The Importance of Being Earnest (Barry)

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Opera dates
Title: The Importance of Being Earnest
Photograph of the original production of the theater piece (1895)

Photograph of the original production of the theater piece (1895)

Shape: Opera in three acts
Original language: English
Music: Gerald Barry
Libretto : Gerald Barry
Literary source: Oscar Wilde : The Importance of Being Earnest
Premiere: April 7, 2011 (concert), March 17, 2013 (scenic)
Place of premiere: Walt Disney Concert Hall , Los Angeles (concert),
Opéra national de Lorraine , Nancy (scenic)
Playing time: approx. 1 ½ hours
Place and time of the action: London, and in an English country house
people

The Importance of Being Earnest is an opera in three acts by Gerald Barry (music) with its own libretto based on Oscar Wilde 's comedy of the same name, The Importance of Being Earnest . It was premiered on April 7, 2011 in the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The staged world premiere took place on March 17, 2013 at the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy.

action

first act

Luxurious breakfast room in Algernon Moncrieff's apartment in Half-Moon Street, London

Algernon plays a version by Auld Lang Syne on the piano , while his servant Lane sets the table for the guests expected for the afternoon, Algernon's aunt Augusta Bracknell and her daughter Gwendolen Fairfax. His friend Ernest arrives. Algernon noticed a dedication to Ernest's cigarette case: "From little Cecily with her deepest love for her dear Uncle Jack." After some hesitation, Ernest admits that Cecily is his ward and lives in his country house under the supervision of the governess Miss Prism. He only calls himself Ernest in town, but Jack in the country (his real name is John). There he occasionally pretends to visit his younger brother Jack in town. Algernon has a name for this behavior: he calls Jack a "Bunburyist". He himself leads a similar double life: when he wants to go to the country, he pretends to visit his sick friend Bunbury there. When Gwendolen and Lady Bracknell arrive, Algernon uses this excuse to apologize for dinner. Lady Bracknell explains that she does not like French songs and, accompanied by her daughter at the piano, sings Schiller's “ Joy, Beautiful Gods Spark ” on her own melody. Then she retires to the music room with Algernon. Jack takes the opportunity to propose marriage to Gwendolen. Since she has always wanted to love someone by the name Ernest, she happily accepts. She finds the name Jack completely uninteresting. Shortly afterwards Lady Bracknell returns. After learning of her daughter's engagement, she tests Jack for social fitness. Unfortunately, it turns out that its origin is uncertain. He was found as a baby in a handbag at Victoria Station and then adopted. So nothing can come of the wedding. Algernon informs his servant that he will be bunburysing the next day. H. going to the country.

Second act

Garden of John Worthings Country House

Gray stone stairs lead up to the house. The garden is old fashioned and full of roses. It's july Wicker chairs and a table covered with books stand under a large yew tree.

Miss Prism urges her disinterested protégé Cecily to take German lessons and sings her her own version of "Freude, Schöne Götterfunken". She admits to having written a three-volume novel at a young age, but the manuscript of which has been lost. The servant Merriman reports the visit of Ernest Worthing, whom she takes to be the brother of her guardian. In reality, it is Algernon, who only pretends to be his brother to get to know the girl. While the two of them go into the house, Miss Prism returns with the principal, Dr Chasuble. Jack arrives at the same time. He wears mourning clothes and claims that his brother Ernest has died. Jack wants to use the presence of Dr Chasubles to be renamed "Ernest" by him. Cecily comes out of the house to greet him. She wonders that Jack's brother, whom she has only just met, should have died. She brings Algernon out of the house to sort it out. Algernon is courting Cecily, and she replies that she has loved him for three months since Jack told her about his sly brother Ernest. A husband named Ernest has always been her dream, and she could never pay so much attention to someone with a different name. Algernon then also decides to be renamed by Dr Chasuble. A little later, Cecily and Gwendolen discover that they are both engaged to Ernest Worthing. They confront the two men one after the other and expose their lies. Since they have both been betrayed, they become sisterly friends and go into the house. Jack and Algernon are left arguing.

Third act

Breakfast room in Worthing's house

Jack and Algernon inform Cecily and Gwendolen that they want to be renamed. That impresses the two extremely. Lady Bracknell now also appears in the country house. She is horrified at first when she learns of her nephew's engagement. However, when she hears about Cecily's legacy, she quickly changes her mind and wants the wedding to take place as soon as possible. Now, however, Jack refuses to agree to the marriage of his ward to his friend as long as Lady Bracknell does not allow his own marriage to Gwendolen. Dr Chasuble arrives to perform the baptismal acts. But since the two men seem no longer interested in it, he explains that Miss Prism is waiting for him and that he will leave again. Lady Bracknell pricked up her ears at this name. She demands that Miss Prism be brought in at once. It turns out that she was working as a governess for the Bracknells 28 years ago. One day she was out with Lady Bracknell's little nephew in a stroller and her novel manuscript in a large handbag. In a moment of confusion, she confused the two and left the boy in her pocket at Victoria Station. Thereupon she dared not return to her position. Jack fetches the purse and proves that he was that boy himself. He is therefore the older brother of Algernon. Lady Bracknell remembers that the boy's name was like his father, a general. From the army lists everyone learns that Jack's real name is actually "Ernest". So his supposed lie was the truth. Gwendolen is enthusiastic. Both couples can get married.

layout

orchestra

The opera is small-scale chamber music and requires about twenty players with the following instruments:

music

The composition combines Oskar Wilde's joke with musical comedy and allusions from Ludwig van Beethoven to Benjamin Britten . Barry reduced the libretto so that the most important sentences were retained, but certain "tedious" passages were overemphasized. Speech rhythms and metrics are cut into syllabic parts with uniform motor functions and accompanied by unusual combinations of instruments.

The opera begins with a pre-recorded piano fantasy on the song Auld Lang Syne , which Barry understood as a tribute to Betty Freeman . This melody appears a few more times later. The duet in the first act, in which Jack and Algernon talk about cucumber sandwiches, was set to music by Barry in the form of a broken twelve-note melody with wild jumps and a rhythm that completely ignores the text and corresponds to the absurdity of the dialogue.

Cecily and Gwendolen have a duet for rhythmically and melodically composed speaking voices. Towards the end of the second act, when they recognize the men's lies, they speak through megaphones , accompanied by the sound of shattering plates. The Bachtrack reviewer called this " ostinato " for broken porcelain a masterpiece by the composer. A total of 48 such plates will be smashed in the opera, which according to the score must be white and have a diameter of at least 27 cm. Barry also precisely specified other such special instruments. So the phone has to be of the type used in Alfred Hitchcock's films , the megaphones have to be carried in the hand, the big hammer has to sound like Alban Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces, and the gun is supposed to sound like the revolver in Erik Firing Satie's Ballet Parade .

Work history

Gerald Barry's setting of Oskar Wilde's comedy The Importance of Being Earnest is his fifth opera. It is a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and the London Barbican Center . The composition was created between 2009 and 2010 within eight months. Barry himself extracted the libretto from the original, which he shortened to about a third without changing the plot. He also retained the most famous lines of text. According to his own statement, he removed all "social issues" and thus gave "the whole thing a different tone". The butler is "not as polite as before". Lady Bracknell is sung by a bass. Barry introduced her to "a great rugby player from Wales".

The concert premiere took place on April 7, 2011 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Thomas Adès at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Gordon Gietz (John Worthing), Joshua Bloom (Algernon Moncrieff), Hila Plitmann (Cecily Cardew), Katalin Karolyi (Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax), Hilary Summers (Miss Prism) and Stephen Richardson (Lady Bracknell) sang . There was initially only one other performance the following day.

On April 26 and 28, 2012, performances followed in London and Birmingham, where Adès directed the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Here Peter Tantsits sang the role of Jack, Barbara Hannigan the Cecily, Katalin Károlyi the Gwendolen and Alan Ewing the Lady Bracknell. A recording was released on CD. She was nominated for a Grammy .

The staged world premiere took place on March 17, 2013 at the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy in a production by Sam Brown with a set and costumes by Anne-Marie Woods. The musical direction was Tito Muñoz. The singers were Chad Shelton (Jack Worthing), Phillip Addis (Algernon Moncrieff), Ida Falk Winland (Cecily Cardew), Wendy Dawn Thompson (Hon.Gwendolen Fairfax), Diana Montague (Miss Prism) and Alan Ewing (Lady Bracknell).

Further productions are listed on the Schott Music website :

  • 14-22 June 2013: London, Royal Opera House at Linbury Theater - Orchestra: Britten Sinfonia; Conductor: Tim Murray; Director: Ramin Gray; sold out performances; Revival from March 29 to April 3, 2016 at the Barbican Theater in London
  • October 2013: Northern Ireland Opera tour with performances in Derry, Belfast, Cork and Dublin - Conductor: Pierre-André Valade; Production: Antony McDonald
  • 2-4 June 2016: New York, Lincoln Center - Orchestra: New York Philharmonic ; Crash ensemble; Conductor: Ilan Volkov
  • April 30 - May 2, 2019 | Freiburg im Üechtland , Equilibre - Orchestra: Orchester de chambre fribourgeois; Conductor: Jérôme Kuhn; Director: Julien Chavaz; Design: Severine Besson; also from 16.-24. May 2019 at the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet in Paris; Video broadcast on Operavision

The work received excellent reviews and won the 2013 Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) Award for Large-Scale Composition. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times wrote after the concert premiere that the opera was hysterically funny and the score highly developed and indescribably crazy ("The opera is hysterically funny. The score is highly sophisticated and indescribably zany."). Although many seats remained empty at the concert premiere, he was sure that word of the quality of the work would have got around by the time it was performed in London the following year and that it would then be a major event.

Recordings

  • Apr. 26, 2012 - Thomas Adès (Conductor), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
    Peter Tantsits (Jack Worthing), Joshua Bloom (Algernon Moncrieff), Barbara Hannigan (Cecily Cardew), Katalin Károlyi (Hon.Gwendolen Fairfax), Hilary Summers (Miss Prism), Alan Ewing (Lady Bracknell), Benjamin Bevan (Lane / Merriman ), Joshua Hart (Dr Chasuble).
    Live from the Barbican Hall in London.
    NMC D197.
  • 23 May 2019 - Jérôme Kuhn (conductor), Julien Chavaz (staging), Julien Chavaz and Severine Besson (stage), Severine Besson (costumes), Eloi Gianini (lighting), Nicole Morel (choreography), Orchester de chambre fribourgeois.
    Timur Bekbosunov (Jack Worthing), Ed Ballard (Algernon Moncrieff), Alison Scherzer (Cecily Cardew), Nina van Essen (Hon.Gwendolen Fairfax), Jessica Walker (Miss Prism), Graeme Danby (Lady Bracknell), Vincent Casagrande (Lane / Merriman), Steven Beard (Dr Chasuble).
    Video; live from the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet in Paris; Production by the Nouvel Opéra Friborg.
    Video stream at Operavision.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h information on works from Verlag Schott Music , accessed on April 19, 2020.
  2. ^ A b Fiona Maddocks: The Importance of Being Earnest; St Matthew Passion - review. Review of the production in London 2016. In: The Guardian , 3rd April 2016.
  3. ^ A b c d Mark Swed: Music review: LA Phil premieres Gerald Barry's sensational opera "The Importance of Being Earnest". In: Los Angeles Times , April 8, 2011, accessed April 20, 2020.
  4. ^ A b George Loomis: Singing the Praises of Oscar Wilde's "Importance of Being Earnest". Review of the staged world premiere in 2013 in Nancy ( Memento of July 9, 2019 in the Internet Archive ). In: The New York Times , March 19, 2013.
  5. ↑ a b Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade: Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest staged at the ROH Linbury Studio. In: Bachtrack, June 27, 2013, accessed April 20, 2020.
  6. ↑ a b c d The Importance of Being Earnest. Work information and video at Operavision, accessed on April 19, 2020.
  7. ↑ a b Supplement to CD NMC D197.
  8. ^ A b Matthew Rye: Wilde life: The Importance of Being Earnest, the opera. In: Bachtrack, March 30, 2016, accessed April 20, 2020.
  9. ↑ Information on the production of the Northern Ireland Opera ( Memento from August 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).