Not sure about the music? Come early and get the inside scoop! Prior to each Masters Series concert, the SSO presents a Pre-Concert talk with informative and engaging conversations.

Brian Unverricht is our host for the first part of this season. Not only is Brian a long stand-ing musician in our orchestra, he is widely recognized as a superb educator. The 2012 Sask. Music Education Conference honoured Brian with its ‘Director of Distinction’ award.

An expert presenter himself, Brian also invites other musicians and guest artists to add their insights about the evening’s program through interviews, perfor-mances, and lecture/demonstrations.

The talks begin at 6:55 pm and last about 25 minutes. Concertgoers are invited to drop in anytime during the conversation.

Pre-concert talks are held in the TCU Place Green Room. Follow the signs or check for directions from an usher or at the SSO kiosk in the lobby.

Free Pre-Concert Talks Prior to Masters Series Concerts

Enhance Your Experience at the SymphonyATTEND THE PRE-CONCERT TALK

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CONCERT NOTES

Evening at the Opera

Gyro Masters Series

September 14, 2013

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Evening at the Opera - Classics for SkepticsTCU Place, Sid Buckwold Theatre, 7:30 pm

Maestro Victor Sawa conductor Saskatoon Symphony OrchestraJohn Brancy baritone Wallis Giunta mezzo-soprano

The Gyro Masters Series is generously sponsored by

WALLIS GIUNTA JOHN BRANCYMAESTRO VICTOR SAWA

Gyro Masters Series September 14, 2013

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Pre-Concert Talk Learn about the music in tonight’s program. 6:55 pm – 7:20 pm, TCU Place Green Room. Free with concert ticket.

Presented byStrauss Overture, Die Fledermaus

Mozart Arias from Le Nozze di Figaro, K. 492: “Crudel! Perchè fin’ora” Duo “Hai già vinta la causa” J. Brancy “Non so più” W. Giunta

Bizet Arias from Carmen: “Si tu m’aimes, Carmen” Duo “Toreador Song” J. Brancy “Seguidille” W. Giunta

Wagner Overture, Tannhäuser, WWV 70intermissionWeber Overture, Der Freischütz, J.277

Rossini Arias from Il Barbiere di Siviglia “Dunque io son!” Duo “Largo al factotum” J. Brancy Una voce poco fa” W. Giunta

Borodin Polovtsian Dances, #17, Prince Igor

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John Brancy baritone

Baritone John Brancy has been hailed by The New York Times as “a vibrant, resonate presence.” He is a 2013 George London Foundation Encouragement Award Winner.

During the 2012–13 season, Mr. Brancy made his debut with the Dresden Semperoper, as Fiorello in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, performed Mike in a new production of John Adams’ I Was Looking at the Ceiling, and Then I Saw the Sky with Paris’ Theatre du Chatelet, and joined Juilliard Opera as Harasta in The Cunning Little Vixen. This sum-mer, he performed the role of Papageno in Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) at the prestigious Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.

Future engagements bring him to the Glyndebourne Festival Opera Tour, Oper Frankfurt (Sonora in La fanciulla del West), Gotham Chamber Opera (Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux Enfers), Pacific Opera Victoria (Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos), and the symphony orchestras of Boston and San Francisco.

While still an undergraduate student at The Juilliard School, Mr. Brancy made his Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall debuts as the baritone soloist in Fauré’s Requiem, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Schubert’s Mass in G, amongst other notable works. He has given recitals throughout Europe and North America, and has appeared frequently in concert with New York Festival of Song, including several concerts at the Caramoor Festival. He was also the winner of the 2010 Juilliard School Honors Recital Competition. In 2011, he made his Alice Tully Hall Songfest debut, collaborating with Brian Zeger. Recently, he sang Handel’s Messiah with the Charleston Symphony and performed in recital with the renowned Hugo Wolf Akademie in Stuttgart, Germany.

During the 2011–12 season with Juilliard Opera, Mr. Brancy sang the role of Slook in Rossini’s La Cambiale di Matrimonio, covered the title role in Don Giovanni, as

well as the lead role in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ new youth opera, Kommilitionen!. Other recent roles include Aeneas in Dido & Aeneas, and Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Juilliard School, and Sid in Albert Herring with the Opera on the Avalon Festival. Mr. Brancy is a recent winner of the Sullivan Foundation Grand Prize and Career Grants, 1st Prize at the Classical Singer Magazine Competition, and the Gold Award for Voice at the YoungArts Foundation competition. He is a 2nd Place winner in the Gerda Lissner and Liederkranz competitions, and 3rd place winner in the 2012 Montreal International Music Competition.

Mr. Brancy completed his Graduate Diploma at the Juilliard School this past spring, where he also received his bachelors degree, under the tutelage of Edith Wiens.

Wallis Giunta mezzo-soprano

Hailed by The New York Times for her “chocolaty and penetrating mezzo-soprano voice,” Ottawa-native Wallis Giunta is a 2013 graduate of both the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and The Juilliard School’s Artist Diploma in Opera Studies. She has been praised by OPERA NEWS for her “delectably rich, silver-toned mezzo-soprano, with a beautiful sense of line and effortless rapid runs,” and her jump-in last season as Mozart’s Sesto for the Canadian Opera Company (COC) was celebrated as “a triumph...remarkable in its combination of intelligence and beauty.”

Miss Giunta begins the 2013–14 season with her debut for the Taipei Symphony Orchestra as Annio in La Clemenza di Tito, followed by a return to the Metropolitan Opera for Rigoletto. She then heads home to the COC for Dorabella in Atom Egoyan’s new production of Cosí fan tutte, and makes her debut NAXOS recording in a new work by American composer, William Perry, with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin. This season she also debuts with

JOHN BRANCY

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the Toronto and Saskatoon Symphony Orchestras, and performs concerts and recitals in Toronto, New York, Ottawa, Regina, and Boston, along with her acclaimed programme of Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins in Miami, with pianist Ken Noda.

Giunta had a whirlwind 2012/13 season, while still completing her studies, making her Metropolitan Opera debut as the Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto, debuting the role of Annio in La Clemenza di Tito with the COC, presenting her Seven Deadly Sins recital for the first time at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall, and performing Dorabella in the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist production of Cosí fan tutte, to rave reviews. She also made debuts with L’Opéra de Montréal, the Edmonton, Seville and Nuremberg Symphonies, the Stuttgart Festivalorchester, and the orchestras of the National Arts Centre (Ottawa) and Munich Radio. This past June, she made her Paris debut with Le Théâtre du Châtelet as Tiffany in John Adams’s rarely-performed opera I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, followed by a July recital of Barber, Wolf and Respighi with the Miró Quartet, for the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival.

In recent seasons she has performed with Fort Worth Opera, Opera Lyra Ottawa, Toronto’s Opera Atelier, the New York Festival of Song, the festivals of Caramoor, Ravinia and Aspen, and at the Banff Centre. Her past roles include Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nancy in Albert Herring, Ernesto in Il Mondo Della Luna, Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana, and Second Lady in The Magic Flute. She is a graduate of Toronto’s Glenn Gould School (2009), and an alumnus of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio (2011). Ms. Giunta is a grateful recipient of a 2012 Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Career Development Award, as well as multiple grants from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Maestro Victor Sawa conductor

Victor Sawa is a triple threat of talent, experi-ence and personal dynamism. Music Director of the SSO, he holds similar positions with orchestras in Sudbury and Regina. He was previously Resident Conductor with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (1993-1997), Music Director with the North Bay Symphony, the Guelph Youth Orchestra and the Kitchener-Waterloo Orchestra. He also served as Principal Clarinet with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. He has guest conducted for orchestras across the country.

Victor has been the recipient of many awards and honours, including three Canada Council awards for Conducting, a Grand Prix du Disque—Best Chamber Music Recording (Canadian Chamber Ensemble), a Grammy award (with the New England Ragtime Ensemble), and the Tanglewood Festival award for Outstanding Musician.

A Montreal native, Sawa holds a Bachelor of Music with Distinction from McGill University and an Honours Masters of Music Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music. He is also a graduate of the Pierre Monteux School for Advanced Conductors. In 2011, Victor Sawa was appointed Honorary Consul for Japan in Saskatchewan.

Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825–1899)

OVERTURE, DIE FLEDERMAUSJohann Strauss wrote 16 operettas, one of the most famous being Die Fledermaus (Vienna, 1874). Written for Strauss’ first wife, with a libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée, it is the story of Eisenstein, who abandoned his drunken friend Falke (dressed in a bat costume, hence the title The Bat) and exposed him to ridicule, and Falke’s plan to get even. Full of ebullient music that evokes Viennese nightlife of the period, the opera is a comedy of errors, rife with mistaken identities and disguises. Composer Richard Strauss (no relation, but

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a huge fan) wrote: “Of all the God-gifted dispensers of joy, Johann Strauss is to me the most endearing . . . and enduring.”

W.A. Mozart (1756–1791)

ARiAs fROm LE NozzE DI FIgARoMozart’s comic opera Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, Vienna, 1786) is based on the second of the Figaro trilogy of plays written by the French inventor, watchmaker, music teacher, diplomat, rev-olutionary, and spy, Pierre Beaumarchais. The play was banned in Vienna but libret-tist Da Ponte toned down the more politi-cal and risqué elements and got approval for an operatic version.

Figaro wants to marry Susanna, Countess Rosina’s maid, but Count Almaviva is deter-mined to seduce her. Through manipula-tions, disguises, and mistaken identities,

Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess expose the Count’s scheming, Figaro and Susanna are allowed to marry, and the Countess rekindles their old romance by forgiving the Count.

In the aria “Crudel! Perchè fin’ora” Susanna, at the Countess’ urging, promises to meet the Count in the garden. In “Hai già vinta la causa” the count realizes he is being tricked and declares he will get his revenge on Figaro. In “Non so più,” Cherubino, a page with a crush on Countess Rosina, describes his infatuation with all women.

The Marriage of Figaro is an opera of wit and complexity, humour and humanity, love and forgiveness.

Georges Bizet (1838–1875)

ARiAs fROm cARMENBizet’s opera comique Carmen (Paris, 1875) is based on a novella by Prosper

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Striking a chord

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Mérimée with libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Unfortunately, Bizet died before it became evident what a popular success the opera would become. It tells the story of Don José, a soldier seduced by the gypsy Carmen. Don José is imprisoned for allowing Carmen to escape as he escorts her to jail. He then deserts the army for her but she falls in love with the toreador Escamillo instead. Don José kills Carmen in a jealous rage.

In the final act of the opera, at the bull-fighting arena, Escamillo and Carmen express their love for each other in “Si tu m’aimes, Carmen”. “Toreador Song” is among the best known opera arias. Sung by Escamillo, it describes the bullring, the bullfight, the cheering crowds, and the fame that comes with victory. The

“Seguidilla” uses rhythms and instrumenta-tion associated with flamenco music.

Richard Wagner (1813–1883)

OVERTURE, TANNhäUSERWagner wrote both the text and music for Tannhäuser (Dresden, 1845). Set in 13th cen-tury Thuringia and based on the German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg, the opera explores the themes of lust, love, and redemption.

Tannhäuser spends a year as Venus’s lover then invokes the name of the Virgin Mary and returns to Wartburg and the mortal Elizabeth, who loves him. After being taunted into singing the praises of Venus at a singing contest, the other knights draw swords on Tannhäuser but Elizabeth protects him. Tannhäuser journeys to Rome to seek forgiveness from the Pope for his time spent with Venus, but the pontiff tells him he has less chance of being forgiven than the Pope’s staff of sprouting leaves. In despair, Tannhäuser contemplates returning to Venus. Elizabeth dies of grief while waiting for Tannhäuser’s return from Rome. Tannhäuser sees Elizabeth’s coffin, falls to his knees, and dies. Young pilgrims

come and say the Pope’s staff has sprouted leaves; Tannhäuser has his redemption.

The Overture weaves together elements of the opera: the pilgrim’s chorus (writ-ten in the style of J.S. Bach), Venus’ siren song, Tannhäuser’s song to Venus, and the revelries of Venusberg. During Wagner’s lifetime Tannhäuser was not, even after many revisions, the success Wagner had hoped. Weeks before Wagner’s death his wife Cosima wrote in her diary that Wagner felt he “still owed Tannhäuser to the world.”

Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826)

OVERTURE, DER FREISchüTzDer Freischütz (Berlin, 1821) helped define the themes and characters of German Romantic opera (exalting nature, a fascination with the supernatural, the struggle between good and evil) and influenced a generation of German composers, especially Wagner. In the

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opera, which uses the Faust legend, the young huntsman Max must prove his worth in a shooting trial before he can marry his beloved Agathe. Afraid he will fail, Max goes to the haunted Wolfglen at midnight and gets magic bullets from the evil Zamiel, who ensnares souls.

The “Overture” from Der Freischütz is a miniature tone poem that musically depicts the entire opera complete with sylvan hunting music, the menace of Wolfglen, storms of despair, and Max’s ultimate triumph. This overture is one of Weber’s most popular orchestral works.

Gioachino Rosinni (1792–1868)

ARiAs fROm IL bARbIERE DI SIvIgLIARossini’s opera buffa Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville, Rome, 1816) was based on the first play of the Figaro trilogy written by Pierre Beaumarchais, with the libretto by Cesare Sterbini. Though written 30 years after Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Barber tells the pre-quel story of Figaro, Rosina, and Count Almaviva. Rossini’s comic opera is full of wit, comedy, and intrigue. The young Almaviva is in love with Rosina, the ward of Dr. Bartolo, but Dr. Bartolo intends to marry her. Through the use of tricks, letters, and disguises, Figaro, Almaviva, and Rosina convince Dr. Bartolo to allow Rosina to marry Almaviva.

In “Dunque io son!” Figaro asks Rosina to write a note to encourage Lindoro (Almaviva in disguise), who has been singing to her. In the aria “Largo al factotum” Figaro sings about how he is a master of all trades and an excellent barber. In “Una voce poco fa” Rosina sings that Lindoro (Almaviva in disguise)

will be hers, no matter what tricks she must play to outwit Bartolo.

Rossini wrote this opera in just under three weeks when he was 24 years old. Some of the music from The Barber of Seville was used in the Looney Tunes pro-duction “The Rabbit of Seville” in 1949.

Alexander Borodin (1833–1887)

POlOVTsiAn dAncEs, #17, PRINcE IgoRBorodin, by profession a research chem-ist, spent 18 years off and on composing Prince Igor (St. Petersburg, 1890) but died before he finished it. Borodin’s friends Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov completed the opera. Borodin based the libretto on the medieval poem Song of the Army of Prince Igor. The nomadic Polovtsi tribe overrun Prince Igor’s city, and he and his son Vladimir are captured in battle. The Polovtsi khan treats his royal prisoners well. He enter-tains them with dancers, which is the section of the opera from which these

“Polovtsian Dances” come. In the end Igor escapes but Vladimir, in love with the khan’s daughter, remains behind.

Borodin’s research into the melodies and rhythms of the folk music of Russia’s eastern nomads provided him with the musical ideas for the “Polovtsian Dances”. They were first performed in 1879, at the request of Rimsky-Korsakov, before the rest of the opera was com-pleted. The Broadway musical Kismet uses music from the “Polovtsian Dances” in three of its songs.

Program notes prepared by Joan Savage, member, Violin section, Saskatoon Symphony. © 2013