LEXUS OF EDMONTON AND LANDMARK HOMES PRESENT

THE MIRACULOUS MANDARIN

Audience Guide

THE MIRACULOUS MANDARIN

William Eddins, conductorMichele Capalbo, soprano

Richard Eaton Singers

Cast:Amber BorotsikJesse GervaisDavid HorakRichard Lee

Zillur Rahman John(John Ullyatt, director)

INTRODUCTION TO THIS GUIDE

Welcome to The Miraculous Mandarin!

To help you fully enjoy your experience at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s premiere performance of Béla Bartók’s pantomime ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin, we have assembled this guide for you to flip through in advance of attending. Here, you’ll find information about the history of this ambitious piece of music, about the composer behind the music, Béla Bartók, as well as production notes from the artistic team behind this uniquely spectacular musical evening.

ACTIVITIES AT THE SHOW

Friday, April 10

Following the end of the concert, please feel free to join D.T. Baker for a casual conversation with some of the evening’s artists. Afterthoughts takes place in the main lobby. Seating is limited, but there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions of the performers!

Saturday, April 11

Prior to the start of the concert, join D.T. Baker for Preludes, part of an ongoing series of pre-concert talks that bring insight and context to the music you’re about to hear. The talk begins at 7:15 on the Upper Circle lobby. All are welcome!

Traffic notes

Please be aware of the ongoing issues along Groat Road and plan your route accordingly. Additionally, due to events at the other downtown arts venues, you may wish to leave early to ensure adequate parking.

Winspear Centre Pre-order service

If you get to the Winspear early and are hanging out in our lobbies, consider pre-ordering your intermission-time beverage or cake from any of our concession stations. Your refreshments will be waiting for you at the lobby nearest to your seats. Avoid the line ups and spend more time enjoying the evening!

ABOUT THE ESO

The Edmonton Symphony regards its artistic mission to bring the highest quality of live orchestral performance to a broad spectrum of the community.In the last 60-plus years, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra has taken its place as one of Canada's foremost orchestral ensembles. Its current roster includes 56 musicians from Canada and around the world, performing a wide-ranging repertoire from the great classical masterworks to pops and family concerts.

In January, 2005, the Edmonton Symphony named American conductor and pianist William Eddins (right) its new Music Director, after a two-year search. His tenure has been highlighted by progressive and innovative programming, the addition of dozens of works to the orchestra’s repertoire, and a number of outstanding artistic achievements. Perhaps none is more prestigious than the 2012 debut for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at New York’s storied Carnegie Hall – a concert hailed by press and public alike, and attended by nearly a thousand banner-waving Edmontonians.

The ESO has forged several important artistic relationships during Bill Eddins’ tenure. In 2009, Lucas Waldin (right) joined the ESO as Resident Conductor, and has stayed on in his capacity as Enbridge Artist in Residence and Community Ambassador. From 2011 to 2014, the ESO welcomed its third Composer in Residence, Robert Rival. Since 2005, guest conductor Robert Bernhardt has conducted the ESO’s yearly outdoor orchestral festival, symphony Under the Sky. Join us this year in Hawrelak Park for the return of Symphony Under the Sky: a four-day festival in one of Edmonton’s most iconic green spaces. For more info visit: http://bit.ly/1xFKPzO

The 2013/14 season marked the beginning of YONA-Sistema, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s Sistema-inspired program using music as a means of social change for under-served children in the community. It was also the first for the orchestra’s new Concertmaster, Robert Uchida. The 2014/15 season is the tenth under the leadership of William Eddins, and continues the legacy of both bold vision and superb musicality.

ABOUT THE WINSPEAR CENTRE

"As a form of communication, music can transcend the boundaries of culture, differences in educational and economic backgrounds and barriers between nations. As such, music can help build harmony between people of all ages, races, cultures and beliefs in our own growing city. My dream is to have a place where the people of our region can make the most beautiful music they are capable of - and share it with each other."- Dr. Francis G. Winspear

The construction of the Winspear Centre was a labour of love and so many people played a role in the project throughout the years. We invite you to share your Winspear story with us! Visit MyWinspear.com to submit your story, and to learn more about continuing to support the Francis Winspear Centre for Music.

Did you know?

• The Francis Winspear Centre for Music is honoured to be one of a select few world class “ARTEC” concert halls with sister halls in Dallas/USA, Birmingham/UK, Lucerne/Switzerland, Vancouver/CAN, Lahti/Finland, Calgary/Canada and Newark/USA. • The Winspear Centre receives no subsidized funding from ANY level of government but instead operates independently by offsetting expenses through an endowment fund created when the concert hall was built in 1997.• Winspear Centre is owned and operated by the Edmonton Concert Hall Foundation, a non-profit society. • Winspear Centre offered over 200 events on the main stage last year of which over 50% were Edmonton community based presentations. • Winspear Centre spends over $2500 a week on electricity.• Winspear Centre can be rented for as little as $1,650 per day.• Winspear Centre is privileged to have the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra as its resident company. A 56 piece full time professional orchestra.• Winspear Centre contains the largest concert hall pipe organ in Canada built by Letourneau of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, named the Davis Concert organ after its benefactor Dr. Stuart Davis. The organ cost $2,000,000 and contains 6551 individual pipes with the largest standing 37 feet tall.• Winspear Centre is admired by performers because of its superior acoustics and intimate audience seating.

A message from John Ullyatt

Context is everything. In the world of The Miraculous Mandarin, the First World War had recently ended. It was one of the bloodiest and deadliest conflicts in human history. Without too much of a history lesson about Hungary post World War I, suffice it to say there was massive political, economic, and societal upheaval. Four empires toppled, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Spanish Flu. People were desperate, hungry, and scared.

That’s the backdrop. Three tramps and a woman, Mimi, are four of many marginalized people of the time. A desperate plan is hatched to use Mimi to entrap unsuspecting victims into their meagre room, and rob them. It's just survival. They have never done anything like this. They are good people in a rotten situation.

The first two victims are almost as poor as they are - raising the stakes for a successful robbery. This is still a desperate last ditch effort to survive.

The Mandarin enters. He's rich. He is terrifying. The Mandarin is alien. He doesn't look like them, he doesn't act like them. He doesn't come from "here". He is “The Other". He appears to be ferocious in his pursuit of Mimi. Relentless. The four fight for their lives.

Ignorance is perhaps the most destructive force. We fear what we don't understand. We learn to hate what we fear.

Today, our world is full of fear and ignorance. Hatred and destruction. We are being taught to fear by everything around us. The media and politics.

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it! Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!” - Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol

The ending of The Miraculous Mandarin is not a happy one. It's bittersweet at best. There is one moment of understanding, perhaps love. An essence of deep respect and acceptance which allows release for the Mandarin, but it’s too late.

For me, this story serves to remind us to learn acceptance and understanding. From that we can find the ultimate of acceptance and understanding - Love.

THE MIRACULOUS MANDARIN

First performed: November 28, 1926 in CologneThe ESO last performed the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin in September 2000. This is their premiere performance of the music of the entire pantomime ballet.

Menyhért Lengyel (aka Melchior Lengyel, 1880-1974) was a Hungarian writer, who added playwright to his accomplishments as a journalist during the First World War. His allegorical “pantomime grotesque” entitled A scodálatos mandarin (“The Miraculous Mandarin”) was published in 1916. Characters from the East were a bit of a fashion at the time, their exotic nature standing as a metaphor for alienation and lack of acceptance in society. The decadent city in which the story takes place is society itself. Composer Béla Bartók, a year younger than Lengyel and a fellow resident of Budapest, was drawn to the story, and following the 1917 success of his ballet The Wooden Prince, Bartók felt ready to take on writing music to accompany Lengyel’s wordless pantomime.

Budapest, however, was not so ready, and would not allow the work to be presented. Instead, the premiere took place in Cologne. But after that first performance, it was banned there, too, on moral grounds. For a long time, the music was heard in a truncated suite that included about two-thirds of the score; in recent years, complete performances are starting to become more common.

The eleven sections of the work have no pauses between them, and the action of the story is this:Introduction: sets the mood, and introduces the seedy part of a city. The curtain rises, and we see three ruffians and a young girl, a street-walker, in a dingy apartment. Upon realizing they have no money, the men have the girl lure in someone they can rob.First decoy game: the first one to be lured is a shabbily dressed old man, clearly without money. The thugs throw him out.Second decoy game: a young man, also without means, attempts to make love to the girl, but after she begins to waltz with him, the thugs throw him out as well.Third decoy game: the girl once again stands at the window, trying to draw in a victim of means.The Mandarin enters: her efforts bear fruit, bringing in the Mandarin, and after overcoming her initial disdain, the girl is drawn to him.The girl sinks down to embrace him: but she pulls away, and the Mandarin pursues her vehemently.The tramps leap out: they rob the Mandarin, and make three attempts to kill him – first by suffocation under the bedding.Suddenly the Mandarin’s head appears: having survived the attempt, and driven by his passion for the girl, the Mandarin emerges from the failed attempt on his life.Again, the frightened tramps discuss how to eliminate the Mandarin: they stab him to death with a sword, yet still, he survives, and his passion for the girl draws him to her again. The ruffians now hang the Mandarin from the light fixture.The Mandarin’s head begins to glow: still alive, the Mandarin’s passion seems to render him invulnerable.She resists no longer, they embrace: realizing what it will take to finally kill him, the girl instructs her comrades to cut the Mandarin down. They do so, and he rushes at her. This time, she allows him to take her, and as they embrace, his wounds begin to bleed, and he dies in her arms.

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Béla Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945)Béla Bartók was born in the small Hungarian town of Nagyszentmiklós, now present-day Romania. His father was Hungarian and his mother was of mixed German and Hungarian descent. While both of his parents were musical, Bartók received his earliest instructions in music from his mother. After the death of his father is 1889, Bartók’s family moved around eventually settling in Pozsony (present-day Bratislava), where Bartók was able to study and perform his music for growing audiences. Guided by the influence of Strauss’ musical scores, Bartók’s early compositions wove in the themes and cadences of the folklore and folk music traditions of Hungary. Later, after discovering the music of Franz Liszt, Bartók began digging into what he called “peasant music”. Among his many influences, the work of Wagner was extremely impactful on the composer. It is perhaps this influence, particularly Wagner’s concept of the gesamptkunstwerk or total work of art, which inspired the pantomime ballet The Miraculous Mandarin which incorporates not only symphonic music, but also dance, set design, and storytelling. For more on Bartók, visit: http://bit.ly/1FnC5P0

PoulencThe medieval reflection on the grief-stricken mother of Christ at the cross of her son is one of the most poignant sacred texts ever written. Known in Latin as Stabat Mater (“The sorrowful mother stood”), its immediate emotional impact has attracted a number of composers to it. A short list of those who have set it includes Palestrina, Haydn, Rossini, Dvořák, Howells, Pärt, and Szymanowski.

Francis Poulenc, as one of the members of the French circle known as Les Six, established an early reputation for that group’s penchant for light, breezy, often mischievous music that was a deliberate counter to the over-serious and epic music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a consequence, when he turned to more serious music himself later in life, it was not always well received. Following the death of his friend, artist Christian Bérard, Poulenc was moved to compose a work in his memory. Poulenc’s setting of the Stabat Mater is in twelve brief movements, and is scored for chorus and orchestra, with a solo soprano in three of the movements (“Vidit sum,” “Fac ut portem,” and “Quando corpus”). Unlike some of his other compositions of the time, Poulenc’s Stabat Mater was extremely well received, and won the New York Critics’ Circle Award for best choral work in 1951.

Poulenc makes some daring choices in the way he sets the texts. The drama and darkness of the opening “Stabat mater dolorosa,” or the chromatic choral harmonies against the dissonances in the orchestra of the “Quam tristis,” and certainly the slow procession of the sarabande tempo of “Fac ut portem” and the fire and brimstone nature of “Inflammatus et accensus” are musically portrayed as one might expect. But the pastoral nature of “Quae moerebat,” the strong and declamatory “Quis est homo,” and the rather expansive canvas of “Sancta Mater” bring new interpretations to the familiar texts.

RachmaninoffThere is a Canadian connection to the Three Russian Songs, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s final work for chorus and orchestra. Composed for the same program at which his last piano concerto also premiered, the work was first presented by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski – with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir as the choral group (supplemented by some Russian bassi profundi singers recruited specifically for the concert). Scored for only alto and bass voices, the set’s three traditional Russian folksongs are laid out in a fast-slow-fast conventional format, beginning with “Cherez rechku” (“Over a Brook, a Swift-Running Brook”), a surprisingly dark-hued tale of lost love, with wild fowl as a metaphor, and set to the eddying rhythm of a swift stream.

The second song, “Akh ty, Vanka” (“Ah, Vanka! What a Hothead You Are”) is the longest of the three, and set to a Largo tempo; another song of lost love. The altos sing of being abandoned by a deceptive lover. In the final song, “Belilitsy, rumyanitsy, vy moi” (“White of My Cheeks, Blush of My Cheeks”), a young bride anticipates a punishment she feels her husband will dole out, all due to a misunderstanding. Most of the choral singing is done in unison or in octaves; harmonies are used sparingly and to great effect.

PERFORMERS SPOTLIGHT

Spotlight on Zillur Rahman John

Some of you may recognize Zillur Rahman John. It’s because he has worked at the Winspear Centre since 2008. But most of you will be learning for the first time that before he came to Canada, Zillur had a thriving performing arts career in Bangladesh. His area of expertise is in non-verbal acting – mime, pantomime, and interpretive movement. In addition to forming his own non-verbal performance troupe, he is a published author on the subject, and has travelled the world performing, teaching workshops and master classes, and expanding the global reach of this universal language of non-verbal performance.

About Michele Capalbo

Rarely is the opera world treated to the talents of a genuine Verdian soprano; Michele Capalbo is that rarity. Whatever the role, Ms. Capalbo’s portrayals of her characters’ emotional and psychological journeys are tempered by a remarkable discipline in the bel canto vocal tradition. Her consistently stunning performances make clear Ms. Capalbo’s talents include a devotion to classical singing’s inherent beauty and drama. Widely renowned as an interpreter of Verdi and Puccini, Michele Capalbo excels in capturing both the vulnerability and strength of some of opera’s greatest heroines, a specialty that prompted Opera News to proclaim her “a world-class Aïda”. Her impressive performance credits have already taken her to stages across North and South America as well as Europe. She is in demand for starring roles such as Verdi’s Desdemona, Lady Macbeth,

Zillur believes in the transcendent power of pantomime ballet because it expresses emotions and thoughts that everyone experiences, without the barriers of language and inflection. “Realize how your body works, how your body speaks,” Zillur says “through your face, it touches people who are watching and observing you as your character.” He was thrilled to be approached by Bill Eddins and asked to help with the production. After several meetings, talking and sharing their thoughts and impressions of the story, Zillur signed on and dove into the work, absorbing its themes, complex emotions, and captivating music. “When I first heard this music, I didn’t understand anything… I thought, ‘it’s too complicated.’ But after spending some time with the music, speaking with Mr. Eddins, and workshopping the material with the director, John Ullyatt, Zillur came to see that, “there is something hidden in the music. It’s really a wonderful and exciting piece of art.”

This performance marks Zillur’s first on the Winspear Centre stage and we are thrilled to have found such a perfect fit for his unique and universal mode of expression, pantomime.

Elisabetta, Amelia, and both Leonoras. In the verismo repertoire, her roles include Puccini’s Tosca, Madama

Butterfly, Minnie, and Manon Lescaut. She has been described by Opera News as “A statuesque beauty with strong stage presence” and someone who “may well be the verismo soprano we’ve been waiting for”.

No stranger to the symphonic stage, Michele Capalbo’s recent worldwide concert performances have included Verdi’s Requiem with the Nashville Symphony; Mahler’s 8th Symphony in Bergen, Norway; Poulenc’s Stabat Mater in Florence, Italy; and Beethoven’s 9th with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. She looks forward to engagements in Ottawa and Saskatoon. Her debut recording, the independently produced Christmastide, is inspired by the relationship of Mother and Child. The disc features Verdi’s rarely heard Ave Maria for soprano and strings, sacred songs, lullabies, and new arrangements of classic carols.

This is Ms. Capalbo’s debut with the ESO.

About the Richard Eaton Singers

Founded in 1951 by the late Richard S. Eaton, Edmonton’s symphonic choir Richard Eaton Singers (RES) has played a leading role in the cultural community of the city for six decades. RES performances have included many Edmonton premieres of choral masterpieces, such as Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, and Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony. RES has also commissioned and produced world premiere performances by Canadian composers, including Mark Sirett’s In Praise of Music, Christos Hatzis’ The Sepulcher of Life, and The Houses Stand Not Far Apart by John Estacio. In March 2010, the choir premiered A Song of the Seasons by Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson with text by E.D. Blodgett, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Leonard Ratzlaff’s artistic leadership of RES. The choir recently commissioned John Estacio to compose branche (text by Ted Blodgett) in memory of former choir member Frieda H. Haliburton. This work premiered in Edmonton on June 22 of this year.

The choir has traveled extensively across Canada, to the Netherlands, Britain, and Germany, and has exchanged with other choirs including the Vancouver Bach Choir. RES is honoured to have been associated with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra for 62 years. This partnership has created many memorable choral events in our city, including the September 1997 performance of Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand, to commemorate the opening of the Francis Winspear Centre for Music.

The choir last appeared with the ESO in December 2014.

ABOUT THE COMPLETION PROJECT

As the Francis Winspear Centre for Music approaches its 20th year as one of Edmonton’s arts jewels in the downtown core, the organization is seeking to fulfill the City’s original requirements for the land and serve long-term needs identified by the community. What is now a surface parking lot will be transformed into a mixed-use building that integrates immersive arts experiences with practical commercial uses, including a childcare centre, with approximately 40,000 square feet of additional cultural space. The Winspear Completion Project will feature a 500-seat multi-use acoustic hall, studio space, flexible education and programming space, and improved support space for the users of the entire facility. This project will become the home base for the community programming offered through the Tommy Banks Place for Musical Creativity and allow increased capacity for education, outreach, and partnership with sister arts organizations and business partners.

The site is located in the heart of Edmonton’s Downtown Arts District, on the west side of 97 Street between 102 and 102A Avenues. The architectural design will transform the now inhospitable corner of 97 Street and 102 Avenue, enhancing the beauty of downtown with people-friendly streetscaping and dramatic architectural design, and bringing the area to life with performers, children, and foot traffic at all hours. The project opens up possibilities for comfortable and safe pedestrian mobility in all seasons, including sheltered outdoor pathways that lead from downtown to the River Valley and indoor access to public transit and Pedway networks that connect City Hall, Canada Place, the Shaw Conference Centre, and Churchill Square. The Winspear sits on the doorstep of the Quarters and Boyle Street neighbourhoods and the Completion Project will unite Downtown and Quarters Revitalization. The Winspear Centre is a destination for locals and visitors alike, sitting atop bicycle parking, bus routes, the Churchill LRT station, and the Pedway system, and will connect to an attached state-of-the-art automated parkade.For more info visit: http://www.winspearcentre.com/wins-about/expansion

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Béla Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945)Béla Bartók was born in the small Hungarian town of Nagyszentmiklós, now present-day Romania. His father was Hungarian and his mother was of mixed German and Hungarian descent. While both of his parents were musical, Bartók received his earliest instructions in music from his mother. After the death of his father is 1889, Bartók’s family moved around eventually settling in Pozsony (present-day Bratislava), where Bartók was able to study and perform his music for growing audiences. Guided by the influence of Strauss’ musical scores, Bartók’s early compositions wove in the themes and cadences of the folklore and folk music traditions of Hungary. Later, after discovering the music of Franz Liszt, Bartók began digging into what he called “peasant music”. Among his many influences, the work of Wagner was extremely impactful on the composer. It is perhaps this influence, particularly Wagner’s concept of the gesamptkunstwerk or total work of art, which inspired the pantomime ballet The Miraculous Mandarin which incorporates not only symphonic music, but also dance, set design, and storytelling. For more on Bartók, visit: http://bit.ly/1FnC5P0

PoulencThe medieval reflection on the grief-stricken mother of Christ at the cross of her son is one of the most poignant sacred texts ever written. Known in Latin as Stabat Mater (“The sorrowful mother stood”), its immediate emotional impact has attracted a number of composers to it. A short list of those who have set it includes Palestrina, Haydn, Rossini, Dvořák, Howells, Pärt, and Szymanowski.

Francis Poulenc, as one of the members of the French circle known as Les Six, established an early reputation for that group’s penchant for light, breezy, often mischievous music that was a deliberate counter to the over-serious and epic music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a consequence, when he turned to more serious music himself later in life, it was not always well received. Following the death of his friend, artist Christian Bérard, Poulenc was moved to compose a work in his memory. Poulenc’s setting of the Stabat Mater is in twelve brief movements, and is scored for chorus and orchestra, with a solo soprano in three of the movements (“Vidit sum,” “Fac ut portem,” and “Quando corpus”). Unlike some of his other compositions of the time, Poulenc’s Stabat Mater was extremely well received, and won the New York Critics’ Circle Award for best choral work in 1951.

Poulenc makes some daring choices in the way he sets the texts. The drama and darkness of the opening “Stabat mater dolorosa,” or the chromatic choral harmonies against the dissonances in the orchestra of the “Quam tristis,” and certainly the slow procession of the sarabande tempo of “Fac ut portem” and the fire and brimstone nature of “Inflammatus et accensus” are musically portrayed as one might expect. But the pastoral nature of “Quae moerebat,” the strong and declamatory “Quis est homo,” and the rather expansive canvas of “Sancta Mater” bring new interpretations to the familiar texts.

RachmaninoffThere is a Canadian connection to the Three Russian Songs, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s final work for chorus and orchestra. Composed for the same program at which his last piano concerto also premiered, the work was first presented by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski – with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir as the choral group (supplemented by some Russian bassi profundi singers recruited specifically for the concert). Scored for only alto and bass voices, the set’s three traditional Russian folksongs are laid out in a fast-slow-fast conventional format, beginning with “Cherez rechku” (“Over a Brook, a Swift-Running Brook”), a surprisingly dark-hued tale of lost love, with wild fowl as a metaphor, and set to the eddying rhythm of a swift stream.

The second song, “Akh ty, Vanka” (“Ah, Vanka! What a Hothead You Are”) is the longest of the three, and set to a Largo tempo; another song of lost love. The altos sing of being abandoned by a deceptive lover. In the final song, “Belilitsy, rumyanitsy, vy moi” (“White of My Cheeks, Blush of My Cheeks”), a young bride anticipates a punishment she feels her husband will dole out, all due to a misunderstanding. Most of the choral singing is done in unison or in octaves; harmonies are used sparingly and to great effect.

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FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015

SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 2015

THE MIRACULOUS MANDARIN