Program Information

Artist Bios

DAVID WROE conductor

SCHOLA CANTORUM ON HUDSON chorus

Program Notes

Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 7:30 pm | Community Theatre in Morristown

Friday, January 15, 2010 at 7:30 pm | War Memorial in Trenton

Saturday, January 16, 2010 at 8 pm | Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank

Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 3 pm | bergenPAC in Englewood

NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

DAVID WROE conductor

SCHOLA CANTORUM ON HUDSON chorus 

VERDI La Forza del Destino

Overture

VERDI Nabucco

“Va, pensiero”

PUCCINI Manon Lescaut

Intermezzo

PUCCINI Madama Butterfly

Humming Chorus

ROSSINI La Gazza Ladra

Overture

DONIZETTI Lucia di Lammermoor

Chorus of the Wedding Guests

MASCAGNI Cavalleria Rusticana

Intemezzo

LEONCAVALLO I Pagliacci

Bell Chorus

PONCHIELLI La Giocanda

Dance of the Hours

VERDI Aida

Triumphal March

David Wroe is Music Director of the Westfield Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey and Teatro Grattacielo of New York City, a regular conductor at New York City Opera and Principal Conductor at New York University. He was previously Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of Kansas City Camerata and Principal Guest Conductor at the City Opera of Heidelberg, Germany. He is resident conductor with New York University Symphony Orchestra and was director of Orchestras at Montclair State University

Recent debuts and returns include engagements with L’Orchestre Nationale de Lille, L’Orchestre de Basse-Normandie, L’Orchestra Lamoureux, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan National Symphony, L’Ensemble de Paris, Vorarlberg Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia, Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and Santa Fe Symphony.

He has taught and given masterclasses at New England Conservatory and served as judge for the Music Assistance Fund administered by the League of American Orchestras. Recording and broadcast credits include an all-Gershwin recording with L’Orchestre National de Lille and national broadcasts on Österreichischer Rundfunk.

Wroe’s awards include the Seiji Ozawa Fellowship at Tanglewood and recognition in United States Congress for his excellence in contributing to the community in Kansas City. He was a finalist in the first Bernstein International Conducting Competition. He attended Lancing College and received a bachelor’s degree from Manchester University and a master’s degree from Northwestern University.

Schola Cantorum on Hudson is a Jersey City-based choral ensemble that performs in New York and New Jersey. Founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Dr. Deborah Simpkin King, SCH is comprised of recent college and conservatory graduates, amateurs and professionals. The ensemble’s repertoire encompasses Renaissance through modern works and explores music of many nations through its Ethnic Celebration Series.

Music education is a cornerstone of SCH’s outreach. Education efforts include Cantorum Young Singers, Choral Scholar and Member In-Reach programs and Schola Sings Solo recital series.

BY LAURIE SHULMAN, ©2010

FIRST NORTH AMERICAN SERIAL RIGHTS ONLY

Opera was born in Italy, and no country has a richer operatic history. This concert celebrates that heritage with instrumental excerpts and choruses from the greatest Italian opera composers, including Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti, Rossini and several others.

La forza del destino (1862) is among Verdi’s most important middle-period works. He composed this overture when he revised the opera for Milan’s fabled Teatro alla Scala. It is a frank compendium of big tunes from the opera, drawing on both lyrical and dramatic elements for contrast and interest. The fate motive—an ascending minor triad—serves both as main theme and as musical “glue” binding the overture together.

Unison brasses establish an atmosphere of somber significance at the outset. Their function remains important throughout the overture, though Verdi certainly knows when to leave them to the background in order to emphasize the music’s tender and lyrical moments. Leonora’s fate theme becomes an accompaniment figure. Brasses return to propel this movement forward, as Verdi superimposes his themes to achieve a spine-tingling conclusion. He compresses romance, lyricism, action and drama into seven thrilling minutes.

The Italian nationalist movement, known as the Risorgimento (“Resurgence”), gathered momentum in the 1830s and 1840s as Italy sought to unify her many regions and free herself from Austrian Hapsburg rule. Verdi’s first operatic success, Nabucco (1842), became an artistic benchmark in the process. The plot is based on the Old Testament tale of Nebuchadnezzar and the tyranny over Jerusalem. Verdi’s opera played on the political sympathies of the Milanese audience. Patriotic Italians interpreted the Hebrew slave chorus “Va, pensiero” in Act III as a protest against Austrian oppression. Verdi’s chorus became an unofficial national anthem and remains popular in Italy to this day.

Giacomo Puccini’s heroines are complex and experience larger-than-life emotions. He based Manon Lescaut on a French novel about a beautiful girl who makes a series of bad decisions. The Intermezzo precedes Act III, when Manon is about to be deported to America as a sentence for theft and prostitution. Puccini’s music, using themes from the first two acts, captures the irony and regret of her tragic fate.

The “Humming Chorus” from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is one of opera’s most poignant moments. Butterfly has waited three years for Pinkerton to return to her and the son she has borne him. She has spotted his ship in the harbor and prepares the house for his arrival. The hum of voices drifts from the harbor, mirroring her heartbreaking anticipation.

Rossini’s sparkling Overture to La Gazza Ladra (“The Thieving Magpie”) (1817) opens with the crisp roll of the snare drum. Reinforced by bass drum, timpani and triangle, the militaristic percussion is an important musical force, establishing a majestic march in E major. An Allegro section for strings in E minor follows in triple time. Woodwinds enter one by one, then horns and trumpets. The returning percussion ushers the signature crescendo that Rossini has begun to build. Constructed with the simplest of means, Rossini’s overture tells its own dramatic tale even detached from its opera.

A wedding is supposed to be a joyous occasion, but in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, the bride is being married against her will to Arturo, whom her brother has chosen for her; she loves another man but believes he has betrayed her. Unaware of this sad history, the guests sing the jubilant chorus “Per te d’immenso giubilo” ("For you an immense joy") to celebrate the nuptials.

A one-act opera presents special challenges. Action must be compressed. Any pause between scenes can defuse the dramatic tension, compromising the effectiveness of the entire work. In his 1890 verismo opera, Cavalleria rusticana (“Rustic chivalry”), Pietro Mascagni solved this problem with a brief Intermezzo separating his two scenes. The opera concerns a jilted Sicilian peasant girl. Her jealousy prompts a duel, leading to the tragic and bloody ending. The action takes place outside an Italian church on Easter morning.

Mascagni’s hymn-like Intermezzo evokes the peace of the Church, which represents a haven from the turbulent emotions that surge within the characters. Mascagni bases the Intermezzo on the Catholic hymn Regina coeli, harmonizing it in a chorale-like style. Although it is only 48 measures long, the music captures the passion and intensity of the tale.

Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci similarly taps into the central position of the Catholic Church in Southern Italian culture. Pagliacci is another prototypic verismo opera, compressing a tale of love, jealousy and revenge into two action-packed scenes. The opera is set on the Feast of the Assumption. Villagers sing the Bell Chorus after welcoming a troupe of strolling players as bells toll to call worshippers to Vespers. Their singing imitates the sound of the chimes hurrying them off to church.

Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” is one of classical music’s most radiant perennials. Who can resist a smile at the memory of the dancing elephants in Walt Disney’s Fantasia, or the whining voice of Allan Sherman relating the pleasures of summer camp in “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah”? Many listeners are surprised to learn that La Gioconda (1876, revised 1880) is a tragedy, because its best-known excerpt is so determinedly cheerful.

“Dance of the Hours” is part of a ballet sequence. Alvise, an official of the 17th-century Venetian State Inquisition, hosts a splendid party in Venice’s elegant Ca’ d’Oro. He has commissioned dancers to entertain his noble guests with a special ballet. The “hours” (morning, noon, evening and night) determine the sectional organization of Ponchielli’s score. The music’s opening depicts dawn and the twittering of birds; it moves to a more energetic section as sunlight heralds high noon. As the evening hours approach, the mood becomes serene. A vivacious conclusion represents the victory of the hours of light over those of darkness.

The NJSO program concludes with the best-known music from Verdi’s Aida: the Triumphal March. Radames reenters Thebes, leading his troops and chariots bearing the spoils of victory. When staged, this is one of opera’s grandest scenes. Crowds sing in praise of Isis, who brings glory to Egypt’s Pharaoh; women offer laurel wreaths to the military heroes; priests praise the gods for Egypt’s victory. When the Egyptian Khedive first heard “Gloria al Egitto” in rehearsal, he wanted to adopt it as a national anthem! Trumpets herald the triumphal march, which is duly presented in two keys, doubling its ceremonial impact. “Vieni, o guerrieri vindice” restates the music of the earlier chorus, adding a new coda for a grand finale.