Miss Julie (opera)
Encyclopedia
Miss Julie is an opera
by Ned Rorem
to an English libretto
by Kenward Elmslie, based on the play, Miss Julie
by Swedish playwright August Strindberg
on the subject of the intersection of social class and illicit sexual relations in late 19th-century Sweden.
. The production was conducted by Robert Zeller and directed by Nikos Psacharopoulos with scenic and lighting design by Will Steven Armstrong, costume design by Patton Campbell, and choreography by Thomas Andrew. The opera was not a critical success, and Rorem revised the score and shortened it to a single act in 1978; this version lasts 90 minutes and was first performed that same year by the New York Lyric Opera. The one-act version underwent further slight revisions and was produced again in 1994 by the Manhattan School of Music
Opera Theatre. This version was praised by James Oestreich, music critic of The New York Times
, as "taut and persuasive musical drama", and was recorded and released on on the Newport Classic label. Another recording, of a production on 7 November 2003 by the Curtis
Opera Theatre, has been released on Albany Records.
s, 2 oboe
s, 2 clarinet
s, 2 bassoon
s, 3 horn
s, 2 trumpet
s, 2 trombone
s, timpani
, 2 additional percussion
players (xylophone
, slapstick
, gong
, triangle
, vibraphone
, tambourine
, cymbal
s, tenor drum
, glockenspiel
, castanets, chimes, suspended cymbal
, bongos), guitar
, harp
, strings
.
The jaded daughter of the Count, Miss Julie, orders her fiancé Niels to kiss her boot, whereupon he breaks off their engagement in disgust. Later that evening John, the valet, and his fiancée Christine, the cook, sit with Miss Julie. Miss Julie flirts with John, who eventually admits he has loved her since boyhood. On the following day John and Miss Julie discuss how they will spend their lives together, and John expresses his desire to go to Lake Como
to make his living running a hotel. When Miss Julie admits she has no money of her own to finance such an undertaking, John demands she somehow find some, so Miss Julie steals money from the Count. Meanwhile Christine discovers John's intentions and threatens to quit her job with the Count. The lovers prepare to escape, but Miss Julie demands to take her canary with her. Angered, John kills the bird. She grabs his razor and threatens to slit her wrists, and he suggests she go ahead and do it. The Count rings for John, and he leaves, as Julie goes slowly into the garden and follows his suggestion.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
by Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...
to an English libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Kenward Elmslie, based on the play, Miss Julie
Miss Julie
Miss Julie is a naturalistic play written in 1888 by August Strindberg dealing with class, love, lust, the battle of the sexes, and the interaction among them...
by Swedish playwright August Strindberg
Strindberg
Strindberg may refer to:People* August Strindberg , Swedish dramatist and painter* Nils Strindberg , Swedish photographer* Anita Strindberg , Swedish actor* Henrik Strindberg , Swedish composerOther...
on the subject of the intersection of social class and illicit sexual relations in late 19th-century Sweden.
Performance history
The opera was commissioned by, and had its first performance, in its original two-hour, two-act version, on 4 November 1965 at the New York City OperaNew York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
. The production was conducted by Robert Zeller and directed by Nikos Psacharopoulos with scenic and lighting design by Will Steven Armstrong, costume design by Patton Campbell, and choreography by Thomas Andrew. The opera was not a critical success, and Rorem revised the score and shortened it to a single act in 1978; this version lasts 90 minutes and was first performed that same year by the New York Lyric Opera. The one-act version underwent further slight revisions and was produced again in 1994 by the Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
Opera Theatre. This version was praised by James Oestreich, music critic of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, as "taut and persuasive musical drama", and was recorded and released on on the Newport Classic label. Another recording, of a production on 7 November 2003 by the Curtis
Curtis Institute of Music
The Curtis Institute of Music is a conservatory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that offers courses of study leading to a performance Diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in Opera, and Professional Studies Certificate in Opera. According to statistics compiled by U.S...
Opera Theatre, has been released on Albany Records.
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, 4 November 1965 (Conductor: Robert Zeller) |
|---|---|---|
| Miss Julie, 25, daughter of the Count Count A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is... |
soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody... |
Marguerite Willauer |
| John, 30, the valet | bass-baritone Bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende... |
Donald Gramm Donald Gramm Donald Gramm was an American bass-baritone whose career was divided between opera and concert performances. His appearances were primarily limited to the United States, which at the time was unusual for an American singer... |
| Christine, 28, the cook | mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above... |
Elaine Bonazzi |
| Niels, 38, Miss Julie's fiancé | tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2... |
Richard Krause |
| Wildcat boy | soprano (or boy soprano) | Betsy Hepburn |
| Stableboy | bass | Don Yule |
| Young couple | soprano tenor |
Joan Summers Nico Castel |
| Chorus: revellers, servants, and farmhands | ||
Instrumentation
The orchestra consists of: 2 fluteWestern concert flute
The Western concert flute is a transverse woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, or flute player....
s, 2 oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, 2 clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, 2 bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, 3 horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
s, 2 trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, 2 trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, 2 additional percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
players (xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
, slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
, gong
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
, triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
, vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
, tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s, tenor drum
Tenor drum
A tenor drum is a cylindrical drum that is higher pitched than a bass drum.In a symphony orchestra's percussion section, a tenor drum is a low-pitched drum, similar in size to a field snare, but without snares and played with soft mallets or hard sticks. Under various names, the drum has been used...
, glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, castanets, chimes, suspended cymbal
Suspended cymbal
right|thumb|Classical suspended cymbalA suspended cymbal is any single cymbal played with a stick or beater rather than struck against another cymbal. A common abbreviation used is sus. cym., or sus. cymb. .-History:...
, bongos), guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
, strings
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
.
Synopsis
- Place: the servants' quarters of a country estate in SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. - Time: a Midsummer Eve celebration in the 1880s.
The jaded daughter of the Count, Miss Julie, orders her fiancé Niels to kiss her boot, whereupon he breaks off their engagement in disgust. Later that evening John, the valet, and his fiancée Christine, the cook, sit with Miss Julie. Miss Julie flirts with John, who eventually admits he has loved her since boyhood. On the following day John and Miss Julie discuss how they will spend their lives together, and John expresses his desire to go to Lake Como
Lake Como
Lake Como is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of 146 km², making it the third largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore...
to make his living running a hotel. When Miss Julie admits she has no money of her own to finance such an undertaking, John demands she somehow find some, so Miss Julie steals money from the Count. Meanwhile Christine discovers John's intentions and threatens to quit her job with the Count. The lovers prepare to escape, but Miss Julie demands to take her canary with her. Angered, John kills the bird. She grabs his razor and threatens to slit her wrists, and he suggests she go ahead and do it. The Count rings for John, and he leaves, as Julie goes slowly into the garden and follows his suggestion.
External links
- Scoring, synopsis and audio sample: Boosey & Hawkes
- Review: "OPERA REVIEW; 'Miss Julie,' to Rorem's Music", New York Times, 9 Dec 1994