2023/24 Season: BEMF Chamber Opera Series

ERICK JOHN FRED

L A M P E ’S

BEMF Chamber Opera Series PAUL O’DETTE & STEPHEN STUBBS, Musical Directors

GILBERT BLIN, Stage Director ROBERT MEALY, Concertmaster MELINDA SULLIVAN, Choreographer

S AT U RDAY, N O V E MBER 2 5 , 2 02 3 SU N DAY, N O V E MB ER 2 6, 2 02 3 New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA

THU R SDAY, N O V E MB ER 3 0, 2 02 3

Wertheim Performing Arts Center at FIU, Miami, FL

S AT U R DAY, D E CEM B ER 2 , 2 02 3

Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy, NY

2023/24 SEASON B E M F. OR G

International Baroque Opera • Celebrated Concerts • World-Famous Exhibition

C ar l Ph i l i PP E m a n uE l BaC h

he omplete orks

The call of sympathetic trombones, O Bach, is for your praise too small; your father and the transfigured Grauns longingly look down from Olympus, rejoicing in your glory. (anonymous poem in a hamburg newspaper, march 1773)

Published by The Packard Humanities Institute cpebach.org

CELEBRATING MUSIC AND PLACE

18–24 OCTOBER 2024

Photograph ©Ben Ealovega

ATOL 3622 | ABTOT 5468 | AITO 5085

The south-east corner of Sicily is blessed with many delights, among them a number of gorgeous 18th- and 19th-century theatres. This festival presents five performances in a selection of these atmospheric buildings, all of which are located amid breathtakingly beautiful Baroque towns and cities. Stay throughout in historic Ortygia, one of the loveliest coastal towns in Italy.

MARTIN RANDALL FESTIVALS bring together world-class musicians for a sequence of private concerts in Europe’s most glorious buildings, many of which are not normally accessible. We take care of all logistics, from flights and hotels to pre-concert talks. Festivals in 2024 also include: Salzburg String Quartet Festival (7–12 May), Mozart Along the Danube (28 July– 4 August) and The Divine Office (30 September– 4 October).

Find out more: martinrandall.com 1-800-988-6168

The Morgan Library& Museum

Exhibitions Seeds of Knowledge: Early Modern Illustrated Herbals Through January 14, 2024

Morgan’s Bibles: Splendor in Scripture Through January 21, 2024

Music at the Morgan

Spirit and Invention: Drawings by Ying Li, piano Giambattista and Domenico Young Concert Artists Tiepolo Wednesday, January 24, 2024 Through January 28, 2024

12 PM

Medieval Money, Merchants, and Opera Prima Morality Tormento Seicento: Love and torment in the music of Through March 10, 2024

Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature February 23 through June 9, 2024

Monteverdi, Rossi, Merula, Caccini, and others Boston Early Music Festival Thursday, February 1, 2024 7:30 PM

Les Arts Florissants

Monteverdi and Carissimi Tuesday, February 13, 2024 7:30 PM For information visit themorgan.org/programs St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble

The Morgan Library & Museum 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street New York City

The concert program is made possible by assistance from Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky, the Joan and Alan Ades-Taub Family Foundation, the Esther Simon Charitable Trust, the Witherspoon Fund of the New York Community Trust, the Theodore H. Barth Foundation, and the following endowed funds: the Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky Fund for Concerts and Lectures; and the Celia Ascher Endowment Fund.

Upper: Ying-Li, photography by Shervin Lainez. Lower: Leaf of a Register of Creditors of a Bolognese Lending Society, Italy, Bologna, ca.

1390–1400. Single leaf. The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.1056, fol. 1v detail.

WELCOM E Dear Friends, We are delighted to welcome you to what is now firmly established as a beloved Thanksgiving weekend tradition in Boston! Since 2008, BEMF’s annual November operatic productions, presented in the intimate setting of NEC’s Jordan Hall, have taken the acclaimed musical and artistic values which are the hallmark of our fully staged Festival operas and focused them on smaller-scale staged works, breathing new life into rarely heard gems and beloved masterpieces alike.

Our all-new 2023 Chamber Opera Series presentation is The Dragon of Wantley, John Frederick Lampe’s deft comedic farce which pokes fun at the Handelian operatic excesses of the day. The opera had its premiere at the Haymarket Theatre in London in 1737 and became one of the most popular and enduring operatic productions in England during the 18th century. Musical Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Stage Director Gilbert Blin, and Choreographer Melinda Sullivan lead a sparkling roster of five singers, two dancers, and over a dozen members of the all-star BEMF Chamber Ensemble with Concertmaster Robert Mealy. Following the two performances in Boston, the production will tour to Miami, Florida, and then to Troy, New York, for a final performance at the historic Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.

We hope you enjoy these performances—in person or in a later virtual viewing—and we look forward to seeing you on Friday evening, December 8, at St. Paul Church in Cambridge, when we welcome Peter Phillips and the magnificent Tallis Scholars for their 35th consecutive annual appearance with BEMF. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of their founding, they return to BEMF with a glorious program in homage to the season, While Shepherds Watched, which includes works by Clemens non Papa, Victoria, Philips, and Obrecht, and which will also be made available for two weeks of online viewing later in December.

Thank you for making BEMF opera a part of your holiday tradition, and our heartfelt thanks for your continued dedication to the Boston Early Music Festival.

Kathleen Fay Executive Director

TA B LE OF C O N T E N T S

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Concert Program Program Notes Artist Profiles Libretto About BEMF Friends of BEMF

9 14 21 38 47 51 1

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Boson Early Music Fesival M AN AG E M E N T Kathleen Fay, Executive Director Carla Chrisfield, General Manager Maria van Kalken, Assistant to the Executive Director Brian Stuart, Director of Marketing and Publicity Elizabeth Hardy, Marketing and Development Associate & Exhibition Manager Perry Emerson, Operations Manager Corey King, Box Office and Patron Services Manager Andrew Sigel, Publications Editor Nina Stern, Director of Community Engagement

AR T IS T IC L E AD E R SHIP Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Artistic Directors Gilbert Blin, Opera Director Robert Mealy, Orchestra Director Melinda Sullivan, Lucy Graham Dance Director

B OAR D OF D IR E C T OR S Bernice K. Chen, Chairman | David Halstead, President Brit d’Arbeloff, Vice President | Lois A. Lampson, Vice President Susan L. Robinson, Vice President Adrian C. Touw, Treasurer | Peter L. Faber, Clerk Michael Ellmann | George L. Hardman | Ellen T. Harris | Glenn A. KnicKrehm Robert E. Kulp, Jr. | Miles Morgan | Bettina A. Norton Lee S. Ridgway | Ganesh Sundaram | Christoph Wolff

B OAR D OF OVE R S E E R S Diane Britton | Gregory E. Bulger | James S. Nicolson Amanda Pond | Robert Strassler | Donald E. Vaughan

B OAR D OF T R US T E E S Marty Gottron & John Felton, Co-Chairs Mary Briggs | Deborah Ferro Burke | Mary Deissler | James A. Glazier Edward B. Kellogg | John Krzywicki | Douglas M. Robbe | Jacob Skowronek

B OSTON E A RLY M U S IC FE S T IVA L , IN C .

43 Thorndike Street, Suite 302, Cambridge, MA 02141-1764 Telephone: 617-661-1812 | Email: bemf@bemf.org | BEMF.org

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M E M B ER S OF T HE B E M F C OR PORATION Jon Aaron Debra K.S. Anderson Kathryn Bertelli Mary Briggs Diane Britton Douglas M. Brooks Gregory E. Bulger Julian G. Bullitt Deborah Ferro Burke John A. Carey Anne P. Chalmers Bernice K. Chen Joel I. Cohen Brit d’Arbeloff Vivian Day Mary Deissler Peter L. DeWolf JoAnne W. Dickinson Richard J. Dix Alan Durfee Michael Ellmann Peter L. Faber Emily C. Farnsworth Kathleen Fay Lori Fay John Felton Frances C. Fitch Claire Fontijn James A. Glazier Marty Gottron Carol A. Haber David Halstead George L. Hardman

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Ellen T. Harris Rebecca Harris-Warrick Richard Hester Jessica Honigberg Jennifer Ritvo Hughes Edward B. Kellogg Thomas F. Kelly Glenn A. KnicKrehm Christine Kodis John Krzywicki Kathryn Kucharski Robert E. Kulp, Jr. Ellen Kushner Christopher Laconi Lois A. Lampson Thomas G. MacCracken William Magretta Bill McJohn Miles Morgan Nancy Netzer Amy H. Nicholls James S. Nicolson Bettina A. Norton Scott Offen Lorna E. Oleck Henry P.M. Paap James M. Perrin Bici Pettit-Barron Amanda Pond Melvyn Pond Paul Rabin Christa Rakich Lee S. Ridgway

Michael Rigsby Douglas M. Robbe Michael Robbins Susan L. Robinson Patsy Rogers Wendy Rolfe-Dunham Loretto Roney Thomas Roney Ellen Rosand Valerie Sarles David W. Scudder Andrew Sigel Jacob Skowronek Arlene Snyder Jon Solins Robert Strassler Ganesh Sundaram Adrian C. Touw Peggy Ueda Donald E. Vaughan Ingeborg von Huene† Nikolaus von Huene Howard J. Wagner Benjamin D. Weiss Ruth S. Westheimer Allan Winkler Hal Winslow Christoph Wolff Arnold B. Zetcher Ellen Zetcher

† deceased

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Boson Early Music Fesival

Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Artistic Directors

2023/24 SEASON Enjoy concerts performed by the world’s most charismatic and inspiring artists—all available in person and online! Subscribe to 3 or more programs and enjoy the music YOU love and save 10%. n VIRTUAL AVAILABILITY: DECEMBER 2 – DECEMBER 16

I Gemelli

EMILIANO GONZALEZ TORO, Director & tenor ZACHARY WILDER, tenor

JOHN FREDERICK LAMPE’S

VIRTUAL AVAILABILITY: DECEMBER 9 – DECEMBER 23

n FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8 VIRTUAL AVAILABILITY: DECEMBER 15 – DECEMBER 29

The Tallis Scholars PETER PHILLIPS, director

WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED 6

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n SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3 VIRTUAL AVAILABILITY: FEBRUARY 17 – MARCH 3

Opera Prima

CRISTIANO CONTADIN, Director AMANDA FORSYTHE, soprano TORMENTO SEICENTO: Love and torment in the music of Monteverdi, Rossi, Merula, Caccini, and others

n FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23 VIRTUAL AVAILABILITY: MARCH 8 – MARCH 22

Le Consort

A JOURNEY THROUGH BAROQUE EUROPE: Music by Bach, Vivaldi, Corelli, Purcell, Rameau, and others

n SATURDAY, MARCH 2 VIRTUAL AVAILABILITY: MARCH 16 – MARCH 30

Boston Early Music Festival Vocal & Chamber Ensembles PAUL O’DETTE & STEPHEN STUBBS, Musical Directors

A GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS: Marco Marazzoli’s extravagant musical entertainments

n FRIDAY, APRIL 5 VIRTUAL AVAILABILITY: APRIL 20 – MAY 4

Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI LE NUOVE MUSICHE: The Baroque Revolution in Europe (1560–1660)

n FRIDAY, APRIL 19 VIRTUAL AVAILABILITY: MAY 3 – MAY 17

Stile Antico

A DIVINE HOPE: Dante’s journey from inferno to paradise

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Boson Early Music Fesival

2023 Chamber Opera Series Named Gift Sponsorships Boston Early Music Festival extends sincere thanks to the following individuals for their leadership support of the November 2023 performances of The Dragon of Wantley:

o

Glenn A. KnicKrehm and Constellation Charitable Foundation Principal Production Sponsors

Lorna E. Oleck

Sponsor of Robert Mealy, Concertmaster, Melinda Sullivan, Choreographer, and Teresa Wakim, Margery

Andrew Sigel

Sponsor of Hannah De Priest, Mauxalinda, Aaron Sheehan, Moore, and John Taylor Ward, The Dragon

Bernice K. Chen

Sponsor of Gilbert Blin, Stage Director

Tony Elitcher and Andrea Taras

Sponsors of Kathleen Fay, Executive Producer

James A. Glazier

Sponsor of Stephen Stubbs, Musical Co-Director

David Halstead and Jay Santos

Sponsors of Paul O’Dette, Musical Co-Director

George L. Hardman

Sponsor of Gonzalo X. Ruiz, oboe

Harriet Lindblom

Sponsor of Michael Sponseller, harpsichord

Harold I. Pratt

Sponsor of Sarah Darling, viola

Donald E. Vaughan and Lee S. Ridgway Sponsors of Douglas Williams, Gubbins

Kenneth C. Ritchie and Paul T. Schmidt Sponsors of the pre-opera talks by Ellen T. Harris

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Boson Early Music Fesival

C H A M BE R O PE RA S E RIES PRE SE NTS

Music composed by John Frederick Lampe (1702/03–1751) Libretto by Henry Carey (1687–1743) Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors Gilbert Blin, Stage Director Robert Mealy, Concertmaster Melinda Sullivan, Choreographer Seth Bodie, Costume Designer Kelly Martin, Lighting Designer Jason McStoots, Assistant Stage Director Kathleen Fay, Executive Producer Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 8pm Sunday, November 26, 2023 at 3pm New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, Massachusetts Thursday, November 30, 2023 at 8pm Wertheim Performing Arts Center at Florida International University 10910 SW 17th Street, Miami, Florida Saturday, December 2, 2023 at 8pm Troy Savings Bank Music Hall 30 Second Street, Troy, New York Saturday, December 9 – Saturday, December 23, 2023 Virtual Availability, BEMF.org 2 023/ 20 2 4 SEASON

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VO C A L CA ST Teresa Wakim, soprano – Margery Hannah De Priest, soprano – Mauxalinda Aaron Sheehan, tenor – Moore, of Moore-Hall John Taylor Ward, bass-baritone – The Dragon Douglas Williams, bass-baritone – Gaffer Gubbins, father to Margery

BOS T O N E ARLY MU SIC F E S T IVA L DA NC E C O MPA NY Sonam Tshedzom Tingkhye – Kitty, younger sister of Margery Julian Donahue – Robin, footman of Moore

BOSTON E ARLY M U SIC F E S T IVA L C HAMBE R E NSE MBL E Robert Mealy & Cynthia Roberts, violin Sarah Darling, viola David Morris, violoncello Doug Balliett, double bass Gonzalo X. Ruiz, oboe Kathryn Montoya, oboe & recorder Dominic Teresi, bassoon John Thiessen & Brandon Bergeron, trumpet* Todd Williams & Nathanael Udell, horn* Michelle Humphreys, percussion** Maxine Eilander, Baroque harp Michael Sponseller, harpsichord Paul O’Dette, archlute Stephen Stubbs, Baroque guitar * Boston performances only **Boston and Troy performances only

Double-manual German harpsichord by Allan Winkler, Medford, Massachusetts, 1989, after Fleischer, property of the Boston Early Music Festival (Boston performances only)

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T E C HN I C A L CR E W A N D SU P P O RT STA F F Mercedes Roman-Manson, Production Manager Elizabeth Hardy, Company Manager Perry Emerson, Operations Manager Maria van Kalken, Assistant to the Executive Producer Carmen Catherine Alfaro, Production Stage Manager Aspen Davis, Assistant Production Stage Manager Jacqueline Quintal, Costume Supervisor Lindsay Hoisington, Stitcher and Dresser Melinda Abreu, Wig, Hair, and Makeup Artist Dan McGaha, Supertitles Supervisor and Operator Ricardo Roman, Production Operations Assistant Mara Yaffee, Intern, Assistant to the Stage Director Kathy Wittman, Videographer and Photographer Antonio Oliart Ros, Recording Engineer

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Kathleen Fay and the Boston Early Music Festival wish to thank the following organizations and individuals for assistance with this production: The Early Music Company, Ltd. and Brian Clark for permission to use Peter Holman’s edition of The Dragon of Wantley Peter Holman, director, musicologist, and editor of The Dragon of Wantley score, and Ellen T. Harris, MIT Class of 1949 Professor of Music Emeritus, Handel scholar, and author, for their advice and consultation throughout our Chamber Opera preparations Stephen Stubbs, for his selection of the additional dance music of Thomas Arne Stephen Stubbs, Robert Mealy, and Perry Emerson, for their transcriptions and arrangements of Arne’s dance music Ellen T. Harris, for her engaging pre-concert talks before each Boston performance Julie Barry, Senior Planner, Arts & Culture, City of Salem, and Delia Faria, Planning Assistant, Arts & Culture, City of Salem, Department of Planning & Community Development, for their assistance with our rehearsal venue Margie Lopez, Risë Kern, Miles Morgan, and RK Cultural Productions, for their assistance with BEMF’s performance at the Wertheim Performing Arts Center, Florida International University, Miami Jon Elbaum, Stacey Bridge, and Ryan Murray, for their assistance with our BEMF début at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy, New York Beth Pasquarello, Corporate and Group Sales Manager, Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, and Kaitlyn Condon, Group Sales Manager, Hilton Boston Park Plaza in Boston, for their gracious hospitality Marilyn & Raymond Smith, and Gwen Gober, for their gracious hospitality Janet Swaasland, for her assistance with private housing for BEMF artists BEMF staff members Carla Chrisfield, Elizabeth Hardy, Perry Emerson, and Maria van Kalken, for their thoughtful and comprehensive caretaking of our Dragon of Wantley Company, and Brian Stuart and Corey King, for their fastidious work in connection with marketing and box office management for these productions Andrew Sigel, for his meticulous attention to detail as editor of our publications including the material contained in this program book The Staff at New England Conservatory of Music, especially Carlos Dolan, Director of Production & Event Services, and Bob Winters, Director of Performance Production Services, for their support and technical assistance Hal Winslow, Member of the BEMF Corporation, for his technical and administrative assistance 12

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Boson Early Music Fesival 2023/24 Named Gift Sponsorships

Boston Early Music Festival extends sincere thanks to the following individuals and institutions for their leadership support of our 2023/24 Season:

o David M. Kozak and Anne Pistell

Sponsors of the December 2023 performance by The Tallis Scholars and Peter Phillips, Director

David Halstead and Jay Santos

Sponsors of the October 2023 performance by Le Poème Harmonique

Susan L. Robinson

Sponsor of the November 2023 performance by I Gemelli

Andrew Sigel

Sponsor of James Reese, tenor, and Jesse Blumberg, baritone, for the March 2024 performance by the BEMF Vocal & Chamber Ensembles

Donald E. Vaughan and Lee S. Ridgway

Sponsors of Zachary Wilder, tenor, for his November 2023 performance with I Gemelli

o Not only do Named Gifts help provide the crucial financial support required to present a full season of extraordinary performances, but they are doubly meaningful in that they send a message of thanks to your most beloved artist, musicians, and directors—that their work means something to you.

You can help make this list grow. For more information about investing in BEMF performances with a Named Gift, please email Kathleen Fay at kathy@bemf.org, or call the BEMF office at 617-661-1812. Your support makes a difference. Thank you.

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P R O GRA M E S SAY S S TAG E MO N S TE R A ND O T H E R O P ERA B EA STS The success of The Dragon of Wantley is credited to the juxtaposition of the crude inanities of the libretto by Henry Carey (1687–1743) and the ambitious score of John Frederick Lampe (1702/03–1751). The mix of the two artistic components brings the piece to an exceptional level of oddity. Created in 1737, Carey’s “burlesque opera” is inspired by a wellknown old English ballad, telling the story of the dragon of Wantley in Yorkshire defeated with a “kick on the Back-side” by “Moore of Moore-hall.” On this popular outline where the “furious knight” is satirically evocative of the labors of mythological heroes and biblical saints, Carey and Lampe created “A burlesque opera (…) Moderniz’d from the old ballad after the Italian manner.”

The specificity of The Dragon of Wantley resides, indeed, in the stylistic gap between the refined seriousness of the musical writing and the light nonsense narrated by the action and displayed in the lyrics. As the silly story unfolds, the words become more and more eccentric, and the piece ends in a comical lingo that adds elements of Italian into English, for which noble music is written. Henry Carey was the multitalented man who took on this strange project: a prolific songwriter, polemicist poet, and creative dramatist, his production was vast and varied. In the spirit of the time, Carey often moaned in his writings about the quality of the entertainments Londoners could then enjoy. But unlike many of his contemporaries who complained about the theatrical offerings but did little to contribute to new forms, Carey never stopped creating during his career, and The Dragon of Wantley was his most successful piece.

For his subject matter, Carey was likely inspired by The Touch-stone: or, Historical, 14

Critical, Political, Philosophical, and Theological Essays on the Reigning Diversions of the Town, published in 1728. In this book, the anonymous writer proposed to compose a mock opera of this very dragon of Wantley, albeit the witty theorist may not have intended it to be done “after the Italian Manner,” which means fully sung in the style and structure of Italian opera. Lampe sets the entire text of The Dragon of Wantley to music, de facto imitating Handel’s own Italian operas. Furthermore, the score is written for an orchestra with instrumentation similar to Handel’s. Using the forms of extensive da capo arias with florid coloraturas, secco or accompagnato recitatives, fugal choruses, and “lieto fine,” all worthy of a big stage, Lampe’s music suggests that opera seria, despite its musical charms, could be considered nonsensical in its own poetic and dramatic conventions.

In the Preface to his libretto, Carey describes Lampe’s musical setting as being “as grand and pompous as possible.” Lampe, a bassoonist performing in London’s opera houses, was very familiar with the style of opera seria, which then dominated the musical life of London. Five years earlier, in 1732, Lampe and Carey had composed a serious opera, Amelia, on an English libretto, itself fully set to music “in the Italian manner.” This heroic tragedy of love and honor contains various conventions common to Italian operas. The libretto of The Dragon of Wantley uses some of these same conventions but parodies them, while the music gives us a clearer referent. The goal of The Dragon of Wantley would be ambiguous had Carey failed to clarify that the satire was of poetic nature: his libretto was composed as an Italian one, mocking Italianate idiosyncrasies by replicating the idiom. Carey himself explains in his preface, which was signed with the macaronic pseudonym of “Carini”: “Many joyous Hours have we shared during its Composition, chopping and changing, lopping, eking out, and coining of Words, Syllables, and Jingle, to display in English the B OS T ON E AR LY M US I C F E ST I VAL

JOHN FREDERICK LAMPE

MEZZOTINT BY JAMES MACARDELL (CA. 1710–1765) AFTER A PAINTING BY S. ANDREA

Beauty of Nonsense, so prevailing in the Italian Operas.”

Revealing “The Beauty of Nonsense” was the goal. Carey is very clear about the objective of his piece: his Dragon is written to lampoon “the Italian Operas,” whose form was already considered extravagant by most English people of the time. The aristocratic plot, the style of language, the affectations of the gallant rhetoric, and other grand conventions of opera seria, are all parodied by Carey. To start with, the plot of The Dragon of Wantley, the story of a damsel in distress saved from a monster by a virtuous hero, caricatures the actions often present in librettos of Italian operas: it can even be found in Handel’s Giustino, which premiered in 1737, the same year as The Dragon of Wantley. Besides the basic plot, the lyrics are full of the hyperboles often used

by Italian librettists, but Carey introduced a vocabulary more evocative of folk songs (in which he had expertise both as a poet and composer) than of poems of arcadian sophistication (a style he dismissed in 1725 in his Panegyrick on the New Versification): the silliness displayed by the characters to express their passions was contrasted and highlighted by the splendor of Lampe’s music.

Lampe and Carey also ridicule the importance that Italian opera gave to vocal virtuosity, emphasizing what they felt was gratuitous 2 023/ 20 2 4 SEASON

and artificial. The lengthy da capo arias of The Dragon of Wantley give the opportunity to savor the charm of the music, but their repetitive structure accentuated the silliness of the poetry. Even the character of the Dragon has a coloratura showpiece, and Lampe’s use of Carey’s coarse lyrics reinforces the comic purpose: in “Oh ho! Master Moore / You son of a whore / I wish I had known your tricks before,” it is the word “whore” that Lampe chooses to highlight by making the dragon vocalize on it. Once again, the interest inevitably comes from the gap between the musical means used to underline a verbal signifier and the idea expressed, both of “low” inspiration.

It was not the first time that Carey disparaged Italian opera and its success in London. His criticisms had been expressed during the previous decade. Animated by a form of nationalism, Carey began to satirize Italian opera in 1726, and in that year he produced Faustina, or, the Roman Songstress, a Satire on the Luxury and Effeminacy of the Age. In this poem, he criticized the new fashion for things foreign, both in dress and manners. Most specifically Carey vilified the obsession of the gentry for Italian opera, embodied here by Faustina Bordoni, the Italian mezzo-soprano who was then singing the leading roles in Handel’s opera company. Faustina was at that time in a hissing fight with another famous singer, Francesca Cuzzoni. Beginning in 1726 with their joint participation in Handel’s 15

Alessandro, the two prima donnas had been associated under the title “The Rival Queens”; their rivalry was a subject of gossips, and cliques were soon formed. Partly a marketing trick, the enmity developed and culminated during a 1727 performance of Bononcini’s Astianatte, when the two divas started to fight on stage, while their adoring fans were feuding in the auditorium to support their respective champions. The parallel between these Italian stars’ extravagances and the actions of characters of The Dragon of Wantley is most evident in the feuding between Moore’s two lovers, an allusion to the competition between Handel’s rival divas.

The next year, in 1727, Carey wrote Mocking is Catching to satirize Senesino, the Italian castrato opera star. In Italian operas, the lead male roles of the plot were given to castrati; their high voices, trained since childhood, were considered to have a stronger power of expressivity and to be more propitious to heroic virtuosity. Senesino created many heroes for Handel, and his fame and wealth became immense; castrati, in accordance with the hierarchical system, were better paid than other singers. The “condition” of the castrato did not leave anyone indifferent, and Senesino’s voice and talents offered an easy target for lampoons.

London’s fashionable society was included in these primarily xenophobic satires. While Senesino left England in 1736, Carey expressed his contempt by composing a song on the

text of his 1727 poem titled “A Sorrowful Lamentation for the loss of a Man and No Man,” wherein he ridiculed the vogue for idolizing the castrati. It is relevant to note that, much like Lampe was to do in The Dragon, Carey set his funny words about Senesino with rather serious and tender music, emphasizing the irony of the poem by the contrast.

In addition to the poetic and musical forms parodied, The Dragon of Wantley offered hints as to how opera seria was perceived in London at the time. Beyond aesthetics, critiques were also made from a social perspective: the targets are here the performers. Italian singers were a big subject in eighteenth-century London: satires, caricatures, and poems were only a few of the printed vectors by which Londoners expressed their opinions on the stars of the London opera stage. As the singers replicated the elaborate excesses of the Italian genre both on and off the stage, The Dragon of Wantley cleverly associated situations that could be the grounds for satire with the behavior of Italian singers. All these connections are supported by the fact that when the song from Act I of The Dragon “On loosing their toast and Butter” was published, the illustrator updated a composition presented in an earlier engraving showing “The Ladies Lamentation for ye Loss of Senesino,” which portrayed the three Italian singers as “The Rival Queens, Signora Faustina and Signora Cuzzoni contending for the Charming Demi-

Engraving by George Bickham Jr. (ca. 1706–1771) for the song by Henry Carey: The Ladies Lamentation for ye Loss of Senesino. The Musical Entertainer, Volume I, p. 38, 1737–1739.

Collection of Gilbert Blin.

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Engraving attributed to George Bickham Jr. (ca. 1706–1771) for the song by Lampe on the text by Carey: On loosing their Toast and Butter, from The Dragon of Wantley. The Musical Entertainer, Volume I, p. 96, 1737–1739.

Collection of Gilbert Blin.

Man.” On this illustration of one of the “songs” of The Dragon of Wantley, we can see, like on many other printed “hits” of the piece, that the costumes and the gestures of the performers were of an operatic nature: the heroic style of Italian operas was also the target of the first staging.

In The Dragon of Wantley, the character of Moore offered regular evidence of this intent: although the role is written by Lampe for a tenor, his scenes are all treated as if they were ones for a castrato. Paralleling a leading role in an opera seria, Moore is the object of an amorous rivalry between the leading female characters, and, like an ancient hero, he undertakes a quest to win one of them. But “gallant Moore of Moore-hall,” despite his heroic attire, is presented by Carey as a lascivious drunk who, after having made Mauxalinda pregnant, fights the dragon to gain the virgin Margery in his bed: “The only Bounty I require, is this, / That thou Margery may’st fire me with an ardent Kiss; / That thy soft Hands may ’noint me over Night, / and dress me in Morning e’er I fight.” The self-conceit of Moore, his appetite for sex, his gluttony (Moore drinks “Beer,” “Cyder,” “Perry,” “bottled Ale,” and “Aquae Vitae”!) were all behaviors attributed to castrati in London’s public opinion. Carey goes as far as to allude to the physiological specificities of Italian castrati, when Mauxalinda, in an aria lauding Moore’s heroic manliness, bluntly announces, “He’s a man every inch, I assure you.” The change of his vocal register, 2 0 23/ 20 2 4 SEASON

highlighted by all the characteristics of a castrato except the essential one, was of comical effect for the Londoners of the time.

By creating, in The Dragon of Wantley, an encounter between the spectator and an object which followed certain conventions of a “noble” genre, but by also associating it with the most popular culture, Carey and Lampe put us in a position of reflection. When listening to the mastery of Lampe’s music and hearing the apparent silliness of Carey’s poetry, we are confronted with a dilemma: can we enjoy it or not? Conscious of the apparent silliness of the plot, Carey addresses this issue in his Preface: “they say ’tis low, very low; now (begging their Worships Pardon) I affirm it to be sublime, very sublime: It is a Burlesque Opera: And Burlesque cannot be too low. Lowness (figuratively speaking) is the Sublimity of Burlesque: If so, this Opera is, consequently, the tip-top Sublime of its Kind.”

This allusion to the “Sublimity of Burlesque” is inspired by the 1727 work of Alexander Pope (1688–1744) who, in his essay Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry, introduced the word “bathos” as a term for the combination of the very high with the very low.

Much like Carey presents his libretto as having been written by the imaginary Carini, the entire Art of Sinking in Poetry is attributed on its cover to Martinus Scriblerus, the fictional 17

figure of a pedantic critic and scholar. The with the frivolous does two things: it violates logic of argumentation common to the Art of the decorum of Italian operas, and it creates Sinking and The Dragon is based on a parodic humor with an unexpected and “improper” reversal of the concept of sublime, replacing juxtaposition of words and music. Carey’s the ascent and aspiration with everything that particular “art of sinking” perfectly accords is truly and fundamentally low. Peri Bathous with the satiric tastes of his days and The is a parody in prose of the Longinus’s Peri Dragon of Wantley, despite its oddity, is truly Hupsous (On the Sublime), with Pope’s primary “the tip-top Sublime of its Kind.” n purpose that of ridiculing contemporary poets.

—Gilbert Blin The Greek treatise was rediscovered in the sixteenth century, but its subsequent impact on poetics is attributed to its translation into French in 1674 by Nicolas BoileauDespréaux (1636–1711).

This French version was republished in English in 1711. Whereas Boileau, inspired by Longinus, had offered a detailed discussion of all the ways in which poetry could ascend or be “aweinspiring,” Pope offers a humorous schematic of the ways in which authors might “sink” in poetry.

Among all these poetic ways to “sink,” the act of combining very serious matters with very trivial ones remains the most The Bathos by William Hogarth obvious in The Dragon Thomas Cook (1744–1818) after William Hogarth (1697–1764) of Wantley. The radical “Tail Piece – The Bathos” juxtaposition of the “seria” Collection of Gilbert Blin.

MUSICAL CROSSCURRENTS IN LONDON OF THE 1730S From his settling in London in 1712, George Frideric Handel dominated the musicaltheatrical life of the city to an unparalleled degree. Earlier attempts, by Purcell and others, to establish a native English tradition of opera from the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 until 1712—mostly by means of semi-opera with spoken dialogue between the purely musical 18

elements—were seemingly swept away by the irresistible force of Handel’s unique genius for musical theater and the bevy of Italian singing stars he brought in his wake. Although Handel and that club of literary and musical talents that were destined to become his competitors (especially John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepusch) had crossed paths in 1718 and 1719 at the country estate of James Brydges (later Duke of Chandos) known as Cannons, where Handel and his collaborators (and soon-to-be rivals) began to experiment with English oratorio B OS T ON E AR LY M US I C F E ST I VAL

and opera (Esther and Acis and Galatea), this project was wholly set aside by Handel in the 1720s when he continued to produce new and exclusively Italian operas in London until 1732.

Meanwhile, John Gay scored a major success with his ballad-opera The Beggar’s Opera in 1728, and the potent impresario (and mime) John Rich, in his capacity as the director of the The New Theatre, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, insisted on employing Pepusch to make musical arrangements of the airs (including several pilfered from Handel operas). Gay had at first intended the radical solution of having the airs sung without accompaniment. Handel may have taken notice of the popularity of the GayPepusch effort, but, as a play with songs, it was hardly a direct competitor to Handel’s Italian opera. Then came a concerted effort by a group of English composers and writers—Thomas Arne, Henry Carey, John Christopher Smith, and John Frederick Lampe—calling themselves the English Opera Company, which Handel could not afford to ignore.

Thomas Arne (1710–1778) was the son and grandson of upholsterers. His father had hoped to see his son pursue a career in the law, but once convinced of his musical talent, father Arne became the impresario managing the talents of his gifted son as well as his daughter Susanna who Thomas had taught to sing (and who was later often featured by Handel under her married name Mrs. Cibber) as well as his younger brother Richard. Just as the Arnes were poised to launch an aggressive rival operation to Handel’s, Handel himself had the inspiration to create a new fashion for English oratorio by reaching back to his 1718 Esther and presenting it at the end of his 1732 opera season. Seizing on the situation, the Arnes presented a staged version of Handel’s Acis and Galatea between the last two performances of Esther, and at a venue directly across the street from Handel’s operation! Handel reacted by creating a new version of Acis and Galatea (conflating the 1718 version with elements from his earlier Italian Aci, Galatea & Polifemo) for performances in June of 1732 and featuring some of the Italian opera stars singing in both Italian and English— and according to witnesses, brutally mangling the latter language.

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In the next season the English company began with Lampe’s opera Britannia featuring the soprano Celia Young, who made such an impression that one of the newspapers published this verse: No more shall Italy its Warblers send To charm our Ears with Handel’s heav’nly Strains; For dumb his rapt’rous Lyre, their Fame must end.

The English Opera Company had tried to create a serious English opera tradition to rival the Italians. Yet despite auspicious beginnings, and a flurry of productions in 1732 and 1733, the effort was to quickly fail, and all the musical and literary talents of the group were sooner or later to be aimed at those genres to which the English audiences were drawn: satire, pantomime, masque, and (following on from the success of The Beggar’s Opera) ballad opera.

A more serious immediate threat to Handel’s predominance was the establishment mid-1732 of a rival Italian opera company: The Opera of the Nobility, featuring first Bononcini and later Porpora as composers and quickly pinching a large portion of Handel’s singers as well as importing the most famous castrato of them all: Farinelli. He arrived in 1734, and in the 1735 season he and Senesino could be seen together on that stage. Farinelli left London in 1737, and serious English opera had proven unsuccessful— but there was a striking result in Handel’s work: over the 1730s he wrote several new English oratorios and after 1741 he never presented an Italian opera on the London stage again.

But what had become of the talents of the English Opera Company? John Christopher Smith presented no new compositions for the remainder of the 1730s, working instead with Handel. Henry Carey, in addition to being the most prolific English songwriter of the eighteenth century, had been the unofficial composer in residence at Drury Lane Theatre since 1722 and composed most of the incidental music for the plays and pantomimes there; for the Haymarket Theatre, in 1734, he wrote the words and music for the satire Chrononhotonthologus, a “mock-heroic 19

burlesque opera,” followed the next year by the ballad opera The Honest Yorkshireman, and in 1737 by the libretto for The Dragon of Wantley. That same year, Arne married the aforementioned soprano Cecilia Young, whose younger sister Isabella in turn married Lampe after her huge success portraying Margery in his burlesque opera composition The Dragon of Wantley. The particular success of that production (running for several seasons to over one hundred performances) set the seal on English eighteenth-century opera as a satirical and humorous genre—the role of serious English music-theater was ceded to Handel’s brilliant invention of the English oratorio.

Arne himself found a special niche in genres which he often called “Masque” or

“Pantomime”—and often of a pronounced patriotic nature including his “Rule Britannia” from the Masque of Alfred (1740) and the official version of “God Save the King” (although the actual author of this song is most likely Carey). In seeking to supply appropriate extra dance music for our production of The Dragon of Wantley, we relied most heavily on Arne’s dance music from the exactly contemporary Masque of Comus (1738), Masque of Alfred (1740), and The Judgment of Paris (1742). The one piece we used from a later part of Arne’s career was found in the irresistibly entitled Achilles in Petticoats (1773): the Scotch Air from the overture to that piece fit our needs exactly for the end of the first act. n —Stephen Stubbs

SY N OPS IS T HE ARGUMENT Wantley, in Yorkshire, and the adjacent Places, being infected by a huge and monstrous Dragon, the Inhabitants, with Margery Gubbins at their Head, apply to Moore of MooreHall, a Valiant Knight, for Relief; he falls violently in Love with Margery, and for her Sake undertakes the Task; at which Mauxalinda, a cast-off Mistress of his, is so enrag’d, that she attempts to kill Margery, but is prevented by Moore, who reconciles the contending Rivals, kills the Dragon, and has Margery as his Reward. n —Henry Carey, ca. 1738

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A R TIS T PROFIL E S A B OU T T HE D I R E C T O RS Paul O’Dette has been described as “the clearest case of genius ever to touch his instrument” (Toronto Globe and Mail). He appears regularly at major festivals the world over performing lute recitals and in chamber music programs with leading early music colleagues. Mr. O’Dette has made more than 150 recordings, winning two Grammy Awards and receiving eight Grammy nominations and numerous international record awards. The Complete Lute Music of John Dowland (a 5-CD set for harmonia mundi usa) was awarded the prestigious Diapason d’Or de l’Année, and was named “Best Solo Lute Recording of Dowland” by BBC Radio 3. The Bachelar’s Delight: Lute Music of Daniel Bacheler was nominated for a Grammy as Best Solo Instrumental Recording in 2006. While best known for his recitals and recordings of virtuoso solo lute music, Paul O’Dette is also active as a conductor of Baroque opera. Together with Stephen Stubbs he won a Grammy as conductor in 2015 for Best Opera Recording, as well as an Echo Klassik Award, for their recording of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers with the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble. Their CDs of Conradi’s Ariadne, Lully’s Thésée, and Lully’s Psyché, with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra on the CPO label, were nominated for Grammys in 2005, 2007, and 2008; their 2015 BEMF CD of Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe on the Erato/ Warner Classics label was also nominated for a Grammy, and received both an Echo Klassik and the coveted Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Their recording of Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants was nominated for a Grammy in 2019. In addition to his activities as a performer, Paul O’Dette is an avid researcher, having worked extensively on the performance of seventeenthcentury Italian and English solo song, continuo practices, and lute repertoire. He has published numerous articles on issues of historical performance practice, and co-authored the John Dowland entry in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Paul O’Dette is Professor of Lute and Director of Early Music at the Eastman School of Music and Artistic Co-Director of the Boston Early Music Festival. He has received the Thomas Binkley Award from Early Music America, and the Eisenhart Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Eastman School of Music.

Stephen Stubbs, who won the Grammy Award as conductor for Best Opera Recording in 2015, spent a thirty-year career in Europe. He returned to his native Seattle in 2006 as one of the world’s most respected lutenists, conductors, and Baroque opera specialists. He now lives with his family in Agua Dulce, California. In 2007, Stephen established his new production company, Pacific MusicWorks (PMW), based in Seattle, reflecting his lifelong interest in both early music and contemporary performance. The company’s inaugural presentation was a production of South African artist William Kentridge’s acclaimed multimedia staging of Claudio Monteverdi’s opera The Return of Ulysses in a co-production with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. PMW’s performances of the Monteverdi Vespers were described in the press as “utterly thrilling” and “of a quality you are unlikely to encounter anywhere else in the world.” Stephen Stubbs is 2 023/ 20 2 4 SEASON

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also the Boston Early Music Festival’s Artistic Co-Director along with his long-time colleague Paul O’Dette. Stephen and Paul are also the musical directors of all BEMF operas, recordings of which were nominated for six Grammy awards, including one Grammy win in 2015. Also in 2015, BEMF recordings won two Echo Klassik awards and the Diapason d’Or de l’Année. In 2017, they received the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. In addition to his ongoing commitments to PMW and BEMF, other recent appearances have included Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in Bilbao, Mozart’s Magic Flute and Così fan tutte for the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, Handel’s Agrippina and Semele for Opera Omaha, Cavalli’s La Calisto and Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie for Juilliard, Mozart’s Il re pastore for the Merola program, and seven productions for Opera UCLA including Cavalli’s Giasone, Monteverdi’s Poppea, and Handel’s Amadigi. In recent years he has conducted Handel’s Messiah with the Seattle, Edmonton, Birmingham, Houston, and Nova Scotia Symphony orchestras. His extensive discography as conductor and solo lutenist includes well over 100 CDs, many of which have received international acclaim and awards.

Gilbert Blin graduated from the Paris Sorbonne with a Master’s degree focusing on Rameau’s operas, an interest that he has broadened to encompass French opera and its relation to Baroque theater, his fields of research as historian, stage director, and set and costume designer. He was awarded a Doctorate from Leiden University for a thesis dedicated to his approach to Historically Informed Staging. His début productions include Massenet’s Werther and Delibes’s Lakmé for Paris Opéra-Comique, and Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable for Prague State Opera.

Since his production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for the Drottningholm Theatre in Sweden in 1998, Dr. Blin has established himself as a sought-after opera director for the early repertoire: he directed Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso for the Prague State Opera, designed and staged Vivaldi’s Rosmira fedele, Handel’s Teseo, and Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il Tigrane for Opéra de Nice, and directed Lully’s Thésée and Lully’s Psyché for the Boston Early Music Festival. As Stage Director in Residence at BEMF beginning in 2008, Gilbert Blin staged a trilogy of English operas: Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Handel’s Acis and Galatea. In 2011, after the staging of Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe, he presented Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs. In 2013, with his production of Handel’s Almira, Gilbert Blin was appointed Opera Director of the Boston Early Music Festival.

Following his acclaimed staging and set designs of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea for the 2009 Boston Festival, Dr. Blin staged Monteverdi’s Orfeo for the BEMF Chamber Opera Series in 2012 and the composer’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria in 2015. Other productions for BEMF include Campra’s Le Carnaval de Venise, Steffani’s Orlando generoso, and Francesca Caccini’s Alcina. In 2016, Gilbert Blin created Versailles: Portrait of a Royal Domain, and in 2022, he staged Lully’s Idylle sur la Paix and Charpentier’s La Fête de Rueil. His recent productions include Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda for Bratislava, Desmarest’s Circé for Boston, and Rameau’s Dardanus for Stockholm.

Robert Mealy is one of America’s most prominent Baroque violinists. The New York Times remarked that “Mr. Mealy seems to foster excellence wherever he goes, whether as director of the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, concertmaster of the Trinity Baroque Orchestra in New York, or at The Juilliard School, as director of the historical performance program.” While still an undergraduate, he was asked to join the Canadian Baroque orchestra Tafelmusik; after graduation he began performing with Les Arts Florissants. Since then, he has recorded and toured with many ensembles both here and in Europe, and served as concertmaster for Masaaki Suzuki, Nicholas McGegan, Helmuth Rilling, Paul Agnew, and William Christie, among others. Since 2005 he has led the BEMF 2 023/ 20 2 4 SEASON

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Orchestra in their festival performances, tours, and award-winning recordings. In New York, he is principal concertmaster at Trinity Wall Street in their traversal of the complete cantatas of J. S. Bach. He is also co-director of the acclaimed seventeenth-century ensemble Quicksilver. In summers he teaches at the American Baroque Soloists Academy in San Francisco and is often a featured artist at William Christie’s summer festival in Thiré. He made his recital début at Carnegie Hall in 2018. Recent chamber projects have ranged from directing a series of Ars Subtilior programs at The Cloisters in New York to performing the complete Bach violin and harpsichord sonatas at Washington’s Smithsonian Museum. Mr. Mealy has directed the Historical Performance Program at The Juilliard School since 2012, and has led his Juilliard students in acclaimed performances both in New York and abroad, including tours to Europe, India, New Zealand, and (most recently) Bolivia. Before coming to Juilliard, he taught for many years at Yale and Harvard. In 2004, he received EMA’s Binkley Award for outstanding teaching and scholarship. He still likes to practice.

Melinda Sullivan is the Lucy Graham Dance Director at the Boston Early Music Festival. She is a well-known movement and dance coach for singers. Her recently produced A Retrospective: The Story of the BEMF Dance Company is available on BEMF’s YouTube page. Ms. Sullivan danced in her first BEMF production—Henry Purcell’s King Arthur—in 1995. She returned to dance and assist the late choreographer Lucy Graham in all subsequent BEMF opera productions over the next twelve years. In 2008, Ms. Sullivan assumed the role of BEMF Ballet Mistress, training dancers and singers in Baroque and Renaissance style and technique. Her first choreography for BEMF was Dido and Aeneas in 2010, following a featured role as the Silent Mover in BEMF’s 2009 production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea. Since then she has choreographed extensively for BEMF, including productions and revivals of Charpentier’s La Couronne de Fleurs and La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and Livietta e Tracollo, Caccini’s Alcina, and most recently the Lully and Charpentier double bill of Idylle sur la Paix and La Fête de Rueil. A graduate of Boston Conservatory, Ms. Sullivan quickly established herself as a dynamic performer in Boston’s modern dance scene. Her studies in Renaissance dance with distinguished historian and teacher of dance, Dr. Ingrid Brainard, led to performances with the Ken Pierce Baroque Dance Company. She created a unique movement and dance program for singers and taught for thirty years, primarily at New England Conservatory and Boston University Opera Institute. From 2008 to 2022, Ms. Sullivan was Resident Choreographer at Central City Opera.

Seth Bodie is currently a Boston-based theater maker. He works primarily as a costume designer, with forays into the milieu of wig and makeup design. He has worked on numerous projects as varied as Baroque opera to absurdist clown shows. His work has been called “photogenically eye catching” and “exuberant” by the New York Times. Seth has an MFA in design from Yale School of Drama and was a finalist for the Opera America design competition.

His website is at sethbodie.com.

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Kelly Martin is a lighting designer and associate based in New York. Mr. Martin’s designs for the Boston Early Music Festival include Desmarest’s Circé, Steffani’s Orlando generoso, Caccini’s Alcina, Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and Livietta e Tracollo, Lully’s Idylle sur la Paix and Charpentier’s La Fête de Reuil, and Versailles: Portrait of a Royal Domain. Further opera credits include Maria Stuarda (Slovak National Theatre), Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Virginia Opera), and Scalia/ Ginsburg and Extraordinary Women (Opera North). Mr. Martin has lit numerous productions in Boston with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, MIT Theater Arts, Suffolk University Theatre Arts, and BU Opera Institute. Theater and dance collaborations include Pick Up Performance Co., The Joyce Theater, New York Theatre Ballet, The Bang Group, Duncan Lyle Dance, and Co•Lab Dance. Mr. Martin is a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829 and an alumnus of Boston University.

Reviewers describe Jason McStoots as having an “alluring tenor voice” (Arts Fuse) and as “the consummate artist, wielding not just a sweet tone but also incredible technique and impeccable pronunciation” (Cleveland Plain Dealer). A respected interpreter of early music, his appearances with BEMF include Le Jeu in Les Plaisirs de Versailles by Charpentier, Damon in Acis and Galatea by Handel, and Phantase in Desmarest’s Circé. Other performances include evangelist and soloist for Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (Bach Collegium San Diego), and soloist for Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 (Green Mountain Project NYC.) He has appeared with Pacific MusicWorks, Les Délices, Folger Consort, and The Newberry Consort. He is a core member of Blue Heron vocal ensemble. He has been Associate Director of the BEMF Young Artist Training Program since 2017 where he is a stage director and mentor. In addition to his shows with the BEMF YATP, he has directed operas for Brandeis University, Connecticut Early Music Festival, Amherst Early Music Festival, and Les Délices.

For more than three decades, Kathleen Fay has served as Executive Director of the Boston Early Music Festival. She is responsible for all administrative, development, financial, and artistic departments of the organization, as well as the management of biennial Festivals, the annual concert seasons in Boston and in New York City at the Morgan Library & Museum, the annual Chamber Opera Series, and the Festival’s Baroque Opera Recording Project. The project features a total of fifteen CDs to date on the CPO and Erato labels, six of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording, and one awarded the Grammy. Ms. Fay is a founding Trustee of the Catalogue for Philanthropy and serves on the boards of the Cambridge Society for Early Music and Constellation Center. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of Harvard University’s Early Music Society. In November 2001, Ms. Fay was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture as a result of her significant contribution to furthering the arts in France and throughout the world. In June 2003, she received the distinguished Arion Award from the Cambridge Society of Early Music for her “outstanding contributions 2 023/ 20 2 4 SEASON

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to musical culture.” And, in June 2011, the Board of Directors of Early Music America named the Boston Early Music Festival, Kathleen Fay, Executive Director, as the 2011 recipient of the Howard Mayer Brown Award, for lifetime achievement in the field of early music. The BEMF Board of Directors established the permanent Kathleen Fay Leadership Fund in February 2017, in recognition of her thirty-year anniversary leading BEMF. Ms. Fay is a widely respected impresario and promoter of early music in North America and Europe. She holds graduate degrees in Piano Performance and Music Teaching from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.

A B OU T T HE VO C A L CAS T With a voice of “extraordinary suppleness and beauty” (New York Times), Grammy-nominated soprano Teresa Wakim won First Prize at the International Soloist Competition for Early Music, and has performed under the batons of Roger Norrington, Harry Christophers, Martin Haselböck, Ton Koopman, and Nicholas McGegan. Solo engagements include Bach’s Mass in B Minor, St. John Passion, and Magnificat with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Bach’s Wedding Cantata with the Cleveland Orchestra, Bach’s Missa Brevis with the San Francisco Symphony, Bach’s Magnificat and St. Matthew Passion with Wiener Akademie Orchester, Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate with the Handel and Haydn Society and New World Symphony, and Handel’s Messiah with the Charlotte, San Antonio, Tucson, Alabama, and Houston Symphonies. In addition, she performs often with Pacific MusicWorks, Boston Baroque, Musica Angelica, Blue Heron, and the Boston Early Music Festival, with whom she has recorded ten albums, including their Grammywinning La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

Possessing a “voice that is theater itself” (Classique News), soprano Hannah De Priest is a fearless performer of an ever-widening range of lyric repertoire. Especially renowned for her “masterful” (Olyrix) singing of Baroque opera, recent stage triumphs include her “winning” (DC Classical Review) Kennedy Center début with Opera Lafayette (Serpine, La servante maîtresse) and her European début as Gilde in L’amazzone corsara (Innsbruck Early Music Festival). With her “glittering, easy soprano” (Merkur), Hannah has garnered attention at numerous important competitions, winning 2nd Prize at the 2021 International Cesti Competition for Baroque Opera. On the concert stage, recent engagements include Handel’s Messiah with Apollo Chorus & Orchestra, Bach’s Johannes-Passion with Columbus Symphony, and Handel’s Dixit Dominus with the Elgin Symphony. A Young Artist with BEMF in 2017, Hannah performed at the 2023 Festival in the opening concert, the centerpiece and chamber operas, and as a featured soloist with Les Délices.

Tenor Aaron Sheehan is a first-rate interpreter of the works of Bach, Handel, and Mozart. He sang the title role in Boston Early Music Festival’s Grammy Award–winning recording of Charpentier’s opera La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers. He has performed at Tanglewood, Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Washington National Cathedral, the Early Music Festivals of Boston (BEMF), San Francisco, Vancouver, Washington D.C., Carmel, Regensburg, and the Halle Handel Festival, and with American Bach Soloists, Boston Baroque, Handel and Haydn 2 023/20 2 4 SEASON

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Society, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Pacific MusicWorks, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and Tafelmusik. His roles with BEMF include L’Amour and Apollon in Lully’s Psyché, the title roles in Charpentier’s Actéon, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Steffani’s Orlando generoso, and Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Demetrius in Graupner’s Antiochus und Stratonica, Apollon in Versailles: Portrait of a Royal Domain, Orfeo in Campra’s Le Carnaval de Venise, Eurimaco in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, and Liberto/Soldato in L’incoronazione di Poppea. He recently performed in BEMF’s production of Lully’s Idylle sur la Paix and Charpentier’s La Fête de Rueil.

John Taylor Ward performs with “stylish abandon” (The New Yorker), “intense clarity and color” (New York Times), and “finely calibrated precision and heartrending expressivity” (Washington Post). Before pursuing opera and early music studies at the Eastman and Yale Schools of Music, he spent his early years living a double life as both a sought-after musical theater actor and an Anglican boy treble. Taylor’s “lithe, louche, and admirably game” approach to the repertoire (Opera News) has yielded recent acclaimed débuts at Spoleto USA in the premier of Unholy Wars; Mexico’s Compañía Nacional de Teatro, starring in Iannis Xenakis’ Oresteia; and Vienna’s Musikverein as Jesus in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Notable DVD releases include the role of Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress with Barbara Hannigan, Proteo in Orfeo Chamán with Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata, and an upcoming documentary series on the life and works of Claudio Monteverdi with the English Baroque Soloists. Taylor is the founding artistic director of the Lakes Area Music Festival of Minnesota.

Bass-baritone Douglas Williams first sang with BEMF in the 2003 festival opera Die Schöne und Getreue Ariadne, and over the following twenty years appeared in many BEMF operas, concerts, recitals, and recordings. He trained at the New England Conservatory, Yale School of Music, and Tanglewood Music Center. Douglas has soloed with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Le Concert Spirituel, the Detroit Symphony, Freiburg Barockorchester, Houston Symphony, the Hungarian National Philharmonic, Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France, Philharmonia Baroque, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and Les Talens Lyriques, in wide-ranging repertoire. His most acclaimed operatic roles have been Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress with the Munich Philharmonic conducted by Barbara Hannigan, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro with Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony, and Pluto in Jonathan Dove’s monodrama, The Other Euridice, with Ars Lyrica Houston conducted by Matthew Dirst. He lives in the Berkshires.

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A B OU T T HE B E M F CHA M BE R E NS E M BLE Doug Balliett is a composer, instrumentalist, and poet based in New York City. The New York Times has described his compositions as “brainily bubble-gum, lovably shaggy” (Rome is Falling), his poetry as “brilliant and witty” (Clytie and the Sun), and his bass playing as “elegant” (Shawn Jaeger’s In Old Virginny). Doug has been professor of Baroque bass and violone at The Juilliard School since 2017, and leads the Theotokos ensemble every Sunday at St. Mary’s church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He plays regularly with AMOC, Les Arts Florissants, Jupiter Ensemble, ACRONYM, Ruckus, BEMF, and other ensembles. In August 2021, five of his Ovid Cantatas were filmed for Qwest TV with William Christie, Lea Desandre, and Nick Scott. Recent performances of his work include Beast Fights at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony bass section, and the annual New Year’s Eve performance of his opera Gawain and the Green Knight.

Upcoming performances include his new opera, Rome is Falling.

Originally from Austin, Texas, Brandon Bergeron enjoys playing anything from Baroque music on early instruments to jazz in some of New York City’s top venues. He has performed with ensembles such as Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Teatro Nuovo, The American Classical Orchestra, and Tempesta di Mare, and has appeared as a guest soloist and clinician at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago. When not performing, Brandon can be found on the golf course or at the dog park with his dog Miles.

Described as “a tireless force of musical curiosity, skill, and enthusiasm” and “the one to up the ante” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), Sarah Darling enjoys a varied musical career as a performer, educator, and musical co-conspirator on viola and Baroque violin. She is a member of the self-conducted orchestra A Far Cry, as well as Boston Baroque, Musicians of the Old Post Road, Emmanuel Music, Boston Ballet Orchestra, Les Bostonades, Newton Baroque, Boston Camerata, Boston Early Music Festival, and Carmel Bach Festival. Sarah studied at Harvard, Juilliard, Amsterdam, Freiburg, and New England Conservatory, and worked with James Dunham, Karen Tuttle, Wolfram Christ, Nobuko Imai, and Kim Kashkashian. She has recorded old and new music for Linn, Paladino, Azica, MSR, Centaur, and Crier Records, plus a solo album on Naxos.

Sarah is active as a teacher and coach, relishing the opportunity to “translate” between musical worlds while serving on the faculty of the Longy School of Music and co-directing the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra.

Maxine Eilander has had a thirty-year career performing on historical harps throughout Europe and the United States. She is the harpist for Pacific MusicWorks in Seattle and the Boston Early Music Festival. Recordings featuring Maxine as a soloist include Handel’s Harp, released on ATMA, 32

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with all of Handel’s obbligato music written for the harp, including his famous harp concerto, which she has also recorded with Tafelmusik (A Baroque Feast, Analekta). The release of William Lawes’ Harp Consorts on ATMA garnered much favorable press. Other recordings include Sonata al Pizzico, a recording of Italian music for harp and Baroque guitar with duo partner Stephen Stubbs (ATMA), and Teatro Lirico (ECM). In 2012, Maxine was invited to perform Handel’s Harp Concerto at the prestigious World Harp Congress in Vancouver. Maxine is adjunct professor of historical harps at the Thornton School of Music, USC. In 2022, she was invited to introduce historical harps to the harp students at Juilliard. She also teaches students nationwide online.

Percussionist Michelle Humphreys plays music of all eras, with special focus on historically informed performance and contemporary chamber music. She has been singled out as “musically outstanding and visually delightful” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), and for her ability to make “the intent of the music come to life” (Broadway World). Recent seasons have included performances with Boston Early Music Festival, Opera Lafayette, Tempesta di Mare, Washington Bach Consort, National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, and Three Notch’d Road. She can be heard on seven opera recordings with Opera Lafayette (Naxos), and on the Tempesta di Mare recordings Comédie et Tragédie, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and the 2018 release Telemann – The Concerti-En-Suite (Chandos). A dedicated teacher, Michelle is Associate Professor of Percussion at Towson University.

Kathryn Montoya appears with a variety of orchestral and chamber music ensembles, including the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Tafelmusik, and Apollo’s Fire. She received her degrees at Oberlin Conservatory and Indiana University School of Music, Bloomington. While at IU she received the prestigious Performer’s Certificate and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Germany. Kathryn teaches historical oboes at Oberlin Conservatory and has been on the faculty of Longy’s International Baroque Institute, the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin, SFEMS workshops, and has given masterclasses in the U.S. and China. She enjoys a varied musical career, performing for the Grammy Award–winning recording of Charpentier’s La Couronne de Fleurs with BEMF and Tony Award–winning production of Twelfth Night and Richard III on Broadway with Shakespeare’s Globe of London. Kathryn can regularly be found in Hereford, England, converting an 18th-century barn into a home with her husband, James.

David Morris has performed across the U.S., Canada, and Europe on Baroque violoncello, viola da gamba, lirone, and bass violin. He has been a continuo player for the Boston Early Music Festival’s opera productions since 2013 and is a member of Quicksilver, the Galax Quartet, and the Bertamo Trio. He is a frequent guest performer on the New York State Early Music Association and Pegasus Early Music series and has performed with Tafelmusik, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, 2 0 23/ 20 2 4 SEASON

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Seattle’s Pacific MusicWorks, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. He has produced operas for the Berkeley Early Music Festival and the SF Early Music Society series and has been a guest instructor in early music performance-practice at Cornell University, Amherst College, Oberlin College, the University of Colorado at Boulder, UC Berkeley, and the SF Conservatory of Music.

He has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, New Albion, Dorian, Drag City Records, CBC/RadioCanada, and New Line Cinema.

Cynthia Roberts is one of America’s leading Baroque violinists, appearing as soloist, concertmaster, and recitalist throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia. She is a faculty member of The Juilliard School and also teaches at the Curtis Institute, University of North Texas, and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. She has given master classes at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Indiana University, Eastman, the Cleveland Institute, Cornell, Rutgers, Minsk Conservatory, Leopold-Mozart-Zentrum Augsburg, Shanghai Conservatory, Vietnam National Academy of Music, and for the Jeune Orchestre Atlantique in France. She performs regularly with the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Smithsonian Chamber Players, Tafelmusik, and the Boston Early Music Festival. She has performed as concertmaster of Les Arts Florissants and appeared with Bach Collegium Japan, Orchester Wiener Akademie, the London Classical Players, and the Taverner Players. She was featured as soloist and concertmaster on the soundtrack of the Touchtone Pictures film Casanova. Her recording credits include Sony, CPO, and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.

Gonzalo X. Ruiz is one of America’s most sought after and critically acclaimed historical woodwind soloists. He is featured on dozens of recordings, has received both a Gramophone Award and a Grammy nomination, and performed more works by Bach than any oboist in history. Mr. Ruiz is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and his former students now fill the ranks of most top groups across the country. He is an acknowledged expert in historical reed techniques, and examples of his work are on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is also Associate Artistic Director of Musica Angelica in Los Angeles, and his chamber group House of Time has produced ten seasons of concerts in Manhattan. In recent years he has concentrated on guitar with a focus on rock and jazz.

Michael Sponseller is recognized as one of the outstanding American harpsichordists of his generation. A highly diversified career brings him to festivals and concert venues all around the world as recitalist, concerto soloist, and active continuo performer on harpsichord, organ, and fortepiano. After studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Lisa Goode Crawford and Royal Conservatoire The Hague, he garnered prizes at the International Harpsichord Competitions of Montréal and Bruges, including First Prizes at both American Bach Soloists and Jurow International Harpsichord Competitions, all before the age of twenty-five. Since then, Mr. Sponseller appears 34

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regularly as harpsichordist and continuo organist with such Baroque ensembles as Aston Magna, Washington Bach Consort, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Atalante, Tragicomedia, and Pacific MusicWorks, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is a regular presence at Boston’s Emmanuel Music Bach Cantata Series. In 2014, he became Associate Director of Bach Collegium San Diego. Mr. Sponseller can be heard on over twenty recordings from CPO, Avie, Delos, Centaur, Eclectra, and Naxos.

Dominic Teresi is principal bassoon of Tafelmusik, Boston Early Music Festival, and Carmel Bach Festival, and is a member of Quicksilver. He has enjoyed engagements with numerous other ensembles. Mr. Teresi has appeared as a concerto soloist throughout Europe, Australia, and North America, and is a featured soloist on Tafelmusik’s recordings Vivaldi con amore, House of Dreams, and Concerti Virtuosi. His playing has been praised as “stellar” (New York Times) and “dazzling” (Toronto Star), “reminding us of the expressive powers of the bassoon” (The Globe and Mail). Mr. Teresi teaches historical bassoons and chamber music at The Juilliard School and also teaches at the Tafelmusik Institutes and American Bach Soloists Academy. He has presented research on the dulcian at the Musikinstrumentenbau-Symposium in Saxony-Anhalt.

Described by the New York Times as “the gold standard of Baroque trumpet playing in this country,” John Thiessen has appeared with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Trinity Baroque, Tafelmusik, Philharmonia, Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, American Bach Soloists, and Opera Lafayette. He has also performed with the Academy of Ancient Music, Taverner Players, the English Baroque Soloists, and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. Mr. Thiessen serves on the faculties of The Juilliard School’s Historical Performance Department and the American Bach Soloists Academy, and is Executive Director of Gotham Early Music Scene, New York’s foremost advocate for early music. He has recorded extensively for Sony Classical Vivarte, Telarc, EMI, BMG, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, London Decca, Analekta, CBC, Tafelmusik Media, and Denon, including major works of J. S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. His forthcoming CD Music from Grace features 17th-century German repertoire by Schütz and Pezel.

Nathanael Udell is sought after as an early horn specialist, and has performed with groups such as the Boston Early Music Festival, Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Musica Angelica, and Bach Collegium San Diego; in January 2023, he was invited to join Joyce DiDonato and Il Pomo d’Oro as part of her EDEN tour. Currently, he is principal horn of Teatro Nuovo, and works as an editor for the Historic Brass Society’s newsletter, Historic Brass 2 023/ 20 2 4 SEASON

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Today. He’s also active as a modern player and has worked with American Ballet Theatre, Sarasota Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, was on Broadway for Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Camelot. A graduate of Indiana University, he earned his Doctorate under the tutelage of Dale Clevenger. A Rice University and The Juilliard School graduate, he studied with William VerMeulen and David Wakefield respectively. On early horn, he studied with R.J. Kelley, Richard Seraphinoff, and Anneke Scott.

A preeminent exponent of the Natural Horn in America, Todd Williams is an active performer and educator based in Philadelphia. In high demand, he currently serves as Principal Horn of numerous ensembles across the country including the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Philharmonia Baroque, Trinity Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, Mercury, Opera Lafayette, Tempesta di Mare, and others. On the topic of the Natural Horn, he has conducted lectures and master classes at the music schools of Curtis, Eastman, and Oberlin, and in 2018, joined the faculty of The Juilliard School. Equally comfortable on the modern valve horn, he is a staple of the Philadelphia music scene, regularly performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chamber and Opera Orchestras, the Philly Pops, and the Philadelphia Ballet. He has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, RCA/Sony Records, Smithsonian/FoM, CPO, Atlantic Records, CORO, Naxos, Musica Omnia, Chaconne/ Chandos, NASCAR/Paramount, Warner Brothers, and Apple TV. Todd is a graduate of Indiana University.

The Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble was established in October of 2008, and delighted the public a month later at the inauguration of the Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Opera Series, which débuted in Boston with a production of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon.

The BEMF Chamber Ensemble is an intimate subset of the BEMF Orchestra. Depending upon the size and scale of a project, the BEMF Chamber Ensemble is led by one or both of BEMF’s Artistic Directors, Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, or

by BEMF’s Orchestra Director Robert Mealy, and features the best Baroque instrumentalists from around the world. The BEMF Chamber Ensemble’s third CD on the CPO label, the Charpentier opera double bill of La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs, won the Grammy Award in 2015 for Best Opera Recording. Their fifth CD, Steffani’s Duets of Love and Passion, featuring sopranos Amanda Forsythe and Emőke Baráth, tenor Colin Balzer, and baritone Christian Immler, was released in September 2017 in conjunction with a six-city tour of North America, and received a Diapason d’Or. Their sixth CD—of Johann Sebastiani’s 1663 Matthäus Passion—was recorded immediately prior to their presenting a concert of the work at the prestigious Musikfest Bremen, and was released in February 2018. The seventh CD, a return to Charpentier featuring Les Plaisirs de Versailles and Les Arts Florissants, was nominated for a Grammy in 2019, and the eighth, Lalande’s Les Fontaines de Versailles and Le Concert d’Esculape, was released in September 2020.

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A B OU T T HE B E M F DANCE CO M PA NY Julian Donahue is a dancer with New York Theatre Ballet (NYTB) where he has danced works

by Jerome Robbins, Merce Cunningham, Antony Tudor, José Limón, Agnes de Mille, Richard Alston, Pam Tanowitz, Nicolo Fonte, James Whitside, and Martha Clarke. Julian also dances for the New York Baroque Dance Company and Boston Early Music Festival performing historical and folk-dance forms across the country, including at Lincoln Center. In 2021, Julian founded Julian Donahue Dance to create and showcase dances that express transformational political ideas, tell stories, and expand the public imagination. Julian has choreographed for the NYTB company in 2021, and the NYTB 45th-anniversary gala in 2023. In 2022, Julian Donahue Dance was in residency at Sky Hill Farm Studio, and has presented work at the Queens Dance Festival, White Wave Dance Festival, Triskelion Arts, Ballet Arts City Center, Blue Hill Bach Festival, and with the Little Orchestra Society.

Sonam Tshedzom Tingkhye is a first-generation Tibetan artist who specializes in dance performance, choreography, and film. Originally from Seattle, Washington, she has danced with local artists and organizations including Etienne Cakpo, Chamber Dance Company, Veronica Lee-Baik, Wade Madsen, Pacific MusicWorks, and Maya Soto. Tshedzom received her BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she developed her choreographic voice and performed acclaimed dances including Shelter by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. On the east coast she has worked with Hybridmotion Dance Theatre, Boston Early Music Festival, and the Merce Cunningham Trust. Tshedzom’s choreography and film have been presented at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Brooklyn Museum, Dance Film Lab, Henry Purcell Society of Boston, Kaleidoscope Dance Company, and Tibet Film Festival. Her latest interdisciplinary project, The Roof is Leaking, will premiere with Velocity Dance Center in their spring 2024 season.

The Boston Early Music Festival Dance Company (previously known as the BEMF Dance Ensemble) was originally founded in 2010 as an integral part of BEMF’s Chamber Opera Series production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

The troupe is made up of American dancers and invited international guests, and is under the artistic supervision of Melinda Sullivan, Lucy Graham Dance Director. As director of the company, she recruits and trains dancers, organizes the practice of technique and style, and supports the work of guest choreographers. The members of the Company perform both noble and character dances in Festival centerpiece operas, annual chamber opera performances and tours, and orchestra concerts. A unique component of the BEMF Dance Company is that it extends invitations to Baroque dance specialists from around the world. This enriches the experience of all the performers by offering opportunities for dance specialists to share their research with the audience while rehearsing and performing at the Festival, and contributes significantly to a deeper knowledge and appreciation of Baroque dance.

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LIBRETTO The Dragon of Wantley Music by John Frederick Lampe (1702/03–1751) Text by Henry Carey (1687–1743) Transcribed and edited by Gilbert Blin and Jason McStoots DRAMATIS PERSONAE The Dragon.

Moore, of Moore-Hall.

Gaffer Gubbins, Father to Margery.

Margery.

Mauxalinda.

Chorus of Nymphs and Swains.

Air – Gubbins Poor children three, Devoured he, That could not with him grapple And at one sup He eat them up, As one would eat an apple.

SCENE – that part of Yorkshire near Rotherham.

Chorus Houses and churches, To him are geese and turkeys.

He eats up all, leaves none behind But some stones, alack, which he cannot crack, And them on yonder hill you’ll find.

Houses, etc.

The Dragon of Wantley.

Act I. Scene I. A Rural Prospect.

Chorus Fly, neighbors, fly, The Dragon’s nigh, Save, save your lives, and fly; Gubbins Away, away, For if you stay, Sure as a gun you die.

Chorus Fly, etc.

(Exeunt.)

(The Dragon crosses the stage.)

Scene, a Hall.

Gubbins, Margery, Mauxalinda, and Chorus.

Gubbins What wretched havoc does this Dragon make!

He sticks at nothing for his belly’s sake: Feeding but makes his appetite the stronger; He’ll eat us all if he ’bides here much longer!

Margery O father! Father! As our noble ’squire Was sat at breakfast by his parlour fire, With wife and children, all in pleasant tattle, The table shook, the cups began to rattle; A dismal noise was heard within the hall; Away they flew, the Dragon scar’d them all: He drank up all their coffee at a sup, And next devour’d their toast and butter up.

Air – Margery But to hear the children mutter, When they’d lost their toast and butter, And to see my lady moan!

Oh! ’t would melt a heart of stone!

Here the ’squire with servants wrangling; There the maids and mistress jangling, And the pretty, hungry dears, All together by the ears, Scrambling for a barley-cake; Oh! ’t would make one’s heart to ache.

But to hear, etc.

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Gubbins This Dragon very modish, sure, and nice is: What shall we do in this disast’rous crisis?

Scene, Moore-Hall.

Symphony.

Moore and his Companions.

Margery A thought, to quell him, comes into my head; No way more proper than to kill him dead.

Moore Come, friends, let’s circulate the cheerful glass; Let each true toper toast his favourite lass.

Sound all your instruments of joy, and play: Let’s drink and sing and pass the time away.

Gubbins Oh, miracle of wisdom; rare suggestion!

But how, or who to do it? That’s the question.

Margery Not far from hence there lives a valiant knight, A man of prowess great, and mickle might: He has done deeds St. George, himself, might brag on!

Mauxalinda This very man is he shall kill the Dragon.

Air – Mauxalinda He’s a man ev’ry inch, I assure you, Stout, vigorous, active and tall; There’s none can from danger secure you, Like brave, gallant Moore of Moore-Hall.

No giant or knight ever quell’d him, He fills all their hearts with alarms; No virgin yet ever beheld him, But wish’d herself clasp’d in his arms.

Chorus Let’s go to his dwelling, With yelping and yelling, And tell him a sorrowful ditty; Margery Who knows but the knight, With this Dragon may fight, If he has but one morsel of pity.

Chorus Let’s go, etc.

(Exeunt.)

Air – Moore Zeno, Plato, Aristotle, All were lovers of the bottle; Poets, painters, and musicians, Churchmen, lawyers, and physicians, All admire a pretty lass, All require a cheerful glass.

Every pleasure has its season, Love and drinking are no treason.

Zeno, etc.

Enter Gubbins, Margery, Mauxalinda, and others.

Chorus (kneeling) O save us all!

Moore of Moore-Hall!

(They rise.)

Or else this cursed Dragon Will plunder our houses, Our daughters and spouses, And leave us the devil a rag on.

(They kneel again.)

O save us all!

Moore of Moore-Hall!

Air – Margery (rising) Gentle knight! All knights exceeding, Pink of prowess and good breeding, Let a virgin’s tears inspire thee; Let a maiden’s blushes fire thee.

For my father and my mother, For my sister and my brother, For my friends that stand before thee, Thus I sue thee, thus implore thee; Thus I kiss thy valiant garment, Humbly hoping there’s no harm in’t.

Gentle knight, etc.

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Moore (aside) Her looks shoot thro’ my soul, her eyes strike fire; I’m all a conflagration of desire!

(To her) Fair maid, I grant whate’er you ask; The deed is done, when once you name the task.

Margery The Dragon, sir! The Dragon!

Moore Say no more, You soon shall see him welt’ring in his gore.

Margery Most mighty Moore! Do but this Dragon kill, All that we have is wholly at your will.

Duetto – Moore and Margery Moore Let my dearest be near me.

Margery I’ll ever be near thee.

Moore To warm me, to cheer me.

Margery To warm thee, to cheer thee.

Moore To fire me, inspire me.

Margery To fire thee, inspire thee.

Moore The only bounty I require is this, That thou may’st fire me with an ardent kiss; That thy soft hands may ’noint me over night, And dress me in the morning ere I fight.

Both With kisses and ale.

Air – Margery If that’s all you ask, My sweetest, My featest, Completest, And neatest, I’m proud of the task.

Margery This Dragon demolish

Of love take your fill, Past measure, My Treasure Sole spring of my pleasure, As long as you will.

Both From nostril to tail.

If that’s all, etc.

(Moore leads off Margery; Mauxalinda enters, and pulls him back by the sleeve.)

Mauxalinda (overhearing) A forward lady! She grows fond apace; But I shall catch her in a proper place.

Moore Leave her with me; conclude the Dragon dead: If I don’t maul the dog, I’ll lose my head.

(All go off but Moore and Margery.)

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Moore Your fears I’ll abolish.

Moore I’ll work him, I’ll jerk him.

Margery Aye, work him and jerk him.

Moore Let my dearest, etc.

Mauxalinda O villain! Monster! Devil! Basely base!

How can you dare to look me in the face!

Did you not swear last Christmas we should marry?

Oh! ’Tis enough to make a maid miscarry!

Witness this piece of six-pence, certain token Of my true heart, and your false promise broken.

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Moore The devil’s in the woman! What’s the matter?

Then make poor girls believe just what you please.

Mauxalinda Now you insult me; time was, you could flatter.

Air – Moore By the beer as brown as berry, By the cider and the perry, Which so oft has made us merry, With a hy down, ho down derry.

Mauxalinda’s I’ll remain; True blue will never stain.

Moore Upon my soul, I don’t know what you mean!

Mauxalinda Don’t you know Margery of Roth’ram-Green?

Moore Not I, upon my honour.

Mauxalinda That’s a lie.

What, do think I’ve neither ear nor eye?

Villain! I will believe my eyes and ears!

She whom you kissed and call’d ten thousand dears.

(Sings, mocking) “Let my dearest be near me, To warm me, to cheer me, To fire me, inspire me With kisses and ale.”

Air – Mauxalinda No place shall conceal ’em No mercy I’ll show, I’ll follow ’em down to the regions below.

Moore (aside)

By Jove! I’m blown. Zounds!

How came this about?

However, I’m resolved to stand it out.

(To Mauxalinda) I only out of policy was civil; But, ’faith, I hate her, as I hate the devil.

You’re all I value, witness this close hug, I’m yours and only yours…

Mauxalinda …Ah, coaxing pug!

Mauxalinda But do you really love me?

Moore By this kiss, By raptures past, and hopes of future bliss.

Duetto – Mauxalinda and Moore Pigs shall not be So fond as we; We will out-coo the turtle-dove.

Fondly toying, Still enjoying, Sporting sparrows we will out-love.

End of Act I. Act II. Scene I. A Garden.

Air – Margery (sola) Sure my stays will burst with sobbing, And my heart quite crack with throbbing.

My poor eyes are red as ferrets, And I ha’n’t a grain of spirits.

O I would not for any money, This vile beast should kill my honey.

Better kiss me, gentle knight, Than with dragons fierce to fight.

Moore My Madge! My honeysuckle, in the dumps!

Moore My pretty Mauxy, prithee don’t be jealous!

Margery Put your hand here, and feel my heart how’t thumps.

Mauxalinda Dear me! You men are such bewitching fellows; You steal into our hearts by sly degrees,

Moore Good lack-a-day! How great a palpitation!

Tell me, my dear, the cause of this vexation.

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Margery An ugly dream has put me in a fright; I dreamt the Dragon slew my gentle knight: If such a thing should happen unto thee, O miserable, miserable Margery!

Moore Don’t fright thyself with dreams, my girl, ne’er fear him, I’ll work his buff if ever I come near him.

I’ve such a suit of spiked armour bought, Bears, lions, dragons, it sets all at naught: In which, when I’m equipp’d, my Madge shall see, I’ll scare the Dragon, not the Dragon me.

But time grows short, I must awhile away.

Margery Make haste, my dear!

Moore My duck! I will not stay.

(Exit Moore.)

(Enter Mauxalinda.)

Mauxalinda So Madam! Have I found you out alone at last!

You now shall pay full dear for all that’s past.

Were you as fine as e’er wore silk or satin, I’ll beat your harlot’s brains out with my batten, Before you shall delude a man of mine.

Margery Who, in the name of wonder, made him thine?

Mauxalinda D’ye laugh, you minx! I’ll make you change your note, Or drive your grinning grinders down your throat.

Duetto – Margery and Mauxalinda Insulting missy, You’re surely tipsy, Or non se ipse To chatter so.

Your too much feeding, Has spoil’d your breeding; Go, trollop, go.

Margery Look! What a monstrous tail our cat has got!

Mauxalinda Nay, if you brave me, then you go to pot.

Come, bodkin, come! Take Mauxalinda’s part, And stab her hated rival to the heart.

(Mauxalinda goes to kill Margery, she swoons.)

(Enter Moore, who takes away the bodkin.)

Moore Why, what the devil is the woman doing?

Mauxalinda To put an end to all your worship’s wooing.

Moore ’Tis well I came, before the whim went further; Had I stay’d longer, here had sure been murder.

This cursed jade has thrown the girl into fits!

How do’st, my dear?

(Margery recovers.)

Margery Frighted out of my wits!

Moore But fear her not, for by her own concession, I’ll bind her over to the court’s next session.

Air – Mauxalinda O give me not up to the law, I’d much rather beg on crutches; Once in a solicitor’s paw, You ne’er get out of his clutches.

O give me, etc.

Margery Come, come, forgive her!

Moore Here my anger ends.

Mauxalinda And so does mine.

Moore Why, then, let’s kiss and friends.

(Kiss round.)

Insulting missy, etc.

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Trio – Mauxalinda, Moore, Margery Mauxalinda Oh! How easy is a woman, How deluding are you men!

Oh! How rare to find a true man, Not so oft as one in ten!

Moore Oh! How charming is a woman, Form’d to captivate us men!

Yet so eager to subdue man, For each one she covets ten.

Margery Let’s reward them as they treat us, Women prove sincere as men; But if they deceive and cheat us, Let us cheat them again.

All Three Let’s reward them, etc.

(Enter Gubbins.)

Gubbins Now, now or never, save us, valiant Moore!

The Dragon’s coming, don’t you hear him roar?

Moore Why let him roar his heart out, ’tis no matter: Stand clear, my friends, this is no time to chatter.

Gubbins Here, take your spear.

Moore I scorn sword, spear, or dart; I’m arm’d completely in a valiant heart; But first I’ll drink, to make me strong and mighty, Six quarts of ale, and one of Aqua Vitae.

Moore Fill, fill, fill the mighty flagon, Then I’ll kill this monstrous Dragon.

(Moore drinks.)

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Chorus Fill, fill, fill the mighty flagon, Moore, Moore, Moore will kill this monstrous Dragon.

(Exeunt.)

End of Act II Act III. Scene I. A rural prospect near the Dragon’s den.

Enter Moore in armour, and Margery.

Moore One kiss, dear Margery, and then away.

Margery I cannot go, my love!

Moore You must not stay.

Get up, sweet wench, get up in yonder tree, And there securely you may hear and see.

(Margery gets up into the tree.)

Come, Mr. Dragon, or by Jove I’ll fetch you; I’ll trim your rascal’s jacket, if I catch you.

Air – Moore Dragon, Dragon, thus I dare thee: Soon to atoms thus I’ll tear thee; Thus thy insolence subdue.

But regarding where my dear is, Then, alas! I feel what fear is, Sweetest Margery, for you.

Dragon, etc.

(Dragon roars.)

Moore It is not strength that always wins; Good wit does strength excel.

Confound the rascal how he grins— I’ll creep into this well.

(Moore gets into the well.)

(Enter Dragon, and goes to the well, as to drink.)

Dragon What nasty dog has got into the well, Disturbs my drink, and make the water smell.

(Moore within cries “Boh!”) 43

Air – Dragon Oh ho! Master Moore, You son of a whore, I wish I had known your tricks before.

(Moore gets out of the well, encounters the Dragon, and kills him by a kick on the backside.)

Dragon Oh! Oh! The devil take your toe.

(Dies.)

Margery (to Moore, in a rapture) Oh, my champion! How d’ye do?

Moore Oh, my charmer! How are you?

Margery Very well, thank you.

Moore I’m so too.

Your eyes were livid, and your cheeks were pale, But now you look as brisk as bottled ale.

Come, give us a kiss.

Gubbins Most mighty Moore, what wonders hast thou done!

Destroy’d the Dragon, and my Marg’ry won.

The loves of this brave knight, and my fair daughter, In Roratorios shall be sung hereafter.

Begin your songs of joy; begin, begin, And rend the Heavens with harmonious din.

Chorus Sing, sing, and rorio, An Oratorio To gallant Morio, Of Moore-Hall.

To Margereenia Of Roth’ram Greenia, Beauty’s bright Queenia, Bellow and bawl.

Sing, sing, etc.

Chorus of Choruses Huzza!

The End of the Opera.

Margery Aye, twenty if you please.

Moore With all my heart, and twenty after these.

Duetto – Margery and Moore My sweet honeysuckle, my joy and delight, I’ll kiss thee all day, and I’ll hug thee all night.

My dearest is made of such excellent stuff, I think I shall never have kissing enough.

My sweet, etc.

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2 022–20 23 SEASO N

45

2023 | Alcina

Make a Difference Boson Early Music Fesival PLANNED GIVING

Play a vital and permanent role in BEMF’s future with a planned gift. Your generous support will create unforgettable musical experiences for years to come, and may provide you and your loved ones with considerable tax benefits.

Join the BEMF ORPHEUS SOCIETY by investing in the future of the Boston Early Music Festival through a charitable annuity, bequest, or other planned gift. With many ways to give and to direct your gift, our staff will work together with you and your advisors to create a legacy that is personally meaningful to you.

To learn more, please call us at 617-661-1812, email us at kathy@bemf.org, or visit us online at BEMF.org/plannedgiving.

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B OST ON E AR LY M US I C F E ST I VAL

BEMF’S 2023 PRODUCTION OF DESMAREST’S CIRCÉ PHOTO: KATHY WITTMAN

Boson Early Music Fesival International Baroque Opera • Celebrated Concerts • World-Famous Exhibition

The Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) is universally recognized as a leader in the field of early music. Since its founding in 1980 by leading practitioners of historical performance in the United States and abroad, BEMF has promoted early music through a variety of diverse programs and activities, including an annual concert series that brings early music’s brightest stars to the Boston and New York concert stages, and the biennial weeklong Festival and Exhibition, recognized as “the world’s leading festival of early music” (The Times, London).

Through its programs BEMF has earned its place as North America’s premier presenting organization for music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods and has secured Boston’s reputation as “America’s early music capital” (Boston Globe).

I N TER NATI ONA L BA RO QU E O PE RA One of BEMF’s main goals is to unearth and present lesser-known Baroque operas performed by the world’s leading musicians armed with the latest information on period singing, orchestral performance, scenic design, costuming, dance, and staging. BEMF operas reproduce the Baroque’s stunning palette of sound by bringing together today’s leading operatic superstars and a wealth of instrumental talent from across the globe to one stage for historic presentations, all zestfully led from the pit by the BEMF Artistic Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, and creatively reimagined for the stage by BEMF Opera Director Gilbert Blin.

The twenty-second biennial Boston Early Music Festival, A Celebration of Women, 2 023/ 20 2 4 SEASON

was held in June 2023 and featured Henry Desmarest’s 1694 opera Circé from a libretto

by Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Saintonge, which saw the return of the Boston Early Music Festival Dance Company, a troupe of dancers under the guidance of BEMF Dance Director Melinda Sullivan. The twenty-third Festival, in June 2025, will have as its centerpiece Reinhard Keiser’s 1705 opera Octavia.

BEMF introduced its Chamber Opera Series during its annual concert season in November 2008, with a performance of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Actéon. The series focuses on the wealth of chamber operas composed during the Baroque period, while providing an increasing number of local opera aficionados the 47

SCENE FROM BEMF’S 2022 PRODUCTION OF LULLY’S IDYLLE SUR LA PAIX PHOTO: KATHY WITTMAN

opportunity to attend one of BEMF’s superb offerings. Subsequent annual productions include George Frideric Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, combined performances of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, a double bill of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and Livietta e Tracollo, a production titled “Versailles” featuring Les Plaisirs de Versailles by Charpentier, Les Fontaines de Versailles by Michel-Richard de Lalande, and divertissements from Atys by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Francesca Caccini’s Alcina, the first opera written by a woman, a combination of Telemann’s Pimpinone and Ino, and most recently joint performances of Lully’s Idylle sur la Paix and Charpentier’s La Fête de Rueil. Acis and Galatea was revived and presented on a four-city North American Tour in early 2011, which included a performance at the American DANIELLE REUTTER-HARRAH IN BEMF’S 2021 PRODUCTION OF TELEMANN’S PIMPINONE PHOTO: KATHY WITTMAN

48

Handel Festival in Seattle, and in 2014, BEMF’s second North American Tour featured the Charpentier double bill from 2011.

BEMF has a well-established and highly successful project to record some of its groundbreaking work in the field of Baroque opera. The first three recordings in this series were all nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, in 2005, 2007, and 2008: the 2003 Festival centerpiece Ariadne, by Johann Georg Conradi; Lully’s Thésée; and the 2007 Festival opera, Lully’s Psyché, which was hailed by BBC Music Magazine as “superbly realized…magnificent.” In addition, the BEMF recordings of Lully’s Thésée and Psyché received Gramophone Award Nominations in the Baroque Vocal category in 2008 and 2009, respectively. BEMF’s next three recordings on the German CPO label were drawn from its Chamber Opera Series: Charpentier’s Actéon, Blow’s Venus and Adonis, and a release of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers and La Couronne de Fleurs, which won the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording and the 2015 Echo Klassik Opera Recording of the Year (17th/18th Century Opera). Agostino Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe, featuring Philippe Jaroussky and Karina Gauvin, which was released in January 2015 on the Erato/Warner Classics label in conjunction with a seven-city, four-country European concert tour of the opera, has been nominated for a Grammy Award, was named Gramophone’s Recording of the Month for March 2015, is the 2015 Echo Klassik World Premiere Recording of the Year, and has received a 2015 Diapason d’Or de l’Année and B OS T ON E AR LY M US I C F E ST I VAL

a 2015 Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Handel’s Acis and Galatea was released in November 2015. In 2017, while maintaining the focus on Baroque opera, BEMF expanded the recording project to include other select Baroque vocal works: a new Steffani disc, Duets of Love and Passion, was released in September 2017 in conjunction with a sixcity North American tour, and a recording of Johann Sebastiani’s St. Matthew Passion was released in March 2018. Four Baroque opera releases followed in 2019 and 2020: a disc of Charpentier’s chamber operas Les Plaisirs de Versailles and Les Arts Florissants was released at the June 2019 Festival, and has been nominated for a Grammy Award; the 2013 Festival opera, Handel’s Almira, was released in late 2019, and received a Diapason d’Or. Lalande’s chamber opera Les Fontaines de Versailles was featured on a September 2020 release of the composer’s works; Christoph Graupner’s opera Antiochus und Stratonica was released in December 2020. BEMF’s newest recording, of Desmarest’s Circé, the 2023 Festival opera, was released concurrently with the opera’s North American premiere.

C E LEB R ATE D C ON CE RT S

Some of the most thrilling musical moments at the biennial Festival occur during one of the dozen or more concerts presented around the clock, which always include the acclaimed Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra led

by Orchestra Director Robert Mealy, and which often feature unique, once-in-a-lifetime collaborations and programs by the spectacular array of talent assembled for the Festival

week’s events. In 1989, BEMF established an annual concert series bringing early music’s leading soloists and ensembles to the Boston concert stage to meet the growing demand for regular world-class performances of early music’s beloved classics and newly discovered works. BEMF then expanded its concert series in 2006, when it extended its performances to New York City’s Gilder Lehrman Hall at the Morgan Library & Museum, providing “a shot in the arm for New York’s relatively modest early-music scene” (New York Times).

WORL D - FA MOUS E XH IBIT ION

The nerve center of the biennial Festival, the Exhibition is the largest event of its kind in the United States, showcasing nearly one hundred early instrument makers, music publishers, service organizations, schools and universities, and associated colleagues.

In 2013, Mozart’s own violin and viola were displayed at the Exhibition, in their first-ever visit to the United States. Every other June, hundreds of professional musicians, students, and enthusiasts come from around the world to purchase instruments, restock their libraries, learn about recent musicological developments, and renew old friendships. For four days, they visit the Exhibition booths to browse, discover, and purchase, and attend the dozens of symposia, masterclasses, and demonstration recitals, all of which encourage a deeper appreciation of early music, and strengthen relationships between musicians, participants, and audiences. n

THE BEMF ORCHESTRA AT THE JUNE 2023 FESTIVAL PHOTO: KATHY WITTMAN 2 023/ 20 2 4 SEASON

49

BECOME A FRIEND OF THE

Boson Early Music Fesival Revenue from ticket sales, even from a sold-out performance, accounts for less than half of the total cost of producing BEMF’s operas and concerts; the remainder is derived almost entirely from generous friends like you. With your help, we will be able to build upon the triumphs of the past, and continue to bring you thrilling performances by today’s finest Early Music artists.

Our membership organization, the FRIENDS OF THE BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL, includes donors from around the world. These individuals recognize the Festival’s need for further financial support in order to fulfill its aim of serving as a showcase for the finest talent in the field.

PLEASE JOIN THE FRIENDS OF THE BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL

BY DONATING AT ONE OF SEVERAL LEVELS: • Friend • Partner • Associate • Patron • Guarantor • Benefactor • Leadership Circle • Artistic Director’s Circle • Festival Angel

$45 $100 $250 $500 $1,000 $2,500 $5,000 $10,000 $25,000

T HR E E WAY S TO G IVE :

• Visit BEMF.org and click on “Give Now”.

• Call BEMF at 617-661-1812 to donate by telephone using your credit card • Mail your credit card information or a check (payable to BEMF) to Boston Early Music Festival, 43 Thorndike Street, Suite 302, Cambridge, MA 02141-1764

OT H E R WAY S TO SHOW Y OUR SUPPOR T:

• Increase your philanthropic impact with a Matching Gift from your employer.

• Make a gift of appreciated stocks or bonds to BEMF. • Planned Giving allows you to support BEMF in perpetuity while achieving your financial goals.

• Direct your gift to a particular area that interests you with a Named Gift.

QUESTIONS? Please e-mail Kathleen Fay at kathy@bemf.org, or call the BEMF office at 617-661-1812. Thank you for your support!

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FRIENDS OF THE

Boson Early Music Fesival

This list reflects donations received from June 1, 2022 to November 1, 2023 FESTIVAL ANGELS ($25,000 or more) Anonymous (3) Bernice K. Chen Brit d’Arbeloff Peter L. & Joan S.† Faber Dorothy Ryan Fay† David Halstead & Jay Santos Glenn A. KnicKrehm David M. Kozak & Anne Pistell, in memory of their parents Miles Morgan Lorna E. Oleck Susan L. Robinson Andrew Sigel Joan Margot Smith Piroska Soos† Donald E. Vaughan & Lee S. Ridgway ARTISTIC DIRECTORS’ CIRCLE ($10,000 or more) Diane & John Paul Britton Katie & Paul Buttenwieser Susan Denison Susan Donaldson Marie-Pierre & Michael Ellmann Lori Fay & Christopher Cherry, in memory of Dorothy Ryan Fay Clare M. S. Fewtrell† James A. Glazier Donald Goldstein, in memory of Constance Kellert Goldstein George L. Hardman Ellen T. & John T. Harris Barbara & Amos Hostetter Kenneth C. Ritchie & Paul T. Schmidt Karen Tenney & Thomas Loring Christoph Wolff LEADERSHIP CIRCLE ($5,000 or more) Anonymous (3) 2 0 23/ 20 2 4 SEASON

Mary Briggs & John Krzywicki Douglas M. & Aviva A. Brooks Elizabeth Davidson, in honor of David Morris Tony Elitcher & Andrea Taras Jean Fuller Farrington Robert E. Kulp, Jr. Marianne & Terry Louderback Mr. & Mrs. Thomas G. MacCracken Heather Mac Donald & Erich Eichman Victor & Ruth McElheny Bill McJohn Ruth McKay & Don Campbell Harold I. Pratt Joanne Zervas Sattley David Scudder, in memory of Marie Louise Scudder BENEFACTORS ($2,500 or more) Anonymous (2) Anonymous, in honor of Bernice K. Chen Annemarie Altman Pamela & Lee Bromberg Beth Brown, in memory of Walter R.J. Brown Gregory E. Bulger & Richard Dix Kathleen Fay, in memory of Dorothy Ryan Fay John Felton & Marty Gottron Dr. Peter Libby, in memory of Dr. Beryl Benacerraf Harriet Lindblom, in memory of Daniel Lindblom John S. Major & Valerie Steele Keith Ohmart & Helen Chen Nina & Timothy Rose Raymond A. & Marilyn Smith Keith S. Tóth & John B. Herrington III Adrian & Michelle Touw Maria van Kalken & Hal Winslow, in memory of Adrian van Kalken Will & Alexandra Watkins Ellen & Arnold Zetcher

GUARANTORS ($1,000 or more) Anonymous (8) Eric Hall Anderson, in memory of William Wolk Amy Brown & Brian Carr David L. Brown, in memory of Larry Phillips Robert Burger James Burr Betty Canick John A. Carey Robert & Elizabeth Carroll Bernice Chen & Mimi Kerley, in memory of Ted Chen Carla Chrisfield & Benjamin D. Weiss Joseph E. Coppola Jeffrey Del Papa Peter & Katie DeWolf Ross Duffin & Beverly Simmons, in honor of Kathleen Fay Henk Elderhorst David Emery & Olimpia Velez Peter L. Faber, in memory of Joan S. Faber Michael E. Fay Sarah M. Gates David & Harriet Griesinger Phillip Hanvy Dr. Robert L. Harris Rebecca & Ronald Harris-Warrick Michael Herz & Jean Roiphe Sally Hodges Jessica Honigberg Jane Hoover Thomas M. Hout & Sonja Ellingson Hout, in honor of Kathy Fay for her hard work Alan M. King Art & Linda Kingdon Fran & Tom Knight Frederick V. Lawrence, in memory of Rosemarie Lawrence Amelia J. LeClair & Garrow Throop John Leen & Eileen Koven Lawrence & Susan Liden Mark & Mary Lunsford 51

MAFAA William & Joan Magretta David McCarthy & John Kolody Marilyn Miller Stephen Moody Jeffrey G. Mora, in memory of Wendy Fuller-Mora Sheila A. Murphy Robert Neer & Ann Eldridge Rebecca Nemser, in memory of Paul Nemser John M.† & Bettina A. Norton Richard & Julia Osborne Neal J. Plotkin & Deborah Malamud Amanda & Melvyn Pond Tracy Powers Susan Pundt Christa Rakich & Janis Milroy Alice Robbins & Walter Denny, in honor of Kathy Fay Michael Robbins Jose M. Rodriguez & Richard A. Duffy Patsy Rogers Michael & Karen Rotenberg Carlton & Lorna Russell Kevin Ryan & Ozerk Gogus, in memory of Dot Fay Catherine & Phil Saines Susan Sargent & Tom Peters Lynne & Ralph Schatz Laila Awar Shouhayib Alexander & Kathy Silbiger Elizabeth Snow Richard K. & Kerala J. Snyder David & Jean Stout, in honor of Glenn KnicKrehm Lisa Teot Paula & Peter Tyack Peter J. Wender Allan & Joann Winkler PATRONS ($500 or more) Anonymous Morton Abromson & Joan Nissman Tom & Judy Anderson Allen, in memory of Dorothy Fay Tom & Judy Anderson Allen, in memory of Adrian van Kalken Nicholas Altenbernd William & Ann Bein 52

Michael & Sheila Berke Dee Dee & John Brinkema, in memory of Bobby Brinkema Susan Bromley Carolyn Bryant-Sarles Robert Burton & Karen Peterson Frederick Byron Joseph Cantey Anne Chalmers & Holly Gunner Mary Chamberlain Sherryl & Gerard Cohen Dr. Franklyn & Mary Beth Commisso Joseph Connors Linzee Coolidge Richard & Constance Culley Belden & Pamela Daniels Carl E. Dettman Alan Durfee Helen Edwards Gabriel Ellsworth Charles & Elizabeth Emerson Thomas G. Evans Austin & Eileen Farrar Nicole Faulkner Daniel & Paula Fay Charles Fisk Martin & Kathleen Fogle Claire Fontijn, in memory of Dr. Arthur Fontijn Fred & Barbara Gable Christopher K. Gaffney, in memory of Bill Crocker Bruce A. Garetz Elizabeth Hardy, in memory of Renate Wolter-Seevers David J. Harris, MD James & Ina Heup Linda Hodgkinson Laura Jeppesen & Daniel Stepner Paul & Alice Johnson Barry Kernfeld & Sally McMurry Kathryn Mary Kucharski Robert & Mary La Porte Jasper Lawson Catherine Liddell Roger & Susan Lipsey James Liu & Alexandra Bowers Jeffrey & Barbara Mandula Marietta Marchitelli Carol Marsh Carol & Pedro Martinez June Matthews

Amy & Brian McCreath Alan & Kathy Muirhead Louise Oremland Richard & Lois Pace, in honor of Peter Faber John R. Palys William J. Pananos Hon. W. Glen Pierson & Hon. Charles P. Reed Gene & Margaret Pokorny Pamela Posey Paul Rabin & Arlene Snyder Mahadev & Ambika Raman Sandy Reismann & Dr. Nanu Brates Sue Robinson Ellen Rosand Richard Schroeder & Dr. Jane Burns Charles & Mary Ann Schultz Susan Schuur Wendy Shattuck & Sam Plimpton Louisa C. Spottswood Catherine & Keith Stevenson Campbell Steward Paola Stone, in memory of Edmondo Malanotte Carl Swanson Lonice Thomas Reed & Peggy Ueda Richard Urena Thomas & LeRose Weikert John C. Wiecking Susan Wyatt ASSOCIATES ($250 or more) Anonymous (8) Anonymous, in memory of Dorothy Ryan Fay Anonymous, in honor of Marco Horvat & Faenza Joseph Aieta III Elizabeth Alexander Debra K. S. & Brian Anderson, in honor of Kathleen M. Fay Julie Andrijeski & J. Tracy Mortimore Margaret Angelini & John McLeod† Barry & Sarita Ashar Louise Basbas Noel & Paula Berggren Todd A. Breitbart David Breitman & Kathryn Stuart David C. Brown

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William Ames Cathy & William Anderson Margarete Arndt Neil R. Ayer, Jr. & Linda Ayer Carl C. Baker & Susan R. Haynes Antonia L. Banducci Dr. David Barnert & Julie A. Raskin Rev. & Mrs. Joseph Bassett Alan Bates & Michele Mandrioli George Beach Lawrence Bell Alan Benenfeld Susan Benua Judith Bergson Larry & Sara Mae Berman Ann & Richard Bingham, in honor of Kathy Udall John Birks Sarah Bixler & Christopher Tonkin Katharine C. Black Moisha Blechman Deborah Boldin & Gabriel Rice Richard Borts Patricia Boyd Sally & Charlie Boynton Joel Bresler Catherine & Hillel Shahan Bromberg Lawrence Brown Robert Brown Caroline A. Bruzelius, in memory of Kristin Mortimer John H. Burkhalter III Judi Burten, in memory of Phoebe Larkey Kevin J. Bylsma John Campbell Eleanor Carlson William Carroll Richard & Lois Case Peter Charig & Amy Briemer Robert B. Christian Daniel Church & Roger Cuevas John K. Clark & Judith M. Stoughton Deborah J. Cohen Joel I. Cohen, in honor of Anne Azéma Dr. Martin Cohen & Dr. Rae Jacobs Cohen Saul B. & Naomi R. Cohen Carol & Alex Collier Lois Evelyn Conley Anne Conner Derek Cottier & Lauren Tilly 53

Robert B. Crane Martina Crocker, in memory of William T. Crocker Gray F. Crouse Donna Cubit-Swoyer Ruta Daugela Kate Delaney William Depeter Michael DiSabatino, in honor of Nancy Olson Paul Doerr Charles & Sheila Donahue John Dunton & Carol McKeen Mark Elenko Jake Esher Richard Fabian Marilyn Farwell Margot Fassler Gregg, Abby & Max Feigelson Henry & Judith Feldman Hans & Ruth Fisher Carol L. Fishman Dr. Jonathan Florman Deborah Fox & Ron Epstein Gary Freeman Robert Freeman Alexander Garthwaite Gisela & Ronald Geiger Stephen L. Gencarello David & Susan Gerstein Barbara Godard Michael Goldberg Lisa Goldstein Joseph Grafwallner Nancy L. Graham The Graver Family Lorraine & William Graves Mary Greer Thomas H. & Lori B. Griswold Deborah Grose John Gruver & Lynn Tilley Peter F. Gustafson Sonia Guterman Laury Gutierrez & Elsa Gelin Judy & Wayne Hall Suzanne & Easley Hamner Donatus Hayes Diane Hellens Karin Hemmingsen Marie C. Henderson, in memory of A. Brandt Henderson Catherine & John Henn 54

Katherine A. Hesse Carole Hilton Raymond Hirschkop John & Olivann Hobbie Roderick J. Holland Valerie Horst & Benjamin Peck John Hsia Judith & Alan Hudson Keith L. & Catherine B. Hughes Alex Humez Brian Hussey Francesco Iachello Susan L. Jackson Chris & Klavs Jensen Michele Jerison Robert & Selina Johnson Patrick G. Jordan Dian Kahn Elizabeth Kaplan Seamus & Marjorie Kelly Louis & Susan Kern Joseph J. Kesselman, Jr. David P. Kiaunis Leslie & Kimberly King Rebecca Klein Pat Kline Sara M. Knight Jason Knutson Leslie Kooyman Valerie Krall Ellen Kranzer Benjamin Krepp & Virginia Webb Jay Carlton Kuhn, Jr. Carol Lafontaine Peter A. Lans Claire Laporte David A. Leach & Laurie J. LaChapelle Joanne & Carl Leaman William Lebow Alison Leslie Dr. Gary Ljungquist Laura Loehr Mary Maarbjerg Ted MacDonald & Yuan Wang Patrick Macey Dr. Bruce C. MacIntyre Louise Malcolm, in memory of W. David Malcolm, Jr. Peter G. Manson & Peter A. Durfee Sarah P. Marsh Donna McCampbell Anne McCants

Michael P. McDonald Heidi & George McEvoy Dave & Jeannette McLellan Gerald & Susan Metz Eiji Miki Ruth Milburn Margo Miller Deborah Mintz David Montanari & Sara Rubin Jennifer Moxley & Steve Evans Gene Murrow Myrna Nachman Nancy Nicholson Caroline Niemira Nancy Nuzzo Leslie Nyman Nancy Olson & Charles Di Sabatino Michael Orlansky Patricia Owen Beth Parkhurst, in memory of Cheryl M. Parkhurst Susan Patrick, in memory of Don Partridge Jonah Pearl Elizabeth Pearson-Griffiths John Percy John Petrowsky Bici Pettit-Barron Elizabeth V. Phillips Susan L. Porter & Robert S. Kauffman Charles & Elizabeth Possidente Stephen Poteet & Anne Kao Lawrence Pratt & Rosalind Forber Sheila Reese Rodney J. Regier Norm Rehn Melissa Rice Douglas Riis Dennis & Anne Rogers Sherry & William Rogers Stephanie L. Rosenbaum Philip W. Rosenkranz Lois Rosow Peter & Linda Rubenstein, in memory of Malcolm Cole Paul Rutz, in memory of Sandra Henry Cheryl K. Ryder Patricia & Roger Samuel Melbert Schwartz Alison M. Scott David Sears B OST ON E AR LY M US I C F E ST I VAL

Jean Seiler Mr. Terry Shea & Dr. Seigo Nakao Chuck Sheehan Michael Sherer Susan Shimp Dr. Glenn Sigl & Mr. John Self Harvey A. Silverglate, in memory of Elsa Dorfman Hana Sittler Jacob & Lisa Skowronek Elliott Smith & Wendy Gilmore Jennifer Farley Smith & Sam Rubin Richard Snow Scott Sprinzen Ted St. Antoine Gail St Onge Kathryn Steely Esther & Daniel Steinhauer Mary Stevens John Strasswimmer Barbara & Elliott Strizhak Richard Stumpf Jonathan Swartz Lois Swirnoff Lee & Judith Talner Richard Tarrant Meghan K. Titzer Janet Todaro Peter Townsend Pierre Trepagnier & Louise Mundinger John & Dorothy Truman Lynette Tsiang John & Anne Turtle Barbara & John VanScoyoc Lee Vorderer & Robert Bass Robert & Therese Wagenknecht Robert Warren Janice & Ty Waterman Cheryl S. Weinstein Marina & Robert Whitman Susan & Charles Wilkes David L. Williamson Phyllis S. Wilner Scott Winkler & Barbara Slover John Wolff & Helen Berger Lawrence Zukof & Pamela Carley † deceased

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FOUNDATIONS & CORPORATE SPONSORS Anonymous (2) Aequa Foundation American Endowment Foundation Applied Technology Investors BNY Mellon Charitable Gift Fund Bank of America Charitable Gift Fund The Barrington Foundation, Inc. The Bel-Ami Foundation The Boston Foundation Boston Private Bank & Trust Company Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. Gregory E. Bulger Foundation Burns & Levinson LLP The Catherine and Paul Buttenwieser Foundation Cabot Family Charitable Trust Cambridge Community Foundation Cambridge Trust Company Cedar Tree Foundation Cembaloworks of Washington City of Cambridge The Columbus Foundation Combined Jewish Philanthropies Community Foundation of Western MA Connecticut Community Foundation Constellation Charitable Foundation The Fannie Cox Foundation The Crawford Foundation CRB Classical 99.5, a GBH station The Dusky Fund at Essex County Community Foundation Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation Fidelity Charitable Fiduciary Trust Charitable French Cultural Center / Alliance Française of Boston Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation GlaxoSmithKline Foundation Goethe-Institut Boston The Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund The Florence Gould Foundation GTC Law Group Haber Family Charitable Foundation Hausman Family Charitable Trust The High Meadow Foundation Houghton Mifflin Harcourt The Isaacson-Draper Foundation The Richard and Natalie Jacoff Foundation, Inc.

Jewish Communal Fund Key Biscayne Community Foundation Konstantin Family Foundation Maine Community Foundation Makromed, Inc. Massachusetts Cultural Council Mastwood Foundation Morgan Stanley National Endowment for the Arts Newstead Foundation Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation The Packard Humanities Institute Plimpton-Shattuck Fund at The Boston Foundation The Mattina R. Proctor Foundation REALOGY Corporation Renaissance Charitable The Saffeir Family Fund of the Maine Community Foundation Scofield Auctions, Inc. Schwab Charitable The Seattle Foundation Shalon Fund TIAA Charitable Giving Fund Program The Trust for Mutual Understanding The Tzedekah Fund at Combined Jewish Philanthropies The Upland Farm Fund U.S. Small Business Administration U.S. Trust/Bank of America Private Wealth Management Vanguard Charitable Walker Family Trust at Fidelity Charitable Archie D. & Bertha H. Walker Foundation Marian M. Warden Fund of The Foundation for Enhancing Communities The Windover Foundation Women On The Move LLC MATCHING CORPORATIONS 21st Century Fox Allegro MicroSystems Amazon Smile AmFam Analog Devices Aspect Global Automatic Data Processing, Inc. Biogen Carrier Global 55

Dell, Inc. Exelon Foundation FleetBoston Financial Corporation Genentech, Inc. Google Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo & Co. LLC John Hancock Financial Services, Inc. Community Gifts Through Harvard University Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

56

IBM Corporation Intel Foundation Investment Technology Group, Inc. (ITG) Microsoft Corporation MLE Foundation, Inc. Natixis Global Asset Management Novartis US Foundation NVIDIA Pfizer Pitney Bowes

Salesforce.org Silicon Valley Community Foundation Takeda Tetra Tech United Technologies Corporation Verizon Foundation Vertex Pharmaceuticals Xerox Foundation

B OST ON E AR LY M US I C F E ST I VAL

Boson Early Music Fesival

Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Artistic Directors

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2023 | 8PM St. Paul Church, Cambridge, MA

The Tallis Scholars PETER PHILLIPS, Director

WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED

nship ia ic s u m l u f t h ig s lity.” a “In ic r t a e h t it o r d and a HONE —GRAMOP

Henry Desmarest’s

CIRCÉ ALSO AVAILABLE

Boson Early Music Fesival

Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors

I N T E RN ATION A LLY AWARD- WINNING

Opera CDs

O R D E R T O D AY AT BE MF.O R G

That Feeling You Get

classical.org | on-air • online • in the app

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

La Serva Padrona Livietta e Tracollo

COMING SOON!

Boson Early Music Fesival

Paul O’Dette & Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors

IN TER NAT I O N A L LY AWA R D -W INNING

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