Upon the conclusion of the Metropolitan Opera season on June 10, WETA Classical is delighted to present two recorded productions from Wolf Trap Opera’s 2022 season at The Barns.
Wolf Trap Opera is a summer residency program of Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, designed to give emerging professional singers important experience and career development. Some of today’s major singers on the international stage have performed under this program. WTO selects its artists from among the best classical vocalists in the country and places them in repertoire that showcases their talent. We’re pleased to hear two examples this month.
First, Carl Maria von Weber’s landmark drama, Der Freischütz (The Marksman), airs June 17. Combining supernatural elements with folklore and spoken dialogue, Der Freischütz is a classic struggle between good and evil in a story stemming from a Romantic legend about an unsuccessful marksman whose soul is unknowingly sold to the devil to improve his shooting skills and prove himself worthy to marry his beloved. It’s considered to be one of the premiere German operas of the Romantic era, a period that focuses on expression, emotion and free structure.
With Der Freischütz, von Weber consciously sought to diverge from Italian opera – primarily Rossini -- that was so popular in Germany at the time, and instead, create a uniquely German work with a German libretto and based on German legend and literature. Preeminent composers such as Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner admired von Weber’s deeply colorful and chilling score, particularly the Wolf’s Glen scene.
Lee Anne Myslewski, Vice President of Wolf Trap Opera and Classical Programming, says of this production, “On a basic level, doing a German Opera with a Wolf's Glen scene at Wolf Trap in a German Barn seemed to be an easy decision! We had a cast materialize that was so well-suited to Germanic repertoire, and they made tackling what's widely considered the first German Romantic opera really attractive. We telegraph roles for which emerging artists might be well-suited, and this piece showed some specific strengths for our leads.”
Principal singers include Robert Stahley in the title role, Alexandria Shiner and Cory McGee. Lidiya Yankovskaya, a regular at Wolf Trap Opera, conducted.
June 24 is the presentation of Susannah by American composer Carlisle Floyd, a two-act work composed during the McCarthy era of the 1950s while Floyd was a member of piano faculty of Florida State University. This tragedy of an innocent 18-year old woman falsely accused as a seductress is based on a parable found in the apocrypha of the Book of Daniel, Susannah and the Elders, but Floyd’s version has a significantly different ending.
Floyd intended Susannah to be different from a traditional opera; he explores themes of feminism with, some speculate, overtones of the fear-spreading campaign of McCarthyism. The opera’s setting in Tennessee gave Floyd the opportunity to incorporate Appalachian folk melodies, alongside traditional Classical music and Protestant hymns.
Floyd’s sensitive and moving portrayal has been recognized since its premiere in 1955: It was awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Award for Best New Opera in 1956 and represented American music and culture at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels. Many singers and opera companies are fond of Susannah, not only for the music but for its important moral theme that resonates through the ages.
“Susannah has been on our short list for a number of years”, Ms. Myslewski explains. “But we refrained from producing it previously because the orchestra -- even in the chamber version -- is larger than our pit will allow, and the town elders of the opera should be played by our younger artists – Wolf Trap’s Studio Artists -- which seemed a bridge too far. But in this late-pandemic period, marshalling larger orchestral forces and giving the Studio Artists meatier assignments and more stage time seemed like a calculated risk to signal our emergence from the leanness of 2020 and 2021. As one of Floyd’s first operatic works, it showcases a maturity and innovation that explains its enduring popularity. The simple Appalachian-inspired melodies are served well by the musicians; Susannah and brother Sam sing some of the most insightful arias in the contemporary repertoire, and our artists do the material justice.”
Conductor Stephanie Rhodes Russell led this production with principal singers Ann Toomey, Christian Pursell and Robert Stahley.
Experience these riveting opera presentations with us, Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. on Opera Matinee.
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