Program notes
Once the operatic world had been introduced to Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida (1871) and Otello (1887), subsequent scores for new Italian stage works seldom included a stunning choral showpiece. A notable exception, however, was the opening of Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, the “Hymn to the Sun.” The composer (1863-1945) had singlehandedly launched the operatic movement known as “verismo.” With Iris, however, he departed from that style’s usual contemporary/realist subject matter by setting a plot taking place in legendary Japan. The lurid drama of Iris is not in the least reflected in the choral prologue, the “Hymn to the Sun,” arguably the most mesmerizing depiction of a sunset ever created in opera.
Three generations prior to Iris, Italian bel canto was in its final flowering with the works of Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848). Among his more than 60 operas are many genuine masterpieces, including above all Lucia di Lammermoor (1835). This work remains without question the most popular of all the romantic tragedies in bel canto repertoire. The chorus plays an important role in four of Lucia’s seven scenes. In the opera’s final act, the heroine’s “mad scene” is preceded by the chorus singing “D’immenso giubilo.” In this exhilarating number, guests who have just witnessed the wedding of Lucia and Lord Arturo continue to celebrate the occasion. Little do they know that their joy regarding the newlyweds is about to be interrupted by horrifying news: The bride has killed her bridegroom on their wedding night.
Irresistible vigor characterizes opera’s most familiar music for an ensemble of men’s voices, the “Soldiers’ Chorus” from Faust by Charles Gounod (1818-1893). The work did much to confirm this composer’s stature as his generation’s most successful creator of romantic French repertoire. In Act Three, Faust departs temporarily from the central characters to highlight the chorus of soldiers returning from battle. As the townspeople listen with rapt attention, the returning heroes hail the courage of their ancestors — the brave soldiers who came before them. In this number’s middle section, the music’s martial quality turns more gentle as the men eagerly anticipate the joys of being home again, especially the welcome each man will receive from his sweetheart.
This concert continues with French repertoire, but now showcasing female voices. One of the most vocally and musically intoxicating episodes for chorus in all of 19th-century opera is “Dans l’air, nous suivons des yeux” from Carmen, the final work of Georges Bizet (1838-1875 — his premature death came three months after this opera’s catastrophic world premiere). Early in Carmen’s first act, the women working in Seville’s cigarette factory appear outdoors for a break and a smoke. They proceed to enrapture the men surrounding them with a melody they don’t sing so much as provocatively murmur. Bizet exquisitely shapes each delicate line as the women describe the smoke of their cigarettes as it wafts its way to the sky.
From start to finish of his long career, Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) composed for chorus with as much authority, imagination, and melodic inspiration as when writing for solo voices. Verdi profoundly understood a people’s longing for its homeland, whether in Nabucco (1841) with the captured Hebrews in Babylon singing “Va pensiero,” most beloved of all operatic choruses; or, in Macbeth (1847), where Scottish refugees, bereft and without hope, sing the equally affecting “Patria oppressa.” But Verdi was also memorably capable of a much livelier spirit in his choral writing, most notably in Il trovatore (1853) with the justly celebrated “Anvil Chorus” that opens that opera’s second act. Hard work was never made more infectiously upbeat than in this number, sung by nomads camped in the mountains of Biscay in Spain.
Richard Wagner (1813-1883), whose gifts were already achieving full flower in The Flying Dutchman (1843), truly hit his stride with Tannhäuser two years later. The choral role in this work is massive, particularly in the second act, set in a castle, where a song contest is to take place. Various minstrels are to compete in the Hall of Song, judged by the princely Landgrave and Elisabeth, his niece. Their guests — knights and noble ladies — joyously greet both the hall and the Landrave, their host. The magnificence of this music is worthy of the great occasion it presents, exuding both joyous buoyancy and monumental grandeur.
This concert then moves to spirituals, beginning with the ineffably touching “Give Me Jesus.” First published in 1845, the song became increasingly familiar throughout the rest of the 19th century. It achieved particular popularity in a version sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers and published by them in the mid-1870s. That same ensemble was also significant in establishing the electrifying “Ride On, King Jesus” as one of the best loved of all spirituals in the concert repertoire. The song has been made famous not just by major choral ensembles nationwide but also by renowned solo artists, such as Leontyne Price and Kathleen Battle. New Orleans native Moses Hogan (1957-2003), arranger of the versions sung by the Lyric Opera Chorus, was also a notable composer, an exceptionally gifted pianist, and a major figure in the continuing propagation of spirituals as an essential component of American choral repertoire.
To conclude this concert, the Lyric Opera Chorus looks first to the most successful creative duo in Broadway musical history, composer Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960). The two invariably triumphed whenever uplifting numbers were called for in their shows, whether for solo voice or full-scale chorus. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel (1945) is first heard from the motherly Nettie, when urging her cousin Julie to carry on with life after the death of her husband. In the show’s final moments, the song is used as inspiration at a high-school graduation. In The Sound of Music (1959), “Climb E’vry Mountain” is sung first by Nonnberg Abbey’s Mother Superior, as she gives Maria, the show’s heroine, the strength and confidence to face the challenges of her life. In the final scene, the Mother Superior and the abbey’s other nuns reprise the song, as Maria, her husband Captain von Trapp, and their children begin their courageous trek through the Alps to freedom in Switzerland. Both of these unforgettable songs present a direct, unfussy, yet superbly expressive melody, and each builds to an extraordinarily moving climax.
The link between Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021) was Hammerstein, a significant influence on the teenaged Sondheim and virtually a second father to him. Creator of both music and lyrics for many of the most theatrically innovative and musically dazzling of all Broadway musicals from 1962 to 2008, Sondheim was at his peak of creativity in 1984, when Sunday in the Park with George premiered. Its protagonists were two artists, Georges Seurat (Act One) and his great-grandson (Act Two). The show focuses not just on Seurat’s own obsessive struggle to achieve perfection of color and design in his paintings, but also on the intrigues and desires in the lives of the subjects of his painting of Parisians on the island in the Seine known as “La Grande Jatte,” one of the premiere works in the Art Institute of Chicago. These elements come together in the finale of Act One, the enthralling and deeply stirring “Sunday.”
Roger Pines writes frequently for Opera (U.K.), programs of opera companies internationally, and major recording labels. A faculty member of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, he has also been a panelist on the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts’ “Opera Quiz” since 2006.