SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW, STORIES TRADITIONAL AND TRUE

Notes on Opera Maine’s 31st season from dramaturg Calien Lewis

Charles Gounod
Composer of Roméo et Juliette & Faust

Charles-Francois Gounod (1818-1893) was a Romantic era French composer of more than 600 works, including 12 operas. Two of these – Roméo et Juliette (1867) and Faust ( 1859) – have been in the international repertory for more than a century and a half.

FIVE FACTS ABOUT ROMÉO ET JULIETTE:

  1. Charles Gounod’s Lyric opera, with libretto by Jules Barbier & Michel Carré, premiered at the Théâtre Lyrique in 1867. It simplifies Shakespeare’s play, eliminating subplots and focusing on the principal characters. This opera is ALL about Melody — lovely, “supreme melodies” as critics have called it.
  2. The heart of the libretto by AND the music is in the four duets, which take up much of the opera, with a couple of star turn arias for Juliette and Roméo. The one great exception is the “mini-tone poem” that opens Act IV Wedding Night, with its cellos.
  3. Gounod uses the overture to signal the conflict to come, and the Prologue, copied from Shakespeare, outlines the historic rivalry of two great families. But Act I plunges the audience into Juliette’s joyous coming out party masked ball.
  4. Note the use of orchestral passages between the singers’ lines are used to suggest or underscore emotions and you won’t miss the sound of FATE, in a throbbing pedal tone in the lower strings in the first ecstatic love duet of ACT I.
  5. Finally, be aware of the contrasts that Gounod and his librettists underscore:
    1. COMEDY & TRAGEDY
    2. NIGHT & DAY
    3. LOVE & HATE
    4. REALITY & DREAM OR WHAT APPEARS REAL AND ISN’T (JULIETTE’S I WANT TO LIVE IN A DREAM & ROMÉO’S DREAM; SLEEP TRANCE/DEATH)
    5. REVENGE & FORGIVENESS
  6. Bonus point: The version of the opera most performed today was the reworking that Gounod prepared for Parisien Opèra in 1888, which starred Emma Eames, who spent much of childhood in Portland and Bath, and in retirement maintained a residence in Maine.

ON BOUND:

  1. Bound is a chamber opera written by composer Huang Ruo, with libretto by Bao-Long Chu. It first appeared in Houston, in 2014, and has been widely performed since.
  2. The work reflects the creators’ shared concern to present the unheard stories of those often “othered,” and is based on the experiences of a real teenager.
  3. Huang Ruo’s music draws inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, as well as Western avant-garde. He utilizes sources from jazz and rock to natural and processed sound.
  4. Bound features the Vietnamese Đàn bầu, a traditional one-stringed zither, which will be played here by Vanessa Võ, for whom the part was written. She will also be featured in a free concert at Portland Stage Company at 7 PM June 25th together with members of the cast.

Calien Lewis, dramaturg

Calien Lewis is a retired attorney whose career included stints as a college instructor in genre courses and composition; executive director of a national peace organization, and most recently, Executive Director of the Maine Justice Foundation (formerly The Maine Bar Foundation). She has formal studies in music and theatre, and has worked with Opera Maine since 1998, serving as a board member, scenery painter, prop master and dramaturg. As dramaturg, she has developed workshops on opera related topics and Opera Maine’s repertory for various venues. Her pre-opera conversations have been featured for more than two decades.