Festival Focus week 6

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FESTIVAL FOCUS Monday, July 29, 2013

Vol 24, No 7

Puccini’s Tragic, Comic Operas This Week style.” Marvel has set both Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi to take place in the 1940s. Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924), a master “James is a director who likes to go outcomposer of Italian opera best known for side the box,” Berkeley says. “He uses bold Madama Butterfly and La bohème, was ex- strokes and enjoys stretching people.” ploring two extremes of human nature when AOTC student Ashly Evans, 30, will play he wrote Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, the title role of Sister Angelica in the first two of the one-act operas that make up his opera, and she has an almost uncanny conoperatic triptych Il trittico. nection with her character. Suor Angelica, Puccini’s personal favorite, “I’m an adopted only child, and I was givis the tragic story of a woman who has been en up as a two-week-old baby,” Evans says. forced into a convent to “My birth parents were repent for her sin of hav14 and 15 when they ing a child out of wedhad me, and my birth lock. Gianni Schicchi is mom was sent away to an over-the-top comedy a Catholic organization, in which members of a a convent. I have a really troubled family are drivstrong connection with en by greed to extreme this opera because it kind measures. Somehow, the of is my life.” opposing stories make a Evans says it is “a little perfect pair. surreal” that she is play“They are designed to ing this role, in part bebe performed together,” cause she only found out says Edward Berkeley, dishe would be playing Sisrector of the Aspen Opera ter Angelica a few weeks Ashly Evans Theater Center (AOTC). ago, when the student AOTC Student “They are morality tales, who was originally cast and that is what pulls them together. The had to leave due to altitude sickness. first one is societal, about the condemnation But Evans, who sings professionally in of Angelica for having a child out of wedlock; Houston, Texas, and is a student of AOTC Schicchi is about greed.” faculty member Stephen King, was a natural The AOTC will present the one-act operas choice for the part. Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi at 7 pm “I like to sing the repertoire that makes me on August 1, 3, and 5 in the Wheeler Opera feel good, and this is one of those roles,” she House. Both will be directed by James Mar- says. “‘Senza Mamma,’ the aria, is perfect in vel, a stage director whose work has been my voice. I feel like it’s divine intervention called “irreverent and fresh” and “a marvel of that I got this role.” GRACE LYDEN

Festival Focus writer

I like to sing the repertoire that makes me feel good, and this is one of those roles ... I feel like it’s divine intervention that I got this role.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SHANNON LANGMAN SMITH

Ashly Evans (above) will play the title role in the AOTC’s production of Puccini’s Suor Angelica.

Evans had five days between the Sunday evening she was offered the role, July 7, and the day of the opera run-through with conductor Tomáš Netopil, then three more days to memorize her part before staging began. For Evans, though, the challenge was not learning her part, but learning to keep her emotions at bay in the opera’s most devastating moments. Evans has heard many recordings in which Sister Angelica’s voice cracks due to extreme emotion, and she says this interferes with the effect of the music. “I’m a very, very emotional person, and a very emotional actress, but you can’t let that See PUCCINI, Festival Focus page 3

Bronfman Plays with Festival Orchestra GRACE LYDEN

Festival Focus writer

The story behind Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, one of his most lyrical, joyful, and neoclassical works, is ironically a sad one. Bartók wrote the piece in his final months of life, while living in America and dying of leukemia. The work was to be a surprise gift for his wife, also a pianist, on her 42nd birthday, but Bartók died before finishing the last sixteen measures. Although a student finished the work, his wife never performed the piece, as the emotions surrounding the music were too painful. World-renowned Israeli pianist Yefim Bronfman will perform Bartók’s autumnal work for the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) at 4 pm this Sunday, August 4, in the Benedict Music Tent. Miguel HarthBedoya, who is in his thirteenth season as music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and was

recently appointed chief conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, will conduct. The concert will open with Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan and will close with excerpts from Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé. Bronfman says the situation surrounding the composition of the piano concerto is evident in its musical qualities. Bartók is reflecting on the joys and meaning of his life as he “comes to terms with the end of his life,” Bronfman says. “It’s a very nostalgic piece.” Bronfman notes that the second movement is marked “Adagio religioso,” a reference to religion that is musically expressed through chorale writing, and the middle section of that movement draws inspiration from nature, such as bird songs the composer heard while working in a cabin in North Carolina. See BRONFMAN, Festival Focus page 3

PHOTO BY DARIO ACOSTA

Yefim Bronfman will play with the Aspen Festival Orchestra at 4 pm this Sunday, August 4, in the Benedict Music Tent.

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