Program Notes - Shakespeare Festival: Romeo & Juliet

SOUNDINGS 2015-2016 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG PROGRAM 1

MASTERWORKS • 2015-2016SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL: ROMEO AND JULIETCOLORADO SYMPHONY CHRISTOPHER DRAGON, conductorBRIAN KUSIC, Romeo ADRIAN EGOLF, Juliet HEATHER LACY, Nurse MARK RUBALD, Friar LaurenceROBERT NEU, adaptation and director COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS, DUAIN WOLFE, director

Friday, March 18, 2016 at 7:30 pmSaturday, March 19, 2016 at 7:30 pmSunday, March 20, 2016 at 1:00 pmBoettcher Concert Hall

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Serenade to Music

BERNSTEIN Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

— INTERMISSION —

Romeo & Juliet in Words & Music

PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet: Suite No. 2 I. Montagues and Capulets

TCHAIKOVSKY excerpt from Romeo and Juliet

PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet: Suite No. 2 II. Juliet the Young Girl

PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet: Suite No. 2 IV. Dance


PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet: Suite No. 1 VII. Death of Tybalt

PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet: Suite No. 2 V. Romeo and Juliet Before Parting


ROTA Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet

Friday’s concert is grateFully dedicated to JenniFer Heglin saturday’s concert is grateFully dedicated to Wellington and Wilma Webb

PROGRAM 2 SOUNDINGS 2015-2016 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG

MASTERWORKS BIOGRAPHIESCHRISTOPHER DRAGON, conductor

Australian conductor Christopher Dragon began his appointment as Associate Conductor of the Colorado Symphony in the 2015/16 season. In 2013 he was appointed the inaugural Assistant Conductor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, a title he holds until the end of 2015. This role provided him with the opportunity to work closely with Principal Conductor Asher Fisch in addition to numerous other engagements. In April of 2015 Dragon made his debut at the Sydney Opera House conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra with Australian singer/

songwriter Josh Pyke. In 2016 he will be making his debut with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Dragon is a member of the prestigious Symphony Services International Conductor Development Program through which he has worked with orchestras in Australia and New Zealand under the guidance of Christopher Seaman and the orchestras’ Principal Conductors. In 2014 Christopher was invited to conduct the Princess Galyani Vadhana Youth Orchestra in Thailand and earlier that year participated in the Jarvi Winter Academy in Estonia where he was awarded the Orchestra’s Favourite Conductor Prize. Dragon has also studied with numerous distinguished conductors including Paavo and Neeme Jarvi at the Jarvi Summer Festival, Fabio Luisi at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, and conducting pedagogue Jorma Panula.

BRIAN KUSIC, Romeo

Brian Kusic has appeared on stages throughout Denver and Colorado. At the Creede Repertory Theatre he’s appeared in August: Osage County, Guys and Dolls, Our Town, Annie Get Your Gun and The Drowsy Chaperone, among many others. Vintage Theatre audiences have seen him in the role of Chris in Becky’s New Car, and he’s also performed with Senior Housing Options in Picasso at the Lapin Agile and The Hot L Baltimore. Brian studied at Metropolian State University.

ADRIAN EGOLF, Juliet

Adrian Egolf is thrilled to be joining the Colorado Symphony for Romeo and Juliet. Adrian’s credits include: As You Like It, Benediction, Death of a Salesman, Romeo and Juliet (The Denver Center for the Performing Arts), The Archbishop’s Ceiling, Is He Dead? (The Arvada Center) The Taming of the Shrew (Colorado Shakespeare Festival), Steel Magnolias (The Barth Hotel) The Graduate (The Edge Theater) Unnecessary Farce, How To Succeed, Quilters, The Ladies Man, Boomtown, Fools, Leading Ladies (Creede Repertory Theater), God of Carnage (Off Square Theater Company), The

Twelve Dates of Christmas, Of Mice and Men (Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center),Rumpelstiltskin, Androcles The Lion (Denver Children’s Theater), Boeing Boeing (Theatreworks). Training: The National Theater Institute. Adrian is also the artistic director of ScreenPLAY, a Denver theater company that produces staged readings of movie favorites.


MASTERWORKS BIOGRAPHIESHEATHER LACY, Nurse

Heather Lacy is making her fourth appearance with the Colorado Symphony having previously been seen in The Music Man and in the tribute to Marvin Hamlisch, One Singular Sensation. Her recent credits include productions of A Man of No importance, The Archbishop’s Ceiling and Harvey at the Arvada Center; Guys and Dolls and Big River at Lone Tree Arts Center, and The Doyle and Debbie Show at the Garner Galleria/Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Heather has also been seen at Candelight Dinner Playhouse, Loveland Theater Guild, Midtown Arts Guild and

Openstage Theater. She received an Opus nomination for Best Lead Actress, and received an Opus Award for Best Supporting Actress.

MARK RUBALD, Friar Laurence

Mark Rubald is a resident of Denver and has performed at numerous theaters locally and nationally. Notable among his credits are productions at the Arvada Center (including La Cage aux Folles, A Man for All Seasons, Of Mice and Men, Crazy for You and Ragtime); the Denver Center Theatre Company (including Dinner with Friends, Arcadia, Comedy of Errors, A Christmas Carol, The Grapes of Wrath, Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya); and Lone Tree Arts Center (Big River and South Pacific). Mark has also performed with Central City Opera, Curious Theatre and at the Old Globe in San Diego.

ROBERT NEU, adaptation and director

Robert Neu has directed over eighty productions of operas, musicals and plays throughout the country. His recent productions include Bernstein’s Mass, Peer Gynt (also adaptation), La Traviata, The Magic Flute and Carousel for the Minnesota Orchestra; Hansel and Gretel with both the Minnesota Orchestra and Colorado Symphony; Tosca and The Music Man for Colorado Symphony; Don Pasquale, Carmen and The Barber of Seville for Lyric Opera of the North; Art and Death of a Salesman for Bloomington Civic Theater; The Marriage of Figaro for Bellevue Opera; Ayn Rand in Love for Chameleon

Theater; The Laramie Project, Godspell and Blithe Spirit for Lyric Arts Theater; and On the Town, The Fantasticks, Candide and Putting It Together for Skylark Opera. Upcoming: La Boheme for Gulf Coast Symphony, On the Twentieth Century for Skylark Opera, Hansel and Gretel for Jacksonville Symphony, and Florencia en el Amazonas for Emerald City Opera. Robert teaches masterclasses in audition techniques for the University of Minnesota’s opera department, and he is a Resident Director at Lyric Arts Theater. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and is the co-founder of Angels & Demons Entertainment, a production and arts consultancy organization.


MASTERWORKS BIOGRAPHIESDUAIN WOLFE, conductor and Colorado Symphony Chorus, director

Recently awarded two Grammys® for Best Choral Performance and Best Classical Recording, Duain Wolfe is founder and Director of the Colorado Symphony Chorus and Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. This year marks Wolfe’s 31st season with the Colorado Symphony Chorus. The Chorus has been featured at the Aspen Music Festival for over two decades. Wolfe, who is in his 21st season with the Chicago Symphony Chorus has collaborated with Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, and the late Sir George Solti on numerous recordings

including Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, which won the 1998 Grammy® for Best Opera Recording. Wolfe’s extensive musical accomplishments have resulted in numerous awards, including an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of Denver, the Bonfils Stanton Award in the Arts and Humanities, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline and the Michael Korn Award for the Development of the Professional Choral Art. Wolfe is also founder of the Colorado Children’s Chorale, from which he retired in 1999 after 25 years; the Chorale celebrated its 40th anniversary last season. For 20 years, Wolfe also worked with the Central City Opera Festival as chorus director and conductor, founding and directing the company’s young artist residence program, as well as its education and outreach programs. Wolfe’s additional accomplishments include directing and preparing choruses for Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, the Bravo!Vail Festival, the Berkshire Choral Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Grand Teton Music Festival. He has worked with Pinchas Zuckerman as Chorus Director for the Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra for the past 13 years.

COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS

2015/16 Colorado Symphony season marks the 32nd year of the Colorado Symphony Chorus. Founded in 1984 by Duain Wolfe at the request of Gaetano Delogu, then the Music Director of the Colorado Symphony, the chorus has grown over the past three decades into a nationally respected ensemble. This outstanding chorus of 180 volunteers joins the Colorado Symphony for numerous performances (more than 25 this year alone), and radio and television broadcasts.The Chorus has performed at noted music festivals in the Rocky Mountain region, including the Colorado Music Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, where it has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony. For over two decades, the Chorus has been featured at the world-renowned Aspen Music Festival, performing many great masterworks under the baton of notable conductors Lawrence Foster, James Levine, Murry Sidlin, Leonard Slatkin, Robert Spano and David Zinman. The Colorado Symphony Chorus is featured on a recent Hyperion release of the Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem and Hough’s Missa Mirabilis. In 2009, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the chorus, Duain Wolfe conducted the chorus on a three-country, two-week concert tour of Europe, presenting the Verdi Requiem in Budapest, Vienna, Litomysl and Prague. The Chorus will return to Europe in 2016 for concerts in Paris, Strasbourg and Munich. The Colorado Symphony continues to be grateful for the excellence and dedication of this remarkable all-volunteer ensemble. For an audition appointment, call 303.308.2483.


MASTERWORKS BIOGRAPHIESCOLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS ROSTER

Duain Wolfe, Founding Director and Conductor; Mary Louise Burke, Associate Conductor;Travis Branam, Assistant Conductor; Taylor Martin, Staff Conductor;Eric Israelson, Chorus Manager; Barbara Porter, Associate ManagerBrian Dukeshier, Joshua Sawicki, Danni Snyder, Accompanists

Soprano IJamie BrownLindsay R. CampbellDenelda CauseyLeEtta H. ChoiGretchen ColbertKaylin E. DanielsLaura DukeshierKate A. EmerichJenifer D. GileLori C. GillSusan GraberJennifer HarpelLynnae C. HinkleyAngela M. HuppShelley E. JoyMary E. KirschnerKrista KuhnMarina KushnirCathy LookAnne MaupinStephanie MedemaWendy L. MoraskieBarbara A. PorterLori A. RopaKelly G. RossKathi RudolphCamilia SchawelRoberta A. SladovnikStephanie A. SolichNicole J. SteginkJudy TateCourtney WilliamsCara Young

Soprano IIJude BlumAlex S. BowenAthanasia ChristusRuth A. CoberlyKerry H. CoteClaudia DakkouriEsther J. GrossLisa D. KraftErin MontigneChristine M. NyholmJeannette R. O’NanKim PflugDonneve S. RaeRebecca E. Rattray

Shirley J. RiderNancy C. SaddlerLynne M. SnyerStacey L. TravisSusan Von RoedernMarcia L. WalkerSherry L. WeinsteinSandy Woodrow

Alto IPriscilla P. AdamsLois F. BradyEmily M. BranamKimberly BrownAmy BuesingClair T. ClausonJayne M. ConradJane A. CostainSheri L. DanielAubri K. DunkinKirsten D. FranzSharon R. GayleyGabriella D. GroomPat GuittarEmily HallerMelissa J. HolstKaia M. HoopesCarol E. HorleAnnie KolstadDeanna KraftSusan McWatersLeah MeromyKristen NordenholzGinny PassothMary B. ThayerPat VirtueHeather Wood

Alto IIKay A. BootheCass ChatfieldMartha E. CoxBarbara DeckJoyce DominguezCarol A. EslickDaniela GoldenHansi HoskinsOlivia IsaacBrandy H. JacksonEllen D. Janasko

Janice KiblerCarole A. LondonJoanna MaltzahnBarbara MarchbankKelly T. McNultyBeverly MendicelloLeslie M. NittoliKali PaguiriganLisa PakPamela R. ScoorosLisa TownsendGinny Trierweiler

Tenor IJames DeMarcoDustin DouganBrian DukeshierJoel C. GeweckeFrank Gordon, Jr.Forrest Guittar, Jr.Chris E. HassellDavid K. HodelRichard A. MoraskieGarvis J. MuesingTimothy W. NicholasWilliam J. O’DonnellWilliam G. ReileyRyan WallerKenneth A. Zimmerman

Tenor IIGary E. BabcockMac BradleyDusty R. DaviesStephen C. DixonRoger FuehrerJohn H. GaleKenneth E. KolmTaylor S. MartinBrandt J. MasonStephen J. MeswarbTom A. MilliganRonald L. RuthJerry E. SimsJeffrey P. Wolf

Bass IJohn G. AdamsTravis D. BranamGrant H. CarltonGeorge CowenRobert E. DrickeyBenjamin EickhoffCorey FalterMatthew GrayDouglas D. HesseDonald HumeThomas J. JirakNalin J. MehtaKenneth QuarlesTrevor B. RutkowskiDavid R. StruthersDuane WhiteBenjamin WilliamsBrian W. Wood

Bass IIBob FriedlanderDan GibbonsChris GrossmanEric W. IsraelsonTerry L. JacksonRoy A. KentMike A. KraftRobert F. Millar, Jr.Kenneth MoncrieffGreg A. MorrisonEugene J. NuccioJohn R. PhillipsRussell R. SkillingsWil W. SwansonTom G. Virtue

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MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTESRALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958): Serenade to Music for Chorus and OrchestraRalph Vaughan Williams was born on October 12, 1872 in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, England, and died on August 26, 1958 in London. The Serenade to Music was composed in 1938 and premiered on October 5, 1938 in London, conducted by Sir Henry Wood. The score calls for two flutes, (second doubling piccolo). oboe, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings. Duration is about 15 minutes. The Serenade was last performed on March 29, 2009, with Duain Wolfe on the podium.

Henry J. Wood (1869-1944) was one of the leading figures of British music in the first half of the 20th century. After his training at the Royal Academy of Music, he was engaged as conductor by the Savoy Theater (of Gilbert & Sullivan fame), and soon became known throughout Britain as a musician of extraordinary skill. In 1895, he organized the first of the Promenade Concerts, which proved to be such a smashing success that the series became a regular part of London’s musical life. More than just “pops” concerts, the Proms developed into a showcase for new music by British and other composers, and they continue today. For his work in producing the Proms, selecting their programs, and bringing countless British artists before the public, Sir Henry (he was knighted in 1911) came to be held in the greatest respect by the English musical community.

The Golden Anniversary of Wood’s debut as a conductor was to be celebrated in 1938, and he asked Ralph Vaughan Williams, then Britain’s leading composer, to contribute a work to the gala concert. Wood discouraged Vaughan Williams from writing a laudatory work in favor of something more general in character, music that could be used at any time or place. The composer had been interested for some time in making a musical setting of the famous verses from Act IV, Scene I of The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare’s greatest tribute to the art of music, and he settled upon those stanzas as the text for his new piece. To pay tribute to Sir Henry, Vaughan Williams hit upon the novel idea of writing this Serenade to Music for sixteen vocal soloists who had been associated with the conductor throughout his career. Each was given a solo phrase devised especially to suit the particular characteristics of his or her voice, and the initials of each participant inscribed in the score to note the association of performer and music. The Serenade is rarely heard now in its original version for sixteen soloists; most performances employ the choral version authorized by the composer.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!Here will we sit, and let the sounds of musicCreep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st

But in his motion like an angel sings,Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;

Such harmony is in immortal souls;But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn!


MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTESWith sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear,

And draw her home with music.I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

The reason is, your spirits are attentive:The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night,And his affections dark as Erebus.

Let no such man be trusted.Music! hark!

It is your music, madam, of the house.Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Silence bestows that virtue on it.How many things by season seasoned areTo their right praise and true perfection!

Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion,And would not be awaked.Soft stillness and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.

oLEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990): Symphonic Dances from West Side StoryLeonard Bernstein was born on August 25, 1918 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and died October 14, 1990 in New York City. West Side Story was composed in 1957 and premiered in Washington, D.C. on August 20, 1957. It opened on Broadway on September 26th. The composer arranged the set of Symphonic Dances from the score two years later with assistance in the orchestration from Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, two B-flat clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano (doubling celesta), and strings. Duration is about 21 minutes. Last performance by the orchestra was on May 8, 9, & 10, 2009, with Larry Rachleff conducting.

West Side Story was one of the first musicals to explore a serious subject with wide social implications. More than just the story of the tragic lives of ordinary people in a grubby section of New York, it was concerned with urban violence, juvenile delinquency, clan hatred and young love. The show was criticized as harshly realistic by some who advocated an entirely escapist function for the musical. Most, however, recognized that it expanded the scope of the musical through references both to classical literature (Romeo and Juliet) and to the pressing problems of modern society. Brooks Atkinson, former critic of The New York Times, noted in his book Broadway that West Side Story was “a harsh ballad of the city, taut, nervous and flaring, the melodies choked apprehensively, the rhythms wild, swift and deadly.” Much of the show’s electric atmosphere was generated by its brilliant dance sequences, for which Jerome Robbins


MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTESwon the 1957-1958 Tony Award for choreography. In 1961, Bernstein chose a sequence of dance music from West Side Story to assemble as a concert work, and Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal executed the orchestration of these “Symphonic Dances” under the composer’s direction. Bernstein said that he called these excerpts “symphonic” not because they were arranged for full orchestra but because many of them grew, like a classical symphony, from a few basic themes transformed into a variety of moods to fit the play’s action and emotions. West Side Story, like a very few other musicals — Show Boat, Oklahoma, Pal Joey, A Chorus Line, Sunday in the Park with George, Rent, Hamilton — provides more than just an evening’s pleasant diversion. It is a work that gave an entirely new vision and direction to the American musical theater.

oPETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893): Excerpts from Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-OverturePeter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia, and died on November 6, 1893 in St. Petersburg. Romeo and Juliet was composed in 1869. Nikolai Rubinstein conducted the Russian Musical Society in the premiere, in Moscow on March 16, 1870. The score calls for pairs of woodwinds plus piccolo and English horn, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings. Duration of these selections is about 8 minutes. The complete work was last performed on January 15, 16, & 17, 2010; Jeffrey Kahane conducted the orchestra.

Romeo and Juliet was written when Tchaikovsky was 29. It was his first masterpiece. He was emotionally primed for his musical portrayal of the star-crossed lovers by his own romantic misadventure of the preceding year. He had been infatuated with the French opera singer Désirée Artôt, who was enjoying a considerable vogue in St. Petersburg in 1868, and he felt strongly enough to consider marrying her. He carried his suit to this lady whom he described to his brother Modeste as possessing “exquisite gesture, grace of movement, and artistic poise,” but she apparently regarded his proposal of marriage somewhat less seriously than he did — within a month she married another opera singer, Padilla y Ramos, in Warsaw. Tchaikovsky never revealed exactly how deep a wound this affair inflicted, but he did make a point of recounting their later meetings in his personal letters, always praising her beauty and artistry. His torch for Artôt may never have been fully extinguished. At any rate, while the Artôt episode was probably not directly responsible for the creation of Romeo and Juliet, it was an important emotional component of Tchaikovsky’s personality at the time. The composer, a firm believer that Fate seeks to dampen man’s every happiness, could easily have drawn a parallel between his personal loss and the tragedy of Shakespeare’s drama.

Former New York Philharmonic program annotator Edward Downes summarized the drama and power of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. “The composers who have been inspired, or who thought they were inspired by Shakespeare, make an endless list,” Downes wrote. “And in that history, Tchaikovsky is one of the very few who speaks with the elemental passion and strife that grip us as do the words of Shakespeare.”

o

SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953): Selections from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64Sergei Prokofiev was born on April 23, 1891 in Sontzovka, Russia, and died on March 5, 1953 in Moscow. Romeo and Juliet was composed in 1935. The ballet was premiered in Brno, Czechoslovakia in December 1938. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, cornet, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano and strings. Duration of the selections on this concert is about 25 minutes.

When Prokofiev returned to Russia in 1933 after his long sojourn in the West, he had already acquired a reputation as a composer of ballet. His first balletic effort had been the volcanic Ala and Lolly written for Diaghilev in Paris in 1914, whose music is better known in its concert form as the Scythian Suite. Though Diaghilev did not like the piece and refused to stage it, he remained convinced of Prokofiev’s talent and commissioned Chout (“The Buffoon”) from him in 1921 and produced it with his Ballet Russe. Le Pas d’acier (“The Steel Step”) followed in 1927, and The Prodigal Son in 1928, the last new ballet Diaghilev produced before his death the following year. Sur le Borysthène (“On the Dnieper”) was staged, unsuccessfully, by the Paris Opéra in 1932. The last two of these works showed a move away from the spiky musical language of Prokofiev’s earlier years toward a simpler, more lyrical style, and the Kirov Theater in Leningrad took them as evidence in 1934 that he should be commissioned to compose a full-length ballet on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. After difficulties staging the ballet in Russia, Romeo and Juliet was premiered in Brno, Czechoslovakia in December 1938 and has since come to be regarded as one of Prokofiev’s most masterful creations.

Montagues and Capulets incorporates, as slow introduction, the music accompanying the Duke as he forbids further fights between the families on pain of death, the heavy-footed Dance of the Capulet Knights from the Act I ballroom scene and a graceful transformation of the Knights’ theme to portray Juliet.

Juliet the Young Girl characterizes the several moods of the heroine, not yet 14 years old. Dance of the Five Couples is an episode from the scene of the folk festival in Act II.The Death of Tybalt is based on the music accompanying the duel of Tybalt and Mercutio,

Tybalt’s death and his funeral procession.Romeo and Juliet Before Parting is the music of the lovers’ first and only night as man and

wife.

o

MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES


NINO ROTA (1911-1979): Love Theme from Romeo and JulietNino Rota was born on December 3, 1911 in Milan, and died on April 10, 1979 in Rome. The music for Franco Zeffirelli’s film version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was composed in 1968. Duration is about 4 minutes. This is the first performance of the work by the orchestra.

Nino Rota, born in 1911 into a musical family in Milan, began studying piano with his mother as a child, was composing by age eight, and had completed an oratorio and an opera by age thirteen. He was admitted to the Milan Conservatory in 1923 and studied privately for two years with the school’s director, Ildebrando Pizzetti, before entering the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome in 1926 as a student of Alfredo Casella; he received his diploma in composition from the Accademia the following year. From 1930 to 1931, Rota lived in Philadelphia, where he attended the Curtis Institute of Music on scholarship; his principal teachers there were Rosario Scalero in composition and Fritz Reiner in conducting. Rota ended his thorough professional training by taking a degree in literature from the University of Milan in 1937. After a brief period teaching at a music school in Taranto, he joined the faculty of the Bari Conservatory in 1939; he was named director in 1950, and remained at the school until his death, in 1979.

Though Rota wrote prolifically for the stage and concert hall — ten operas, five ballets, oratorios, cantatas, orchestral works, chamber and piano pieces — he is best remembered as the composer of more than 150 film scores. He began composing for the Italian cinema in the early 1940s, and had scored some thirty films before he first collaborated with Federico Fellini in 1952 on Lo Sciecco Bianco (“The White Sheik”). Rota composed the music for all of Fellini’s films for the next thirty years, including La Strada, La Dolce Vita, Boccaccio, Eight and a Half, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon and The Orchestra Rehearsal. He also worked with such other leading directors as Renato Castellani, Luchino Visconti, Franco Zeffirelli, Mario Monicelli, King Vidor and René Clément, but he found his greatest success with Francis Ford Coppola in the Godfather series; he won an Oscar for The Godfather, Part II (1974). Among Rota’s most unabashedly romantic contributions to the cinema is his music for Paramount Pictures’ 1968 Romeo and Juliet, starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey and directed by Franco Zeffirelli after Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy of fated young love. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture, and Rota won the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Award for his score.

©2015 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES

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Program Notes - Shakespeare Festival: Romeo & Juliet