christopher mattaliano - Portland Opera

2010/11 

christopher mattaliano 

general director 

1

Thank you for subscribing to our 2010/11 Season 

CONTENTS 

3 A Message from the General Director 

Our Mission 

4 Subscriber Benefits 

5 Ordering Additional Regular Tickets 

Special Subscriber Ticket Prices and Seating 

6 Pagliacci / Carmina Burana 

18 Hansel & Gretel 

24 Turandot 

32 L’heure espagnole / L’enfant et les sortilèges 

38 Directions to Keller Auditorium & Newmark Theatre 

39 Opera in the Community – Education & Outreach 

40 The Portland Opera Website 

41 Give to Portland Opera 

42 Portland Opera Picks: Restaurant, Hotel & Retail Savings 

Important Contact Information 

portland opera office 

The Hampton Opera Center 

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keller auditorium 

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group sales 

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The Newmark Theatre 

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In emergency: 503-274-6566 

lost & found 

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2 

portlandopera.org | your source for all things opera

a message from the general director 

This season the lights will go down, that special 

hush will fall over the hall, the curtain will slowly rise, 

and the world as we know it will disappear. We’ll all 

be transported to a new world where things may 

or may not be what they seem. Plays within plays, 

characters real and imagined, and fairy tales of all 

sorts will hold us spellbound. And when it’s all sung 

and done, our world—the one we live in each and 

every day—will be the richer for it! 

Welcome to our 2010/11 Season of “Fantasy or Reality?” 

This guide is designed to help make your 2010/11 

Season experience even richer. It’s your resource for 

a season’s worth of plot synopses, articles on the 

operas, composer biographies, detailed information 

on all the artists, and a host of what we hope is 

helpful information. 

We’ve designed this year’s guide so that you can 

download it as a pdf and either refer to it in the 

comfort of your own home or print it to use it in any 

way that makes sense to you. 

We also hope that if you are not already receiving 

our opera emails—OPERABuzz—that you’ll sign 

up for them now. These electronic messages are 

always interesting and carry inside information about 

what’s going on in the Company, special events, 

offers to other entertainment from our Portland arts 

colleagues and plenty more. It’s the best way to 

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There are many wondrous things that will happen 

during this season. And we invite you to get in touch 

with us over the course of the season to share your 

thoughts, your reactions to our productions, or any 

question you might have. We always enjoy hearing 

from members of our operatic family. 

On behalf of all of us at Portland Opera, THANK YOU 

for joining us this season. We’ll all look forward to 

seeing you throughout the year. 

Thank you for being with us! 

Christopher Mattaliano 

Our Mission 

Portland Opera exists to inspire, challenge and uplift our audiences by creating productions of high artistic 

quality that celebrate the beauty and breadth of opera. 

3

Pagliacci 

Hansel & Gretel 

enjoy the Benefits of being a subscriber 

4 

HASSLE-FREE TICKET EXCHANGES! 

Can’t attend your regularly scheduled performance? Here are 

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By Phone: 503-241-1802 


By Mail or In Person: The Hampton Opera Center 




A few important rules apply. We gladly exchange tickets for 

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to exchange from one opera to another opera. Because 

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special Savings on Additional Tickets 

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Pagliacci 

turandot 

need Additional Tickets? 

Call our Box Office at 503-241-1802, mention you’re 

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easy ways to order 

additional tickets 

phone 

2010/11 Season Schedule 

PAGLIACCI / CARMINA BURANA 

September 24, 26m, 30, Oct. 2, 2010 

HANSEL & GRETEL 

November 5, 7m, 11, 13, 2010 

TURANDOT 

February 4, 6m, 10, 12, 2011 

L’HEURE ESPAGNOLE 

L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILÈGES 

April 1, 3m, 5, 7, 9, 2011 

Special savings for groups! 

To receive special pricing for groups of 10 or more, 

please contact Portland Opera’s Group Sales 

Department at 503-295-3509. 

Box Office: 503-241-1802 

Toll-Free: 866-739-6737 


mail or in person 

Portland Opera Box Office 





No refunds. Orders will be 

processed according to date received. 

There is a $5.00 per ticket charge on 

phone and mail orders. 

All prices, shows, schedules and 

artists are subject to change. 

keller auditorium 2010/11 seating 

Newmark Theatre 2010/11 seating 

available at portlandopera.org 

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Sung in Italian, Latin and German with English 

translations projected above the stage. 

PORTLAND OPERA PREMIERE 

Pagliacci: October 1970 

Carmina Burana: March 1997 

WORLD PREMIERE 

Pagliacci: Milan, Teatro Dal Verme, May 21, 1892 

Carmina Burana: Frankfurt, June 8, 1937 

SUGGESTED RECORDINGS 

Leoncavallo: Pagliacci 

Panerai, Bergonzi, Morresi, Carlyle, Benelli, Taddei; 

Von Karajan, Conductor (Deutsche Grammophon) 

Orff: Carmina Burana 

Popp, Unger, Wolansky, Noble; Frühbeck de Burgos, 

Conductor (EMI) 

Musical highlights available at the Portland Opera website! 

FOR YOUR ADDED ENJOYMENT 

Reel Opera Film Series 

In a new partnership with the Northwest Film Center, film buffs 

and opera aficionados alike will enjoy a film before each opera 

production. Not designed to share filmed versions of actual 

operas, this series will present a film that is related to the 

production in some interesting way. 

La Strada, directed by Federico Fellini 

9/20/10, 7pm | Whitsell Auditorium, 

Portland Art Museum, $9 

Destination Opera: From Music to Psyche 

A unique partnership with the Oregon Psychoanalytic 

Center, Destination Opera explores the hidden subtexts 

of each opera this season. Duane Dale, MD, joins Alexis 

Hamilton, Manager of Education and Outreach, to debate and 

discuss Pagliacci/Carmina Burana. 

10/1/10, 7pm | Sherman Clay Pianos 

131 NW 13 th Ave, Free 

6 


Previews 

Tune in for an in-depth preview of the show, 

9/16/10, 6pm | All Classical 89.9 FM 

‘Northwest Previews’ www.allclassical.org 

Salem Preview: Enjoy a lively, 50-minute 

sneak peek of Pagliacci/Carmina Burana 

9/18/10, 2:30pm | Salem Public Library 

Loucks Auditorium, Free 

prior to each performance. 

First Balcony, Free 

Back Talk 

After each performance, join General Director Christopher 

Mattaliano for a Q&A session about the performance. 

Guests include performers, conductors and directors. 

Orchestra Level, Free 

Enjoy a lively, 50-minute sneak peek 

of Pagliacci/Carmina Burana: 

9/19/10, 2pm | Multnomah County Central Library 

Collins Gallery, Free 

Opera Insight 

Informative music and history talks with Portland 

Opera’s Resident Historian Bob Kingston one hour 

Pagliacci Plot 

The evening begins with a prologue delivered directly to the 

audience by the singer who will play Tonio, a hunchback 

character from the story that’s about to unfold. He asks 

the audience to see beyond the facade of the performers’ 

costumes and make-up, and remember the human beings 

there, who suffer the same trials and tribulations as everyone 

else. He then orders the show to begin. 

act i — In a village in southern Italy, a crowd welcomes a 

traveling troupe of players. Canio, their leader, greets the 

villagers and invites them to a play that evening. The men 

urge Canio to join them for a drink at a nearby tavern, but 

they teasingly warn him not to leave his young wife, Nedda, 

alone with Tonio, who—they say—might make the same kind 

of romantic advances to her in real life that his character will 

in the play. Canio answers that while his role as a jealous 

husband on stage creates comedy, the same situation in real 

life would end differently. He then departs with the villagers. 

Thinking she is alone, the young Nedda reflects on the 

potential danger of her husband's jealousy. But she refuses to 

be burdened by such fears. The sight of birds flying overhead 

triggers the memory of a song she once heard in childhood, 

and she begins to dream of a life more free. Tonio overhears 

her fanciful outburst and takes the liberty of declaring his love 

for her. Even though she scorns him and ridicules his deformity, 

he tries to kiss her. When he persists, she grabs a whip and 

strikes him. Cringing with pain, Tonio swears that she will pay 

dearly for her actions. 

No sooner has Tonio gone off than Silvio appears. He is a 

young villager with whom Nedda has been having an affair. He 

wants her to leave her husband and run away with him. Nedda 

at first refuses, but finally she gives in to Silvio's impassioned 

pleadings. Tonio, returning from the tavern, catches sight 

of the lovers and, seeing the opportunity for revenge, runs 

off to fetch Canio. The enraged husband arrives just in time 

to hear his wife promise to meet Silvio later that night. At 

Canio's approach, Silvio escapes unrecognized into the 

woods. Canio demands that Nedda reveal the identity of her 

lover. She refuses. Canio, beside himself with rage, is about 

to kill her when Beppe, another member of the troupe, stops 

PRODUCTION SPONSORs 

THE CAST 

Nedda/ 

Soprano 

Soloist 

Emily Pulley 

Canio 

Richard 

Crawley 

Silvio/Baritone 

Soloist 

Marian Pop 

Tonio 

Mark Rucker 

Beppe/Tenor 

Soloist 

Steven 

Brennfleck 

Choreographer 

Jamey Hampton 

Choreographer 

Ashley Roland 

Conductor 

John DeMain 

Stage Director 

Christopher 

Mattaliano 

7

him. He reminds Canio that the villagers are assembling for 

the performance and tells Nedda to get dressed for the play. 

Canio reflects ironically that he now must go on stage as 

Pagliaccio—the Clown—and make people laugh, even though 

his heart is breaking. 

act ii — The villagers gather excitedly to see the 

performance. The play presented by Canio and his troupe 

is a mirror of the previous, real life, events. Tonio plays the 

part of the stupid servant Taddeo, who declares his love for 

Columbine (played by Nedda). She scorns him to make way 

for her real lover, Harlequin (played by Beppe), who arrives 

for an intimate supper. This cozy scene is interrupted by the 

unexpected arrival of the husband, Pagliaccio (played by 

Canio). Harlequin escapes as Columbine promises to meet 

him later that night, using the same words that Nedda used to 

Silvio that very afternoon. 

As Canio proceeds to play his part, the tragic reality of the 

situation begins to overshadow the make-believe. He insists 

that Nedda name her lover. She laughs him off and tries to 

continue the comedy. But Canio, carried away, reproaches her 

for her ingratitude and her betrayal. Some of the spectators 

begin to wonder whether the actors are playing parts or are 

actually in earnest. Nedda reminds Canio that she has never 

been a coward and persists in her refusal to name her lover. 

Pushed beyond the breaking point, Canio seizes a knife and 

stabs Nedda. With her last breath she cries out for Silvio, who 

has been watching the play. He runs onto the stage and Canio, 

now aware that Silvio is his wife's lover, stabs him to death. 

Amid the agitation of the horrified onlookers, Tonio ends the 

“performance” (and Leoncavallo’s opera) by stating simply: 

“The comedy is finished.” 

CARMINA BURANA PLOT 

Carmina Burana is a scenic oratorio composed to the texts 

of Goliard poems from the 13 th century. The manuscript 

containing these verses was discovered in 1803 at a Bavarian 

monastery in Benediktbeuern; the term “Burana” in the title 

is the Latin adjective identifying this location. The subtitle of 

the work, Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae 

comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis, means 

“Secular songs for soloists and chorus, accompanied by 

instruments and supplemented by scenery.” Although there 

are a number of contexts for human interaction in some of 

the pieces, there is no plot continuity or overall dramatic 

action in this series of songs. Composer Carl Orff envisioned 

Carmina Burana with optional action and dance, although 

he did not provide written instructions as to how it should 

be staged. Thus, it has been presented in a wide variety 

of ways. Although most frequently seen in concert form, 

the work is extremely theatrical and adapts well for the 

stage. Portland Opera’s production has been conceived by 

Christopher Mattaliano as a fully staged production featuring 

the dynamic Portland modern dance company BodyVox, 

with choreography by Artistic Directors Jamey Hampton and 

Ashley Roland. 

The medieval Goliards (the term is a nickname meaning 

“big mouths”) were scholars, monks and priests who had 

abandoned conformity to the Catholic church. Individualists in 

a time when such behavior was considered heresy, they lived 

vagrant lives, begging, thieving, and singing. They wrote their 

verses mostly in Latin, although portions of their texts are 

in the vernacular languages of the areas in which they lived. 

Their best poetry is a frank avowal of their pleasures, their 

simple zest in living, and the joys of an earthy existence. 

The manuscript discovered in the Benediktbeuern 

monastery contained the most extensive collection of Goliard 

poetry ever found. Its authors were various and anonymous. 

It is surprising that a monastery’s library contained a volume 

of such scurrilous material. The justification for this is that the 

volume had originally belonged to a secular court and had 

been assigned to the monastery for archival purposes. 

mixes folksong elements from his native Bavaria with a parody 

of Gregorian plainchant, matching the ridicule of religious 

forms found in the texts. The musical fabric is bold and 

colorful. Its strong rhythmic emphasis demands an enlarged 

percussion section. Although these effects are striking, 

they are not complicated. The melodic material is tonal 

and straightforward, unadorned by counterpoint or formal 

variation. The harmonic effects are reduced to bare essentials. 

All of these choices magnificently enhance the poetry’s 

attention to what is simple, sensuous, vigorous, and direct. 

Orff chose to organize the texts of Carmina Burana into 

three contrasting sections: exploring themes of renewal and 

sexual awakening in Early Spring; alienation, debauchery, and 

corruption in In The Tavern; and both unrequited and requited 

love in The Court of Love. These three groups of poems 

are flanked by identical musical settings of the same poem 

“O Fortuna” (Oh Fortune), bemoaning man’s fate as a mere 

pawn of destiny’s mighty and often cruel hand. 

Carmina Burana has won a firm place in the musical 

repertoire of Western culture. It has enjoyed enormous 

popularity and has often been adapted effectively for 

theatrical purposes for both stage and film. 

Sections 

I. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 

(Fortune, Empress of the World) 

II. Primo Vere (Early Spring) 

Uf dem Anger (On the Green) 

III. In Taberna (In the Tavern) 

IV. Cour d’amours 

(The Court of Love) 

V. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 

(Fortune, Empress of the World) 

In Carmina Burana, Orff chose to set only a portion of the 

manuscript to music. The melodic language he employed 

8

Fact or Fiction: On the tangled Trail of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci 

“I remembered, then, the bloody tragedy that had gouged the memories of my distant childhood, 

and to the poor servant murdered under my eyes; and in not even twenty days of feverish work, I 

threw down the libretto of Pagliacci.” 

—Ruggiero Leoncavallo 

When Ruggiero Leoncavallo was 8 years old, his babysitter, 

Gaetano Scavello, was murdered. It is highly unlikely that 

Leoncavallo was actually there, as the murder took place at 

four in the morning outside of a theater. For any child, such 

an event would be a horrific blow, but, perhaps, for the 

highly imaginative, sensitive Ruggiero, the murder and the 

subsequent trial metastasized into a graphic paramnesia* 

which was to germinate his greatest work of art 27 years later. 

Or, as in so many cases in Leoncavallo’s life, he wanted to 

give legitimacy to his claim that Pagliacci was utterly original, 

and so embellished his involvement in an already tragic and 

traumatic experience. One leans towards this last explanation, 

as yet another letter to his publisher swears that: 

“… while my father was a judge at Montalto 

… a jealous player killed his wife after the 

performance … [which] made a deep and lasting 

impression on my childish mind.” 

Regardless of the facts of Leoncavallo’s presence or 

absence, it is true that Scavello’s murder had a profound 

effect on his life and that of his family. His father, Vincenzo, 

was the presiding judge at the trial, and the murder must 

have taken up a huge chunk of the family’s psyche at the time 

of the killing and subsequent prosecution. That the composer 

claimed it as the seed of Pagliacci makes it worth examining 

the facts of the case. 

The file of the case reads roughly: 

“Proceedings filed against Luigi and Giovanni 

D'Alessandro who were charged with 

premeditated murder committed with weapons 

and insidious lurking on the evening of 5 March 

1865 upon the person of Gaetano Scavello of 

Carmine.” 

At the time of his death, Scavello was twenty-two 

years old and in love. Unfortunately, he had a rival for the 

girl’s affections, Luigi D’Alessandro. In what seems an 

extraordinarily convoluted motive for murder, Scavello 

confronted D’Alessandro’s manservant after the servant had 

escorted the young woman to a house and demanded to 

know if she was inside with D’Alessandro. When the servant 

declined to answer, Scavello “struck him with a mulberry 

branch, whereupon Pasquale [the servant] ran away to seek 

the help of his two employers.” D’Alessandro and his brother 

came gunning for Scavello with a whip—Scavello, knowing 

* a distortion of memory in which fact and fancy are confused. 

9

superior strength when he saw it, threw a couple of rocks at 

the brothers and hightailed it out of there, the D’Alessandro 

boys in hot pursuit. They were unable to catch Scavello at that 

time, but instead, lay in wait for him (“insidious lurking”) outside 

of the theater, stabbing him as he left the show, one in the arm, 

the other in the abdomen. Scavello died the next day, after 

fingering the brothers for his murder. The D’Alessandros were 

brought up on trial and one received a life sentence, the other 

20 years hard labor. Ironically, in Leoncavallo’s explanation of 

how he had written Pagliacci, he noted: 

“…what is stranger still, as I have since learned, 

the protagonist of my work is still living and 

having been released from prison is now in the 

service of Baroness Sprovieri in Calabria. If the 

action had come to trial [meaning a plagiarism 

lawsuit threatened by French playwright 

Mendès], he would have been willing to come 

and give evidence in my favor. I regret that 

this did not happen, as we should have had a 

very dramatic scene during the evidence of poor 

Alessandro (the real name of my Canio) when he 

was relating his crime, his jealous fury and his 

sufferings!” 

So much for the facts. Anyone with a cursory knowledge 

of Pagliacci might be forgiven for asking, “But where are 

the clowns?” Other than a jealous love triangle, a “tattletale” 

servant (a stretch to equate Pasquale to Tonio, no doubt), 

an initial escape and subsequent knifing death, there is 

little of real life in Pagliacci. One might forgive the composer 

some creative license in putting the action of the opera on 

Assumption Day—plenty of local color to be derived from 

the religious celebration of peasants, not to mention the time 

honored theatrical juxtaposition of the holy and profane. But 

Leoncavallo does significantly more than that—he introduces 

the element of a play within a play, and even later, at the 

request of the baritone who was to create Tonio, added the 

famous “Prologue,” which gives another direct line to the 

audience, adding another layer of “reality” to the layers of 

reality and unreality inherent in the original story. 

Of course the concept of a play within a play was not 

unknown to Leoncavallo. The concept of the “story within a 

story” is ancient and utilized in literature from One Thousand 

and One Arabian Nights, as Scheherazade stayed up 

nights trying to keep her head between her shoulders, to 

Shakespeare’s Danish prince attempting entrapment of his 

father’s murderer. 

In the mid-19 th century, a volume of the “complete works” 

of the French 17 th century playwright, satirist, charlatan and 

actor Tabarin brought renewed interest to the commedia 

dell’arte and the clown himself. Tabarin had taken his name 

from a commedia mask—the character was named for the 

defining part of his costume, his cloak (tabarro, in Italian). The 

name given to him by his parents was Antoine Girard. He 

would stage “impromptu farces” to peddle his “medicinal” 

elixirs and draw a crowd. From 1618 to 1625 he delighted 

Parisian audiences with his wit, his bawdiness and slapstick, 

and in the 1850s he posthumously drew a literary crowd of 

imitators and became the legendary subject of many plays 

and opéra comique. Now both the character and the man 

had a wife, Francisquine, also a commedia mask. According 

to Gustave Aventin, who was the editor of 19 th century 

“complete works”: 

“This Francisquine figured in jokes played in 

Tabarin’s theatrics, and if we are to believe some 

questionable traditions, she did not pride herself 

on marital fidelity.” 

This salacious (and undocumented) tidbit in the forward 

of a book was enough to inspire several plays about the 

relationship of the clown and his unfaithful wife, one of which 

was by Catulle Mendès, entitled Le Femme de Tabarin. 

This play had an antecedent in a comedy by Paul Ferrier, 

who would later accuse Mendès of plagiary, just as 

Mendès would Leoncavallo. 

Actually, Leoncavallo and Mendès’ plots are quite similar. In 

Le Femme de Tabarin, Tabarin’s wife is in love with another 

and flirting with him while performing in a play. Enraged, 

Tabarin stabs her and weeps bitterly as she drags herself 

towards him and smears his lips with spilt blood before she 

dies. The audience of the play within the play takes quite 

a while to catch on that something is amiss—indeed, one 

erstwhile fan tries to give the dying Francisquine a bouquet of 

flowers and is shocked when his hand is bloodied. But this 

is where Mendès’ play ends. Leoncavallo’s opera creates a 

whole other level of disquiet with the Iago-like figure of Tonio, 

who not only drives the action of the opera, but comes out of 

character to address the audience to tell us not to dismiss the 

emotions of the players on stage as mere caricature, but to 

understand it as life, as accurate as our reflections in a mirror. 

Mendès threatened to sue Leoncavallo for stealing his idea, 

just at the height of Pagliacci’s popularity. This was supremely 

irritating for the composer, who was finally basking in the glow 

of the recognition he felt he deserved. As it was, he had had to 

deal with some critics accusing him of “lacking originality.” And 

that must have stung, because there was a germ of truth in it, 

which niggled at him like sand in an oyster. After the success 

of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Leoncavallo co-opted a 

genre he hated and made it his own. It was opportunistic, but 

resulted in a powerful work of art. A combination of influences 

and ideas coalesced into one pithy, sleek, brilliant and bloody 

verismo that is wildly effective. No wonder he was determined 

to claim the work as utterly and completely his own! 

Mendès dropped his claims when Leoncavallo countered 

that Mendès himself had borrowed elements of his plot from 

others. Some stories and ideas are universal. Shakespeare 

was hardly original in his plotlines. Even the ancients 

acknowledge that “there is nothing new under the sun.” 

Leoncavallo combined his memories with literary devices 

which stretch into antiquity to create something his own. 

Ultimately, Pagliacci has eclipsed all of its antecedents to live 

on in the opera house and our collective memories. 

This article is heavily based upon the work of Matteo Sansone and Konrad Dryden. 

—Alexis Hamilton 

10

Primal Music: The Potent Poetry of Carmina Burana 

“Contrary to what conductors tell you … size does matter.” 

—Marin Alsop in “Love, Lust and Drinking Stir Carmina,” NPR, Morning Edition, 2006 

In Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, size does matter. As of this 

writing, Portland Opera’s production of Carmina Burana will 

include nearly 150 people performing on stage and in the 

orchestra pit. For Orff’s conception of an elemental, universal, 

immediate, overwhelming theatrical piece, it is fitting that from 

its monumental opening chords, the audience is intensely 

aware of the underlying, primal power of the human voice. In 

this context (and perhaps in the bawdy context of the original 

medieval texts), size does indeed matter. 

In 1937, Carmina Burana opened to rather mixed reviews, 

and in Nazi Germany mixed reviews were anxiety producing. 

With the Reich’s rise to power in the early 1930s, Carl Orff’s 

artistic position was suspect. He was associated with the 

free-wheeling modernism of the Weimar Republic, although he 

didn’t write atonal music or appreciate jazz. His educational 

activities did, however, utilize Asian-inspired percussion 

instruments, and his music was insufficiently respectful of 

the “Old Masters.” His revisions of the St. Luke Passion and 

its stage adaptation were unappreciated by Bach purists, and 

further branded him as avantgarde. The undeniably lewd 

lyrics of his new work, Carmina Burana—as well as its driving 

rhythmic core vaguely reminiscent of Stravinsky and “black” 

music (at least to the Nazi mind)—further alienated it from 

some of the Reich’s music critics. But there was another 

wing of the Nazi party who viewed the fanatically simplistic 

Carmina Burana, with its repetitive, climatic rhythms and 

folkish melodies as some sort of primordial music of the 

Volk. One could be cynical and interpret Carmina Burana’s 

increased popularity among the party establishment as 

trending with the unrelenting public popularity of the piece, 

but that might undermine the genuine and mesmerizing 

power of the music to win over audiences on its own. And it 

is mesmerizing. And possibly the best known piece of 20 th 

century music the world over. Is it even possible for a horror or 

fantasy movie trailer to be made without scoring its opening 

sequence to “O Fortuna”? 

“Regnabo; regno; regnavi; sum sine regno.” 

“I shall reign; I reign; I have reigned; I am 

without a kingdom.” 

Inscribed around the frontispiece to the collection 

that became known as Carmina Burana. 

As a minor point of trivia, Orff came upon the poetry which 

inspired his best known work on Maundy Thursday, 1934. It 

is interesting that Orff should be inspired by such vivid, randy, 

corporeal poems on a high holy day, but it might have tickled 

the fancy of the Goliards and vagantes that wrote them. After 

all, for the general public, Orff’s music immortalized their 

poems. Orff was so excited by the poems almost physical 

impact that he marked the moment in his diary: “A memorable 

day for me ... I immediately found, on the front page, the longfamous 

picture of Fortune with her wheel. Picture and words 

seized hold of me." Orff’s grandfather had been an historian 

and a lover of literature, myth and legend, a trait he passed on 

and nurtured in his grandson. So it is not surprising that Orff 

would have been reading one of the two most important texts 

of medieval, secular poetry as yet discovered: Carmina Burana. 

(The other is English, Carmina Cantabrigiensia.) 

In 1803, the collection was discovered very near to Orff’s 

Munich home in the monastery of Benediktbeuern, nestled 

picturesquely in the green foothills of the Alps. The Latin title 

Carmina Burana (“Songs of Beuern”) was given to them when 

they were found, compiled and translated. The songs were 

a disparate collection of mostly 12 th century poems, plus six 

plays, mostly in a “vernacular” Latin (a Latin removed from the 

Church and the poetic rhythms of the Romans themselves), 

but also including Middle High German, some French, and 

some macaronic texts, in which Latin, German and French 

were jumbled together into a sort of pidgin language. They 

were collected and bound sometime in the 13 th century 

(although some additional poems were bound in later). 

The purpose of the texts was to entertain and express the 

individual poet’s thoughts and feelings. They were thoroughly 

secular, though occasionally mocking religious writings to 

satirize the failings of the Church. Most of the poet’s names 

are lost to antiquity, but they are known under the collective 

name of the Goliards, or perhaps more accurately, as 

medievalist Edwin Zeydel points out, vagantes. 

For many years, the terms vagantes and Goliards were 

used interchangeably. In the most basic sense, they were 

itinerant students and clerics, who for a variety of reasons 

traveled the countryside, unattached to a particular monastery 

or university, but enjoying the rights and privileges of the clergy. 

Vagantes were not subject to the king’s taxes, could not be 

pressed into military service, could not be tried in a secular 

court and were “entitled to alms.” It’s much easier to be a 

penniless, vagabond poet, when one can wander without 

the threat of arrest. One could also wine and wench with 

debauched impunity. Which they did. Frequently. And they 

11

were immortalized in songs, sometimes of great beauty and 

tenderness, as in Dulcissime in which the narrator in the voice 

of a young woman says, “Sweetest boy, I give you all that I 

am.” Just as often they were peans to drunkenness, richly 

funny and marvelously witty. 

What eventually separated the Goliards from the vagantes 

was the satirical poetry. Vagantes were not a bit shy about 

expressing their distaste for corruption in the church. The 

University of Paris reported: 

“Priests and clerks … dance in the choir dressed as 

women … they sing wanton songs. They eat black 

pudding at the altar itself, while the celebrant 

is saying Mass. They play dice on the altar. They 

cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old 

shoes. They run and leap throughout the church, 

without a blush of their own shame. Finally they 

drive about the town and its theaters in shabby 

carriages and carts, and rouse the laughter of 

their fellows and the bystanders in infamous 

performances, with indecent gestures and with 

scurrilous and unchaste words!” 

They sound a lot more like frat boys than scholars and 

priests. In the 13 th century, the Church tired of their constant 

gadflying and revoked their clerical privileges. Eventually, 

the term “goliard” took on a derogatory implication 

and finally came to mean little more than a wandering 

minstrel, where once it had indicated an educated man. 

Meanwhile the poetry remained. 

The poetry gives us a window into the past and insight into 

the minds and passions of people who lived 700 years ago. 

Their words are vibrant with life and Orff’s music unleashes 

them upon the ear with renewed immediacy. Of the 250 

texts, Orff sets 24. To make them suitable for his purposes, 

he also shortened and rearranged some of them. In addition, 

Orff created his own “chapters” for the work: Early Spring 

(including a sub section, On the Green), In the Tavern and 

The Court of Love. These sections are book-ended by the 

potent “O Fortuna.” The music is immediately gripping 

and, although it sounds nothing like the music of the 

Goliards, captures the energy, vitality and timeless appeal 

of the originals. 

Orff originally conceived of Carmina Burana as a staged 

work, although most of its performances in the United States 

are purely choral. While the intensity of the music loses 

nothing with a static presentation, it undermines Orff’s intent to 

link music to our primordial selves through dance and imagery. 

Eventually Carmina Burana became the first of a triptych of 

works entitled Trionfi. With the second and third pieces, Orff 

reaches even farther back into history, setting Roman and 

Greek texts. Orff said that he viewed ancient texts, “as not old, 

but valid; the time element disappears and only the spiritual 

power remains.” 

Orff was ultimately concerned with tapping into a kind of 

universality with his music. His Schulwerk is all about getting 

children to tap into the musicality innate within them, and 

Carmina Burana and all of his subsequent music plumbs the 

depths of human commonality. That audiences continue to 

respond with unfettered enthusiasm is proof of his success. 


12

About the Composer: RUGGIERO LEONCAVALLO (1857 – 1919) 

“Too much voice and too much emotion!” 

—Eduard Hanslick, Austrian music critic, on Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci 

While Hanslick limited his commentary to Leoncavallo’s work, 

in some ways the quote could well apply to Leoncavallo 

himself. Protective of his reputation, ambitious in his pursuit 

of fame and critical success, naive in the extreme, and selfdestructively 

litigious, Leoncavallo roared and puffed, lied and 

suffered throughout his life, never quite reaching the level of 

renown he felt was his due. 

Opera companies producing Pagliacci will often imply 

that Leoncavallo was a “one shot wonder.” What an unfair 

assessment of a composer who wrote 18 operas (I only 

include the ones 

which were produced 

in his lifetime—his 

reputation suffers 

somewhat from the 

post-mortem releases), 

76 songs, 10 librettos 

(eight for which he 

also penned the 

score), 13 orchestral 

works, one ballet, 38 

piano pieces, and 12 

hymns! And these are 

not all sub-par works 

which belong in the 

dustbin of history, 

overshadowed by the 

crazed verismo of Pagliacci. While it is true that some were 

ill-conceived, derivative, or banal, there are others which are 

“tender, rapturous, beguiling,” and even his “failures” enjoyed 

multiple performances and were not universally reviled by 

critics. Of particular note are his La Bohème and Zazá, which, 

like Pagliacci, are intimate stories. But even in his epic failures 

there is inspired music, and it is easy to believe that had his life 

circumstances and personal quirks been somewhat different, 

the fate of his music might be as well. 

There is only one annotated biography of Ruggiero 

Leoncavallo that exists, and it was published in 2008. In his 

introduction, Konrad Dryden expresses his surprise that so 

little research has been done on this composer, who, with 

Mascagni, defined a genre, but he does admit that “relatively 

little is known about [the composer], and what sparse 

documentation remains … is not always factual.” Because so 

many articles in music encyclopedias, websites and program 

notes are cribbed from the same articles, the inaccuracies 

have been perpetuated—the same five biographical errors 

persisted in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, the 

authoritative encyclopedia of opera, until 2001! This is 

rather remarkable, but understandable, given the impulsive 

opportunism of the composer himself, who embellished and 

fabricated the facts on occasion to gain some perceived 

advantage. Even the spelling of his name was up for alteration 

depending on where he was living—his birth certificate states 

Ruggiero; the relative he was named for spelled it Ruggero; in 

France he at times used Roger—for Leoncavallo it sometimes 

didn’t matter what you called him, as long as you called. 

In matter of fact, Ruggiero Leoncavallo was born on April 23, 

1857 into a family in which art and music were “an essential 

part of life.” His aunt was a “stupendous” mezzo soprano, his 

mother and grandfather accomplished and disciplined painters. 

His father, Vincenzo, a lawyer and ultimately judge, was also 

a published novelist and a fine amateur voice in his own right. 

One of his earliest childhood memories was hearing his father 

sing in church. Young Ruggiero’s own musical education 

came early, and he was encouraged in his piano studies 

and theatrical interests. But the little boy was a “little demon” 

according to his piano teacher, and his father enrolled him in 

school, where he continued to make trouble. 

When he was 8 years old, Ruggiero and his brother, Leone, 

were looked after by a young man, Gaetano Scavallo, who 

was murdered in a jealous rage by a romantic rival and 

the rival’s brother over the company of a young woman. In 

what would seem an ethically problematic development, 

Vincenzo Leoncavallo presided at the murder trial, which 

ended in life imprisonment for the knife-wielder and 20 years 

for his assisting brother. (Leoncavallo Sr. was staunchly 

against the death penalty, otherwise the perpetrators’ fates 

might have been drastically different.) The loss of his caretaker 

had a profound effect on Ruggiero, and years later he would 

claim that this murder was the germ of his idea for Pagliacci. 

The truth is quite a bit more complicated, but at the time 

Leoncavallo felt the need to put the originality of the score 

beyond question, and went so far as to claim that he had 

actually witnessed the bloody death himself—a rather dubious 

claim, as it would be highly unlikely that a chubby-kneed 

8-year-old would be hanging about outside theaters at 4am 

(the time of the murder). It did make for a colorful tale, however. 

Nevertheless, it was a formative experience. 

Meanwhile, Leoncavallo’s precocious musical talents 

were encouraged by his parents taking him to see a rather 

dilapidated production of Verdi’s La Traviata. Soon afterward, 

he saw a much better Rigoletto, featuring his aunt as 

Maddalena. Seeing his delight in the opera, his mother, whom 

Leoncavallo fiercely loved, continued to make sure that he 

saw as many operas as practical. She died in 1873, when her 

musician son was 16 years old. 

From then on things progressed rather frantically for 

Leoncavallo. He graduated from high school later in the year 

of his mother’s death and by 19 was contemplating writing a 

libretto based on the life of poet Thomas Chatterton. The fruits 

of this youthful labor were in the romantic, sentimental opera 

Chatterton, which would not see the stage until Leoncavallo 

had established himself as a serious composer. He would 

then feel that the jejune work of his artistic immaturity was 

a threat to his reputation and would rework the whole thing 

13

into something which was still a critical failure. Nevertheless, 

the young man’s ambition was determined and he contacted 

Casa Ricordi, Verdi’s (and later Puccini’s) publisher, about 

producing Chatterton. 

Leoncavallo next went to Bologna, where he studied 

with poet Carducci, who was to have a huge influence on 

Leoncavallo’s literary career. Bologna assuaged his grief over 

his mother, and his gregarious charm earned him many friends 

and influential patrons. He was an accomplished pianist and 

his skills gained him enthusiastic welcome at many of the cities 

best salons. It also introduced him to what would be the first 

of many frustrations. The young man thought he had secured 

an impresario to produce his Chatterton. One of his wealthy 

admirers had fronted the money to see the opera staged, but 

the deal fell through. Later Leoncavallo, as was typical of him, 

accused the impresario of pocketing the money and running. 

What was actually true was that Chatterton was bumped in 

favor of a safer box office lure, Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia. 

This disappointment was profound, and left Leoncavallo at 

loose ends. He returned to Naples and taught piano until he 

received an invitation from his uncle, who lived and worked in 

Egypt. In 1879, Leoncavallo headed for Cairo to peddle his 

piano skills. Here Leoncavallo secured employment teaching 

the Khedive’s brother piano. His time in Egypt offered him 

unforgettable experiences; as he put it, “an uninterrupted 

series of amazing impressions.” Three years later, however, he 

was forced to flee Cairo on horseback dressed as an Arab. 

He finally arrived penniless in Paris. Politics had changed 

drastically in Egypt and European popularity was at a nadir. 

French colleagues had been murdered, and Leoncavallo didn’t 

wait around to see what his fate might be. 

Paris was difficult for Leoncavallo. He was writing songs, 

but the majority of his income came from accompanying 

“inferior artists” in cafés. His skill at changing keys at sight 

for them, covering their inadequacies, earned him a very 

positive reputation among this C-list crew, eventually leading 

to work writing songs for a small theater specializing in variety 

shows. A year of this gave him enough money to consider 

quitting and to look for work with legitimate singers in the 

opera house. During the course of his job hunting he met 

the great baritone, Victor Maurel, and Massenet. Maurel was 

to become a great friend and advocate of Leoncavallo’s, 

originating the role of Tonio in Pagliacci. Needless to say, after 

sight reading a random open score for Massenet, Leoncavallo 

landed the gig accompanying and preparing an Italian version 

of Herodiad, starring Maurel. Things were looking up for 

Leoncavallo, even if he was still suffering “nights without sleep 

and days without bread.” 

In the meantime, Leoncavallo did not forget his burning 

desire to write an epic trilogy of operas along the lines of 

Wagner’s Ring Cycle, based upon Italian history. His first 

would be I Medici and the three would be called Crepusculum. 

He worked on and off on the libretto for I Medici, the only 

opera of the planned trilogy that was completed and produced 

in 1893. Meanwhile, he married his beloved wife Berthe. Little 

is known of their relationship, but it was enduring; theirs seems 

to have been a happy love match. She had a lovely soprano 

voice, trained by Leoncavallo’s friend Maurel, and it may be 

that they met through him. 

Leoncavallo’s first success was a symphonic poem named 

Nuit de mai. This piece shows off Leoncavallo’s orchestrations 

and the drama that would later infuse his operas. It was 

successful enough that the composer made free to contact 

Casa Ricordi again, and this time was given a reading of his 

completed libretto I Medici. Ricordi held him off with excuses 

regarding getting a youthful Puccini’s Edgar on its feet. 

It would be the first of many bitter pills (real and perceived) 

that Leoncavallo would have to swallow provided by Puccini 

and Ricordi. The savvy old publisher did not, however, cut 

Leoncavallo loose, but strung him along with vague promises 

and an unfortunate contract for I Medici that guaranteed 

Casa Ricordi the rights to the opera, but did not guarantee 

a performance. Meanwhile Ricordi busied himself promoting 

Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (which libretto Leoncavallo had a 

small hand in). 

14

Throughout his life, Leoncavallo felt that Casa Ricordi and 

Puccini were out to ruin him. While they may not have been 

actively destructive, the business practices of Ricordi did put 

Leoncavallo at a disadvantage. Ricordi actively handled the 

business aspect of his composers’ careers—Puccini didn’t 

have to hustle to get his operas produced. Leoncavallo, on 

the other hand, was always traveling, writing to impresarios, 

importuning his own publisher and conducting, all while 

he was trying to write. The animosity between Puccini and 

Leoncavallo stems from both of them pursuing Murger’s 

Scènes de la vie de bohème, and from Leoncavallo’s 

resentment that Puccini had such strong advocacy from 

Ricordi, while he himself was treated rather shabbily. Puccini’s 

contempt stooped to name-calling and ultimately a dismissive 

air, although he was at Leoncavallo’s funeral, looking haggard 

and grieved. 

Pagliacci was the opera that shot Leoncavallo onto the 

world stage. After failing to interest Ricordi in staging I Medici, 

he wanted to create something the publisher would be itching 

to produce. Mascagni had had tremendous success with 

Cavelleria Rusticana, and while Leoncavallo purported to 

loathe verismo, for a hit he was willing to turn his hand to it. 

The result of his efforts was Pagliacci, which he presented to 

Ricordi expectantly. Ricordi’s response was cold, uninterested 

and, in fact hostile. Leoncavallo felt the criticism keenly and said: 

“I am not here to listen to criticism but for a much 

more practical reason. I am bound to you by a 

clause in my contract forcing me to offer you all 

new works. This is a libretto. You don’t like it, but 

I do, and I am determined to compose music to it.” 

Infuriated and humiliated, Leoncavallo presented his 

libretto to the rival house of Sonzogno and visited his lawyer. 

Leoncavallo’s disastrous contract with Ricordi required that 

all of Leoncavallo’s work belonged to the house whether 

it was to be performed or not. Clearly this would not help 

Leoncavallo’s career and the ensuing lawsuit would last 

another ten years. Still, Sonzogno liked the libretto and 

the opera that followed it, and produced it. While it was 

not initially a critical success, it soon was vindicated in the 

court of public opinion and made its way around the world, 

followed eagerly by Leoncavallo. Pagliacci opened doors 

for him. His epic I Medici was produced to much fanfare, 

though little acclaim, and his youthful work Chatterton made 

its way to the stage. The German Kaiser commissioned an 

opera, which would be completed ten years later (delayed by 

La Bohème and Zazá). And through it all he conducted and 

toured Pagliacci. Der Roland von Berlin was considered a 

critical failure (although the nationalist German critics could be 

accused of being a bit hostile), but the Kaiser loved it and the 

public happily attended 25 performances. In truth, the music 

was very good, but a bad German translation of the libretto, 

and the unsuitability of the original novel to be made into an 

opera, contributed to its artistic difficulties. 

World War I further complicated Leoncavallo’s life with the 

Germans, and his work, for myriad reasons, was banned 

in Germany. As always, he was hurting for money, in debt, 

supporting his own family and his two brothers and their 

professional escapades. To make a living he turned to operetta 

and wrote some that were quite delightful and some that 

were less than delightful. His health began to fail him; his 

lawsuits began to come home to roost; he worked like a dog 

on projects that never came to fruition. He died at home on 

August 19, 1919 at the disappointing age of 62. 

About the Composer: Carl Orff (1895 – 1982) 

“He had his life and that is that.” 

—Godela Orff, Carl Orff’s estranged daughter 

Carl Orff was an obdurately complex man, living in exceedingly 

compromising times. His fame in the United States is due 

largely to his massive cantata, Carmina Burana, and in the 

world of educators for his Schulwerk, a pedagogical method 

for teaching music and movement to young children, and 

that fame is unavoidably tainted by the sulfurous whiff of the 

Third Reich. Arguably, his international fame rests upon the 

popularity of Carmina Burana with the Nationalist Socialist 

Party. But even that popularity was controversial within the 

party for some time. For several Nazi critics and musicologists, 

the piece was entirely too influenced by Stravinsky, too 

linguistically inclusive and too explicitly sexual to be 

appropriately “German.” Because of Orff’s own precarious 

position prior to Carmina, he could argue convincingly, after 

World War II, that he was unpopular with the Nazis, and 

that Carmina Burana itself was above suspicion. However, 

others within the party were unequivocally enthusiastic about 

the work, including the impeccably credentialed SS officer 

and Mayor of Frankfurt, Fritz Krebs, who awarded Orff a 

politically significant, if financially modest, prize. In 1937, 

Orff was gaining prestige, and with it a certain inoculation 

against the dangers of not being a party member. Prior to 

Carmina, he was a rather minor Bavarian composer who 

had dabbled in educational theory and had some interesting 

and indeterminately successful experiments in a new type 

of Gesamtkunstwerk*. After Carmina, his star was on the 

rise. Like many Germans after the war, Orff disliked speaking 

of his actions during those years, but unlike others, Orff 

disliked publicly speaking of himself at all, and refused to give 

interviews, particularly to biographers. “Let them pick over 

me after I am dead,” was his typical response. Most of his 

biographers stick to his musical accomplishments and remain 

suspiciously silent about his personal life. 

Orff was born in Munich in 1895. Munich was a Bavarian 

city, and Orff was fond of reminding people that, above all, he 

was a good Bavarian. His family was an old and respected 

one. Both of his grandfathers had attained the rank of major 

general and both were important academics. His mother was 

* aesthetic theory of Richard Wagner’s involving a complete synthesis of all of the arts into a perfect performing art, where music, poetry, drama, scenic design, etc. are 

perfectly balanced. Orff’s ideal involved a similar synthesis, but involved what he termed “elemental” music—a kind of primitive, universal ideal. 

15

an accomplished and gifted pianist, and she encouraged her 

son’s musical talents, serving as his first piano teacher. His 

father too was a musician, and, though not a professional, 

was a proficient pianist and string player. Young Carl was 

steeped in the German tradition of Hausmusik, in which friends 

and family gathered to play and sing together in the evening. 

His home life seems to have been happy and conflict- free 

throughout his childhood. 

His musical gifts were 

recognized and honored 

early, and he was 

removed from regular 

schooling before he 

graduated and was sent 

to the Academy of Music 

in Munich to continue his 

musical studies. 

Orff applied himself to 

his musical studies—but 

not at the Academy. 

He found it too stuffy 

and old-fashioned, and 

music in that day was 

flooded with the ideas and sounds of the Viennese School 

and French Impressionism. Orff poured over the harmonic 

language of Schoenberg and absorbed Debussy’s scintillating, 

shimmering melodies. Directly influenced by the musical 

avantgarde and Debussy in particular, Orff began composing 

his first stage work in 1913, following that with orchestral work, 

which he eventually realized was not his strength, passion 

or path. Filled with a love of history, myth and fable, carefully 

instilled and cultivated by his maternal grandfather, Orff 

realized that a synthesis of his passions could be achieved in 

the theater. Then the horror of World War I engulfed Europe 

and its young men. 

Orff joined the army in 1917 and went immediately to the 

eastern front. His service was short (the war ended in 1918), 

but pivotal in the psychology of the man. After World War 

I, Europe had changed and so had Carl Orff. There is little 

specific information about his service, just murmurings of 

being trapped and nearly dying in the suffocating dark of a 

collapsed trench. It was enough to cause him to “wake up 

screaming in the night,” according to one of his wives, to 

weep uncontrollably, and perhaps to suffer panic attacks, if 

that is how one could describe an “embarrassing incident 

with [his third wife] Rinsher” mentioned by Michael H. Kater 

in his book Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits. Such 

a horrifying experience could certainly cause a heightened 

sense of self preservation, which, perhaps explains some of 

what happened later. 

After his return to Munich, Orff composed and began 

to explore his own style, while holding various small posts 

in opera companies. He met and married Alice Solscher, a 

successful opera singer, in 1920, and welcomed his only child, 

a daughter, Godela, in 1921. He sought musical knowledge 

from others, but his studies didn’t produce much of interest, 

until musicologist Curt Sachs introduced him to the works of 

the Renaissance masters. Claudio Monteverdi struck a spark 

in the ambitious, theater-adoring 26-year-old. He began to 

work on a new arrangement of Monteverdi’s Orfeo, and would 

eventually complete arrangements of Il Ballo delle ingrate, 

Arianna and L’Incoronazione di Poppea. All of this before 

Monteverdi was truly rediscovered. 

During the 1920s, Orff also began a watershed project that 

would arguably fix his international reputation with educators 

the world over. In 1924, he co-founded the Günther School 

with Dorothee Günther, whom he had met in 1923. She was 

interested in creating a school for musical and dance training 

based loosely on the work of Jaques-Dalcroze, an educator 

who developed a system of music and movement known as 

eurhythmics. Orff loved dance and was familiar with the work 

of Jaques-Dalcroze student Mary Wigman, whose modern, 

primal choreography Orff linked to his own protean ideas for 

“elemental” music. Orff’s definition of elemental music, “a music 

which is not abstract, but which integrates the elements of 

speech, movement and dance,” fit in well with Günther’s plans 

for training young performance-based professionals, and for 

the next six years, Orff was deeply involved in the creation 

and implementation of a curriculum of music with rhythm 

at its heart and improvisation as its soul. The first edition of 

Schulwerk would appear in 1931. As the Nazis rose to power 

throughout the early 1930s, Orff retreated somewhat from 

the Günther School, while retaining control over Schulwerk. 

His reputation as a Weimar modernist did not endear him to 

the Aryan wardens of acceptable German art and Dorothee 

had, whether out of survival instinct or ideology, joined the 

Nazi party and allowed their influence to permeate the school, 

at least publicly. Meanwhile, Orff’s financial situation was 

uncomfortable and he began trying to sell Schulwerk as an 

ideal method to instilling German Music in Hitler Youth. 

Schulwerk, though, at least until after 1937, when 

Carmina Burana was first performed, was suspect with Nazi 

artistic authorities because of the wide variety of Easterninfluenced 

percussion instruments used in the curriculum, 

despite its clear basis in the music of the Volk, and strict 

avoidance of anything that smacked of atonal or jazz idioms. 

From 1935-36, Orff was hard at work on Carmina Burana. 

After its premiere, Orff said that he told his publisher to 

“henceforth forget everything he had composed before 1937.” 

He may have said this, but it was hyperbole. Orff did not, in 

fact, forget or repudiate everything he had written up until 

that time. There were of course, the Schulwerk compositions, 

as well as the sketches for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 

which he used as a springboard for his next commission: the 

replacement of the Jewish composer Mendelssohn’s incidental 

music. He was offered the commission by Lord Mayor Krebs, 

the SS officer who had championed Carmina Burana after 

its rocky premiere. Orff took the commission. There is no 

question that he needed the money. And, of course, he had 

been interested in writing for Shakespeare’s comedy 20 

years before. But several other composers had turned down 

the commission on principle, and there is evidence that Orff, 

too, found the premise distasteful. Nevertheless, Orff’s ego 

and keenly honed desire to see his music performed at any 

cost was such that he accepted the commission and wrote 

the music. He closed his eyes to the political implications 

of his actions, and so inured his conscience; at least for 

the time being. 

16

As World War II began, Carmina Burana gained popularity, 

as did Orff. He received commissions and had other works 

performed. He was quickly becoming a recognized and 

important composer, and received various privileges and perks 

as gifts from Nazi admirers, the greatest of which was an 

exemption from “war service requirements of any kind.” What 

Orff’s true politics were is impossible to know. There are letters 

early on in which he makes fun of the pomposity of the Reich; 

he certainly did not join in publicly denigrating Jews—and, by 

Nazi standards, he was a quarter Jew (a fact that he certainly 

did not share with anyone). However, it is Orff’s behavior 

after the war (vigorously denied by the Munich Orff Center) 

which speaks to his self-service and capability of using and 

abandoning friends in the pursuit of his musical career. 

His most egregious and controversial act in the initial 

post-war period was his claim to be the co-founder of the 

White Rose. The White Rose was a non-violent resistance 

group composed of anti-Nazi students from the University of 

Munich and their philosophy professor, Kurt Huber. From 1942 

to 1943, they published anti-Nazi propaganda and dispersed 

it throughout the city. They were then picked up, tried and 

executed. Kurt Huber and Carl Orff were close friends, 

although there is no evidence that Orff was involved with the 

White Rose (indeed, he worked hard to distance himself from 

Huber and his wife following Huber’s arrest). Despite Frau 

Huber’s pleas to use his influence to help her husband, Orff 

refused, and Huber was executed in July 1943, five months 

after his arrest. 

After the war, many artists found themselves out of work, 

and needing to distance themselves from the Nazi regime. Orff 

was no exception. He had been listed as “Gray, unacceptable” 

on the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) 

rating system. In order to avoid a “de-nazification” trial and 

be able to work again, Orff needed to move up the list a bit 

to “Gray, acceptable.” The young officer investigating Orff was 

Newell Jenkins, a student of Orff’s before the war. Jenkins 

explained Orff’s position to him and told him “to examine 

your own conscience and furnish proof of active resistance 

against the previous government. For those people are 

scarce, and, as I said, they are of greatest value to everyone.” 

The proof Orff offered, according to Jenkins was, “that he had 

worked together with Kurt Huber, they had founded some 

kind of a youth group… The danger came when he and some 

kids or maybe Huber himself were discovered passing out 

leaflets. Huber was arrested and killed.” According to Orff’s 

wife Gertrude, his daughter Godela, Huber’s widow and 

the conspicuous lack of any other evidence, Orff was most 

certainly not involved in the White Rose in any way. Regardless, 

Jenkins gave Orff a clean slate, and he immediately began 

work again. Other gray-listed colleagues of his attempted to 

gain his help in the period immediately following the war, but 

Orff did not answer them. He moved implacably forward. 

In 1945, Orff was asked to design a series of radio 

broadcasts with and for children based on some of his early 

work at the Günther School. In 1948, the first broadcast, 

“Children Make Music,” became reality and was immediately 

successful. From these broadcasts, which continued 

until 1954, Music for Children was published and used in 

conjunction with Schulwerk. 

Carl Orff lived until 1982, but his tightrope-walking 

between the needs of his musical career and the Third Reich 

haunted him for the rest of his life. Orff suffered nightmares 

and pathological guilt. He wrote letters to his late friends 

apologizing for his misdeeds, including one to Karl Huber. 

There is no question that Orff was a very flawed human being, 

as well as a brilliant artist and pedagogue. Millions of children 

have learned to express themselves with music through Carl 

Orff. In this way, he was—and is—hugely influential—more so 

perhaps, than for his sprawling and affecting Carmina Burana. 

Photograph of Carl Orff generously provided by Orff-Zentrum München. 

17

Sung in English with English text projected above the stage. 


December 1972 


Weimar, Hoftheater, December 23, 1893 

SUGGESTED RECORDING 

Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel 

Fassbaender, Popp, Berry, Hamari, Schlemm, Gruberová, 

Burrowes; Solti, Conductor (Polygram Records) 









Babette's Feast, directed by Gabriel Axel 

11/01/10, 7pm | Whitsell Auditorium 

Portland Art Museum, $9 


A unique partnership with the Oregon Psychoanalytic Center, 

Destination Opera explores the hidden subtexts of each 

opera this season. Nancy Winters, MD, joins Alexis Hamilton, 

Manager of Education and Outreach, to debate and discuss 

Hansel and Gretel. 



18 


Previews 




Christopher Mattaliano hosts a one hour 

radio preview of Hansel and Gretel, 


‘Saturday Matinee’ www.allclassical.org 

Salem Preview: 

Enjoy a lively, 50-minute sneak peek of Hansel and Gretel, 








Back Talk 


Mattaliano for a Q&A session about the performance. Guests 

include performers, conductors and directors. 


Enjoy a lively, 50-minute sneak peek of Hansel and Gretel, 



The Plot 

act i — In Hansel and Gretel’s house. Hansel complains he 

is hungry. Gretel shows him some milk that a neighbor has 

given for the family’s supper. The children dance. Their mother 

returns and wants to know why they have gotten so little work 

done. She accidentally spills the milk and chases the children 

out into the woods to pick strawberries. 

Their father, a broom-maker, returns home drunk. He brings 

out the food he has bought, then asks where the children have 

gone. The mother tells him that she has sent them into the 

woods. He tells her about the Witch who lives there and says 

that the children are in danger. They go out into the woods to 

look for them. 

act ii — Hansel picks strawberries. The children hear a 

cuckoo singing and eat the strawberries. Soon they have 

eaten every one. In the sudden silence of the wood, Hansel 

admits to Gretel that he has lost the way. The children 

grow frightened. The Sandman comes to bring them sleep, 

sprinkling sand over their eyes. The children say their evening 

prayer. In a dream, they see 14 angels. 

act iii — The Dew Fairy comes to waken the children. Gretel 

wakes Hansel, and they see the gingerbread house. They end 

up in the Witch’s kitchen. The Witch decides to fatten Hansel 

up and casts a spell on him. The oven is hot. Gretel breaks the 

Witch’s spell and sets Hansel free. When the Witch asks her 

to look in the oven, she pretends she doesn’t know how to: 

the Witch must show her. When the Witch peers into the oven, 

the children shove her inside and shut the door. The oven 

explodes. The gingerbread children come back to life. The 

mother and father find the children, and all express gratitude 

for their salvation. 

—Courtesy of Welsh National Opera 


THE CAST 

Hansel 

Gretel 

Mother 

Father 

The Witch 

Dew Fairy 

Sandman 

Conductor 

Stage 

Original 

Sandra 

Maureen 

Elizabeth 

Weston Hurt 

Allan 

Jennifer Forni 

Daryl 

Ari Pelto 

Director 

Production 

Piques Eddy 

McKay 

Byrne 

Glassman 

Freedman 

Benjamin Davis 

Richard Jones 

19

Hansel & Gretel: It's Supposed to be scary 

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, 

but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” 

—G. K. Chesterton 

In 1890, Adelheid Wette approached her older brother, a 

composer, to set some trifling songs she had written for a 

little play she intended for her daughters to perform as family 

entertainment. Her gracious brother obliged and wrote the 

tune, “Brother come and dance with me, both my hands I offer 

thee:” a tune so fresh, so original and yet so familiar that his 

family, utterly charmed and delighted, urged him to write more. 

Soon Engelbert Humperdinck and his sister Adelheid were 

collaborating (much as their protagonists Hansel and Gretel) 

on a Singspiel, which eventually evolved into a full-blown 

opera. Its popularity in Germany was extraordinary, and 

it made its way to England within a few short years, and 

to the United States shortly after that. Hansel and Gretel 

became the first opera broadcast in its entirety over radio 

(in 1923, from Covent Garden), and then became the first ever 

live Metropolitan Opera Broadcast in 1931. The opera filled a 

great need for those who loved the chromatic orchestrations 

of Wagner, but had overdosed on his conceits. For them, 

Humperdinck, with his lush symphonic language and 

unaffected melodies, was the perfect antidote. 

During the Victorian Era in which Humperdinck found 

himself writing, a number of things were happening. 

Nationalism continued its rise throughout Europe, with a 

particular interest in the development of idioms that were 

“authentic” to the mother country, whatever that happened 

to be. With this interest also came the recognition and 

idealization of childhood as a distinct period in human 

development, a rather new phenomena in the history of 

humanity. Taken together, increased interest in folklore and 

fairy tales makes sense, as does the bowdlerization of those 

fairy tales for the nursery. 

Although the terms “folk tales” and “fairy tales” are often 

used interchangeably, there is actually a difference between 

them. Folk tales emerge from an oral tradition, with authors 

who are often unknown, lost to time. Fairy tales have a 

literary tradition and belong to a singular author. Sometimes, 

despite their best intentions, collectors of folk tales end 

up creating fairy tales, as did 18 th century French author 

Charles Perrault. During the early 19 th century, Jacob and 

Wilhelm Grimm began collecting German folk tales by inviting 

storytellers into their home and carefully recording what 

they were told. In 1810, they published their collection of 

stories in Children’s and Household Tales, which included 

“Hansel and Gretel,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Snow White,” and 

“Little Red Riding Hood,” all of which are familiar to us today, 

although not perhaps in their original versions! The Grimm 

stories were, well, rather grim. Bloody justice was meted out, 

unmitigated by Christian kindness. They weren’t necessarily 

really for children after all. Later versions of these tales, still 

published by the Grimm brothers, prettied up some of the 

more gristly details. And by the time Humperdinck’s little 

sister Adelheid was looking about for a story to adapt for 

her children to perform, the unvarnished Grimm version 

of “Hansel and Gretel” was already deemed inappropriate 

for children. At least for the romanticized innocence of 

the Victorian child. 

Fortunately for Adelheid, she didn’t have to start from 

scratch modifying the unremittingly dark tale herself. In 

their own childhoods, Adelheid and Engelbert had not read 

Grimm’s version of Hansel and Gretel, but Ludwig Bechstein’s 

version from a collection of bowdlerized Grimm fairy tales, 

which Disney-fied the tales long before Disney. Bechstein’s 

childhood was so miserable and cruel that he viewed fairy 

tales as “sacred,” “spiritual,” and “popular moral philosophy.” 

He “Christianized” the stories, eradicating unnecessary (or 

unnecessarily gory) deaths and gratuitous violence and often 

overlaid them with more mercy. Bechstein’s Hansel and Gretel, 

and therefore Humperdinck’s, did two very important things, 

which are specific to Bechstein’s background. First, in the 

original version of the Grimm fairy tale, the children’s father 

is convinced, by his wife and their mother, to abandon 

the children. This accurately reflects the story’s medieval 

roots, when the Four Horseman stalked Europe, and child 

abandonment and infant exposure were not uncommon for 

starving households. The Grimms later softened this to a 

“stepmother,” who felt free to destroy her husband’s children 

because they had no blood relation to her. Bechstein mollified 

these “bad mother” figures into a harried, impoverished and 

desperate biological mother. He himself had been fostered and 

longed to expunge the taint of evil from the role of the adoptive 

or “step” parent, for as he himself said: 

“Among the thousands of children who get their 

hands on books of fairy tales, there must be the 

so-called ‘stepchildren.’ When such a child—after 

reading many a fairytale in which stepmothers 

appear [and appear uniformly evil]—feels that 

it has been somehow injured or insulted … by its 

own stepmother, then that young person makes 

comparisons and develops a strong aversion to 

his guardian which … disturbs the peace and 

happiness of the entire family.” 

Second, instead of a terrifying, red-eyed cannibal of a 

witch, Bechstein envisions a rather amiable (at least at first) 

and humorous witch. She still wants to eat the children in 

the most literal way, but seems much less threatening than 

the haggard, peering monstrosity of Grimm. Adelheid further 

subdued the appalling aspects of a cannibalistic old woman 

by magically transforming her victims into gingerbread boys 

and girls, a fate reversed by her own death and transformation 

into a giant cookie. 

20

A last change shared with Bechstein and expanded 

upon by Humperdinck is the role of religion. Bechstein’s 

and Humperdinck’s siblings were deeply faithful, assured 

that “When need is at its height, the Lord God stretches 

forth His hand.” In the opera, when they find themselves 

lost, the children share a prayer familiar to German children 

at the time, quoted from a 14 th -century child’s tombstone: 

“When at night I go to sleep, fourteen angels watch do keep…” 

In sanitizing the Grimm tale, Humperdinck and 

Adelheid Wette created just the middle class family 

entertainment so missing from the prurient bloodiness of 

the new verismo operas electrifying audiences throughout 

Europe. But in doing so, both they and Brechstein may 

have lost something elemental in the original folk tale— 

indeed to all folk tales. Gustav Ferdinand Humperdinck, 

Engelbert’s and Adelheid’s father, wondered aloud at it, 

“I find the Grimm version preferable.” 

The old fairy tales are bloodthirsty and violent, but they also 

address the primal thoughts and fears of children. They teach 

that real danger and betrayal can be overcome. The gruesome 

outcomes that befall the “bad guy” in the stories appeal to 

the particularly intense need for “justice” children feel. To 

paraphrase Tolkien: children prefer justice to mercy. Mercy is 

a grown-up conceit. It is the grown-up who knows he needs 

mercy. So folk tales fulfill that dark need for each villain to get 

his/her comeuppance. It is no accident that so many folk tales 

deal with similar themes: hunger, poverty, bad mothers, being 

eaten, losing one’s way. These are universal fears, the stuff of 

nightmares. Some directors are revisiting the darker aspects 

of Hansel and Gretel, choosing to emphasize the more 

troubling aspects of the original story. In doing so, they are 

more in keeping with the dark traditions of the flickering, fire-lit 

storytelling of the folk tales’ origins. That Humperdinck’s opera 

provides room and space for such an examination marks it, as 

Strauss said, a “masterpiece of the highest quality.” 


21

About the Composer: Engelbert humperdinck (1854 – 1921) 

“At first I thought I should be a second Beethoven; presently I found that to be another Schubert 

would be good; then gradually, satisfied with less and less, I resigned to be a Humperdinck.” 

—Engelbert Humperdinck 

December must have been a magical month for Engelbert 

Humperdinck. So many of his life-altering events seem 

to have landed in December around Christmas time. 

Hansel and Gretel, upon which his legacy (rather unfairly, given 

the amount of other lovely music he wrote) is based, opened 

on December 23, 1893 and continues to be traditionally 

performed at this time. He proposed to his wife at Christmas, 

prepared Wagner’s Symphony in C for the great man himself 

in December, met the librettist for what was to be his second 

most popular opera in December—over and over December 

pops up as a seminal time for the composer. 

Despite the auspiciousness of December for Engelbert 

Humperdinck, he was born on September 1, 1854. 

A good education was deeply valued, as his father was a 

school master. As part of a solid, middle class education in 

the 19 th century, he began piano lessons at 7 years old, and 

precocious and talented, wrote his first piano duet for himself 

and his teacher the same year. At 13, he was taken to his 

first opera, which opened his eyes to his own passions and 

he responded immediately with two Singspiele, Perla and 

Claudine von Villa Bella. During elementary and high school, 

he occasionally sang in the church choir and continued his 

youthful autographs. He seems to have loved voices, for 

most of his youthful work (and indeed the great bulk of his 

compositions) were for voice. At 17, he wrote a “hymn of 

jubilation” for chorus 

and orchestra and an 

Ave Maria for tenor. 

Clearly the child was 

devoted to his muse 

and talented, but 

like many concerned 

parents throughout 

history, his parents 

were suspicious of 

music as a career and 

urged him to study 

architecture. While 

pursuing architecture, 

Humperdinck somehow 

came to the attention 

of composer Ferdinand 

Hiller, who so admired 

the boy’s talent that 

he prevailed upon his parents to enroll him at the Cologne 

Conservatory under Hiller’s tutelage. There he studied, in 

addition to composition, the cello, piano and organ. Later he 

would continue his composition studies in Munich. 

Humperdinck excelled in his studies, and his initial style 

was patterned on Mendelssohn and Schumann. He was 

awarded several prestigious awards, the watershed of which 

was the Mendelssohn Prize in 1879, which allowed him 

to travel throughout Italy. In and of itself, this was a grand 

opportunity, but it also led to his meeting Richard Wagner in 

person. The previous year, he had heard the Ring Cycle, which 

changed the way he viewed composition. His meeting with 

Wagner opened the door to a personal friendship which lasted 

until the older composer’s death. Wagner invited the young 

Humperdinck to Bayreuth to aid him with the preparation of 

his new opera Parsifal. Humperdinck eagerly made the trip 

and spent his time creating copies of the score and training 

the boys’ choir. In addition, he was given the opportunity 

to write some of Parsifal—a few bridging bars, which were 

removed by Wagner after the first performance. 

Humperdinck’s infatuation with Wagner’s music was 

of great concern to friends who admired the young 

composer’s lighter touch. They worried that the burden 

of the “Music of the Future” would stifle Humperdinck’s 

own inspiration. Humperdinck replied wryly that he would 

rather “give up originality if it meant he could write choruses 

like those in Parsifal.” 

Humperdinck’s friends had reason to fear. As Humperdinck 

became more involved with Wagner, his family and his music, 

Humperdinck’s own music suffered. He wrote little to nothing. 

After Wagner’s death, he still felt his shadow, and for another 

seven years wrote no stage works. During this time he taught 

at a number of universities throughout Europe, wrote some 

orchestral pieces, studied, and met Richard Strauss in 1885. 

He edited and arranged music and wrote criticism, but his 

own genius remained stubbornly dormant. By 1889, he was 

once again within the Wagner family circle as the private tutor 

to Wagner’s son, Siegfried. He continued to work as a guest 

conductor and bide his time. 

Eventually, he returned to Berlin, where his sister and her 

family lived. Adelheid Wette was a writer who wrote little 

plays and poems for her children to perform for the family. In 

1890, he agreed to set some of her poetry for an adaptation 

of the familiar fairy tale Hansel and Gretel for her children. He 

started with four songs. By September, he was collaborating in 

earnest with his sister on a more ambitious Singspiel. Now 36, 

he presented the finished score for this family entertainment 

as an engagement gift to future wife Hedwig Taxer. It was 

Christmas Day. In January, at the family’s encouragement, 

he began to orchestrate it and, with Adelheid, flesh out the 

slender story into an opera. The following Christmas Hedwig 

received the first draft of an opera score. 

1893 was proving to be a very busy year for Humperdinck. 

He had married in May of 1892 and welcomed his first child, 

a son, in April the following year. He was working hard as 

critic, teacher, husband and father and had little time to 

orchestrate what would become his masterpiece. Finally, in 

September it was done. Strauss declared it “a masterpiece of 

the highest quality… all of it original, new and so authentically 

German.” It was Strauss who conducted its premiere. The 

seemingly organic, unpretentious, utterly natural score was 

22

an immediate and complete success. The Germans had little use 

for the bloodthirsty Italian verismo school of opera roiling its way 

through Europe, and Humperdinck’s opera seemed just the thing 

to continue the Wagnerian tradition without belaboring that which 

was wearying in Wagner. Hansel and Gretel rapidly made its way 

throughout Germany, with four new productions in 1894. 

At the end of the year, Humperdinck was approached by 

Heinrich Porges to compose incidental music for Königskinder, 

a fairy-tale play by Porges’ daughter. Later, Humperdinck 

adapted it again into a melodrama and it marked the first 

appearance of Sprechgesang*, which Schoenberg would 

use much more extensively in Pierrot Lunaire, as would fellow 

German Expressionist Berg in Wozzeck and Lulu. Not that 

Königskinder sounds a bit like Berg! The melodrama was 

completed and enthusiastically received in 1897. Its subsequent 

revision as an opera in 1910 was just as successful, if not more. 

It even overshadowed Puccini’s La fanciulla del West in its 

New York premiere! 

Other stage works followed and though none was as 

successful as Hansel and Gretel, all were happily received by 

the public. In 1912, Humperdinck suffered a stroke, which 

paralyzed his left hand, though otherwise he recovered nicely. 

Four years later, he lost his wife Hedwig, which further weakened 

his indifferent health. He lived to see his son successfully 

direct his first opera, Der Freischütz, but sadly, during the 

second performance had a heart attack, dying not long after. 

His obituaries were universally complimentary, and he was buried 

on October 1, 1921 in Stahnsdorf. 

Not much information is available about Engelbert 

Humperdinck. There is no English-language biography dedicated 

to him, and precious few German-language biographies. His son 

wrote a memoir about his father, published in 1965. Most 

mentions of Humperdinck are in connection to his music; his use 

of leitmotifs or his introduction of Sprechgesang, for instance. 

His contemporaries describe him as rather retiring, viewing 

fame as “a necessary evil accompanying greatness.” And that 

his audiences regarded him as great is not an overstatement. 

Humperdinck’s work was respectfully and enthusiastically received 

and critics were generous and lavish in their praise of his music, 

even if posterity is, with the grand exception of Hansel and Gretel, 

not. Modern critics, upon careful listening to his other opera 

scores, blame the inferior texts as their failing and not their 

music. It is perhaps telling that his personality was “honest [and] 

straightforward” and that he “had no enemies,” for his librettos 

were almost universally the work of friends and family. Perhaps 

his warmth and enthusiastic support for his loved ones’ work 

doomed most of his own. But his gift for melody and gorgeous, 

ripe orchestrations is rife throughout Hansel and Gretel. While 

his work is definitely Wagnerian, he never becomes trapped by 

Wagner’s tendency to allow the orchestra to tell his story; rather, 

Humperdinck always allows the voice and the rippling tunes that 

are so eminently hummable and unforgettable to tell his tale. But 

he also was a master at atmospherics, an incomparable tone 

painter. It is entirely possible that, had Humperdinck managed to 

be born a generation later, we would have said his name in the 

same breath with Bernard Herrmann, Erich Korngold, and even 

John Williams, who himself owes a great deal to Wagner! 

Despite the seemingly stunted output of this brilliant composer 

who so definitively represented the musical zeitgeist of his time 

and place, we remember him. Humperdinck has left us a legacy 

of hope and faith, honesty of intent and a happy ending—a 

lovely winter surprise (despite its summer setting), that is 

no less surprising for its familiarity. We can all be grateful for 

Hansel and Gretel. 

*a vocal style intermediate between speech and singing but without exact pitch intonation. 

23

Sung in Italian with English translations projected 

above the stage. 


May 1986 


Milan, Teatro alla Scala, April 25, 1926 


Puccini: Turandot 

Sutherland, Pavarotti, Caballé, Ghiaurov, Krause, Pears; 

Mehta, Conductor (Decca) 

Puccini: Turandot 

Nilsson, Tebaldi, Bjorling, Tozzi; Leinsdorf, Conductor (RCA) 




A unique partnership with the Oregon Psychoanalytic 

Center, Destination Opera explores the hidden subtexts of 

each opera this season. Barbara Drinka, LCSW, joins Alexis 

Hamilton, Manager of Education and Outreach, to debate 

and discuss Turandot. 




In a new partnership with the Northwest Film Center, film 

buffs and opera aficionados alike will enjoy a film before each 

opera production. Not designed to share filmed versions of 

actual operas, this series will present a film that is related to 

the production in some interesting way. 

TBA 

24 


Previews 

Christopher Mattaliano hosts a one hour 

radio preview of Turandot 


‘Saturday Matinee’ www.allclassical.org 









Salem Preview: Enjoy a lively, 50-minute 

sneak peek of Turandot 



Back Talk 


Mattaliano for a Q&A session about the performance. 

Guests include performers, conductors and directors. 


Enjoy a lively, 50-minute sneak peek of Turandot 



The Plot 

act i — In Peking, in legendary times. The walls of the great 

Violet City: the Imperial City. The massive ramparts enclose 

almost the whole stage in a semi-circle. 

At sunset, the square is filled with a crowd listening to an 

announcement from a mandarin. He reads a decree that 

Turandot, the pure princess, will wed the man who solves 

her three riddles. Anyone who stands the trial and fails will be 

executed. The Prince of Persia, her latest unsuccessful suitor, 

is to meet this fate at moonrise. The crowd calls for his death 

and demands the executioner, Pu-Tin-Pao. 

As the guards thrust back the crowd, Timur, the exiled King 

of Tartary, falls to the ground, and Liù, his slave-girl attendant, 

calls for help. A young man runs up: it is Calaf, the Unknown 

Prince, Timur's son, who has been separated from his father 

for years. The usurper of their throne is pursuing them, and 

they can find no safety. 

The chorus sings of the blade being sharpened on the 

whetstone in preparation for the execution. Timur tells Calaf 

how Liù has guided his flight. The crowd calls for more young 

lovers to come forward and accept Turandot's challenge: the 

riddles are three, but death is one. 

As the moon rises, a chorus of boys greets it with a song. 

Pu-Tin-Pao confronts the Prince of Persia, and leads him off 

for execution. The crowd now calls on Turandot for mercy. 

She appears before them, and confirms the sentence of death. 

Calaf remains awestruck by the Princess, and Liù and Timur 

try to bring him back to his senses. He wishes to conquer 

her, and rushes towards the gong to strike the blow that will 

announce his challenge. 

At this moment, Ping, Pang and Pong, Grand Chancellor, 

Grand Purveyor and Grand Cook, run forward and block his 

way. They warn the Unknown Prince that he is in danger of 


Artist SPONSOR 

THE CAST 

Turandot 

Liù 

Calaf 

Timur 

Ping 

Pong 

Pang 

Mandarin 

Conductor 

Stage 

Lori Phillips 

Grazia 

Philip Webb 

Christian Van 

Timothy Mix 

Brendan 

Steven 

Nicholas 

Leonardo 

Director 

Doronzio 

Horn 

Tuohy 

Brennfleck 

Nelson 

Vordoni 

Christopher 

Alden 

25

death and should return to his country. The Princess is not 

worth the sacrifice; she's nothing but flesh, when all's said 

and done. Turandot's handmaidens call down for silence, but 

the three Ministers are still determined to deter Calaf from 

his course. Ghosts of the dead suitors urge him on, and he 

invokes triumph and the power of love. The executioner holds 

aloft the Prince of Persia's head. Timur and Liù plead with 

him. He begs Liù not to cry. All three ask pity of each other, 

and the ministers make a final appeal, but the moonlight 

shines on the gong, and the crowd sings that they are already 

digging his grave. Calaf rushes to the gong and strikes it like 

a madman; the ministers laugh raucously, exclaiming that it is 

useless to protest. 

act ii — Scene 1 

Ping, Pang and Pong discuss their preparations for what will 

be either a wedding or a funeral. They lament how China has 

changed under Turandot's tyranny; instead of the rule of law, 

everything has been reduced to this terrible contest. Thirteen 

have already died this year alone. Ping has a house in Honan, 

Pang a garden in Kiu, Pong has forests near Tsiang, and they 

long to return to them. They recollect some of the former 

suitors: princes of Samarkand, India and the Khirgiz, all killed. 

They pray that the Princess will find a husband and discover 

the mysteries of love. Trumpets sound, announcing the start 

of the ceremony. 

Scene 2 

Eight Sages enter with the sealed answers to Turandot's 

three riddles. The crowd greets the Sages, and points out 

Ping, Pang and Pong. Emperor Altoum enters, and the crowd 

wishes him ten thousand years. The Unknown Prince begs 

three times to face the trial, and the Emperor calls on him to 

give up his hopeless quest; he is weary of bloodshed. The 

mandarin announces the rules of the contest as before, and a 

chorus of boys announces the approach of the Princess. 

Turandot narrates how her remote ancestor, the Princess 

Lo-u-Ling, was ravished and abducted by a Tartar invader. It 

is to avenge her death that Turandot has set up her challenge. 

She warns Calaf of the rule: the riddles are three, but death 

is one. Calaf contradicts her: it is life that is one. Turandot 

reads the first riddle: a ghost rises in the night, invoked by all 

the world, vanishing with dawn but reborn in the heart. Calaf 

gives the answer: “hope.” The Sages open the first scroll: 

the answer is indeed hope. Turandot dismisses this as the 

hope that always disappoints, and reads the second riddle: 

what is it that darts like a flame and is not a flame, that grows 

cold with death yet blazes with dreams of conquest? Calaf 

hesitates, then gives the answer: “blood.” The crowd shouts 

their encouragement, and Turandot, enraged, delivers the 

third question: frost that inflames you, whiteness and darkness 

that enslaves you if it wants you free, but in taking you captive, 

makes you king! Turandot sneers at Calaf's hesitation, but 

then he cries the answer: “Turandot!” 

The crowd rejoices at his victory, but Turandot appeals to 

her father to spare her the shame of marriage like a slave 

girl to a foreigner. The Emperor declares that the oath is 

sacred. Turandot implores Calaf not to take her reluctant and 

shuddering into his arms. He tells her that he only wants her 

ardent with love, and sets her a riddle of his own: if she can 

guess his name before daybreak, he is prepared to die. The 

Emperor prays that the Unknown Prince will survive, and the 

crowd hails him. 

26

act iii — Scene 1 

Night. Heralds are heard issuing the royal command: no one 

shall sleep in Peking. The stranger's name must be found on 

pain of death. Calaf repeats their cry and imagines Turandot 

in her cold room, looking at the stars as they tremble with 

love and hope. His secret is locked within him, and no one 

shall know his name until he speaks it with a kiss. When dawn 

breaks, he will win! 

Ping, Pang and Pong sidle up to him with temptations: if it's 

love he wants, they can offer him maidens; if it's riches, then 

they have treasures; if it is glory, they'll arrange his escape to a 

victory anywhere but here. When he refuses, they threaten him 

with tortures, and fear that they, too, will be tortured to death 

if they fail. Just as they are about to attack him, the guards 

bring in Timur and Liù. Calaf denies that they know him. When 

Turandot appears, Ping announces his intention to torture the 

name out of them. First Timur is dragged forward, but Liù 

goes towards Turandot and tells her that the Prince's name 

is known only to her. She cries out under torture, but refuses 

to give up her secret. Turandot wants to know what has given 

her such strength to withstand torment, and she tells her that 

it is love. Turandot is moved for a moment, then orders her 

ministers to tear her secret from her. Ping and the crowd call 

for Pu-Tin-Pao, but when the executioner appears, Liù seizes 

his knife and stabs herself to death. She dies at Turandot's 

feet. Timur mourns for Liù. As they carry the body away, even 

Ping, Pang and Pong feel pity. 

Calaf clasps her in his arms and kisses her. Turandot admits 

that dawn has broken, and her sun is now setting. Calaf 

greets the dawn as the beginning of her glory, not the end. 

Turandot begins to reconcile her conflicting emotions, but still 

she begs him to leave with his secret. Calaf tells her that there 

is no mystery now: he is Calaf, the son of Timur. Turandot's 

spirit returns with this revelation: now he is in her power, and 

she can demand his trial before the people. Calaf declares that 

she has conquered. 

Scene 2 

The crowd greets the Emperor. Turandot advances towards 

him, and tells him that she knows the Unknown Prince's 

name: it is Love. Calaf and Turandot embrace, while the crowd 

acclaims the glory of love. 

As Liù's funeral procession moves away, Calaf is left facing 

Turandot. He calls on her to lift her veil and look upon the 

blood that was shed for her. She refuses: her soul is on high. 

27

Swan Song: Puccini’s Turandot 

“I was born many years ago … far too many … and the Almighty touched me with his little finger and said, 

‘Write for the theatre—mind, only for the theatre.’ Had he intended for me some other profession … well, I 

should, perhaps, not now find myself without the essential material.” 

—Puccini to his librettist, Adami 

With Turandot, Puccini’s musical voyage comes to fruition. In 

his early 60s, he determined to do something wholly original 

and blaze new trails in his musical language. Unfortunately, 

after Il Trittico, Puccini had some difficulty in finding a story for 

his next opera. Several projects were started and abandoned, 

but none seemed to inspire the maestro until he had lunch 

with Renato Simoni and Giuseppe Adami. Simoni mentioned 

Turandot. Turandot had already been set to music by Ferruccio 

Busoni to a libretto he had written based upon an 18 th -century 

play by Carlo Gozzi. The play, a commedia dell’arte piece, 

was billed as a Chinese fable, incorporating all of the exotic 

elements that Orientalist perception of China had to offer. The 

story offered Puccini the perfect opportunity to experiment 

with his current artistic goals, utilizing a wildly fantastic setting 

and a cast of very human, three-dimensional characters. 

Puccini immediately pounced on the suggestion and 

by 1920, Adami and Simoni had reworked the original idea 

enough to satisfy Puccini’s exacting standards. In 1921, 

Puccini was sketching in some music. By 1922, he had 

finished orchestrating the first act and begun work on the 

second. As he was scoring Act 2 in 1923, the maestro began 

to suffer from a painful sore throat and coughing fits, but he 

chose to ignore his illness and get on with his work. Early in 

1924, the second act was finished and he began to feverishly 

write the third act up until Liù’s death. This scene, which 

Puccini had insisted upon in 1922, was presenting Adami and 

Simoni some dramatic problems. Why Calaf would continue 

to pursue the cold Turandot after she had had Liù tortured 

to death defies credibility and lessens audience sympathy 

for the tenor. The final duet between Calaf and Turandot was 

a constant sticking point, and none of Simoni’s solutions 

satisfied Puccini. 

By this time, the pain in Puccini’s throat had become 

unbearable and after consulting his physician, he was 

diagnosed with throat cancer. The final two scenes of the 

opera had yet to be written. Puccini ultimately accepted 

Adami’s fourth version of the last duet and began to compose 

from his bed in a Belgian sanitarium. On November 24, he 

underwent an operation and five days later died of heart 

failure. The opera remained incomplete. Only unintelligible 

sketches in Puccini’s hand existed for the finale. Toscanini, 

who had been contracted to conduct the opening and had 

been working closely with Puccini during the last several 

months of his life, suggested that Franco Alfano complete the 

work. Alfano finished Turandot six months later. The opera 

premiered in 1926, 17 months after Puccini’s death. At that 

performance, following Liù’s death and the chorus’s mournful, 

Oblia! Liù, poesia!, Toscanini put down his baton and said, 

“Here ends the opera, because at this point the Maestro 

died.” Alfano’s ending was performed the following night and 

continues to conclude the opera to this day. 


About the Composer: Giacomo Puccini (1858 – 1924) 

Son of composer Michele Puccini and the fifth musician in his 

line, Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy on December 

22, 1858. The Puccinis were a fixture in provincial Lucca, 

having served as organists and choirmasters in St. Martin’s 

Cathedral for 100 years. The post was a hereditary one, and 

the eldest Puccini boy of each generation served the cathedral 

as a birthright. 

At 5 years old, Puccini lost his father. His musical training 

fell to his uncle, Fortunato Magi, who did not find him the most 

apt pupil. Puccini was often distracted; he skipped school and 

didn’t practice. His uncle found he had “neither the ear … nor 

the calling of a musician.” But he had an hereditary role to fill 

and began study with Carlo Angeloni under whom he made 

great progress. Before reaching his majority, Puccini played 

organ for the churches of Lucca and taught music to the 

town’s children. 

By this time, the boy determined that he would make his 

way in music. Before he was 18, Puccini entered a music 

competition with a hymn he had composed in honor of King 

Victor Emmanuel II. It was returned to Puccini with comments 

from the committee chair 

urging him to study his 

musical technique. 

Far from crushed, young 

Puccini was still resolved 

to pursue music and, 

undaunted by distance 

and poverty, he walked 

the 25 miles to Pisa to 

attend a performance of 

Verdi’s new masterpiece, Aïda. Aïda hit the aimless youth 

like a bolt of lightning. He would compose operas! Puccini 

renewed his musical studies with vigor. He soon exhausted 

his opportunities in Lucca and turned his sights to the Milan 

Conservatory. He received a study grant from Queen Margaret 

of Savoy and moved to Milan. 

Accepted to the conservatory, Puccini applied himself to 

his studies diligently enough to earn him the respect of his 

teachers: Antonio Bazzini, director of the Conservatory, and 

Amilcare Ponchielli, composition teacher and successful opera 

29

composer in his own right. These two invited young Puccini 

to their homes, introduced him to Milan’s musical and literary 

luminaries, and, most of all, encouraged and challenged him 

to write music. 

In 1883, at 25, Puccini graduated from the Conservatory. 

He had received critical praise for his final project and decided 

to enter a competition requiring a one-act opera. Ponchielli 

put Puccini in touch with Ferdinando Fontana, who had a 

libretto ready to be set. The composer liked the story, a 

fantastic tale of a faithless young man cursed by a coven of 

women who died abandoned by their lovers. He set it to music 

and submitted the finished opera, Le Villi, to the committee. 

Unfortunately, when the contest results were announced, 

no mention of Puccini’s piece was made. All was not lost, 

however. Puccini’s one-act found a champion in Giulio Ricordi 

and premiered in 1884 with a favorable response. 

Ricordi had a keen awareness of talent—even talent as 

raw as the inexperienced Puccini’s—and he wanted to foster 

the career of this promising youth. He bought the rights for 

Le Villi and commissioned another opera from the fledgling 

composer. This was quite an opportunity since Ricordi owned 

one of the great publishing companies and was, in fact, Verdi’s 

own publisher. Ricordi’s interest in Puccini flourished and 

bloomed into a life-long association between the publishing 

house and composer. 

Puccini started work on his new opera, Edgar, but 

distractions tore him from his work and slowed his 

composition. He had met his future wife, Elvira Gemignani. 

Unfortunately, she was still married to one of Puccini’s 

old classmates, and the lovers created a firestorm of 

controversy when Elvira chose to leave her husband and join 

Puccini in Milan. 

It took four years for Puccini to compose Edgar. The libretto 

didn’t speak to Puccini’s peculiar genius for “little souls” in 

extraordinary situations. The opera received tepid praise, but 

Ricordi saw improvement from Le Villi and pressed on with 

Puccini, commissioning another opera, the subject of which 

he left to the composer. 

Puccini decided upon Manon Lescaut, a risky topic, as it 

had already been set by Massenet with great success. Still, it 

touched Puccini, and he opened his version in 1893. Audience 

reception was wildly enthusiastic. Never again was Puccini to 

garner such accolades. Manon Lescaut gave him international 

notoriety and Ricordi’s faith was well-rewarded. 

Next came La Bohème, based upon Mürger’s novel, 

Scènes de la vie de bohème. Puccini was confident and sure 

of his dramatic sensibility, causing him to be maddeningly 

specific with his librettists, Illica and Giacosa. His specificity 

paid off. Bohème was a public triumph. Critics may have 

pooh-poohed it, but the public acclaim quickly swept it 

from theater to theater, country to country and continent to 

continent. It remains today, unequivocally, a masterpiece of the 

operatic stage. 

Puccini was on top. He ventured into verismo with Tosca, 

a vivid, disturbing, slightly sadistic opera. The public was 

enthralled. Seven curtain calls rocked the theater. Indeed, 

Tosca was an unqualified success despite the critics’ harping 

on the lurid subject matter. 

30

After Tosca came the much-anticipated Madama Butterfly. 

Every indication pointed to another victory for the composer, 

but the premiere garnered laughter during Puccini’s carefully 

constructed scenes, boos and jeers so raucous as to beg 

credulity. Many feel that Puccini’s rivals orchestrated the 

debacle. Humbled, Puccini re-worked his Butterfly, the opera 

he felt to be his masterpiece. Its second opening fared better 

than the first. Audiences roared their approval, giving Puccini 

twelve curtain calls. Butterfly was vindicated. 

While his professional life was a triumph, Puccini’s personal 

life kept descending into painful chaos. His wife, Elvira, 

continued to have violently jealous outbursts and she accused 

a maid in their home of seducing her husband. While Puccini 

had had myriad infidelities, their maid, Doria Manfredi, was 

not one of them. Elvira was adamant, however, and her 

outspoken accusations and denunciations led to the suicide of 

the persecuted Doria. Doria’s family sued Elvira and she was 

fined and sentenced to prison time. Puccini managed to avoid 

this humiliation by settling with the family. He did so, however, 

at great personal cost; he fell into a deep despair and his 

emotional state was such that he could no longer write. 

To flee his depression and his harpy wife, Puccini sailed 

for New York. Here he saw The Girl of the Golden West, a 

play by David Belasco, whose earlier work had inspired 

Madama Butterfly. Excited by the theatrical possibilities of the 

Wild West, Puccini approached Ricordi and got an agreement. 

The result, La fanciulla del West, was another phenomenal 

success. Following this, Puccini wrote La Rondine, which 

was also praised, but Puccini felt at odds with himself and 

the piece. He felt old. His friend and mentor, Ricordi, had 

died, and he had a less cordial relationship with Ricordi’s son. 

La Rondine felt as if he were repeating himself; World War I 

had engulfed the planet, and Puccini needed to change. 

He devoured other composer’s scores and kept abreast of 

the new musical language of the 20 th century. He produced 

Il Trittico, a series of three one-act operas. The public 

accepted and liked it, but the critics were unnerved by the 

maestro’s new vocabulary and remained cool. The press felt 

Puccini couldn’t, at 61, write better than Bohème and Butterfly. 

Puccini knew better and restlessly cast about for a plot which 

would allow him to explore his brave new ideas more fully. He 

had absorbed Stravinsky, Webern, Berg, Schoenberg, and 

Debussy. Finally Turandot presented itself to him and he 

feverishly began work on what was to become his swan song. 

By now, though, Puccini was ill, complaining of throat pain 

and constant coughing. Eventually, he was diagnosed with 

throat cancer. He was very sick and feverishly working on 

Turandot’s final duet when he passed away in November 1924 

after a debilitating treatment regimen. The world mourned 

his passing. La Scala cancelled performances, and a funeral 

procession in his honor was attended by thousands. 

Puccini’s legacy is the interweaving of music with drama so 

seamlessly that even as his most elegantly crafted music is 

played, the drama of the moment supercedes all else. He is a 

sublime communicator, reaching audiences across the years 

and continuing to arrest our hearts with a dramatic perfection 

wholly accessible and eternal. 

31

Both operas are sung in French with English translations 

projected above the stage. 

L’HEURE ESPAGNOLE 

(The Spanish Hour) 


(The Bewitched Child) 

Ravel: L’heure espagnole 

Danco, Derenne, Hamel, Rehfuss, Vessières; Ansermet, 

Conductor (Decca) 

Ravel: L’enfant et les sortilèges 

Danco, Wend, Cuénod; Ansermet, Conductor (London/ 

Richmond) 


April 1, 2011 


L’heure espagnole 

Paris, Opéra-Comique (Salle Favart), May 19, 1911 

L’enfant et les sortilèges 

Monte Carlo, March 21, 1925 


Ravel: L’enfant et les sortilèges, 

L’heure espagnole 

Berbie, Bacquier, Van Dam; Maazel, Conductor 

(Deutsche Grammophone) 



A unique partnership with the Oregon Psychoanalytic Center, 

Destination Opera explores the hidden subtexts of each opera 

this season. Ralph Beaumont, MD, joins Alexis Hamilton, 

Manager of Education and Outreach, to debate and discuss 

L’heure espagnole and L’enfant et les sortilèges. 



32 








TBA 

Previews 

Christopher Mattaliano hosts a one hour radio preview of 

L’heure espagnole and L’enfant et les sortilèges 


“Saturday Matinee” www.allclassical.org 

Tune in for an in-depth preview of the show 


“Northwest Previews” www.allclassical.org 

Enjoy a lively, 50-minute sneak peek of L’heure espagnole and 

L’enfant et les sortilèges 




Informative music and history talks with Portland Opera’s 

Resident Historian Bob Kingston one hour prior to 

each performance. 


Back Talk 


Mattaliano for a Q&A session about the performance. Guests 

include performers, conductors and directors. 


L’HEURE ESPAGNOLE Plot 

It is clockmaker Torquemada’s day to regulate the municipal 

clocks – and his wife Concepcion’s day to entertain lovers. 

When Ramiro, a muleteer, visits the clock shop to have his 

watch repaired, Concepcion worries that his presence will ruin 

her rendezvous with her lover, the poet Gonzalve. She devises 

a plan to keep Ramiro busy, asking him to cart one of two 

grandfather clocks to her bedroom. When he returns too soon, 

interrupting her time with Gonzalve, she asks Ramiro to bring 

the clock back and take the other clock upstairs instead. As 

he leaves to fetch the clock, Concepcion persuades Gonzalve 

to hide inside the second clock, which Ramiro then transports 

to her bedroom. Another suitor, the banker Don Inigo, arrives 

and, though dismissed by Concepcion, he decides to stay, 

hiding in the other clock. Concepcion returns, disenchanted 

with Gonzalve and asks Ramiro to once again swap the 

clocks. Ramiro reenters with the second clock (and Gonzalve) 

and dutifully takes the first clock (and Don Inigo) upstairs. 

Meanwhile, Concepcion tries to send Gonzalve packing, but 

he resumes his hiding place as Ramiro returns. Ramiro makes 

one more trip upstairs, this time to bring back the first clock. 

When he returns, he asks Concepcion if she has any further 

orders. Weary of her other suitors, she requests the virile 

muleteer to return to her bedroom—without a clock! 

While Ramiro and Concepcion are upstairs, Torquemada 

returns to find Gonzalve and Don Inigo and succeeds in selling 

the guilty duo the two clocks. The opera ends with a habanera 

quintet and a moral taken from the poet Boccaccio. 

L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILÈGES Plot 

A naughty little boy is in his room, misbehaving. When 

his mother berates him and leaves him alone with an 

austere lunch, the boy goes on a destructive rampage. He 

smashes dishes, destroys wallpaper, torments animals, 

breaks a grandfather clock, and rips up books. He then 

collapses exhausted into an armchair, which, along with 

other domestic items, comes to life and chides him for his 

bad behavior. The boy is astonished and tormented by the 

sorcery surrounding him. 

Escaping to his beloved garden, he finds the trees and 

animals there ready to take revenge on him for his past 

violence towards them. Realizing the pain he has caused, he 

binds the paw of a wounded squirrel. The animals forgive him 

and lead him home to his mother. 

—Courtesy of New York City Opera 

PRODUCTION SPONSOR 

The Cast 

Concepcion 

/Mama 

Gonzalve/ 

Teapot 

Gomez/Armchair, 

Tree 

The Child 

Hannah Penn 

Fire, Princess, 

Nightingale 

Bat, Owl, 

Shepherdess 

Bergere, 

White Cat 

Conductor 

Robert 

Stage Director 

Christopher 

Daryl 

Steven 

Nicholas 

Sharin 

Anne 

Jennifer Gill 

Ainsley 

Mattaliano 

Freedman 

Brennfleck 

Nelson 

Apostolou 

McKee Reed 

33

THE MADCAP MAGIC OF RAVEL’S L’HEURE ESPAGNOLE AND 


“In Granada, to pay attention to a married woman is unheard of, while nothing is simpler 

than to court a young girl. In France it is quite the opposite.” 

—Théophile Gautier 

Ravel loved clocks. He loved mechanical toys, miniatures, 

cats, children and storytelling. He loved fine food, fine clothes, 

long walks in the woods and great literature. He delighted in 

musical jokes, imitation, and his mother’s native Spain, and 

while his two small operas cannot capture all of his loves, they 

do capture the essence of most. They also capture something 

of the preciseness of the man, his precocious understanding 

of the child’s world and the bittersweet necessity of growing 

up. He even laughs at the foolishness of the grown-ups we 

grow into. These operas reflect his cleverness and his ability 

to calibrate his music to best support the language of his story. 

For ultimately, Ravel was a storyteller, and he reveled in the 

music of words as much as in music itself. 

In L’heure espagnole (The Spanish Hour), the words were 

all important and setting the rhythms of spoken language 

of primary concern. Ravel intended that the text should be 

declaimed rather than sung. He elaborated, “Apart from 

the student, who sings serenades and cavatinas in an 

exaggerated manner, the other roles, I imagine, will give the 

impression of being spoken.” 

In 1904, Franc-Nohain opened his play L’heure espagnole, 

at the Odéon, where he enjoyed an enthusiastic following. The 

Odéon was popular with young poets and playwrights who 

often premiered their works there for their colleagues. Franc- 

Nohain was an accomplished satirical poet by the time he was 

25, and, at 33, he was considered “an excellent humorist.” His 

little play was only about half an hour long and simply a warm 

up act for a full-length play which also addressed adultery. It 

wasn’t even reviewed by the major publications. But it was 

very funny, and Ravel was in need of a subject for an opera. 

He had yet to write an opera, of course, but his rival Debussy 

had. L’heure espagnole may have felt the perfect choice for 

Ravel, as it was so far from anything Debussy touched on in 

his single operatic masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande that it 

could not possibly be accused of being derivative. 

Like Debussy, however, Ravel did choose to bypass a 

librettist and set the play directly. He hadn’t much to do 

to prepare it for setting to music. The play ran a short half 

hour, and Ravel’s music stretched it to only an hour. There 

are only a few small cuts and minor revisions to the play in 

Ravel’s libretto. He wrote the opera quite quickly for him, a 

notoriously slow composer. The vocal score was prepared in 

the six months between April and October of 1907, but wasn’t 

orchestrated until 1910 because the impresario of the Opéra- 

Comique was concerned that his audiences would not accept 

an opera based on a play that had been reviewed as a “mildly 

pornographic vaudeville.” His reticence disappeared, however, 

when the wife of a cabinet minister gently twisted his arm on 

the issue. It opened to mixed reviews on May 19, 1911. Some 

critics (Pierre Lalo, who always seemed to have an axe to 

grind with regard to Ravel, in particular) found Ravel too clever 

for his own good and deemed L’heure too cold and calculating 

to be easily enjoyed. Others reveled in its contradictions, 

correctly ascertaining that the seeming incompatibility of the 

text and the score were actually textual jokes, underlining 

moments musically that were merely colloquies in the play. 

The real issue was a lack of appreciation for the musical 

techniques on display, at least as accompaniment to this 

libretto. Ravel utilized many of the musical tricks of the modern 

school, and some of these tricks were deemed “not always 

compatible with the situation,” whereas they now seem 

colorful, rich and perfectly appropriate to our ears. 

For his contemporaries, for instance, Ravel opened his 

comic opera in an odd way. Whereas one could easily see 

busy bustling music accompanying the waking of Seville, 

Ravel opens his piece with dissonance, bitonality and the 

incessant ticking of clocks. Spanish idioms float throughout 

the piece, underscoring the muleteer Ramiro’s claims to be 

related to a matador. Deliberately “funny” sounds are liberally 

sprinkled throughout the piece, emphasizing Ravel’s claim that 

he “heard ‘funny’” in order to write the opera. And the score 

is funny, casting its characters as stereotypes so broad that 

they seem automatons to the clockwork dynamics of the plot. 

The lyricism of the all-talk-and-no-action poet Gonzalve, the 

ponderous biliousness of the elderly banker Don Inigo and the 

flamenco flash of the final duet with Concepcion and the virile 

muleteer Ramiro are delicious examples of musical caricature. 

But there is a darkness to Ravel’s score, too, that those 

familiar with the play’s burlesque essence lamented. They 

accused Ravel of undermining Franc-Nohain’s comedy, 

making it more serious than was intended. It is equally 

possible, however, that Ravel merely punctuated issues that 

were already in Franc-Nohain’s text, but, as performed, were 

obscured by physical comedy, broadly suggestive jokes 

and line delivery. Time is a huge issue within the play and 

the opera, and characters talk about it nonstop. With only 

words, it might be easy to overlook the broader implications 

of Torquemada, the cuckolded older husband announcing 

“…Time does not wait,” or Concepcion’s anxious “Time is 

pitilessly rationed for us,” to the comedy of the moment. So 

much in a play depends on the actor’s interpretation of the 

line. But in an opera, the underscoring can give lie to the 

character’s actions and reveal the hidden meaning behind the 

words. Time, Ravel’s music sometimes points out, marches 

inexorably forward, dragging us all along with it, and we are all 

obliged to enjoy our hour of freedom since age and obligation 

will eventually take it from us. There is hope in the message, 

too, however. After all, everyone will get his chance, his 

time. As the last line of the opera points out, “There arrives a 

moment in the pursuit of Love when even the muleteer has his 

turn.” We just have to be ready to catch it. 

34

If the overall impression of L’heure espagnole is detached 

amusement, and the characters merely automatons in the 

workings of the plot, L’enfant et les sortilèges (The Bewitched 

Child) is something very, very different, belying the accusations 

of coldness and inhumanity all too often leveled at Ravel’s 

music. All of the wonders of Ravel, personal and professional, 

are on tender display in L’enfant. He lavished love on all of 

the creatures of the nursery—living and nonliving—capturing 

the language of the cats he loved and the inanimate beauty 

he admired in an achingly lovely parable of childhood. It so 

captured the essence of the libretto she wrote for Ravel, that 

Colette said: 

“How can I describe my emotion when, for the 

first time, I heard the little drum accompanying 

the shepherds' procession? The moonlight in the 

garden, the flight of the dragonflies and bats ... 

‘Isn't it fun’? Ravel would say. But I could feel a 

knot of tears tightening in my throat.” 

Ravel really “got” children. His friend Marguerite Long once 

told him, “Maurice, you ought to marry. Nobody understands 

and loves children as you do.” Certainly the children in his life 

seconded this opinion. In particular, his skills at weaving tales, 

his own and others’, was admired, and the favorite place to be 

was sitting on his knee as he began a story. One of his most 

ardent admirers was Mimi—the little girl of his friends Cipa 

and Ida Godebski. Ravel frequently looked after Mimi and her 

brother Jean and she remembered Ravel most fondly: 

“There are few of my childhood memories in which 

Ravel does not find a place. Of all my parents’ 

friends I had a predilection for Ravel because he 

used to tell me stories that I loved. I used to climb 

on his knee and indefatigably he would begin, 

‘Once upon a time …’ “ 

In L’enfant, Ravel had a perfect vehicle for exploring his 

imitative music, for setting poetry and for taking a look at 

growing up through a small child’s eyes. His affinity for the 

story is understandable. What is a little more surprising is his 

collaboration with Colette who was, according to her daughter, 

largely absent from her child’s life. 

Colette was a French novelist, most famous to U.S. 

audiences for writing the novel Gigi. She wrote over 50 

novels and myriad short stories, was a notorious music hall 

performer, a great beauty, an adulteress, a bisexual, and the 

“greatest woman novelist of France.” In short, she was pretty 

flashy. Though she would later hold the Legion of Honor and 

membership in The Belgian Academy of French Language and 

Literature, at first blush it would seem that Colette and Ravel 

had little in common and spent much of their acquaintance 

at arm’s length. 

Colette described her initial impressions of Ravel thus: 

“Could I say that I really knew him, my illustrious 

collaborator, the composer of L’enfant et les 

sortilèges? I first met Maurice Ravel at the 

house of Mme de Saint Marceaux who used 

to entertain on Friday evenings after dinner… 

Perhaps inwardly secretive, Ravel kept himself 

at a distance and was dry in manner. Apart from 

listening to his music, which I initially did out of 

curiosity and then from an attachment to which 

the slight unease of surprise and the sensual 

and wicked attraction of a new art added their 

charms, that was as much as I knew of Maurice 

Ravel for many years.” 

Ravel for his part seems not to have recorded his initial 

impressions of Colette. One can only imagine what he might 

have thought of this exhibitionist beauty and extraordinary 

writer, but it seems that during and after their collaboration 

they saw much in each other that was comprehensible and 

recognizable. 

Sometime in 1917, Colette was approached by Jacques 

Rouché to write a libretto for a “fantasy-ballet” for the 

Paris Opéra. She banged out L’enfant, at this time called 

Entertainment for My Daughter (Colette had a three-year-old 

at the time) in a week. Rouché met with her and began to 

suggest composers. 

“He liked my little poem and suggested composers 

whose names I welcomed as politely as I could. 

‘But,’ said Rouché after a silence, ‘suppose I 

suggested Ravel?’ I burst out of my politeness and 

expressed my approval without reservation.‘We 

mustn’t neglect the fact,’ added Rouché, ‘that it 

could take a long time even if Ravel accepts…’” 

It did take a long time. World War I got in the way; Ravel 

was serving as a truck driver at Verdun. Colette’s libretto was 

sent and waylaid and had to be sent again. Ravel’s mother’s 

death sent him into a spiral of despair and his own health 

was unreliable. He did, however, accept the libretto, but he 

envisioned it as an opera and asked Colette’s opinion on the 

meowing sounds of the cats—would it be alright to replace 

“mouao” with “mouain?” Ravel was a cat lover and his friend 

Manuel Rosenthal gives us a delicious glimpse into his work 

on the piece when he tells us, “Ravel spent a lot of time 

ruffling the fur of his two Siamese cats, the better to notate 

their purrings.” He then brought in a violinist friend to listen to 

his cats and imitate them on her violin. In the opera, the cats 

never speak in a human language, as do the other creatures, 

animate and inanimate, that populate the opera. They would 

not deign to. 

Ravel had one objection. “I do not have a daughter,” he 

pointed out to Colette, and so the title was changed from 

Divertissement pour ma fille to L’Enfant et les sortilèges. 

The opera (finally) opened in Monte Carlo on March 21, 

1925, and received an “enthusiastic reception.” It became 

rather more controversial when it arrived at the Opéra- 

Comique in Paris a year later. The audience became fractious 

during the cat’s duet (which, as you recall, was entirely 

meowed), with the Modernists shouting down the critics. It 

made its way through continental Europe within a couple of 

35

years, but had to wait 40 years for its premiere in England’s 

Sadler’s Wells opera company, and it was not performed at 

the Metropolitan Opera in New York until 1981. Strange for 

such a beautiful piece of theater. 

Though very different operas, L’heure espagnole and 

L’enfant et les sortilèges both display Ravel’s genius for 

orchestration, text setting, musical imitation of the world we 

live in, and humor. In L’heure, Ravel showed us that we are 

all slaves to time and in L’enfant he showed us the magic and 

heartbreak of growing up. In both of these operas, Ravel made 

himself laugh by “hearing funny.” We are lucky that he was 

talented enough to “hear funny” for us too. 


About the Composer: MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) 

“Doesn’t it ever occur to those people that I can be ‘artificial’ by nature?” 

—Maurice Ravel 

Maurice Ravel has often 

been accused of “coldness,” 

“affectation,” “reserved-ness,” 

and, famously, of being a “Swiss 

watchmaker” by Stravinsky. It 

seems more charitable (and more accurate) to regard him as 

entirely his own creation, driven by a desire to control himself, 

his compositions and his environment as far as was possible, 

and in the case of the image he projected to the world and 

his music, he evidently succeeded. Indeed, Ravel lived life 

rather strenuously on his own terms. He confided to a friend 

once, “Everyone has their faults; mine is to act only with 

complete conscience.” He refused the Légion d’ honneur and 

several other French awards (though he did accept honors 

from other countries) and refused to join a group of prominent 

French composers who wanted to ban from performance the 

works of Austrian and German composers during World War 

I, forming instead his own musical organization to promote 

modern works without regard to origin. His appearance 

of a rarefied dandy was carefully cultivated from his youth 

and reflects the attention to detail throughout the rest of his 

life. His home, Belvédère, which housed his collections of 

mechanical toys, bibelot boxes, miniature plants and bonsai, 

once again bespeaks a passion for the refined, the small, the 

perfect, a world at arm’s length—almost as if he viewed the 

universe backwards through a telescope, the images accurate 

to the tiniest detail, but distant. It has even been observed 

that he only visited the countries whose music had influenced 

his own, after he had written said music, almost as if he didn’t 

want reality to infringe upon the painstaking completeness 

of his vision viewed through his lens. Ravel may borrow the 

sounds of Spain, Arabia, or American jazz, but he remains 

irrevocably Ravel, and unapologetically French. 

Ravel is considered “one of the most original and 

sophisticated musicians of the early 20 th century.” His 

understanding of orchestration, knack for a musical portrayal 

of ambient sound, and his precision and unique tonal 

language instantly marked him by his contemporaries as 

the most influential French composer of his age after the 

death of Debussy. He established his musical “voice” early 

in his career, with none of the “journeyman” years of other 

composers. In some ways, he was anti-establishment, never 

really succeeding in conservative academic circles, but he 

revered the past, its forms and composers, and studied 

assiduously the scores of masters. Early in his career, one 

can hear the echoes of his study and inspiration. Later those 

musical mentors become more fully incorporated into his 

singular voice. 

Ravel was born on March 7, 1875 in Basque country—that 

strange region of Spanish influence in the South of France 

(as well as parts of Spain), whose language and culture were 

sufficiently exotic to fascinate the young Ravel throughout his 

life. His mother, Marie, of whom very little is known before the 

age of 35, was Basque, and sang her first-born son Spanish 

folk songs, which liberally flavored his future work. Ravel 

adored her, and she was his primary emotional relationship. 

Ravel’s father was Swiss, an innovative engineer, a modestly 

successful inventor and entrepreneur, and a talented amateur 

musician who appreciated art and music deeply. Despite the 

family’s tenuous financial situation, Ravel began piano lessons 

at age 7, and studied counterpoint and harmony concurrently. 

Ravel’s parents actively supported his musical ambitions. The 

family moved to Paris during Ravel’s early childhood, where 

they remained, although they moved about much throughout 

the city following various business opportunities of his father. 

Eventually, his little brother Edouard was born, and the family 

was complete. Theirs was a happy childhood, with both 

parents deeply involved in their sons’ lives. Their father often 

took them to factories to look at the machinery, and during 

the Paris World’s Fair they visited the Galérie des machines. 

Each boy’s ambitions were quietly nurtured, and as Maurice 

was auditioning for the Conservatoire, Edouard followed in his 

father’s footsteps and became an engineer. 

At 14, Maurice was accepted into the Paris Conservatoire 

as a piano student. There he was generally recognized as 

a gifted pianist, but he was not the best student. His first 

year there was his most successful. After that, he won no 

piano awards and was forced to leave the school in 1895. 

At 20 his career as a pianist was over. But, by then, Ravel 

was much more interested in composition. He wrote several 

pieces and in 1897 rejoined the Conservatoire as a composer. 

Here he studied with Fauré, who became both an influential 

mentor and a close friend. Fauré was an excellent teacher 

for the young man, being supportive and independent of the 

more conservative elements of academia. In addition, Ravel 

benefited from the counterpoint training that he received from 

Gédalge, whom, along with Fauré, he credited his “technique 

and musicianship.” During his time at the Conservatoire, he 

also deepened his lifelong friendship with virtuoso pianist, 

Ricardo Viñes, whom he had met at age 12. Together they 

played piano duets, read and discussed literature, and 

formed a salon of literary, visual and musical artists Viñes 

36 


called Les Apaches. Together they discussed the musical 

and artistic issues of fin-de-siècle Paris. Ravel was profoundly 

influenced by these contacts and thus more than usually a 

product of his time. 

One of the requirements of continuing study at the 

Conservatoire was to win an award. The most coveted of 

these awards was the Prix de Rome, a prize that provided 

the winner with a cash award, as well as a year of study in 

Rome. The award had a long and illustrious history, having 

been established in the 17 th century to help arts students 

continue their studies. Previous winners in the composer’s 

category included Hector Berlioz, Ambroise Thomas, Charles 

Gounod, Georges Bizet, Jules Massenet and Claude Debussy. 

At the dawn of the 20 th century, the prize was beginning to 

be regarded as a relic of a bygone age, but its importance 

was still felt, and it enabled the winner to continue study 

within the Conservatoire. Ravel had made the attempt four 

previous times in 1900, 1901, 1902 and 1903. The judges’ 

panel was deeply conservative, and Ravel, who had been 

slowly establishing himself as a composer in the modern 

vein, was viewed as a radical. The 1900 undertaking was 

so unsuccessful that Ravel chose to forget it. 1901 saw him 

attempt to game the system a bit by writing music not of 

his own preferred style, but of one calculated to please the 

judges’ tastes. His Myrrha, a cantata of vaguely Wagnerian 

harmonics, earned him the Second Grand Prix, but 

sounded nothing at all like his previous works Shéhérazade, 

Pavane pour une infante défunte or Jeux d’eau. His near 

miss for first may have been due to the fact that the winner’s 

teacher was on the panel of judges. For 1902, his style 

reverts back to his own, with the beautiful La Nuit for the 

first round and Alcyone for the finals. No prize. 1903, too, 

was unsuccessful and he declined to enter. In 1905, though, 

Ravel was about to turn thirty and age out of the competition. 

By 1905, Ravel had written some much admired work and 

was an established presence in musical circles. His name 

was already uttered with the same reverence as Debussy’s 

and critics were creating camps supporting their favorite of 

the two. Ravel had become an important French composer. 

He again entered the Prix de Rome, but he was eliminated 

in the first round. His fugue contained parallel 5 th s, a no-no 

of gigantic proportions as every college musician past their 

freshman theory classes knows. But, as any artist knows, after 

a certain point, the rules are made to be broken. The judges 

were adamant: “Monsieur Ravel may take us for windbags if 

he pleases, but not with impunity will he take us for idiots.” A 

firestorm of controversy erupted with the general public that a 

composer of Ravel’s stature should be denied the opportunity 

to compete. What became known as the Affaire Ravel, fought 

out very publicly in the press (without Ravel’s participation—he 

remained coolly above the fray), ended with the resignation of 

Théodore Dubois who was succeeded as the Conservatoire’s 

director by Fauré. Ravel avoided the Conservatoire 

for the rest of his career and solidified his distrust of 

establishment institutions. 

His loss of the Prix de Rome was a distinct gain for his 

musical creativity, however. The next several years were 

extremely prolific and include Miroirs (1905), Histoires 

naturelles (1906), Rapsodie espangole (1908) and 

L’heure espagnole (not performed until 1911), as well as the 

ballet Daphnis et Chloé. He suffered an emotional blow with 

the death of his father in 1908, which necessitated that he 

shoulder additional responsibilities as the head of the family. A 

year later, he began touring Europe. 

In 1914, Europe exploded into the “war to end all wars,” 

World War I. Desperate to serve his country, Ravel longed 

to become a pilot, but, at the age of 39, he was turned 

down. His indifferent health was also a contributing factor. 

Not content to sit idly by, Ravel became a truck driver on 

the Verdun front. He named his truck Adelaide and related 

his many adventures with her in letters home. His brother 

Edouard also joined the war effort and was so traumatized by 

his experiences that his hair turned white. Ravel, meanwhile, 

didn’t seem to take the psychic trauma from the war, but his 

physical body took a toll and his service ended in 1917 with 

a dreadful case of dysentery, leading to surgery. During his 

medical leave, he learned of his mother’s final illness and death, 

and he never recovered emotionally. His creative output was 

severely limited for several years. He became more reclusive 

and in 1920 bought a house west of Paris which he named 

Belvédère. After his move, he refused to buy a car or ever 

drive again. 

The year 1924 saw Ravel struggling to finish his second 

opera, L’enfant et les sortilèges. Going was slow, but he had 

a deadline and had to finish. “Who can … teach me to work 

fast?” he moaned to a friend in a letter. Part of his struggle 

was the perfectionism with which he approached his works. 

Ravel’s creative process required a long “gestation period” to 

use his own words. He would plot and plan each work to 

near completion and then lock himself away to write it down. 

During the writing down phase he often would see no one, go 

nowhere and keep at his work slavishly. Ultimately he would 

produce a virtually clean score that might undergo correction 

for years. Any correction Ravel decided to make was an 

improvement on the original. He scored in musical blocks: 

each family of instruments in an orchestral work would have a 

piece of music of unique clarity and quality, which could stand 

independent of the rest of the piece. Such attention to detail 

took time, and as he aged, it took more and more time. By 

1927, he was already exhibiting symptoms of the brain disease 

which would eventually lead to his death. One neuroscientist 

even hypothesized that his most famous work, Bolero, is 

evidence of his brain disease at work. Many biographies 

suggest that Ravel suffered from Pick’s Disease, which is 

similar to Alzheimer’s but presents some different symptoms 

initially. What is known are his symptoms. Starting in 1927, 

Ravel began to have trouble performing music in public; he 

would get lost in the music. He began to have trouble writing 

letters as evidenced by many crossings out, a shaky hand, 

unclear thoughts. He began to develop aphasia and an odd 

form of amusia—he could hear and think of music, but he 

could make nothing of the symbols of a musical score. As 

the disease progressed, his frustration at having music and 

musical ideas in his head and being unable to communicate 

them progressed to fear. His friends and his brother were 

desperate to try anything to regain their dear “Rara.” In 1937, 

under considerable pressure from Edouard to “do something,” 

famed neurosurgeon Clovis Vincent performed an exploratory 

surgery to look for a tumor. There was none. Soon after, Ravel 

slipped into a coma and died on December 28, 1937. 

37

Directions to Keller Auditorium 

222 SW Clay St, Portland, OR 97201 

All performances (except for the Ravel double bill, which will be held at the Newmark Theatre) are held at Keller Auditorium, 

located between SW 2nd & 3rd Avenues and Clay & Market Streets. Patron entrances are located on SW 3rd Avenue between 

Clay & Market streets. 

From I-5 South | Vancouver 

Follow I-5 to the “City Center/Oregon City” Exit. Follow the 

signs toward “City Center.” After crossing the Morrison Bridge, 

follow SW Washington to SW 3rd Avenue; turn left. Go 10 

blocks to Clay Street. Keller Auditorium is on the left. 

From I-5 North | Salem 

Follow I-5 to the “Naito Pkwy” Exit. Follow signs toward Naito 

Parkway. At the end of the ramp, cross Naito Parkway and 

continue west on Clay Street. Keller Auditorium is on your left, 

two blocks west of Naito Parkway. 

From Hwy 26 East | Sunset 

Before the Vista Ridge Tunnel, get in the center lane. Take 

the “Market Street/City Center” Exit. Continue on SW Market 

Street to 3rd Avenue. Keller Auditorium is on the left. 

From Hwy 26 West | Ross Island Bridge 

After coming off the Ross Island Bridge, follow signs to 

“Highway 26/Naito Pkwy.” Turn right onto Naito Parkway. 

Continue going north on Naito Parkway. Just south of the 

Marriott, turn left onto Clay Street. Continue on Clay for two 

blocks. Keller Auditorium is on the left, two blocks west of 

Naito Parkway. 

Newmark Theatre 

Keller auditorium 

Directions to 

NEWMARK THEATRE 

(Ravel double bill only) 

1111 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97205 

(Located inside Antoinette Hatfield Hall) 

From I-5 Southbound or I-84 Westbound 

Follow I-5 to the “City Center/Oregon City” Exit. Follow the 

signs toward City Center. After crossing the Morrison Bridge, 

follow SW Washington 5 blocks to Broadway. Turn left. Go 6 

blocks to Main Street. 

From I-5 Northbound 

Follow I-5 to I-405. Go west on I-405 to “Salmon Street” Exit. 

After exiting, turn right on SW Salmon Street. Continue east 7 

blocks to SW Park Avenue. 

From Highway 26 Eastbound | Sunset Hwy 

Before going through the Vista Ridge Tunnel, get in the center 

lane. Take the “Market Street/City Center” Exit. Continue on 

SW Market to 6th Avenue. Turn left. Continue to Taylor Street. 

Turn left. Turn left again at Broadway. Go 2 blocks to Main 

Street. 

keller auditorium 

From Highway 26 Westbound | Ross Island Bridge 

or Highway 99 E | McLoughlin Blvd 

After coming off the Ross Island Bridge, follow signs to 

“Highway 26/Naito Pkwy (Front Avenue).” Turn right onto Naito 

Parkway at the stop signal. Continue for 6 blocks to SW Taylor 

Street. Turn left. Follow Taylor 7 blocks to Broadway. Turn left 

on Broadway. Go 2 blocks to Main Street. 

PARDON OUR MESS! 

The Hampton Opera Center, home of our Studio Theater and 

administrative and ticket offices, is currently surrounded by the 

City’s “Big Pipe” project. As a result, we expect traffic delays and 

detours for the next few years. 

We strongly recommend that you allow ample time when traveling 

to The Hampton Opera Center or get in touch by phone when 

possible. We’re set up to handle anything you might need—from 

tickets to information—with a quick and easy phone call. 

Box Office: 503-241-1802 

Toll-free: 866-739-6737 

Administration: 503-241-1407 

38

PORTLAND OPERA: SO MUCH MORE THAN OPERA! 

Portland Opera is best known for its mainstage performances at Keller Auditorium—and now its chamber opera at the Newmark 

Theatre—that reach up to 40,000 individuals every season. But did you know we also reach an additional 450,000 adults 

and young people through our Fred Meyer Broadway Across America Portland season and extensive education and outreach 

programs serving every corner of our state? 

BRINGING THE BEST OF BROADWAY TO PORTLAND 

Portland Opera also presents the Fred Meyer Broadway 

Across America Portland series, bringing ten incredible 

Broadway productions to more than 250,000 people. The 

2010/11 season will include Tony® Award winners SOUTH 

PACIFIC, IN THE HEIGHTS and HAIR, as well as BILLY 

ELLIOT THE MUSICAL, MARY POPPINS and more. 

REACHING YOUNG PEOPLE 

Portland Opera To Go: During the 2010–11 school year, 

Portland Opera To Go will present a new 50-minute, 

English language adaptation of Donizetti’s The Elixir of 

Love in schools and communities throughout the entire 

state of Oregon. Beyond the show, Portland Opera To Go 

also features curriculum for teachers and pre-performance 

activities led by the artists, both of which tie opera to what 

is being taught in the classroom. Portland Opera will open 

its doors at The Hampton Opera Center on February 18 

& 19, 2011 for three performances of The Elixir of Love. 

We are booking now! For more information contact Alexis 

Hamilton at ahamilton@portlandopera.org. 

Student Rush Tickets 

Through our Rush Ticket program, students can purchase 

a mainstage opera ticket an hour before curtain for just 

$10. We guarantee a block of tickets even for our many 

performances that are technically “sold out.” 

Student Dress Rehearsals 

2,500 students, chaperones, and educators from more 

than 25 schools—as far away as Rogue Valley—will 

attend a final dress rehearsal this season that is reserved 

exclusively for them. Each audience member receives 

a study guide including a synopsis of the production, 

biography of the composer, glossary of opera and 

classical music terms, and suggestions for educators 

on how to use the production as an opportunity to meet 

Oregon benchmarks. 

Opera Previews 

Four Sunday afternoons are set aside this season for 

hour-long previews of each opera at the Multnomah County 

Central Library. 

Destination Opera 

In partnership with the Oregon Psychoanalytic Institute, the 

Opera presents Destination Opera: From Music to Psyche 

at Sherman Clay Pianos. These discussions explore the 

“scenic route” of opera as light is shed on wide-ranging 

topics suggested by each production. 

On the Air 

The Opera’s radio broadcast audience continues to 

grow through partnership with All Classical 89.9FM to air 

recordings of all of Portland Opera’s 2009/10 productions 

and, hosted by Christopher Mattaliano, excerpts from 

commercial recordings of the upcoming 2010/11 Season in 

a new program called “Saturday Matinee”; Mattaliano also 

hosts “Backstage at the Opera” on the first Saturday of the 

month prior to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. More 

information about these programs, including dates and 

times, can be found at www.allclassical.org 

Operabuzz 

Visit portlandopera.org and subscribe 

to the OPERABuzz e-newsletter to stay 

apprised of event dates and locations. 

Support opera programs 

To learn how you or your business can 

support the Opera’s education and 

community programs, please contact the 

Development Office at 503-241-1407. 

SERVING EVERYONE IN OUR COMMUNITY 

Portland Opera Studio Artists Recitals: The Portland 

Opera Studio Artists (POSA) program, now in its sixth 

season, provides a nine-month, full-time professional 

residency for four conservatory level graduates, ages 

21 to 35. Through a series of four recitals, each singer 

will be showcased in the intimate setting of Portland Art 

Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium. 

39

PORTLAND OPERA WEBSITE 

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If you are a Season Subscriber having an account 

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Edit Your Profile - This feature makes it easier than 

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Make Payments - View statements, make 

payments, even renew your subscriptions online. 

Also at the Portland Opera Website … 

Click on the individual shows and you will find 

Overview—an overview of the production 

Plot—so you’ll know the story before you get to the 

theater 

About—an in-depth article about the opera 

Composer—a bio for the composer of the opera 

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Make Donations - Make donations simply and 

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40

Turn Fantasy into Reality—with your gift 

You love great opera, so become a part of making it happen in our community. 

When you make a tax-deductible gift to Portland Opera, you transform fantasy into reality for more than 400,000 adults and 

children who experience the passion of world-class opera and the excitement of Broadway theater. 

Your gift gives everyone a reason to sing your praises all year long, helping create the incredible opera productions you enjoy. 

Your gift also reaches out to people young and old, in every corner of our region. It makes possible extensive education 

programs including the state-wide Portland Opera To Go school tour, Student Dress Rehearsals, Student Rush Tickets and the 

Portland Opera Studio Artist program. 

Your gift also provides more than 100 free concerts, previews, lectures and broadcasts that share your love of opera with 

everyone in our community. 

To thank you for becoming a friend of the Opera, we’ll provide an array of benefits — from backstage tours and dress 

rehearsals, to cast parties and complimentary parking — to make the thrill of opera last all season long. 

Recognition as a sponsor of a production or artist 

Recognition as an Honorary Board Member 

Invitation to artists’ "Meet and Greet" for every production 

Annual invitation to dinner with Chris Mattaliano or one opera’s cast 

Assistance in identifying local artists to hire for private events 

Invitation to opening night cast parties 

Recognition as an Honorary Producer for one opera 

Invitation to a run-through rehearsal as Chris Mattaliano’s guest 

Recognition as a Camerata Producer for one opera 

Complimentary parking at the 200 Market Building garage * 

Invitation to the exclusive Camerata celebration 

Admittance to the Camerata Lounge during intermissions 

Camerata membership by stepping up giving over three seasons 

VIP ticket service through the Development Office 

Camerata benefits for one opera 

Recognition as an Associate Producer for one opera 

Invitation to a backstage tour and piano dress rehersal 

Invitation to a special season preview event 

Invitation to a pre-show reception 

Complimentary coat check 

Invitation to an additional piano dress rehearsal 

Invitation to one piano dress rehearsal 

Recognition in performance programs for one year 

Annual report on the impact of your gift 

10% discount on regular non-subscriber tickets 

Gold 

Circle 

$25,000+ 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

Silver 

Circle 

$10,000 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

Camerata Circle 

Director’s 

Circle 

$5,000 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

Artists’ 

Circle 

$2,500 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

Apprentice 

Circle 

$2,500 

$2,000 

$1,500 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

Benefactor 

$1,000 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

Friends of the Opera 

Enthusiast 

$500 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

Sustainer 

$250 

x 

x 

x 

x 

Supporter 

$100 

x 

x 

* For productions at Keller Auditorium. 

TRANSFORM YOUR REALITY BY JOINING 

THE CAMERATA CIRCLE 

Whether you are a long-time lover of opera or recently 

discovered its breathtaking beauty, Camerata Circle 

membership is an experience you won’t want to miss. 

You will enjoy meeting internationally recognized artists, 

gaining access behind the scenes, toasting each 

production in the Camerata Lounge during intermissions, 

attending exclusive events, and developing friendships with 

other opera lovers. 

Named for the group of artists in Florence, Italy who 

created opera more than 400 years ago, this circle of 

friends helps Portland Opera bring the finest singers, 

conductors, directors, sets and costumes to our stage, 

and helps us present the widest breadth of world-class 

opera right here in Portland. 

Experience the behind-the-scenes magic that makes opera 

so amazing. Join the Camerata Circle! 

Contact the Development Team at 503-241-1407 or email 

giving@portlandopera.org for details. 

Camerata Circle members Bill and Karen Early (center) with General Director 

Christopher Mattaliano and composer Philip Glass. 

THREE EASY WAYS TO MAKE YOUR GIFT TODAY: 

Online: portlandopera.org 

By Phone: 503-241-1407 

By Mail: Portland Opera Giving 


211 SE Caruthers Street 


41

Portland Opera Picks 

To enhance your opera experience, the following restaurants, hotels and retailers have designed exclusive discount offers 

for Portland Opera subscribers. Looking for a delicious meal before or after a performance? Simply pick one of these highly 

regarded restaurants and present a Restaurant Picks coupon (located in your ticket package) to your server to redeem the 

special dining offer. Spending the night in downtown Portland? Then book a room with one of our hotel partners, and please 

use the appropriate promotional code to receive your Portland Opera Subscriber room rate. All offers valid through the opera 

season: Sept 2010 – April 2011 * 

restaurants 

The following 7 restaurants offer $10 off food when two or more enjoy dinner in the dining room 

before or after a performance. Reservations recommended. Limit one discount per table. 

Bella Gioia Milano 

503-241-2998 

1134 NW Everett St 

www.bellagioia1.com 

Nel Centro 

503-484-1099 

1408 SW 6 th Ave (adjacent to Hotel Modera) 

www.nelcentro.com 

The Heathman Restaurant and Bar 

503-790-7752 

1001 SW Broadway (at Salmon) 

www.heathmanrestaurantandbar.com 

London Grill 

503-295-4110 

309 SW Broadway (in The Benson Hotel) 

www.bensonhotel.com 

Jake’s Grill 

503-220-1850 

611 SW 10 th Ave 

www.jakesgrill.com 

Southpark Seafood Grill & Wine Bar 

503-326-1300 

901 SW Salmon St 

www.southparkseafood.com 

McCormick & Schmick’s Harborside Restaurant 

503-220-1865 

0309 SW Montgomery 

www.mccormickandschmicks.com 

Aquariva Italian Kitchen 

503-802-5850 | 0470 SW Hamilton Ct (near Avalon Hotel & Spa) | www.aquarivaportland.com 

Enjoy a complimentary regular sized entrée item of equal or lesser value when two or more enjoy dinner in the 

restaurant before or after a performance. Reservations recommended. 

Morton’s The Steakhouse 

503-248-2100 | 213 SW Clay St | www.mortons.com 

Before the performance enjoy a three-course pre-fixe dinner for $60 per person. Includes salad, entrée, vegetable 

or potato, and a dessert selection. No substitutions, price doesn’t include gratuity, not valid for Boardroom events. 

Nostrana 

503-234-2427 | 1401 SE Morrison St | www.nostrana.com 

One complimentary antipasti with purchase of a secondo (entrée) before or after a performance. Limit one 

discount per table. 

Pazzo Ristorante 

503-228-1515 | 627 SW Washington (at Broadway St) | www.pazzo.com 

20% off food in the restaurant or bar on the day of a performance for up to four people. Not valid on purchase of 

alcohol; entrée purchase required. Limit one discount per table. 

Piazza Italia 

503-478-0619 | 1129 NW Johnson St | www.piazzaportland.com 

Complimentary antipasto or gelato with dinner. 

Red Star Tavern & Roast House 

503-222-0005 | 503 SW Alder | www.redstartavern.com 

20% off food in the restaurant any day for up to four people. Excludes purchase of alcohol, 

happy hour and holidays. Limit one discount per table. 

42 

* Only one coupon may be redeemed at a time. Offers available on performance nights/days only unless indicated otherwise. 

Not valid with any other discount offers.

hotels 

The Benson Hotel 

503-228-2000 | 309 SW Broadway | www.bensonhotel.com 

Portland’s Grand Hotel since 1913. AAA four-diamond historic hotel located in the heart of downtown 

Portland. Award-winning service and amenities, timeless beauty. Some things never go out of style! 

Subscribers eligible for 20% off the best available rate and a room upgrade, based upon availability. Make 

your reservation on-line at bensonhotel.com with promotional code PORTOPER. 

Hotel Modera 

503-484-1084 | 515 SW Clay | www.hotelmodera.com 

Hotel Modera is downtown Portland’s newest and most inspiring boutique hotel. Located just blocks from 

Keller Auditorium, Hotel Modera features a unique ‘Living Wall,’ a tranquil courtyard with glowing glass-filled 

fire pits, Nel Centro restaurant, and works of art by local artists. Book the Portland Arts special: a Premiere 

King with valet parking and bottle of sparkling wine for just $119 + tax. Visit hotelmodera.com and use 

promotional code PRO. 

Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront Hotel 

800-546-9513 | 1401 SW Naito Parkway | www.marriott.com 

The Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront Hotel is best known for our award winning service and our 

amazingly memorable cuisine. This hotel is Green Seal Certified and has earned the ENERGY STAR label. 

Portland Opera subscribers can experience the ultimate downtown experience with a special discounted 

rate of $129.00 per night plus applicable taxes including complimentary overnight valet parking. Enter special 

promotional code HOZ. 

music 

Classical Millennium 

503-231-8909 | 3144 E Burnside St 

10% discount on all regularly priced classical compact discs and performing arts DVDs purchased 

throughout the opera season. 

* Only one coupon may be redeemed at a time. Offers available on performance nights/days only unless indicated otherwise. 

Not valid with any other discount offers. Some hotel blackout dates may apply. 

Production Photo Credits 

Pagliacci Duane Morris 

Carmina Burana Duane Morris 

Hansel & Gretel Brian Tarr 

Turandot Adrian Malloch 

Portland Opera appreciates the continuing support of the Regional Arts and Culture Council, Work for Art, 

Oregon Arts Commission, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Oregon Cultural Trust. 

Portland Opera is a member of OPERA AMERICA. 

43

christopher mattaliano 

general director 


211 SE Caruthers Street 


Pagliacci Leoncavallo / Carmina burana Orff 

Hansel & Gretel Humperdinck Turandot Puccini 

2010/11 

L’heure Espagnole / L’Enfant et les sortilÈges Ravel

christopher mattaliano - Portland Opera

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