The Collins Guide To Opera And Operetta. Michael White
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Название: The Collins Guide To Opera And Operetta

Автор: Michael White

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Музыка, балет

Серия:

isbn: 9780008299538

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ and their characters become more clearly defined: the Bible-thumping hypocrite, Arthur; the rough, uncultivated Blazes; and the gentler, wistful Sandy. As thick fog slowly blankets the lighthouse, emotional tensions are heightened to breaking point and each man sinks into despair, haunted by his own personal demon. Suddenly the blinding lights of an oncoming ship appear through the fog, to be mistaken for the eyes of a great beast. The three keepers are replaced by the three relief officers who indicate that the keepers, driven to insanity by their isolation, had attacked them and had to be killed. The mystery surrounding the lighthouse (did the keepers abandon it or were they killed?) is never solved; the light is made automatic but the three men can still be seen, forever reliving their final hours.

       Music and Background

      The courtroom prologue suggests parallels with Britten’s Peter Grimes, and something of the tough, man-against-the-elements atmosphere of that earlier piece transfers to this operatic psycho-drama, although the forces are much smaller and the music more tightly written, using mathematical systems in the way that much of Davies’ work does. The more lyrical moments tend to be parodies of popular musical forms – another Davies fingerprint. All the roles are taken by the same three voices.

       Highlights

      The arrival of ‘the Beast’ is memorable, and so is the mechanically repeated figure, ‘The lighthouse is now automatic’, that plays out the score.

      Did You Know?

      

The opera is based on a true story of three keepers who disappeared from the Flannan Isle lighthouse in 1900. On the very night the opera premiered in 1980, the Flannan Isle lighthouse (now automatic) mysteriously, and for the first time ever, went out.

      Recommended Recording

      Neil Mackie, Christopher Keyte, Ian Comboy, BBC Philharmonic/Peter Maxwell Davies. Collins Classics 14152. The only one.

      (1862–1918)

       Pelléas et Mélisande (1902)

       Born near Paris, Debussy was fascinated by the theatre all his life and had a celebrated relationship with the impresario Diaghilev, who turned scores like the Prélude à l’Après Midi d’un Faune into ballets. He was also interested in the human voice, and matured into one of the greatest of French song-writers, with incomparable settings of Verlaine and Baudelaire. But he only completed one opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, and although he devoted later years to attempts at an operatic adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, they survive as little more than sketches. Principally, the composer is remembered for his piano, chamber and orchestral music – written largely in an imagistic way that earned him the label ‘impressionist’, though ‘symbolist’ might be more accurate. With atmospherically suggestive scores like Prélude à l’Après Midi d’un Faune and the orchestral Images, he introduced a new language of sound and was undoubtedly one of the founding fathers of modern music.

       FORM: Opera in five acts; in French

       COMPOSER: Claude Debussy (1862–1918)

       LIBRETTO: Maurice Maeterlinck’s play, slightly adapted by Debussy

       FIRST PERFORMANCE: Paris, 30 April 1902

       Principal Characters

      Arkel, King of Allemonde

Bass

      Geneviève, Arkel’s daughter-in-law and mother of Golaud and Pelléas

      

Mezzo-soprano

      Golaud, Arkeľs grandson

Baritone

      Pelléas, Arkeľs grandson and Golaud’s half-brother

Tenor

      Mélisande

Soprano

      Yniold, Golaud’s son by his first marriage

Soprano/Boy treble

       Synopsis of the Plot

      Setting: The imaginary kingdom of Allemonde; medieval times

      ACT I While out hunting, Golaud finds a mysterious girl, Mélisande, weeping in a forest; nearby is a well with a golden crown at the bottom, fallen from her head. Golaud marries Mélisande and, some time later, takes her to Arkeľs castle to ask his grandfather’s forgiveness for the unplanned marriage; Arkel had a different bride in mind for Golaud. On her arrival, Mélisande meets Pelléas and it is clear that they have fallen in love with each other.

      ACT II Pelléas and Mélisande are together by a well when Mélisande drops her ring into the water; at that moment Golaud falls from his horse. Later, lying injured in bed, Golaud notices that the ring is missing and Mélisande replies, falsely, that she lost it by the sea. Golaud sends her, with Pelléas, to look for it.

      ACT III Mélisande is sitting at the castle window, talking to Pelléas; she allows her long hair to fall over his shoulders and he plays with it. They are surprised in their game by Golaud who warns Pelléas to leave Mélisande alone. Golaud then questions his little son, Yniold, about the relationship between Pelléas and Mélisande and even holds him up to the window so that he can see what they are doing: just sitting together, answers the boy.

      ACT IV Pelléas tells Mélisande that he is leaving and they plan one last meeting. Golaud is by now furiously jealous and attacks Mélisande, dragging her across the room by her hair until he is stopped by Arkel. The two lovers meet by the well, as arranged. In the distance they hear the castle doors being locked and barred – there is no going back. Golaud, hiding nearby, hears and sees their declarations of love; he leaps at them, killing Pelléas while Mélisande escapes.

      ACT V Mélisande has given birth to a child and now lies, ill and dying, at the castle. Golaud begs her forgiveness, which she grants, but his desperate pleas to know whether she was unfaithful go unanswered as her life ebbs away.

       Music and Background

      One СКАЧАТЬ