ICO Sundays 2021

Sunday 5th December 1.30pm @ Sherwood Districts Football Club, 41 Chelmer St East, Chelmer

Conductor – Greta Hunter

Maria Woolford (mezzo soprano) and Jia-Peng Yeung (baritone).

Welcome to our afternoon of ballet and opera across the ages. We are delighted to be working with Maria and Jia-Peng to bring you a selection of classics from the early baroque period to the late romantic years.

Sit back and enjoy our Gold Class concert service. The bar is open prior to the concert for drinks and light snacks. The bistro will open during and after the concert.

Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Overture to Idomeneo, rè di Creta, K. 366

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Tutto è disposto… (recitative and aria from The Marriage of Figaro)

Johann Strauss, Jr – Chacun à son goût (from Die Fledermaus)

Johnann Strauss, Jr – Pappacoda-Polka, Op.412

Camille Saint-Saëns – “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix” from Samson et Dalila

Giacomo Puccini – Minuet No.1

George Frideric Handel – Revenge Timotheous Cries (from Alexander’s Feast)

INTERVAL 

Jean-Baptiste Lully – Ballet Suite, arr. Mottl – Mvmt 1

Jules Massenet – Va! laisse couler mes larmes (from Act III of Werther)

Jean-Baptiste Lully – Ballet Suite, arr. Mottl – Mvmt 2

Giacomo Puccini – Vecchia zimarra, senti (from La Bohème)

Jean-Baptiste Lully – Ballet Suite, arr. Mottl – Mvmt 3

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Il core vi dono (duet from Cossi Fan Tutte)

Jean-Baptiste Lully – Ballet Suite, arr. Mottl – Mvmt 4

JOIN US AT THE BAR FOR A DRINK AFTER THE PERFORMANCE

Greta Hunter – Conductor

Greta Hunter is a flutist, music educator, conductor, and musical director of three community ensembles in Brisbane.

Greta holds a Bachelor of Music with first class honours majoring in Classical Flute Performance from the University of Queensland.  She held the 2018 position of principal flute with the Queensland Youth Symphony (QYS) after previously performing as the orchestra’s principal piccolo.  Greta has toured regularly with the QYO Chamber Orchestra and in 2017 performed with the QYS on its major international tour to China and Germany.  She is the flute specialist tutor at the Westside Christian College, Brisbane.

Greta is an experienced conductor with a passion for community music.  In 2019 she attended the Melbourne Youth Orchestra’s conductor development program, and the advanced conducting program at the Australian Choral Conductors Education and Training (ACCET) Summer School.  Greta has also attended the Australian Conducting Academy in Tasmania and the Zlin International Conducting Masterclass in the Czech Republic, and was invited to guest conduct the QYS in its 2018 Strings Sensations concert.

Greta is the musical director and conductor of the Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra, Songshine Choir and Queensland Korean Junior Strings.

Maria Woolford – mezzo soprano

Mezzo-soprano, Maria Woolford (Bachelor of Music 2020) is currently enrolled in a Graduate Certificate in Music under the tutelage of distinguished singer Sarah Crane at the University of Queensland.  In 2019 Maria completed a university exchange to the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Canada where she sang with the Opera McGill Chorus in their production of Die Zauberflote.

During her studies, Maria has performed as Zita in the opera Gianni Schicchi and La Principessa in Suor Angelica.  She has also performed in many opera scenes programs, including Mallika in Lakme, Jo in Little Women, Wellgunde in Das Rheingold, Adalgisa in Norma and Augusta in Baby Doe.  Maria has sung in choruses from a variety of operas and oratorios, including Handel’s Messiah, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Bach’s St Matthew Passion.  As part of UQ Chorale, she has performed the alto solo in Bruckner’s Requiem and in the chorus of works such as Vaughan William’s Dona Nobis Pacem, and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. 

Maria competed in the Redland Eisteddfod in 2018 and placed 1st and 2nd in the vocal sections. 

Maria has been a soloist with the Monteverdi Ensemble and in May 2021 sang with the Seven Sopranos and Brisbane City Pops Orchestra. Most recently she had her debut at QPAC as the alto soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony: Ode to Joy. 

Maria is excited to be bringing beautiful music to you with the Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra.

Jia-Peng Yeung – baritone

Baritone, Jia-Peng Yeung is in his fourth year of Bachelor of Music (Honours) under the tutelage of Dr. Shaun Brown at the University of Queensland.

Jia-Peng was selected to participate in the 2021 Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program, the 2021 winner of the UQ Ethel Osbourne Vocal Prize, the 2021 winner of the UQ Margret Nickson Prize, and was a recipient of the UQ, and St Leo’s College Music Achievement Scholarship during his residency at St Leo’s College from 2018 and 2019. 

Jia-Peng has been featured as a soloist in numerous performances, including Britten’s Hymn to St Cecilia, Charpentier’s Te Deum and Mozart’s Missa Brevis in B flat with UQ Chorale, UQ Chamber Singers, and UQ Singers. He has also been featured in the UQ School of Music Lunchtime Concert series as a soloist and with the UQ Singers and UQ Chamber Singers. 

Jia-Peng has performed in operatic roles such as Simone at the Cuskelly Sumer School Opera Program and the University of Queensland production of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, as well as number operatic excerpts as a part of UQ Singers Opera Scenes from Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffman as Dr. Miracle, Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto as Counte Graf, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro as Figaro, Britten’s Billy Budd as Claggart and Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress as Nick Shadow, among many other chorus roles in West Side Story, Don Giovanni and Cendrillon.

Program Notes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)

Overture to Idomeneo, rè di Creta, K. 366

Mozart composed Idomeneo in 1780-81 on a commission from the Bavarian court in Munich. It was his first great opportunity to stage a full-scale music drama in the reformed tradition of Christoph Willibald Gluck that included a substantial role for chorus and ballet. The plot was based on a tragédie lyrique, as French opera of the period was called, by librettist Antoine Danchet with music by André Campra. 

Idomeneo, the King of Crete, was one of Agamemnon’s generals and trusted advisors in The Iliad. In a late Roman extension of the aftermath of the Trojan War, Idomeneo leaves his kingdom in the care of his young son Idamante to join the siege of Troy. The essence of the plot is a little like the biblical story of Jephtha, who in return for a military victory vowed to sacrifice the first living thing to greet him when he returned home – as it turned out, his daughter. Idomeneo, beset by a storm at sea on his homeward journey from the Trojan War, has made a similar vow to Neptune. The rest of the plot concerns his vain attempts to avoid sacrificing Idamante. Naturally, there’s a love interest as well, a triangle among Idamante, the Trojan princess Ilia and – of all people – Agamemnon’s daughter Electra, who has sought refuge in Crete after her mother Clytemnestra has murdered her father. Ultimately, after Idamante has slain a sea monster sent by Neptune to devour the Cretan people, an oracle emerges as a deus ex machina, ordering Idomeneo to abdicate in favor of his son.

Unfortunately the opera was not a great success and never gained popularity in the composer’s lifetime, although Mozart himself thought highly of it. He made numerous changes to gain its acceptance in Vienna, but to no avail. It has experienced a limited renaissance in large opera houses, where innovative productions outside the standard repertory have elicited audience support.

As was customary of overtures at the time, the Overture to Idomeneo is in sonata form, although without any significant development section. There is the obligatory slow introduction, a series of pompous blasts of the full orchestra, followed by a threatening theme, recalling what Mozart would later put into his overture for Don Giovanni.  The Allegro runs out an array of themes, the most important of which are the first and second. The recapitulation simply recasts the themes into their proper keys for a proper resolution in the tonic.

Program Notes – Elizabeth & Joseph Kahn 2016 https://www.hhso.org/program-notes/may7/index.htm

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)

Tutto è disposto… (recitative and aria from The Marriage of Figaro)

The Marriage of Figaro subtitled The Craziest Day (La folle journée) is the second in the Figaro trilogy of plays by Beaumarchais and follows the action of The Barber of Seville. Beaumarchais completed work on both plays in 1773 (Barber of Seville) & 1778 (Marriage of Figaro). The plays were considered scandalous at the time due to its depiction of incompetent and hedonistic nobleman being outwitted by a quick-witted servant. Performances were opposed by French censors and Louis XVI due to their “class subversion” theme until 1775 and 1784 respectively.  Beaumarchais’ trilogy concludes with The Guilty Mother. The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro were high examples of eighteenth century light comedy but now are almost exclusively remembered by the respective operas of Rossini and Mozart. There have been other musical settings of Figaro than Mozart’s but Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro is noted for its richness of musical invention and subtle characterisation. Classified as an Opera Buffa, Mozart’s four act opera is consistently ranked as one of the most beloved and most performed operas in today’s standard repertoire. Lorenzo da Ponte wrote the libretto for Mozart’s adaptation which was first performed at the Vienna Burgtheater, May 1, 1786.

Program notes – http://www.harmetz.com/soprano/synopsis/marriagefigaro.htm

Additional information – program notes by Bernard Jacobson https://www.operaphila.org/backstage/opera-blog/2017/two-kinds-of-miracle/

Strauss, Johann Jr (1825 – 1899)

Chacun à son goût (from Die Fledermaus)

Die Fledermaus was Johann Strauss’s third operetta for Vienna’s Theatre an der Wien. The piece was based on a popular French vaudeville comedy, its action tidied up for the supposedly more-elevated tastes of Viennese audiences. At its premiere, critics still found it scandalous, in part because its story of a practical joke spinning out of control seemed ill-suited for performance on what happened to be Easter Sunday. Audiences, however, immediately loved it.

Musically, Die Fledermaus is thoroughly high-spirited, with numerous waltz and polka themes. Leading lady Rosalinde is given a faux-Hungarian aria; the maid Adele has her own aria aptly called the “Laughing Song.” The entire work has only one really quiet scene: a chorus in praise of brotherhood and love. Young Prince Orlofsky is played by a mezzo-soprano in masculine garb, as would have been the case in the time of Mozart. 

Die Fledermaus is one of the most performed operettas and continues to be an audience pleaser even into the 21st century.

Program notes – https://www.britannica.com/topic/Die-Fledermaus

Additional information – https://www.jaxsymphony.org/2018-gala-program-notes/ 

Strauss, Johann Jr (1825 – 1899)

Pappacoda-Polka, Op.412

Johann Strauss II, the most famous and enduringly successful of 19th-century light music composers, was born in Vienna in 1825.  Building upon the firm musical foundations laid by his father, Johann Strauss I (1804-1849) and Joseph Lanner (1801-1843), the younger Johann, along with his lesser known brothers, Joseph and Eduard, achieved so high a development of the classical Viennese waltz that it became as much a feature of the concert hall as of the ballroom. 

For more than half a century Johann II captivated not only Vienna but also the whole of Europe and America with his abundantly tuneful waltzes, polkas, quadrilles and marches. The thrice-married ‘Waltz King’ later turned his attention to the composition of operetta, and completed 16 stage works besides more than 500 orchestral compositions, including waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet.  Some of Johann Strauss’ most famous works include “The Blue Danube” (1867), “Kaiser-Walzer” (Emperor Waltz), “Tales from the Vienna Woods”, and the “Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka”. Among his operettas, “Die Fledermaus” and “Der Zigeunerbaron” are the best known.  

Program Notes – https://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.223231&catNum=223231&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=Englishand https://www.chandos.net/Composers/Johann_Strauss_II/20188/j

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

“Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix” from Samson et Dalila

Camille Saint-Saëns is best known for his dazzling piano pieces and colourful orchestral scores, but he also composed a large body of choral and solo vocal works, many of which remain popular concert pieces today. The only genre Saint-Saëns seemed to struggle with was that of grand opera, with one notable exception: Samson et Dalila. It is the only one of the composer’s 13 operas that is still regularly performed. 

While Saint-Saëns began work on Samson et Dalila in 1867, it was not until Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, who admired Saint-Saëns’s work, offered to produce the opera that Saint-Saëns was able to seriously devote himself to its composition. He completed it in 1876 and it finally premiered in Weimar in 1877, where it proved an immediate success.

Samson et Dalila relates the Biblical story of Samson, a Hebrew leader whose love for the deceitful seductress Delilah brings about his own destruction. Delilah sings her famous second-act aria “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix” (My Heart Opens to Your Voice) as a response to Samson’s declaration of love for her. She sings that her heart opens to Samson while attempting to seduce him into revealing the secret of his great strength. 

The aria’s sensuous melody and lush orchestration combine to form a work of supreme musical beauty. It remains a landmark of French grand opera as well as one of the most popular and oft-performed mezzo-soprano recital pieces.

Program Notes – Laney Boyd https://lincolnsymphony.com/a-night-at-the-opera-program-notes/

Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)

Minuet No.1

Giacomo Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot are among the most frequently performed.  Puccini also wrote a few works for strings that are simply beautiful.  Minuet No.1 comes from a set of three that was written one year before his first major opera success; and carries, in miniature, the lovely lyrical sound for which he is known.

Puccini wrote his Three Minuets for string quartet in the early 1890s, at around the same time as he was writing what was to become his first operatic great success, Manon Lescaut.   The minuets and Manon share thematic material: parts of the first and third minuets are used in Act II, whilst the first theme of the second minuet appears in the opera’s orchestral introduction.

The Three Minuets are all beautifully lyrical.  Music critics of the time declared that the work was ‘full of good taste and refinement, … marked by that elegance and fluency that makes his music so agreeable.’  Each minuet is dedicated to figures in Puccini’s life, all eminent citizens of Lucca, his home city.  Indeed, it may be that in writing a set of minuets Puccini was also paying homage to the city’s most illustrious son, Luigi Boccherini, whose own Menuet (from the Quintet in A) is still so well known.

Program notes – https://www.jwpepper.com/Minuetto-No.-1/2472809.item#.YU6kQi0Rqqd and https://portuspress.com/shop/wind-quartet/puccini-three-minuets/

George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759)

Revenge Timotheous Cries (from Alexander’s Feast)

Alexander’s Feast (or The Power of Music), a setting of a poem by John Dryden written in honour of St. Cecilia, was completed by Handel on January 17, 1736 and produced at Covent Garden in London on February 19.  Dryden’s poem, written in 1697, was originally set to music by Jeremiah Clark.  Newburgh Hamilton, Handel’s librettist, adapted and augmented the poem with an additional aria and chorus.  The ode attempts to demonstrate the effects of music upon the emotional harmony of man and also conceives of music as the harmonisation of human passion with universal order.

The work became one of Handel’s most admired, and Handel repeatedly revived it whenever his audiences were declining and he needed a guaranteed success.  Altogether it was performed eighteen times between 1737 and 1743, and eight times in the following decade.  Evidence of its continued appeal is the fact that it was one of four choral works by Handel that the Baron van Swieten, between 1788 and 1790, commissioned Mozart to re-orchestrate to suit Viennese patrons.

The success of Alexander’s Feast in 1736, could be considered a stylistic turning point for Handel away from opera towards oratorio. Although it is not listed today, nor was it spoken of in Handel’s own time, as an oratorio, it belongs aesthetically with the great oratorios. Handel had written works to English texts, such as the Chandos Anthems (1717-20) and Coronation Anthems for George II (1727), and he had made tentative moves in the direction of English oratorio with Esther (1732) and Deborah (1733). But the public endorsement of Alexander’s Feast, coupled with a fresh, grander, more elevated and thorough approach to dramatic composition, made it the first of a list of highlights in Handel’s oeuvre of oratorio triumphs including Saul (1739), Israel in Egypt (1739), Messiah (1742), Samson (1743) and Belshazzar (1744).

It is an intensely dramatic and pictorially vivid work. Timotheus is able to inspire and arouse in his listeners a range of intense emotions: sense of sublime divinity, bacchanalian joy, martial zeal, heartfelt pity, tender love, and even fiery revenge. And more important, this drama is portrayed through a now new fully formed and grander style of writing. In Alexander’s Feast we discover that less emphasis is placed on sheer virtuosity of the singer, and there are fewer da capo arias. Unlike opera, the chorus now plays a significant role, and its music has a rich contrapuntal texture. Replacing the chain of arias, great blocks of musical form take shape, seamlessly integrating recitative, aria and chorus. Balancing the arias there are profound accompanied recitatives that achieve the melodic beauty and strength of arias, and at the same time their rhythmic freedom enables intimate reflective moods. The orchestration, perhaps inspired by the theme of the “power of music,” is unusually rich and colourful. Basically it employs the standard Handel orchestra, but in various sections Handel adds recorders, bassoons, trumpets, and horns.

Alexander’s Feast fuses the expansiveness and heroic-tragic drama of oratorio with the musical economy of an ode. S.W. Bennett elaborates:  It is an almost symphonic conception which can be said to consist of five movements, each combining recitative, aria and chorus. The first expatiates on the mood of a happy celebration. The second is tragic. The third is sensuously lyrical. The fourth is in a mood of dramatic unrest. The fifth is a resolution of conflict in a grand and transcendental joy.

The dramatic unrest to which Bennett refers begins Part II where Alexander is awoken and fired with great “zeal to destroy.” Handel may now be accused of treating the sense of Dryden’s text rather freely, in order to build up his glorious finale and, perhaps more importantly, soften the violent, war-like mood. The tranquil and lovely soprano aria and chorus, “Thais led the way” hardly evokes the “firing” of “another Troy,” but is, rather, a beautiful lilting melody that works against the text. This is not a mistake on Handel’s part, but a calculated choice for the kind of emotions he wants to arouse, or quell.

Following this, text and music join hands again with the divine St. Cecilia’s appearance. By giving mortals the instrument of heavenly harmony – the organ – she extends the benefits of music beyond those influences which Timotheus exerted. A rousing double fugue concludes Dryden’s poem with “He raised a mortal to the skies, she drew an Angel down.” This evocative image of Timotheus raising Alexander, creating the delusion of divine status, juxtaposed with St. Cecilia bringing an angel, or music, down from heaven supersedes humanity’s (Alexander’s) flawed nature, compelling Handel and his librettist to write a final chorus of praise extolling the virtues of harmony and love.

Program notes – Ryan Turner http://www.emmanuelmusic.org/notes_translations/program_notes/10-11/alexanders_feast.htm

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 – 1687)

Ballet Suite, arr. Mottl

Jean-Baptiste Lully was an Italian-born French composer, instrumentalist, and dancer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered a master of the French baroque style. His works played a dominant role in establishing many of the stylistic conventions of the French Baroque and of tragedie lyrique, including the five-part division of orchestral strings (violins, three sizes of viola, and basses) and the use of the French overture and accompanied recitative.

Lully probably received his musical education from Franciscan friars in Florence, learning to play the guitar and violin. He left Italy for Paris in 1646 to serve as an Italian tutor to Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orleans, a cousin of Louis XIV. While in this role he completed his musical education, studying harpsichord and composition, and became an accomplished dancer. He entered the service of Louis XIV in 1652, when the Sun King was 14 years old. In 1653 the king appointed him composer of instrumental music, and from that post he began a steady ascent to the top of French musical life, receiving the title of superintendent of the king’s chamber music in 1661. His work as a violinist and orchestra leader won him a sterling reputation, which grew even more lustrous as a result of his collaboration with the playwright Moliere on a series of comedie-ballets beginning in 1664.

Lully’s gift as a musician were equal to his skills as an intriguer, and in such works as Cadmus et Hermione (1673), Alceste (1674), Atys (1676), and Armide (1686)— composed, as were nearly all of his operas, to librettos by Philippe Quinault—he achieved an extremely elegant yet lively fusion of ballet, choral music, and solo singing highlighted by richly varied airs and duets, expressively charged recitatives, and vibrant orchestral colourism. Lully died a wealthy man, able to command the highest ticket prices in Paris for the splendid entertainments he put on.

The broad plan of Lullian opera—a prologue and five acts, each with its own set, a divertissement with chorus and dance, and special effects, would remain the model for serious opera in France for almost a century, all the way up to Gluck. His style would be emulated in the opera-ballets of Andre Campra (1660-1744) and the tragedies of Jean-Philippe Rameau, and his colourful use of the orchestra would influence composers from Purcell to Vivaldi to Bach and Telemann.  In addition to his many works for the stage, 16 tragedies and several dozen ballets, Lully composed a small but significant body of sacred choral works for double choir with orchestral accompaniment, intended for use at the royal chapel.

Ambitious and fiercely competitive, Lully remained a brutish figure all his life. In the high-stakes cultural politics at the court of Louis XIV he brought not only a powerful personality but an equally powerful artistic vision to bear. He transformed French music in the 17th century, assimilating its speech-derived rhythms and cadences and introducing an Italian lightness and grace along with a novel sense of animation and colour. His music, with its appealing lyricism and quick-hitting emotive power, was revolutionary long before the Revolution.

Program notes –https://www.music-world.org/jean-baptiste-lully

Jules Massenet (1842 – 1912)

Va! laisse couler mes larmes (from Act III of Werther)

At least as early as 1880 Massenet was considering writing an opera based on Goethe’s epistolary novel Werther (1774), whose protagonist commits suicide over unrequited love. Goethe’s tragic hero became one of the chief symbols of the Romantic movement in Europe. 

Massenet completed the opera in 1887, but Léon Carvalho, director of the Opéra-Comique, turned it down as too depressing. The theatre burned down shortly thereafter, and, though there was a possibility of a premiere in 1889, Massenet’s next opera, Esclarmonde, was performed instead. The premiere took place in 1892, sung in German, at the Vienna Hofoper, which resulted in the management requesting another opera from Massenet after the great success of Manon.  The soprano who had sung the role of Manon in Vienna now took on the mezzo-soprano role of Charlottte, a performance fondly remembered there for decades. The Parisian premiere in 1893 met with only modest success, and it took until the 1903 revival by Albert Carré for Werther to achieve popular status and acclaim as one of Massenet’s greatest masterpieces.

The story concerns Charlotte, whose care for her siblings after her mother’s death arouses the sympathy and love of Werther, even though he knows she is set to marry the absent Albert. Charlotte and Werther attend a ball and become entranced to each other, but the spell is shattered when they return to her house and hear that Albert has returned. Time passes, and Charlotte and Albert have been married for three years when the depressed Werther can’t help show his feelings for her. Charlotte says he must really go away until Christmas. Despairing, he contemplates suicide and leaves.

On Christmas Eve, Charlotte rereads all the letters that Werther has sent to her, admitting that she really loves him. The desolate Werther appears suddenly and they reminisce tenderly, but she flees. Albert reads a letter from Werther saying he is going away and wants to borrow his pistols. Albert makes the agitated Charlotte bring them as she fully realises Werther’s intention. She runs to Werther’s rooms, where he lies mortally wounded. He is happy to be united with her, and she admits she has always loved him before he dies in her arms.

Massenet made certain changes in Goethe’s story, however it proved relatively unproblematic to adapt the story for the operatic stage, and provided Massenet with a perfect vehicle to show the full force of his ability to write inspired, fluid melodies as well as shrewd psychological character development.

The Letter Scene (“Air des lettres”), in which Charlotte reads from letters that Werther has sent her, specifically connects with Goethe’s original story, which he tells in the form of letters. The music’s psychological drama draws from the fact that we experience both the emotions that Werther transmitted in writing the letters as well as Charlotte’s reaction to them. With incredible dramatic pacing, Massenet follows this with the remarkable “Air des larmes” (Aria of tears), in which Massenet famously uses a saxophone obbligato to aid in the aria’s mournful expressiveness.

Program notes – Jane Vial Jaffe https://www.parlancechamberconcerts.org/parlance-program-notes/va-laisse-couler/

Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)

Vecchia zimarra, senti (from La Bohème)

Puccini’s La Bohème is one of the very few operas that have transcended its genre. Virtually everyone loves it, even those who are indifferent to opera. First performed in 1896 at Turin’s Teatro Reggio under the direction of Arturo Toscanini; it initially received an indifferent response. Nevertheless it rapidly spread throughout the world reaching America the following year. It was performed by a pick-up company in Los Angeles in 1897. The Metropolitan Opera first performed it on tour in the same city three years later. It was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1900. New York’s two most important music critics gave proof to Giuseppe Verdi’s declaration that the only critic that counted was the audience.

Puccini’s unique genius was to set ordinary conversation to melodies that are beautiful, memorable, and apt. This unique skill is obvious in almost every note of La Bohème which is a story of ordinary people who labor under the common delusion that they are extraordinary. This delusion only applies to the four male principals. They are young, attractive, and certain never to make it. Eventually they will drift back to the bourgeoisie from whence they sprang.

The opera began life as a novel – Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger. It was then made into a play by Murger and Théodore Barrière. It is the play that the libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa is based, though most of the second and third acts are original inventions of the librettists. The opera follows the episodic nature of its source. Each act could stand alone as each tells its own story. The persistence of the main characters give the four acts unity.

The French origin of the story is the reason its authors gave an Italian opera a French title. La Bohème, translates literally as Bohemian. A more meaningful English rendition would be The Bohemian Life. Despite the bohemian background the focus, as is true of most Puccini’s operas, is on the soprano and tenor – here the two lovers Mimi and Rodolfo. The three one act works he wrote for the Met in 1918 (Il Trittico) are the exceptions to this tendency. Puccini seems to have fallen in love with all his heroines and imagined himself as their lover, which explains why the leading soprano and tenor get the passionate music in most of his operas.

Program notes – Neil Kurtzman https://medicine-opera.com/2017/04/la-boheme-program-notes/

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)

Il core vi dono (duet from Cossi Fan Tutte)

Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte is the great composer’s most divisive and controversial work. Così fan tutte wasn’t popular with Mozart’s contemporaries who dismissed it as clumsy and miserable and as such was largely ignored. Despite being premiered in 1790, Così fan tutte didn’t become popular until the middle of the 20th century.

The opera’s full title is Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti. More commonly shortened to Cosi fan tutte, which can be loosely translated as “they’re (women) all like that”.  Così fan tutte plays its cynicism for laughs with its sharply satirical take on relationships between men and women.

Così opens in a café with two officers, Ferrando and Guglielmo discussing how they believe their fiancées, Dorabella and Fiordiligi respectively, will stay faithful to them. Overhearing their conversation, Don Alfonso joins them and dismisses their ideas, laying down a wager that he can prove in just a day that the officers’ fiancées are as fickle as all other women. 

Program Notes – https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/pictures/beginners-guide-mozarts-cosi-fan-tutte/

Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra

Conductor –	Greta Hunter
Mezzo Soprano –	Maria Woolford
Baritone –	Jia-Peng Yeung
Master of Ceremonies –	Kymberley Jones (ICO Secretary)

Flute

Kymberley Jones

Sophie Nakamura

Julie Stanton

Oboe

Sally Faint

Clarinet

Ryan Evans

Colleen Rowe

Bassoon

Layni Cameron

Angela Cook

Horn

Paul Brisbane

John MacGinley

Bob Townsend

Piano

Gary Hunt

Timpani and Percussion

Janine Kesting