Peabody Opera Workshop presents
Two French Operas
Les malheurs d’Orphée
by Darius Milhaud
libretto by Armand Lunel
Roger Brunyate, stage director
Ken Lam, conductor
MiaoMiao Wang, assistant music director
L’enfant et les sortilèges
by Maurice Ravel
libretto by Colette
Eileen Cornett, music director
Jennifer Blades, stage director
Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall
Monday, October 22, 2007, at 7:30 PM
Admission free
Peabody Opera home
The Peabody Opera Workshop presents two French one-act operas composed at the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century. Maurice Ravel’s opera L'enfant et les sortilèges (“The Bewitched Child”), though like no other opera composed before or since, has found a special place in the repertoire, including two full productions at Peabody. Darius Milhaud’s Les malheurs d’Orphée (“The Sorrows of Orpheus”) is a rarity that deserves wider notice. Both works are written for a small number of vocal soloists working together as an ensemble; both are very compact in their construction; both show the influence of American jazz; and both include animal roles among their characters. Both works are also strongly coloristic, in the manner of the various artists reproduced on this page. Although the Peabody Opera Workshop production will be given with minimal decor, the color is amply there in the music, whose power to stir the imagination may even benefit from the simplicity of means.
Milhaud’s chamber opera Les malheurs d’Orphée premiered in Brussels in 1926, but was composed two years earlier. Its treatment of the Orpheus story is unusual in that the hero is a simple peasant from the South of France; the emphasis is not on his music or poetry, but upon his ability to cure sick animals. His friends are ordinary workmen: a blacksmith, a wheelwright, and a basket-maker. Euridice is a gypsy girl recently arrived in the village. Each of the three short acts has its own small ensemble: the workmen in Act I, the animals who welcome Euridice and eventually bury her in Act II, and Euridice’s three gypsy sisters in Act III who accuse Orpheus of causing her death and eventually kill him in revenge.
The libretto for L'enfant et les sortilèges is by the novelist Colette, who was kept busy supplying words only days before the work’s premiere in Monte Carlo in 1925. It tells of a naughty boy who is locked up in his room by his mother, but tears up his schoolbooks in a tantrum, rips the wallpaper, breaks the china, and pulls the cat’s tail. But then the various objects retaliate: the fire almost burns him, the shepherds on the wallpaper lament being torn from their partners, the princess in his story book weeps because she will never know the end of her story, and the numbers from his arithmetic book din nonsensical sums into his head. The cat, however, finds a mate, and together they go out into the garden. Outside in the twilight, there are other creatures to reprove the child—but the garden is also filled with the richness of life, enabling the boy to redeem himself and seek forgiveness.
Illustration top right: The Breakfast Table by Pierre Bonnard. Main text, top to bottom: 1/ Piano by Edouard Vuillard. 2/ Orpheus and Euridice by Maurice Denis. 3/ Detail of a painting by Pierre Bonnard
L'enfant et les sortilèges is presented by arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., Sole Agent in the US, Canada and Mexico for Durand S.A. Editions Musicales, a Universal Music Publishing Group company, publisher and copyright owner.
Les malheurs d’Orphée is presented by arrangement with Theodore Presser Company, distributor for Heugel S.A., publisher and copyright owner.
Les malheurs d’Orphée | ||
| Orpheus | Gabriel Henriques | |
| Euridice | Lena Leson | |
| The Blacksmith | Jiwoong Kwak | |
| The Wheelwright | Doug Peters | |
| The Basketmaker | William Schaller | |
| The Fox | Jessica Thompson | |
| The Wolf | Laura Koznarek | |
| The Boar | Paul Brown | |
| The Bear | Paul Mulligan | |
| The Twin Sister | Jocelyn Thomas | |
| The Younger Sister | Sheena Majdan | |
| The Elder Sister | Diane Schaming | |
L'enfant et les sortilèges | ||
| Child | Madelyn Wanner | |
| Mother | Yun-Kyong Lee | |
| Fire / Nightingale | Ji-Hyun Jang | |
| Princess / Bat | Kate Fay | |
| Chair / Owl | Lydia Beasley | |
| Shepherdess | Shin Young Lee | |
| Chinese cup | Lauren Maxwell | |
| Shepherd / Dragonfly | Megan Ihnen | |
| White Cat / Squirrel | Erin Dias | |
| Teapot / Frog | William Davenport | |
| Arithmetic | Christopher Manna | |
| Clock / Black cat | Brian Pettey | |
| Armchair / Tree | Jeffrey Williams | |