Download Concerts of Thursday, June 7 and Saturday, June 9, 2012, at 8:00p

Concerts of Thursday, June 7 and Saturday, June 9, 2012, at 8:00p
Robert Spano, Conductor
James Alexander, Stage Director
Cast (In Order of Vocal Appearance)
Storyteller: Eric Owens, Bass-Baritone
Kumudha: Jessica Rivera, Soprano
The Prince: Russell Thomas, Tenor
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus,
Norman Mackenzie, Director of Choruses
John Adams (b. 1947)
A Flowering Tree (2006)
Libretto by John Adams and Peter Sellars adapted from the ancient Indian folktale
and poetry in translations by A. K. Ramanujan.
Act I
Act I, Scene 1
One morning…
Kumudha’s Prayer
Scene 2: Flores Chorus
Kumudha and her sister…
Scene 3: Audience with the King
Mamá Mamá, ¿Por qué nos pegas?
Scene 4: The Wedding
They brought her to me
Bride and Groom
The bride sunk her face…
Act II
Act II, Scene 1: Orchestral Prelude
“You are cruel.”
“Kumudha once more…”
“Days passed…”
Scene 3: Before I laughed with him nightly
Scene 4: Kumudha and the Beggar Minstrels
Scene 5: We had all but forgotten you, Prince
The Prince recognizes Kumudha
Kumudha’s Final Transformation
By arrangement with Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes company, publisher
and copyright owner.
Notes on the Program by Ken Meltzer
A Flowering Tree (2005)
John Adams was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on February 15, 1947. The
first performance of A Flowering Tree took place at the MuseumsQuartier, in
Vienna, Austria, on November 14, 2006. The cast included Eric Owens
(Storyteller), Jessica Rivera (Kumudha), and Russell Thomas (The Prince). The
composer conducted the Orquesta Joven Camerata de Venezuela and the Schola
Cantorum Caracas. A Flowering Tree is scored for lyric soprano, tenor and
baritone, mixed chorus, piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, soprano
recorder, alto recorder, three clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon,
four horns, piccolo trumpet, two trumpets, timpani, Percussion 1 (glockenspiel,
woodblock, claves, pedal bass drum, snare drum, two suspended cymbals, two tuned
bongos, tom tom, shaker, three temple blocks, cowbell, bongo, maracas, bass drum,
two Japanese bowl gongs Chinese cymbal, two triangles, slapstick), Percussion 2
(chimes, triangle, tambourine, woodblock, suspended cymbal, rainmaker, bass
drum, castanet, bongo, snare drum), Percussion 3 (maracas, tambourine,
rainmaker, high triangle, low pitch tubular wind chimes), Percussion 4 (shaker,
rainmaker), harp, celesta and strings. Approximate performance time is two hours,
fifteen minutes.
These are the first Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performances.
John Adams’s opera, A Flowering Tree, was a co-commission by New Crowned Hope
Festival, the Berlin Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Barbican Center and
Lincoln Center. Peter Sellars, Director of the New Crowned Hope Festival, invited
various artists to create works inspired by the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791), in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Austrian composer’s
birth.
John Adams chose one of Mozart’s final operas, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), K.
620 (1791), as the inspiration for A Flowering Tree. For John Adams, Mozart’s late
works were “of almost totemic significance for me as an adolescent…I would not be the
same person today had not these pieces existed.” The libretto of A Flowering Tree,
authored by Mr. Adams and Mr. Sellars (long-time collaborators), is adapted from the
ancient Indian folktale and poetry in translations by A. K. Ramanujan (1929-1993). In
both The Magic Flute and A Flowering Tree, the hero and heroine undergo severe trials,
surviving them through the redemptive powers of music and love.
A Flowering Tree features three vocal soloists; the Storyteller (baritone), Kumudha (lyric
soprano) and the Prince (tenor). Here, it should be noted that the voice types for the hero
and heroine of A Flowering Tree are identical to their counterparts in Mozart’s The
Magic Flute, Pamina and Tamino. The chorus assumes various roles throughout A
Flowering Tree.
While the text for the three principals is in English, the chorus sings in Spanish. John
Adams explains:
I did this in part because I knew that for our first Vienna performances I
would have the luxury of Maria Guinand’s famous Schola Cantorum de
Venezuela chorus…I also felt that Spanish had become my second
language, that its sonorities and particular rhythmic profile had become
expressive of my daily life in California.
A Flowering Tree premiered on November 14, 2006, at the MuseumsQuartier, in Vienna.
The composer conducted the Orquesta Joven Camerata de Venezuela and the Schola
Cantorum Caracas. The vocal soloists—Eric Owens (Storyteller), Jessica Rivera
(Kumudha) and Russell Thomas (The Prince)—all reprise their creator roles in these
concerts.
The first performance of A Flowering Tree took place a year after the premiere of John
Adams’s previous opera, Dr. Atomic (2005). Dr. Atomic, another John Adams-Peter
Sellars collaboration, concerns the events surrounding the creation of the first nuclear
weapons in Los Alamos, New Mexico (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performances of
November 21 and 23, 2008).
The contrast between the stark and often violent sound world of Dr. Atomic and the
sublime lyricism of A Flowering Tree is stunning. But in that sense, John Adams is
following in the footsteps of other great opera composers. In 1865, German composer
Richard Wagner shocked the music world with Tristan und Isolde, an opera in which
aching chromatics mirror the principals’ frustrated love. Wagner’s next opera, the
comedy The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (1868), radiates sunshine from start to finish.
Italian composer Pietro Mascagni’s violent, one-act Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic
Chivalry) (1890) is credited with introducing verismo to the opera world. The following
year, Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz premiered. The contrast between Cavalleria and the
ensuing lyrical, romantic comedy could not be more profound. Giuseppe Verdi’s
penultimate opera, Otello (1887), is the immortal Italian composer’s musical setting of
Shakespeare’s great tragedy, Othello. For his final opera, Verdi once again turned to
Shakespeare, but this time to the story of the rotund knight, Sir John Falstaff. Verdi
admitted that in his comic masterpiece, Falstaff (1893), “certain passages are so droll that
the music has often made me laugh while writing it.”
In each of these cases, Wagner, Mascagni, Verdi and John Adams chose not to adhere to
any convention or formula, no matter how successful. Instead, they created the ideal
music for the specific drama. In the case of A Flowering Tree (and Mozart’s The Magic
Flute), it is music of life-affirming beauty, eloquence and poignancy.
Synopsis
Act I
The Storyteller (baritone) sets the stage. In the south of India, a poor field laborer lives
with her two daughters. The younger daughter, Kumudha (soprano), desperately wants to
help her mother. With the aid of her sister, Kavinila, Kumudha transforms herself into a
flowering tree. Kavinila picks the beautiful flowers from Kumudha’s branches. After
restoring Kumudha to human form, the sisters sell the flowers in front of the King’s
Palace. The sisters repeat this ritual, week after week.
One day, the Prince (tenor) follows the sisters to their home. While hiding in a tree, the
Prince witnesses Kumudha’s magical transformation. The Prince is greatly troubled, and
relates what he saw to his father, the King.
The King summons Kumudha’s mother, and orders her to bring her younger daughter to
the palace. The mother, confused by this turn of events, returns home and beats her
daughters. When the mother learns the truth, she begs for their forgiveness.
The Prince and Kumudha are married. For several nights after the wedding, the Prince is
distant and sullen. Finally, the Prince demands that Kumudha transform herself for him.
Kumudha assents, and the two make love.
Act II
One of the Prince’s sisters hides in the royal chamber. She witnesses Kumudha’s
amazing transformation. One day, the Prince goes off to hunt. The Prince’s sister orders
Kumudha to perform the transformation. Kumudha reluctantly agrees to the demand.
But the Princess and her friends abandon Kumudha without returning her to human form.
A rainstorm causes Kumudha to become part tree, and part human. Minstrels come upon
the horribly misshapen Kumudha, and take her with them.
The Prince does not understand why his wife has disappeared. He becomes a beggar,
wandering aimlessly throughout the countryside.
Beggars carry Kumudha from town to town. Despite her horrible appearance, Kumudha
is still able to move people through the beauty of her singing.
The Prince wanders through the desert, and arrives at a distant town. The Prince’s sister,
who betrayed Kumudha, is now the town’s Queen. The Queen recognizes her brother,
but is unable to cure his despair.
The Queen’s maids go into town, where they hear Kumudha’s beautiful song. They bring
Kumudha to the Palace. The maids bathe and clothe Kumudha, and anoint her with oil.
They bring Kumudha into the Prince’s room, and place her on the bed next to him. The
Prince and Kumudha recognize each other. The Prince restores Kumudha to human
form.