A Night at the Opera!

Welcome! Glad to have you here at our gala event! If this is your first or twenty-first Suncook Valley Chorale concert, we are quite happy to see you. Hang up your capes, get your opera glasses, sit back, and prepare to enjoy a program of operatic choral delights!

We’ll start, as does every good opera, with an overture. This one will be played for us by Connie and Janet, in a piano, four-hands arrangement of the overture to Mozart’s opera, La Clemenza di Tito. The Chorale proper gets us rolling with a George F. Handel chorus, this one from his oratorio (which is a choral opera, if you will allow a slightly broad definition of “opera”) Solomon. It is a call for Music to spread its lovely voice throughout the hall: “sweetly flow the lulling sound,” a fitting sentiment to begin our operatic adventure.

Quickly, we move on into the nosy-neighbor routine, as we sing the “Neighbors’ Chorus” from Offenbach’s comic opera, La jolie Parfumeuse. What a treat to have such caring neighbors, eh? Moving into a nicer neighborhood, we gather the shepherds from the village around Amahl’s and his mother’s little hovel; these are salt-of-the-Earth neighbors, and we’re happy to greet them as they greet each other on their way to see the three mysterious kings who have sought shelter at the house on the outskirts of the village.

Next, we’ll hum, in Italian, from Puccini’s opera, Madame Butterfly, the “Humming Chorus;” slightly ethereal, slightly flowing, the music recalls the lulling sensation from the first chorus of Handel, though in a particularly Puccini-esque way.

We have several small ensembles to present sidebars of operatic selections. The first features a duet from Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, The Gondoliers. This racketeering Duke and Duchess seem to have it made, with their little hands in many pies around the town.

While we’re in Italy, we’ll sample some Italian operatic fare. To do so, we’ll next sing “Va, Pensiero,” by Giuseppe Verdi, from his grand opera, Nabucco. This is the chorus of the Hebrew slaves, as they long for their homeland; it is from the same story as “By the leeks of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, as we remembered Zion.” Il Trovatore, another from Verdi, gives us our next offering, the well-known “Anvil Chorus.” A call to the work of the day, the blacksmiths gather and sing about the bright day, the shining metal, and the ringing of their hammers.

Off to a party in Austria; Mr. Strauss’ opera, frequently heard at the New Year, Die Fledermaus is our party scene. Several guests at the party are enjoying the sights, the sounds, and the revelry of the party!

Our first half ends in Austria (what a lovely place for an opera!) and Herr Mozart. Wolfgang’s last opera, a comic opera called “The Magic Flute,” (Die Zauberflöte) concludes with this triumphal chorus, welcoming the hero from the trial. We’ll take a breather; enjoy the other opera-goers in the crowd and we’ll be back soon.

Our second half, after the “Interval,” will start where we left off, in Austria, though oddly enough, Austria has never looked quite so much like the American South West. (And didn’t I hear about Tonto having an operatic role at some point in his career??) The whole of Rossini’s opera William Tell, about the Austrian folk hero, is heard far less often than its overture, which our octet will present here.

Next, a trip to the Far East (à la the Savoy Theater in London)! The well-known duo of Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan called the Savoy home for their numerous productions, from Trial by Jury, and Ruddigore, to the better-known H.M.S. Pinafore or Pirates of Penzance. Our next two offerings come from their popular operetta The Mikado. Three little maids introduce themselves to us, followed by the finale to the first act of the play.

The story in the play is fairly typical of a Gilbert & Sullivan (I once read a synopsis of another G&S which said “at this point, not only does the plot thicken, it becomes opaque!”); Nanki-Poo is a wandering minstrel, currently playing third trombone in the Titipu Town Band. He has fallen for the young lady, Yum-Yum, one of the three little maids to whom we are introduced; the problem being that she is due to marry the town’s prideful Lord High Executioner (who has managed thus far to never carry out his role), Ko-Ko. A further complication is the edict from the country’s leader, the Mikado, that young people should not flirt, woo, or in other ways display any passion until they are wed—so any young man caught courting a young woman is to be immediately beheaded. Yet another complication on top of these two, (see what I mean?) is the fact that Nanki-Poo, who is secretly (by the way) the Mikado’s missing son, is betrothed, not of his own volition, to a melodramatic courtly dowager by the name of Katisha! A message comes from the Mikado: Ko-Ko is to perform an execution, or the whole town will fall under the blade. Nanki-Poo makes Ko-Ko a deal: “Let me marry Yum-Yum, and then, after four weeks of wedded bliss, you may then execute me.” The deal is struck. It is here that we rejoin our story. Other characters we will meet include Pitti-Sing, one of Yum-Yum’s lovely sisters, and Pooh-Bah, a town noble. “And, how does it turn out,” I hear you ask? Well, aren’t you in luck! I do recall seeing that at the Capitol Center, there will be a production of this very operetta in only a few short weeks!! Will I see you there?

We leave Japan and Titipu’s silliness for a quick stop back in Mozart land. Remember that closer from our first half, the one from The Magic Flute? Two young lovers, Papageno, a bird catcher, and Papagena, his beloved, bill and coo about their future life together. Many thanks to our guest artists, from the Concord Community Music School, Jane and Calvin! We are quite fortunate to have such a valuable resource in our community, and personally, I’ve had a real kick working with them!

On, now, to the operatic stages of 19^th century Paris. We’ll give you a medley of songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash Broadway hit, The Phantom of the Opera. The medley runs roughly in show order, and the careful ear can even hear the plot passing by. Young operatic singer is helped by an unknown teacher, she becomes a star, falls in love with the boy she left behind, and things would be fine, except that the teacher, the Phantom, wants her for himself. That, and he has a score to settle with the theater owners. Recipe for disaster and doom, ...We will not be disappointed!

We conclude our operatic journey with the lovely closing chorus from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide; we can travel all over the world, and we can have so many adventures, but really, the simplicity of home and hearth is where it all comes to fulfillment. So, as Bernstein says, “We’ll build our house and chop our wood, and make our garden grow!”

We hope you have enjoyed our operatic journey! We’ve traveled roads through Europe and Asia, and even here at home. If you’d like to join us on our next journey, a program called “Songs, Silly and Sweet” (performances in May), then come to our Open Sings, which will be Mondays, January 30 and February 6, at 6:30 PM at the Pleasant View Retirement Center auditorium. Call one of us, or visit our website (http://www.svcnh.org) for directions.

Once again, we thank you for coming to our operatic revue! Please take a moment to notice what businesses have supported us through advertising with us; your help in thanking them is greatly appreciated.

See you in May!

-Scott Lounsbury

Music Director