Handel and Haydn Society Metropolitan Museum of Art
by
Published July 31, 2017
(Photo by Stephanie Berger)
By Keith Powers
BOSTON — "You should come across my face right now," says Harry Christophers. "I'thou positively beaming all over, merely talking almost it."
What the Handel and Haydn Order'south artistic director is beaming about is Purcell's The Fairy-Queen — "He's just one of those composers I feel a dandy affinity for," he says — which H+H will perform Aug. ix in a long-overdue appearance in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood.
For a Boston institution like H+H non to visit the summer home of another of the city'southward musical institutions — the Boston Symphony Orchestra — for xx years seems an injustice. Simply it'southward true: the last H+H appearance on the bucolic Tanglewood grounds was in 1997, when the ii-centuries-old period ensemble performed with the belatedly mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt (Lieberson) and baroque violinist Stanley Ritchie.
It'south high fourth dimension to right that wrong, and Christophers has chosen Purcell's fanciful adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream to gloat H+H's return. Based on the nuptials scene — you know, Titania and the dearest potion, and the hilarious amours with an ass that follow — Purcell'southward realization has amuse, one-act, and, in a higher place all, lovely music. H+H is bringing its catamenia orchestra, a chorus of ix singers, and narrator Antonia Christophers forth for the semi-staged performance.
Narrator and conductor share a last name because they are daughter and father. Merely Antonia Christophers doesn't take to share a famous family proper name to be well-known: her children'south theater company, Box Tale Soup, which adapts archetype works of literature (Wind in the Willows, The Movie of Dorian Grayness), tours the globe. She'southward besides an in-need role player, and her office as Mhaegen in the offset flavor of HBO'southward Game of Thrones might attract the cosplay audition to Ozawa Hall.
"She'southward also a trained Shakespearean," her father points out, "and while she's not directing this entire performance, she's going to direct a couple of things — the drunken poet, and the marriage sequence — the scenes that demand a piddling stagecraft."
Antonia Christophers will narrate Jeremy Sams'due south adapted script. Purcell's piece of work falls into the category of masque, or semi-opera: a narrator weaves the tale, while musical interludes interrupt to color the story in metaphorical, allegorical or historical ways.
The Fairy-Queen — no connection to Spenser's great epic — was first staged in 1692, popular for a few years, and then lost entirely until the 20th century. Since then it has seen multiple revisions, stagings, and recordings, including versions by Benjamin Britten, John Eliot Gardiner, William Christie, Ton Koopman, and Harry Christophers himself — a 1993 recording with his other ensemble, The Sixteen.
The original staging was at the Queen's Theater, Dorset Garden, in London, a lavish affair past Christophers'due south account. "This production must have broken the bank back in the twenty-four hour period," he says. "Just think of Dorset Gardens — the theater had a river running through it, with swans. It had peacocks. It had a Chinese garden. You can imagine information technology was glorious, absolutely glorious.
"We're not bringing peacocks," he continues, although you can actually visualize the Tanglewood grounds being set upward for such a spectacle. "But we accept the ability to revel in his music."
That'southward where the axle in Christophers's countenance comes in. "Purcell isn't actually setting a single word of Shakespeare," he says. "He'south conjuring up all the secrecy and charm in the play. Every part is important here — phenomenal polyphony and harmonies. And I dare yous to find better viol parts. I'1000 using fewer strings — Purcell had 24, I'll accept 12 — but I'm keeping the same residue between the instruments.
"Information technology'southward amazing the detail in this music. You can spend hours rehearsing one of the dances, paying the right attention to the phrasing. And the cadences are then important to Purcell — not just the penultimate chords before the terminate, but even back to two bars before the end. Every office is private. With many composers you can work in waves of dynamics. Not with Purcell: the waves have different waves. It'due south never just basic counterpoint and polyphony — it'south more than that."
The strings in this production are complemented by recorders (doubling oboes), percussion, theorbo (doubling guitar), and horns. Countertenor Robin Bonfire (as Mopsa) and bass-baritone Matthew Beck (in multiple roles, including the Drunken Poet) pace out of the chorus for solo roles.
Ian Watson, who conducted a couple of smaller runout versions of the H+H production earlier this summer from the harpsichord, "gets to sit and focus on the continuo this time," Christophers says, "while I try to figure out what a conductor does."
Antonia Christophers drives the action, and interacts in her own antic fashion as the narrator — who oftentimes takes Titania'southward vox — with the musicians. "Jeremy Sams uses Titania as a guide through the masques," she says. "As an histrion, information technology'southward not restrictive being a narrator, only different. Jeremy has written a bit of stage direction, and in that location's a lot of fun to be had. There volition be some coaction betwixt daddy and I, some piddling moments where Titania tries to take over. It'due south a clever narration, in that information technology sets everything up and so lets the music take control. My father volition decide on whatsoever musical finessing, but my job is to make sure I enhance the pace. I don't sing professionally — although I do become to join in at the end — but the narration gets almost sung in a spoken manner. Equally yous can imagine, growing up in my household, there was always lots of music going on. The Fairy-Queen was i of our favorites."
For Harry Christophers, information technology's a return to a place in the Boston family — of orchestras. And in general it'due south a chance to forward H+H's mission.
"Nosotros're lucky in Boston to have so many organizations, and such a wonderful public. I'm sure that this appearance will renew our human relationship, and that it tin can continue from at present on. Taking the orchestra to new places — those things accept a huge impact. Fairy-Queen is the perfect repertoire for Tanglewood, and the summer. That's why I chose information technology. We are out to prove that Baroque menstruation music is non only virtually academia. It'due south about entertainment. We are entertainers — I tell our singers this all the time — and we are here to make people cry out with joy, and be part of the emotions onstage.
"I've been hearing this talk about how the concert hall is dead, that it'southward the noose around the neck of classical music. That you have to find funky new places to reach audiences — pubs, and the like. No no no no no, I say. There'south been an upsurge in young people coming to concerts, and this Purcell is whacky stuff. You take to do the very best you lot tin can, at what you do. That's the standard I set for H+H, and why it deserves to be heard by a wider audition."
The Handel and Haydn Society, led by Harry Christophers, performs Purcell'southward The Fairy-Queen on Aug. nine at 8 p.m. in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood. For tickets ($12-$124) and information, get here or phone call 888-266-1200.
Keith Powers covers music and the arts for GateHouse Media and WBUR'south ARTery. Follow @PowersKeith; electronic mail to keithmichaelpowers@gmail.com
Source: https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/hh-tanglewood/
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