Intermezzo 
2008 Season
Plot Synopses and Background Information

Socrate

by Erik Satie (1866-1925), based on the writings of Plato

Satie (1866-1925), after the initial successes of his piano music (Gymnopédies) and ballet (Parade) began work on Socrate in 1918, commissioned by the Princess de Polignac.  He wrote "I'm frightened to death of bungling this work. I want it to be as white and pure as antiquity." Satie was charmed with Socrates since his school days and must have identified with the Greek philosopher, having also chosen a plain life, despising wealth and materialism, and living by the principles he preached. "I always wanted to do something on Socrates," he remarked to Darius Milhaud. "It's such an unjust story!"  

Satie was constantly looking for new directions in his art and re-examining the cultural excesses of the 19th century, often in reaction to the aesthetics of Debussy and Wagner. Having abandoned the impressionistic harmonies he pursued a style centered around melody and delicate counterpoint.  He summarized his aesthetics in the following quote: "Do not forget that the melody is the Idea, the outline; as much as it is the form and the subject matter of a work. The harmony is an illumination, an exhibition of the object, its reflection".  Satie wished to reconstruct music and return to classical simplicity with a modern sensibility.  Satie called it a ‘return to classical simplicity with a modern sensibility’, and it greatly impressed Stravinsky when he first heard it.

The first performance of Socrate was given on June 24th 1918, at the home of Jane Bathori, a singer of modern music, followed by a performance at the home of Comte Etienne de Beaumont and other private performances. The first "official" performance of Socrate was given in January 1920. The music raised hot arguments between those who loved it and those who thought it ridiculous. Satie's reaction: "Those who do not understand are requested by me to assume an attitude of submission and inferiority", but when he heard the hisses and boos he simply remarked "How strange!"

Satie turned to the writings of Plato as the source for the "Drame Symphonique" as Satie called it.  The French translation was provided by Victor Cousin, but Intermezzo's production will be utilizing the translation developed by Virgil Thomson.  Socrate is written in three movements, using the Socratic method of conveying ideas, asking questions versus force feeding the listener with overloaded musical symbols.  The piece begins with Portrait de Socrate, or The Banquet.  Alcibiade praises Socrates for his work and powerful use of words to convey meaning.  Movement two, Bords de L'Ilissus, or On the Banks of the Illissus, has Socrates imploring his student Phaedre to rest underneath a tree on the bank. He extols the beauty of nature around them and would prefer to occupy himself with the study of man and nature, instead of that of mythology.  The final movement Mort de Socrate, Death of Socrates, describes his final days in prison and the courage displayed by this "wisest and the most of all men". He tells them of the dying swan, which sings on its last day more beautifully than ever before, in order to meet its god.  Socrates drinks from the bowl of poison and slowly succumbs to its embrace.  

Satie wrote in the original score: '...In writing this work I did not in the least set out to try to add to the beauty of Plato's Dialogues. All that there is here is an act of piety, the dreaming of an artist, a humble homage. The whole aesthetic aim of this work is centered on clarity. Simplicity is the force that accompanies and directs it. That is all. I wanted nothing else.'  The music is simple and translucent, examining the text without directly relating to it. There is no dramatic development in the music, nor any word painting. The emotion in the music is static. The text itself is carried in a melody that is almost spoken, with the directions for the singers "as if reading".   Satie has narrowed the musical language so that the melody is the essence, the thread with which he creates the composition. The harmony and accompaniment are "stage lighting".

See http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=990042  or  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Satie for additional information on Satie and Socrate.

A Last Goodbye      world premiere

music by Charles Shadle (b 1959), based on an original story by Michael Ouellette 

 
In late summer of 2004, the critically acclaimed Boston based opera company, Intermezzo, premiered my one-act chamber opera A Question of Love. Shortly afterward I began a conversation with Intermezzo’s Artistic Director, John Whittlesey, about creating a companion piece to it. The intent was that both works could eventually add up to an evening length whole, a kind of New England Diptych. Though there would be some reference to the characters of the first work in the new opera, each would be perfectly capable of standing on its own. Both pieces were to be scored for piano trio, but the new opera would feature a prominent role for mezzo-soprano. Important parts for baritone and a pair of tenors would provide a point of continuity with the earlier work. By the late summer of 2006 my brilliant and ever-obliging librettist, Michael Ouellette, had completed the libretto for the new opera, A Last Goodbye. I began composing right away, but the commission to write a score for D.W. Griffith’s classic film “Ramona” of 1910 intervened, interrupting progress on the opera. No task is more time consuming or thankless than writing for film; in opera music shapes narrative, in film the opposite is true. Eventually, and with great relief, I was able to resume work on A Last Goodbye and I finished sketching the score in August of 2007.
 
One of the great challenges, as well as the great joys of composing opera is the necessity of using music to shape and suggest context, atmosphere and character. In A Question of Love I sought to create a soundscape that evoked the mid-1940s as well as the environment of coastal Maine. A Last Goodbye is set in urban Cambridge nearly 50 years later, and the nostalgic lyricism and  “outdoor” America-ness of the earlier score did not suit the new work. The basic sonic world of A Last Goodbye is altogether grittier, less transparent and more enclosed; the dissonances of the modern world are everywhere evident. Still, this opera begins and ends with music that depicts the quality of light, laden with motes of gold dust, which permeates the now nearly empty drawing room of the Brattle street mansion of the recently deceased Millicent Winslow.
 
While this “house music” dominates the score, a wide variety of musical idioms are suggested throughout the opera. For instance, the poet Robert Kelly sings in a nostalgic opening aria of his late adolescent awakening to a world of high cultural sophistication. His music is certainly influenced by the brittle and very French Neo-classicism that would have appealed to his mentors. The libretto’s reference to Mademoiselle, Nadia Boulanger, was not to be denied.  Later Robert and Carrie sing a faux sea chantey that is musical Olde New England to the hilt, and that celebrates a local cookie, the Joe Frogger.[1] Other national, or rather exotic musics are evoked too. For example when Robert sings of tea––Millie served only Darjeeling––the music borrows a fragment of a Chinese melody.[2] However, the brash, often insensitive Robert is more poet than geographer, and he seems to have forgotten that Darjeeling is part of India. He is not the only character to exhibit a late 20th century American ignorance of geography. Stephen, though a talented composer, uses music that hints at a Japanese scale while celebrating a Chinese garden feature!
 
But music can often express more about the characters than simple, if revelatory expositions of their foibles. Robert, like his music, can turn nasty without much warning, and Stephen’s fey bitchiness is revealed to be a means of defending a heart that loves perhaps too deeply, too uncritically. The sophistication of Ned’s music allows the listener to apprehend Robert’s underestimation of his character, and certainly Carrie’s enduring affection for him. ”Golden Carrie”, whose buoyant optimism is lauded by both her husband and former lover, in the end sings music that is characterized by a previously unsuspected melancholy and depth of feeling. Through the music of her “last goodbye” we learn that her sunny disposition is at least partly an act of will.

Charles Shadle                                                                                           

1 The cookie takes its name from Black Joe (despite his moniker only half African-American; his mother was Indian), a beloved denizen of Marblehead Massachusetts. Joe served in the Revolution and afterwards, with his wife, Aunt ‘Crece, opened a lively, if disreputable hostelry. On election nights the festivities at Joe’s Tavern were notable for the quantity of alcohol and the quality of the cookies baked by Aunt ‘Crece. As elections were then held in the spring, just when the Peepers (tree frogs) were beginning their pre-coital song, folks began to associate Joe, Frogs and cookies. Hence the name––Joe Froggers. In addition the cookies were originally enormous, said to be about the size of a lily pad. They became favorites of the doughty Marblehead mariners, due to their ability to stand up well to long ocean voyages. Shelf life was already a concern in the 18th century! The culinarily curious may access a recipe at www.yankeemagazine.com.

2 I came to know this tune from its use in Paul Hindemith’s delightful “Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber. Weber employed the melody in his incidental music to “Turandot” (Gozzi, translated by Schiller) of 1809. Weber’s source was Jean Jacques Rousseau’s celebrated 1768 dictionary of music. Rousseau, not unexpectedly “borrowed” it from the Jesuit scholar Jean Baptist Du Halde’s magisterial “Description geographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l’empire de la Chine et de Tartarie Chinoise”, Paris, P.G.Le Mercier 1735. Having never actually been to China, Fr. Du Halde, probably had it from a fellow Jesuit …

 

The Prodigal Son

by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), libretto by William Plomer

The Prodigal Son is the third of Britten’s three Church Parables and was inspired by Rembrandt’s painting The Return of the Prodigal which Britten had seen two years earlier on a trip to Leningrad. Completed in 1968, and like its two predecessors, set to a libretto by William Plomer.  The style presentation is consistent with the conventions established in Curlew River and The Burning Fiery Furnace, but the work marks a significant advance on its predecessors. New colours are provided by the mellow tones of the alto flute, primarily associated with the pastoral tranquility of the father’s home and by the small trumpet in D which accompanies the Tempter’s promises of excitement. The theme of an errant adolescent returning home the wiser from his travels is familiar from Albert Herring and it is perhaps significant that The Prodigal Son is the most traditionally ‘operatic’ of the three Parables..

The first performance took place on 10 June 1968 in Orford Church, Suffolk.  The original cast included Peter Pears as the Tempter, Robert Tear as the Younger Son, John Shirley-Quirk as the Father, and Bryan Drake as the Elder Son.  Colin Graham was the stage director and set designer.  Intermezzo will be modeling its production after Mr. Graham's original staging and dedicating the performance to his memory.

The story mirrors that of the Lost Son found in Luke 15:11-32.  Jesus tells the story of a man who has two sons. The younger demands his share of his inheritance while his father is still living, and goes off to a distant country where he wastes his substance with riotous living, and eventually has to take work as a swine herder. There he comes to his senses, and determines to return home and throw himself on his father's mercy. But when he returns home, his father greets him with open arms.  The father orders the "fatted calf" to be killed to celebrate his return. The older brother becomes jealous at the favored treatment of his faithless brother and upset at the lack of reward for his own faithfulness. But the father responds: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."

This work is rarely performed and has not been seen in the Boston area in over thirty years.  Intermezzo is very pleased to have underwriting support from the Britten Estate to mount this production.

 

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