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Overview, BRAHMS’ DOUBLE CONCERTO
A Jacobs Masterworks Concert
February 11, 12, 13
Jahja Ling, conductor
William Preucil, violin; Eric Kim, cello
Erin Wall, soprano
Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano
Bruce Sledge, tenor; Robert Breault, tenor
Evan Hughes, bass
San Diego Master Chorale
MOZART: Overture to The Marriage of Figaro
BRAHMS: Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor: Double Concerto
SCHUBERT: Mass No. 6 in E-flat
With world-class vocal, cello and violin soloists (including Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster William Preucil), plus the majestic San Diego Master Chorale, this overflowing concert from the heart of the classical repertoire is not to be missed! Featuring a rare performance of the Franz Schubert Mass in E-flat.
Click here to listen to an audio preview from Nuvi Mehta.
Notes, Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg
Died December 5, 1791, Vienna
The Marriage of Figaro, based on the Beaumarchais play that had been banned for its theme of social injustice and its portrayal of servants outsmarting their masters, had its premiere in Vienna on May 1, 1786, and promptly began a successful run. In many respects, Figaro marked the high point of Mozart’s success during his lifetime. On a visit to Prague the following year to conduct the opera, Mozart reported that “here nothing is talked of but Figaro, nothing played but Figaro, nothing whistled or sung but Figaro, no opera so crowded as Figaro, nothing but Figaro.”
Mozart customarily composed the overtures to his operas last, and that was probably the case with The Marriage of Figaro, though there is no evidence that he had to stay up all night before the final rehearsal to get it done, as was the case with Don Giovanni. Mozart’s overtures were usually in sonata form, but he abandoned that form here, and for good reason. The Marriage of Figaro is witty, brilliant, and wise, and it needs an overture that will quickly set its audience in such a frame of mind. This overture is very brief (barely four minutes), and Mozart drops the development section altogether. He simply presents his sparkling themes (there are six of them, even in so short a space!), recapitulates them, and plunges into the opera. Evidence suggests that he had originally begun to compose a D-minor Andante as an interlude at the center of the overture, but saw that it would be out of place and crossed it out.
From the first instant, when this music stirs to life, to its sudden explosions of energy, the overture has delighted all who hear it and is the perfect lead-in to the comic escapades (and human insight) that will follow. Faced with having to choose a performance marking for his players, Mozart dispensed with any description of the emotional character he wanted from a performance. He simply chose one word, and it is perfect: Presto.
Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, Opus 102: Double Concerto
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg
Died April 3, 1897, Vienna
This unusual concerto was Brahms’ last work involving orchestra–he wrote it at Lake Thun in Switzerland during the summer of 1887 when he was 54 and then wrote nothing more for orchestra during the final decade of his life. The concerto is dedicated to violinist Joseph Joachim, and this dedication marks the tentative reconciliation of Brahms and Joachim after a bitter estrangement. They had been close friends since their early twenties, but in 1880 Brahms had taken the side of Joachim’s wife during their divorce, and the two men had not spoken for seven years when Brahms took the first step in 1887, writing to tell Joachim of the concerto and to ask if he was interested in performing it. The two men gradually (if gingerly) resumed relations, and Joachim was the violinist, Robert Hausmann the cellist, and Brahms the conductor when the concerto was premiered in Cologne on October 18, 1887.
The “Double Concerto” is a very unusual piece of music–Brahms himself called it “a strange flight of fancy.” It resurrects a form long dead–the baroque concerto grosso–and marries it to the grand nineteenth-century virtuoso concerto. The result is a hybrid: this music sets individual soloists against the main body of the orchestra (as did the concerto grosso), but also makes extraordinary demands on the two soloists, who play much of the time without the orchestra. Particularly striking are the smooth flow of melodic line between soloists (Brahms suggested that he wanted the music to sound like “a concerto for giant violin”) and the complex interweaving of the two solo parts. Brahms himself was unsure about the result and with his usual self-deprecation grumbled to Clara Schumann that the composition of such works should be “left to someone else who understands fiddles better than I do.”
The originality of this music is evident from its first instant: immediately after the opening orchestral flourish Brahms gives the soloists their cadenzas, and only when these are complete does the long orchestral exposition of this sonata-form movement begin. The character pitches sharply from the dramatic to the rhapsodic and to the whimsical, and along the way Brahms makes effective use of complete silence–there are a number of grand pauses and other breaks between phrases.
The Andante opens with wind calls, and then the two soloists in octaves sound the long theme that forms the basis of this lyric movement. The finale evokes Brahms’ lifelong love of Hungarian music (older record collectors may remember the famous 1939 Heifetz/Feuerman/Ormandy recording on 78's that had a painting of a young gypsy woman dancing on a phonograph record floating in the clouds). This movement is in modified rondo-form based on its gypsy-like opening theme, announced immediately by the cello. The main alternating episode, also introduced by cello, is developed at such length that the movement shows signs of turning into sonata form. Along the way, Brahms seems to bring back thematic material from the first movement (something almost unknown in his music), but it is the dancing opening theme that dominates this lively movement, and at the close this idea hurls the music to its fiery close.
Mass No. 6 in E-flat Major, D. 950
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Born January 31, 1797, Vienna
Died November 19, 1828, Vienna
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Schubert’s religious beliefs have been a matter of uncertainty to his biographers. Though raised a Catholic, he did not attend mass as an adult, and when the composer’s friend Ferdinand Walcher once sent him an invitation that began “Credo in unum Deum!,” Walcher felt compelled to add, “You do not, I well know.” In setting the text of the mass, composers have always been free to omit certain lines, and it is significant that in all six of Schubert’s settings of the mass he cut two lines from the Credo: “Et in unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam” (“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church”).
But it should be quickly noted that if Schubert had reservations about dogma and the church, he had no hesitation about setting religious texts to music, and he wrote such settings across the span of his brief life. In addition to his six masses, Schubert made multiple settings of the Salve regina, Tantum ergo, Stabat mater, Kyrie, Benedictus, Dona nobis pacem, and many other liturgical texts, including several short settings in the weeks before his death. There is no reason to think any of this music insincere–Schubert’s beliefs may have not coincided with the institutions around him, but they appear to have been strong nonetheless.
Schubert wrote the Mass in E-flat Major, his last mass, during the miraculous final months of his life. Though weak over those last months (he was in fact fatally ill), Schubert worked at white heat across 1828, completing the “Great” C-Major Symphony and composing the three final piano sonatas, the String Quintet in C Major, the Schwanengesang songs, and a number of other works. He began the Mass in E-flat Major in June 1828 and completed it in July, just before setting to work on the piano sonatas.
Four years earlier–in May 1824–Schubert had apparently attended the concert at which Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and movements from the Missa Solemnis were premiered in Vienna. The Ninth Symphony made a great impression on Schubert (he quoted it in his “Great” C-Major Symphony), but the Missa Solemnis–with its contrapuntal intensity and searing drama–appears to have had less of an impact. Or at least it was not a model Schubert chose to follow in his own setting of that text. Schubert’s Mass in E-flat Major is on a broad scale (it spans more than 50 minutes), but throughout this music the emphasis is on lyricism rather than grandeur, devotion rather than drama, simplicity rather than complexity. Further, the musical focus in the Mass in E-flat Major is on the chorus. Schubert may call for five vocal soloists (soprano, mezzo-soprano, two tenors, and a bass), but at no point are these soloists given a movement of their own–in fact, the soloists remain silent in three of the mass’s six movements.
The opening Kyrie is set at a moderate tempo, Andante con moto, and even within its first measures Schubert’s harmonic daring is evident. The music seems to speed ahead at the “Christe eleison,” but in fact Schubert’s tempo remains the same; the movement is rounded off with a return of the opening Kyrie, now modified harmonically.
The Gloria gets off to a spirited start, pushed along by dramatic leaps from the violins. The music slows and turns dark at the “Domine Deus,” and Schubert sets the “Quoniam” to the music that opened the movement. The Gloria concludes with a fugue on “Cum sancto spiritu”; the fugue subject here is long, and the extended fugue drives the movement to its conclusion on a grand “Amen.”
Longest of the movements, the Credo begins with sound of quiet timpani, and that soft roll will act as a transition at many points throughout this movement. The chorus’s opening “Credo in unum Deum” eventually gives way to the “Et incarnatus est,” and now for the first time in the Mass we hear the sound of soloists: the soprano and two tenors sing this section, which flows easily along its 12/8 meter. The chorus returns (“Et resurrexit”), and the movement concludes on another fugue (“et vitam venturi”) that drives to a resounding close on a great tutti chord in E-flat major.
The Sanctus may be at a slow tempo (Adagio), but this music quickly explodes at the “Domine Deus Sabaoth,” which Schubert marks triple forte. The music rises to the same dynamic at “pleni sunt terra et coeli,” then rushes ahead on a powerful fugue at the “Osanna,” once again full of those sudden and expressive modulations that Schubert could manage with such mastery. The Benedictus (finally) features the soloists, but soon Schubert is alternating the sound of the solo quartet with the sound of the full chorus. The movement is rounded off with a reprise of the “Osanna” fugue from the Sanctus.
The Agnus Dei gets off to a grim start in dark C minor as the chorus sings of the sins of mankind. Relief comes at the “Dona nobis pacem”: here the music moves into E-flat major, and this prayer for peace sounds warm and consoling after the movement’s dramatic beginning. But Schubert is not content to let the mass end on this note–he recalls the anguished beginning and eventually brings his final mass to a conclusion that seems to be equally aware of the darkness and the light that define the human condition.
Schubert never heard a note of this music. He completed the Mass in E-flat Major during the summer of 1828, set the music aside and rushed on to other compositions. The mass was still in manuscript when he died that November at age 31, and it was not performed until nearly a year after his death: his brother Ferdinand led a performance in a Viennese suburb on October 4, 1829. Many years later, a young newcomer to Vienna (and a great admirer of Schubert) arranged the vocal score of this mass for publication. His name was Johannes Brahms.
-Program notes by Eric Bromberger
WHY THIS PROGRAM? “What overture is as happy as Mozart’s to The Marriage of Figaro?” asked our maestro. “It is written as presto clear through, and its bubbling sounds are like champagne for this special season.” Continuing with his theme of happiness, Jahja Ling commented about his own feelings centered on having a pair of superb soloists coming to play the Brahms “Double” Concerto. “Their coming here to perform this is a real tribute to the growth of our orchestra. Eric Kim is especially welcomed back here. He was my first cello soloist when I initially tried to program the ‘Double’ Concerto here, prior to his leaving for Cincinnati. The wonderful Bill Preucil is very familiar to our audiences, and certainly as a great friend to me. He even played at Jessie’s and my wedding! I have wanted to program this great work again for the past few years, but now, with performers like these, the treat for me, the orchestra and the audience will be as happy as the Mozart overture.” In a little different mood, our maestro waxed enthusiastic about the Schubert mass that follows intermission. He noted that, as in his wonderful songs, Schubert’s melodies achieve the highest level of perfection, as well as the capacity to move his listeners. “This piece is just beautiful.”
Buren Roscoe Schryock conducted Mozart’s Overture to The Marriage of Figaro with the early San Diego Symphony in 1915. Nino Marcelli conducted it several times during the 1920’s and 1930’s, and Leslie Hodge led it with the short-lived San Diego Philharmonic during its 1951-52 season. It was also featured on the last program played by the pre-War SDSO in August, 1941, with Nicolai Sokoloff conducting. The revived, post-war orchestra played it for the first time under Fabien Sevitzky in the 1951 season, and it has been repeated at least once during the tenure of each following music director. Most recently, it was played in the 1990-91 season under Yoav Talmi. (It was also a “winning” piece played on December's free Peoples Choice concert.)
The Brahms “Double” Concerto was programmed here for the first time when Eudice Shapiro and Edgar Lustgarten were the soloists under Earl Bernard Murray in December, 1963, as a memorial to John F. Kennedy. Lynn Harrell conducted and soloed during the most recent outing of the score, in the season 1989-90. The Schubert Mass No. 6 in E-Flat is being heard at these concerts for the first time.
-by Melvin G. Goldzband, Symphony Archivist
Artists,
Violinist William Preucil became concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra in April 1995 and has appeared regularly as a soloist with the Orchestra in concerto performances at both Severance Hall and the annual Blossom Festival.
Prior to joining The Cleveland Orchestra, Mr. Preucil served for seven seasons as first violinist of the Grammy-winning Cleveland Quartet, performing more than 100 concerts each year in the world’s major music capitals. Telarc International recorded the Cleveland Quartet performing the complete cycle of Beethoven’s 17 string quartets, as well as a variety of chamber works by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Brahms.
From 1982 to 1989, William Preucil served as concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, after previously holding the same position with the orchestras of Utah and Nashville. During his tenure in Atlanta, he appeared with the Atlanta Symphony as soloist in 70 performances of 15 different concertos. Composer Stephen Paulus’s Violin Concerto was written for, and dedicated to, Mr. Preucil, who premiered it and then recorded it for New World Records with the Atlanta Symphony and conductor Robert Shaw. Mr. Preucil also has made solo appearances with the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Hong Kong, Minnesota, Rochester and Taipei.
Mr. Preucil regularly performs chamber music, acts as a guest soloist with other orchestras, and performs at summer music festivals. His North American festival performances have included Santa Fe, Sarasota, Seattle and Sitka, with international appearances in France, Germany and Switzerland. Each summer, he serves as concertmaster and violin soloist with the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra in San Diego. Mr. Preucil also continues to perform as a member of the Lanier Trio, whose recording of the complete Dvořák piano trios was honored as one of Time magazine’s top 10 compact discs for 1993. The Lanier Trio also has recorded the trios of Mendelssohn and Paulus for Gasparo Records.
Actively involved as an educator, Mr. Preucil serves as Distinguished Professor of Violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music and at Furmen University. He previously taught at the Eastman School of Music and at the University of Georgia.
William Preucil began studying violin at the age of five with his mother, Doris Preucil, a pioneer in Suzuki violin instruction in the United States. At 16, he graduated with honors from the Interlochen Arts Academy and entered Indiana University to study with Josef Gingold (former concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra). He was awarded a performer’s certificate at Indiana University and also studied with Zino Francescatti and György Sebök.
Eric Kim, Principal Cellist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1989-2008, has performed throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and the Middle and Far East as a recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestra. At age 15, he made his solo debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Kim has appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Cincinnati, Denver and San Diego, and was a featured soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra on its critically acclaimed tour of the Far East. He has collaborated with such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Paavo Järvi, Jesús López-Cobos, Sergiu Comissiona and Lawrence Foster. As a recitalist, Mr. Kim has been heard in the cities of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Active as a chamber musician, Mr. Kim has performed with such artists as Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Lynn Harrell, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin and Menachem Pressler. At the invitation of Pinchas Zukerman, he performed with Zukerman at festivals of Athens, Mostly Mozart, Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) and Verbier. He has also participated in several tours to South America and Israel as a member of the “Pinchas Zukerman and Friends” chamber ensemble. Highlights include chamber music debuts at Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts performing both Brahms Sextets with Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Michael Tree, among others. Mr. Kim can also be heard at the festivals of Aspen, Bravo! Colorado (Vail), La Jolla and Santa Fe. Mr. Kim has also made several recordings for the RCA, EMI and Koch labels.
As a teacher, Mr. Kim has students in major orchestras throughout the world and is a Valade Program teacher at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. He also is a regular coach and performer at the Music Masters Course in Kasuza, Japan. He is on the faculty of Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music.
Born of Korean parents in New York City, Mr. Kim grew up in Illinois where he began piano studies with his mother at the age of five. At age 10, he began his cello studies with Tanya L. Carey. Mr. Kim received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School where he studied with Leonard Rose, Lynn Harrell and Channing Robbins. Upon graduation, Mr. Kim received the first William Schuman Prize, awarded for outstanding leadership and achievement in music.
Soprano Erin Wall is one of today’s most versatile sopranos with an extensive opera and concert repertoire that spans three centuries from Mozart and Beethoven to Britten and Strauss.
Ms. Wall’s current season includes her return to some of her best roles: the Countess in Nozze di Figaro and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with the Bavarian State Opera, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the title-role in La Traviata with the Vancouver Opera. She will also create the role of Cecilia in Bramwell Tovey’s new opera The Inventor with the Calgary Opera. In concert, Erin Wall will sing Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Edinburgh Festival and Donald Runnicles, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons, the Orchestre National de France and Daniele Gatti and on tour with the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Prague, Hamburg and Hannover with Christoph Eschenbach. Further concerts include Strauss’ Four Last Songs with the Houston Symphony, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Nashville Symphony and a recital with the Aldeburgh Connection in Toronto. In the future Erin Wall will return to the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Santa Fe Opera and the Edinburgh Festival, and will make debuts with the Canadian Opera Company and the Dallas Opera, all in leading roles.
Erin Wall’s most recent seasons saw her make a series of debuts with the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera in her signature role of Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, as well as at La Scala as Helena in Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and with the Los Angeles Opera as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. She returned to her home company, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, in a new role, Konstanze, in a new production of Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail and added to her repertoire the four heroines in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Santa Fe Opera, along with the role of the Countess in Strauss’ Capriccio with Pacific Opera Victoria. Past seasons included a three-season engagement as a member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Center for American Artists. At Lyric Opera, Ms. Wall has sung Marguerite in Faust and First Lady in Die Zauberflöte, among other roles. Ms. Wall made her European concert debut in Britten’s War Requiem with the London Symphony Orchestra and has also appeared in concert with the Vancouver Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and the Grant Park and Ravinia Festivals.
Among the awards and career grants that Ms. Wall has received are the 2004 ARIA Award from the Aria Foundation, a Richard Tucker Award (2004) and a Sara Tucker Study Grant (2002) from the Richard Tucker Foundation. She represented Canada in the finals of the 2003 BBC Singer of the World in Cardiff competition to critical acclaim and has also received awards from the Dallas Opera Career Grant Competition, the George London Foundation, the MacAllister Awards, the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions,and the Florida Grand Opera’s Young Artists’ Competition.
Born to American parents in Calgary, Alberta, Ms. Wall studied piano at the Vancouver Academy of Music throughout her childhood. She holds music degrees from Western Washington University and Rice University. She also attended the Aspen Music Festival and the Music Academy of the West.
A winner of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton has been described by Opera News as “a rising star” with a “sumptuous voice. Ms. Barton is also a recent graduate of the Houston Grand Opera Studio.
In the 2010-11 season, Ms. Barton performs Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte with the Metropolitan Opera and Dryad in Ariadne Auf Naxos with Houston Grand Opera. Concert appearances include: Domenico Scarlatti’s rarely performed comic intermezzo La Dirindina with Ars Lyrica (Music of the Baroque) and Mozart’s Requiem with Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra under Edo de Waart. She presents recitals in Jacksonville and Sarasota, Florida, and appears as a guest soloist in the Marilyn Horne Foundation Gala at Carnegie Hall.
In the 2009-10 season, Ms. Barton made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte and performed Emilia in Otello with the Canadian Opera Company. In concert, she performed Bernstein’s Opening Prayer and Jeremiah Symphony with the Colorado Symphony under Marin Alsop. She also appeared in recital with the Vocal Arts Society at the Kennedy Center, under the auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation, as well as Carnegie Hall as part of their “Great Singers III: Evenings of Song” series. This summer, Ms. Barton returns to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro.
In recent seasons, Ms. Barton appeared with the Houston Grand Opera as Ursula in Béatrice et Bénédict, Giovanna in Rigoletto, and Mrs. Rolandson in the world premiere of André Previn’s Brief Encounter. Ms. Barton made her Weill Hall debut in a duo recital with tenor Russell Thomas, presented by the Marilyn Horne Foundation. Jamie Barton made her professional debut as Annina in La Traviata with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and also covered such roles as Olga Olsen in Street Scene, Katisha in The Mikado, Mrs. Rochester in the American premiere of Michael Berkeley's Jane Eyre, and Betsy in the world premiere of David Carlson’s Anna Karenina. Recently, she returned to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Suzuki in their production of Madame Butterfly, followed by performances of the Witch in Hansel and Gretel with Aspen Music Festival. As a graduate student of Indiana University, Ms. Barton performed roles such as Tisbe in La Cenerentola, Buttercup in HMS Pinafore, and Mrs. Soames in the 2006 world premiere of Ned Rorem's Our Town.
An avid recitalist, Ms. Barton has appeared with the Marilyn Horne Foundation “On Wings of Song” recital series, and made her Spivey Hall debut singing Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody, which was also broadcast on NPR. Ms. Barton has received extensive training as a recitalist at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was a Fellow in Vocal Studies.
Tenor Robert Breault enjoys an international career that features an extraordinary breadth of repertoire. His warm, flexible voice and superb artistic sensibilities combine to make him a consummate singing actor. Opera News noted, “Besides a ductile tenor that allows him to negotiate a full dynamic span, from silvery head tone to ringing forte, even within a single phrase, Breault offers truly superb diction.” Opera News also praised him for making “an excellent impression, his mellifluous tenor boasting clarity of both tone and diction; clearly reveling in high notes, he sang with notable dynamic variety.”
During the 2010 - 11 season he will join the Edmonton Opera as Cavaradossi in Tosca, the Florida Bach Festival for performances of Bach’s St. John Passion and the National Philharmonic for Berlioz’s Requiem. He will also sing the roles of Snare and Shallow in Gordon Getty’s Plump Jack with Bayerische Rundfunkorchester, among others.
During the 2009 – 2010 season, Breault joined the Edmonton Opera for the first time in the role of the Duke in Rigoletto. In 2009, Breault made appearances with the San Diego Symphony in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, the Florida Bach Festival for performances of Bach’s B Minor Mass and Mozart’s Requiem, and in December of 2009 Breault returned to Phoenix for performances of James DeMars’ Guadalupe. In 2010, Breault joined the Utah Symphony under the baton of Andrew Litton in performances of Verdi’s Requiem, and for the Santa Fe Opera Robert covered the title roles in Tales of Hoffman and the world premiere of Lewis Spratlan’s Life is a Dream.
Breault’s concert career highlights include performances with major orchestras worldwide including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Atlanta Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, London Philharmonia Orchestra, National Symphony of Taiwan, Jerusalem Symphony, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, San Francisco Symphony and the Utah Symphony, to name but a few.
Breault’s opera career features a wide array of repertoire and companies. Performances with New York City Opera include Carmen, La Traviata, and Semele, for which he was awarded the company’s “Kolozsvar Award.” He has performed numerous times with the Atlanta Opera, Opera Orchestra of New York and the Arizona Opera.
Mr. Breault's recording credits include Laurent Petitgirard's world premiere recording of Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man with The Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo as well as a live DVD recording with Opéra de Nice. Breault has also recorded Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass with the Choeur St. Lawrence and Montreal Symphony, DeMars' American Requiem with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Berlioz’s Requiem with the Jerusalem Symphony and Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and three volumes of Pachelbel's Organ Works as the cantor with organist Marilyn Mason. His performance with the Utah Symphony and Mormon Tabernacle Choir of Vaughan Williams’ Hodie with Keith Lockhart was broadcast nationally on PBS.
Born and raised in Wisconsin, Breault received his Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan in 1991 and graduated Magna Cum Laude from St. Norbert College. He serves as Professor of Music and Director of Opera at the University of Utah.
Bruce Sledge is one of today’s most in-demand tenori di grazia and sings a wide variety of repertoire with many international houses. For the 2009-10 season, Mr. Sledge appeared as Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore with Atlanta Opera, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte with Opera Hong Kong, the Duke in Rigoletto with Tulsa Opera, and Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with the Hamburgische Staatsoper. In concert, he returned to the San Francisco Symphony for Stravinsky’s Pulcinella.
In the 2008-09 season, Mr. Sledge marked his return to Japan for performances of Rodrigo in Rossini’s Otello (a role debut for the artist) with Pesaro’s prestigious Rossini Opera Festival on tour, followed by a recital appearance for Marilyn Horne’s 75th Birthday Gala at Carnegie Hall. Additional opera engagements included a return to the Vancouver Opera as the Duke in Rigoletto and a debut with the Teatro Regio di Torino as Ernesto in Don Pasquale. Mr. Sledge also appeared with the San Francisco Symphony in the Schubert Mass No. 6 under Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas.
Recently, the tenor made a series of impressive debuts with several of the world’s most prestigious houses: the Lyric Opera of Chicago (the Italian Tenor in Der Rosenkavalier), the Deutsche Oper in Berlin (Ernesto in Don Pasquale), La Fenice (Léopold in La Juive), the Royal Danish Opera (Alfredo in La Traviata) and the Pittsburgh Opera (Ferrando in Così Fan Tutte). He made his San Francisco Symphony debut as the Shepherd in Oedipus Rex with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. Bruce Sledge made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Almaviva and returned to the New York City Opera as Ernesto in Don Pasquale (after a triumphal debut in the house as Almaviva) and debuted with the Tulsa Opera, again as Almaviva.
Mr. Sledge has recorded the role of the Fox in Spanish and Catalan versions of Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen for the BBC with Kent Nagano and joined Mr. Nagano in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Berkeley Symphony in the spring. Other concert work included concerts of Don Giovanni in Lisbon with the Gulbenkian Foundation as well as Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer with the New York City Ballet. Mr. Sledge made an extraordinary debut at the Rossini Opera Festival (as Leicester in Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra) as well as at the Teatro Real in Madrid (in Don Pasquale). Another important event of that season was the artist’s appearance in recital at Carnegie’s Weill Hall under the auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation. Bruce Sledge was seen on the NBC sitcom Scrubs and he can be heard on the soundtrack of the motion picture The Sum of All Fears.
Mr. Sledge was a finalist in the 2002 World Voice Masters Competition in Monte Carlo, a finalist in Placido Domingo’s Operalia 2000 World Opera Contest and a national finalist in the 2000 Loren L. Zachary Vocal Competition. In 1998, he was a Western Regional Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions. Bruce Sledge received his master’s degree in vocal arts from the University of Southern California, being awarded the most outstanding music masters graduate.
Bass-baritone Evan Hughes is in his first year of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. A champion of twentieth-century music, Mr. Hughes has performed Elliott Carter's Syringa at Carnegie Hall with the MET Chamber Ensemble, under the baton of James Levine, as well as at the Tanglewood Music Festival. Last season, he participated in the U.S. Department of State Festival of Cultural Exchange entitled “Ascending Dragon,” held in Los Angeles and Hanoi, Vietnam, where he performed the American and Asian premiere of Carter's On Conversing with Paradise. Evan Hughes's opera roles include Leporello in Don Giovanni conducted by James Levine at the Tanglewood Music Festival, Lord Sidney in Rossini's Il Viaggio a Reims at the Music Academy of West.
Mr. Hughes has garnered attention for his work in recital and on the operatic stage. After winning the grand prize in the Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition, Hughes went on to give his New York City recital debut as a part of the foundation’s “On Wings of Song” series, broadcast on WQXR. In January 2008, he made his Carnegie Hall debut in “The Song Continues…” annual recital. Mr. Hughes joined Dawn Upshaw at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in 2007 to present the world premiere of a new work by “hyper-accordion” player Michael Ward-Bergeman. In addition to this collaboration, Mr. Hughes joined Dawn Upshaw again performing David Bruce’s Piosenki with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
At Tanglewood Hughes performed Carter’s Syringa under the baton of Stefan Asbury, honoring Carter’s 100th birthday. Also at Tanglewood, he collaborated with the Mark Morris Dance Group singing Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzer.
Hughes made his European recital debut in Denmark in collaboration with pianist Mikael Eliasen as a part of the Sommermusik series. He performed several other European recitals in 2008 with the William Walton Foundation at La Mortella in Ischia, Italy, and with the American Academy in Berlin, Germany.
At The Curtis Institute of Music, Evan sang several leading roles in The Curtis Opera including the title role in Don Giovanni, Lord Sidney in Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims, the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro, King Rene in Iolante and José Tripaldi in the Philadelphia premier of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar. Hughes recently obtained his master's degree from the Curtis Institute of Music.
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