prefatory comments by Robert Moran:
Make room on your Sunday evening for an hour of decapitation, cannibalism, and supernatural vengeance by millstone.
No, it’s not “60 Minutes.” The Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater is presenting Philip Glass and Robert Moran’s collaborative opera, “The Juniper Tree,” tonight at 7:30 EST.
This grimmest of Grimm fairy tales has a little something for everyone. It was Maurice Sendak, who certainly knew a thing or two about wild things, that first suggested the subject. In perhaps the opera’s greatest irony, it is Moran who manages to find beauty, and even tenderness, at the heart of this black fable.
“The Juniper Tree” was first performed at the American Repertory Theater, in Cambridge, MA, in 1985. Among the cast were Jayne West and the late Sanford Sylvan. Glass retained ownership of the opera and held back on releasing the recording until 2009. In the meantime, Moran encouraged fans to distribute their bootleg copies.
CIM has been streaming this weekend’s performances, from a three-day run of an all-new production. I was unable to access last night’s performance, but I’ve got my fingers crossed for better luck tonight.
The transmission will originate from a fixed camera situated at the rear of the hall, so the action may be a little distant, and some peripheral details in the side balconies lost, but here’s hoping story and music manage to retain their impact.
Here’s a link to tonight’s livestream. Vimeo may require you to register, so be sure to do so in advance.
https://livestream.com/cimmixonhall/junipertree110319
Also, a printed program, with a colorful introductory note by Moran:
https://www.cim.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/The%20Juniper%20Tree_0.pdf
Get out the TV trays for “The Juniper Tree.” The table is set tonight at 7:30 p.m.
31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN (DAY 10)
For Giuseppe Verdi’s birthday, a totally Goth witches’ chorus from “Macbeth”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b4tKhV5mcg
Act III Witches’ Dance from Taiwan
IMAGE: “The Three Witches from Macbeth” (1827) by Alexandre-Marie Colin
Composer Peter Westergaard has died. Westergaard was chair of the Princeton University Music Department – twice – from 1974-1978 and from 1983-1986. He also taught at Columbia University and Amherst. Among his teachers were Milton Babbitt, Edward T. Cone, Wolfgang Fortner, Darius Milhaud, Walter Piston, and Roger Sessions. Westergaard retired from Princeton in 2001. As a composer, he wrote mainly chamber music and opera, including adaptations of the “The Tempest,” “Moby Dick,” and “Alice in Wonderland.” Westergaard was 88 years-old.
You’ll find out more about Westergaard here:
http://uihistories.library.illinois.edu/TAMHistory/Talbot/rh_talbot5.html
His chamber opera, after Edward Lear, “Mr. & Mrs. Discobbolos:”
The text of Lear’s poem:
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ll/discobbolos.html
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ll/discobbolos2.html
PHOTOS: (top) Westergaard at the dress rehearsal for the premiere of “Alice in Wonderland” at Princeton in 2008; (bottom, left to right) cover design for the score and libretto of “The Tempest” by Lambertville artist Alison Carver; composer and friend enjoying some together time at the keyboard; Westergaard and his wife, Barbara, in 1994
A composer who happens to share a name with at least one president writes an opera about another. John Adams’ “Nixon in China” is the centerpiece of this year’s The Princeton Festival. Check out my unimpeachable preview in this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo, out today.
https://princetoninfo.com/modern-opera-brings-nixon-era-to-princeton-festival/
Aaron Copland (92) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (123) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (187) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (101) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (138) Opera (202) Philadelphia Orchestra (89) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (106) Radio (87) Ralph Vaughan Williams (85) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (268) Vaughan Williams (103) WPRB (396) WWFM (881)