Jessica Siena and Burr C. Phillips Recital 4.18.19

JESSICA SIENA AND BURR C. PHILLIPS Thursday I April 18, 2019 I 7:30 pm Faye Spanos Concert Hall

JESSICA SIENA soprano BURR C. PHILLIPS piano Diego Bustamente I piano Nicholas Ebbers I clarinet Hyejun Lee I piano

122nd Performance I 2018-2019 Academic Year I Conservatory of Music I University of the Pacific

CONCERT PROGRAM I APRIL 25, 2019 I 7:30 PM Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D. 965

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Hyejun Lee, piano and Nicholas Ebbers, clarinet

O mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi

Mister Snow from Carousel

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein (1895-1960)

Una voce poco fa from Il barbiere di Siviglia

Bill from Show Boat

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) Music by Jerome Kern (1885-1945) Lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) and Oscar Hammerstein (1895-1960)

Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß from Giuditta

Franz Lehár (1870-1948) Music by Lucy Simon (b. 1943) Lyrics by Marsha Norman (b. 1947)

How Could I Ever Know from The Secret Garden Diego Bustamante, piano

L’ora o Tirsi from Manon Lescaut

Ring Them Bells

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) Music by John Kander (b. 1927) Lyrics by Fred Ebb (1928-2004)

The Los Angeles Times hailed Jessica Siena “... extravagantly gifted ...” and her portrayal of Marie in New York City Opera’s national tour of Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, earned her critical acclaim throughout the country. The late jazz legend Dave Brubeck chose Ms. Siena for the role of Dora in his operatic suite, “Cannery Row,” at the annual Brubeck Festival and Ms. Siena was a national finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Ms. Siena has performed as soloist with the Sacramento Choral Society, the Fresno Philharmonic, at Music in the Mountains, with University of the Pacific’s Symphony Orchestra, at the Bear Valley Music Festival, and with the Stockton Symphony, the Auburn Symphony and the Folsom Symphony. Since debuting with the Stockton Opera Association as Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Ms. Siena has gone on to sing the roles of Donna Anna, Musetta, Nedda and Rosalinde with that company.

Ms. Siena was born and raised in New York City, is our own Director of Conservatory Admissions and lives in Stockton with her fifteen-year-old son, Nicholas, featured in today’s concert.

Burr Cochran Phillips is an Associate Professor of Voice at Pacific’s Conservatory of Music. As a bass-baritone, he has appeared with the Dallas Opera, the Fort Worth Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Antonio Opera Theater, the Santa Fe Opera, the Chautauqua Opera, the Tulsa Opera, the Sacramento Opera and the Stockton Opera Association in roles ranging from Benoit/ Alcindoro in Puccini’s La Boheme to Dr. Bartolo in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. A seasoned performer of oratorio and concert repertoire, he has also appeared with the orchestras of Dallas, Fort Worth, Amarillo, San Antonio, Chautauqua, Little Rock and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. Mr. Phillips has served on the music faculties of the University of Texas at Arlington (Arlington, TX), Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX), Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ) and now the Conservatory of Music at University of the Pacific. He holds the Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the University of North Texas (Denton, TX) and the Master of Music in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from Texas Christian University (Fort Worth, TX).

PROGRAM NOTES Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D. 965 Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Schubert composed Der Hirt auf dem Felsen in response to a request from soprano Anna Milder-Hauptmann, one of the leading operatic sopranos of the day. Her voice was described as being “like a house” by Haydn, she created the role of Leonore in all three versions of Fidelio, and she sang for Mendelssohn in his revival of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. She had asked Schubert for something that would allow her to show off her expressive capabilities and that would be suitable for a large audience in a concert hall. After waiting some years, Schubert carefully selected his text and composed this work in the last months of his life.

The text is in the voice of a shepherd alone with his flock on a mountain, separated from his beloved. It is in three parts, the first melancholy, the second depressed and dark, and the third hopeful, with dreams of spring. Schubert constructed the text by taking parts of three poems by two poets and creating a vivid pastoral tableau in three parts: none of the individual poems have anything like such a dramatic structure.

Schubert also chose to add a clarinet obbligato. In the first section, the clarinet is the echo coming back to the shepherd from across the gorge; in the second it provides a mournful commentary. In the final section, the clarinet returns to its role as echo, but now seemingly closer, more hopeful: it also has the last word, suggesting—but only suggesting—that the lonely shepherd will in fact be reunited with his love.

“O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) Puccini once told a friend that his main concern as a composer was “great sorrows in little souls”; that is, expressing the tragedies of life as experienced by ordinary people.

In this, he was as successful as any opera composer since Mozart. Gianni Schicchi is his only operatic comedy, but this aria stands apart from the jovial tone of the work.

It is simply a daughter pleading desperately with her father to do something that will help the man she loves and his family—a great sorrow in a little soul. Her father does help her suitor, though in a way neither he nor his family approve, but one that works to the benefit of all parties.

PROGRAM NOTES “Mister Snow” from Carousel Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) When Puccini approached the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár about turning his play Liliom into an opera, Molnár refused, saying “I want Liliom to be remembered as a play by Molnár, not as an opera by Puccini!” Several years later, Rodgers and Hammerstein would adapt the same play for their musical Carousel, which reportedly met with Molnár’s approval.

Admittedly, Rodgers and Hammerstein adapted the play almost beyond recognition, which may have prompted Molnár’s change of heart. The bare outlines of the story are still there, but almost everything else underwent a change. One of these changes was to strengthen minor two characters, known as Marie and Wolf in the original, to create the secondary couple of Carrie Pipperidge and Enoch Snow. “Mister Snow” is sung by Carrie to describe her joy at her engagement to Enoch.

“Una voce poco fa” from Il barbiere di Siviglia Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) Il barbiere di Siviglia is possibly the greatest comic opera in history. It has everything: an excellent plot, perfect comic timing, superfluous ensemble writing, and delightful orchestration. Beethoven praised it and Verdi wrote to a friend that it was “the most beautiful opera buffa there is.” It is astounding, therefore, that it was composed in about three weeks in 1816.

Rossini was reaching maturity at the time and was much in demand. His life was chaotic, traveling from one opera theater to another, composing new works with astounding speed and mounting them just as quickly. He developed musical and dramatic techniques to deal with this harried composition schedule. In “Una voce poco fa,” the melodic line is florid, a technique Rossini used to prevent singers from ornamenting his melodies too freely.

“Bill” from Show Boat Jerome Kern (1885-1945) Show Boat opened in 1927 and revolutionized musical theater. The music was seamlessly integrated with the action and dialogue and there was a story being told, a plot unfolding. It was a triumph and it changed Broadway forever. And Jerome Kern had been working at it all his life.

As a reaction against the European operettas or musical revues that dominated Broadway stages of the time, composer Jerome Kern, playwright Guy Bolton, and lyricist P. G. Wodehouse collaborated throughout the 1910s on a series of musical

PROGRAM NOTES “Bill” continued

shows that more completely integrated music, action, and dialogue—in short, edged closer to the Show Boat ideal. One of these, Oh Lady! Lady! of 1918 was less successful than the others. Critics singled out one song as particularly to blame: a musical number called “Bill” about a woman’s love for an utterly ordinary man was not romantic enough.

Kern, however, recognized the song’s inherent value and—presciently—that there was something in “Bill” worth keeping. Nine years later, he remembered “Bill” and brought it to his new lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein, who made some adjustments to the lyrics in order to fit it more precisely to the dramaturgy of Show Boat.

“Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß” from Giuditta Franz Lehár (1870-1948) Franz Lehár entered a dry spell after the First World War that was only relieved by his meeting the tenor Richard Tauber. In Tauber he found a singer who both capable of singing the more difficult music Lehár was longing to compose and willing to perform operettas, which opera singers of the day frowned upon. The result was a burst of renewed creativity for Lehár that would culminate in Giuditta, the composer’s last completely new work.

Viennese operettas were invariably light and cheerful: Giuditta is sad and dark.

Operettas were meant to be performed by actors who could also sing: Giuditta requires well-trained singers above all. “Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß” is a sensual, risqué song performed by the title character in a nightclub, not realizing that her lover is looking on—hardly a situation typical of an operetta. In fact, Giuditta so blurred the line between opera and operetta that the distinction effectively came to an end.

“How Could I Ever Know” from The Secret Garden Lucy Simon (b. 1943) When the author Frances Hodgson Burnett died, her 1911 children’s novel The Secret Garden was nearly forgotten. This fantasy story with its overgrown gardens and its sick children locked away in hidden rooms was deemed a relic of the past, and yet it has only grown in popularity since that time. When it was adapted for the Broadway stage, it was made not only more complex but also richer. “How Could I Ever Know” is sung near the end of the musical by a ghost to her (very much living) widower and combines heartfelt love and tenderness with pathos—an unusual combination, but an affecting one.

PROGRAM NOTES “L’ora o Tirsi” from Manon Lescaut Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) In the early 1890s, Puccini was struggling. He had a family to support and his first two operas were commercial failures, despite the respect they earned. His choice of Manon Lescaut for his next opera was fraught with difficulties: his publisher had doubts and his librettists were unsatisfactory. But when it reached the stage in 1893, it was an immediate success and Puccini’s future secured.

“L’ora o Tirsi” comes from a scene in Act II in which Manon is having a dancing lesson and showing off for her lover and his friends. It is a pastoral love poem sung to the accompaniment of a minuet, which is fitting for a story set in the eighteenth century. The music may, in fact, have been composed long before Puccini started work on Manon Lescaut because much of the music for this scene is recycled from earlier instrumental pieces.

Ring Them Bells John Kander (b. 1927) Not many Broadway partnerships had the versatility of Kander and Ebb. Their collaborations included everything from Cabaret, in the style of Kurt Weill, and Chicago, in the popular style of 1920s, to the Greek bouzouki music of Zorba. They also had long lasting professional relationships unique performers like Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera. Ring Them Bells was written specifically for Minnelli’s television special Liza with a “Z” which aired on September 10, 1972.

PROGRAM NOTES Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D. 965

The Shepherd on the Rock

Wenn auf dem höchsten Fels ich steh, ins tiefe Thal herneider seh, und singe, und singe, fern aus dem tiefen, dunkeln Thal schwingt sich empor der Wiederhall, der Wiederhall der Klüfte.

When on the highest cliff I stand, gaze down into the deep valley and sing, the echo from the ravines floats upwards from the dark valley far away.

Je weiter meine Stimme dringt, Je heller sie mir wiederklingt, von unten, von unten.

Mein Liebchen wohnt so weit von mir, drum sehn ich mich so heiß nach ihr hinüber, hinüber.

In tiefem Gram verzehr’ ich mich, mir ist die Freude hin, auf Erden mir die Hoffnung wich, ich hier so einsam bin, ich hier so einsam bin.

So sehnend klang im Wald das Lied, so sehnend klang es durch die Nacht, die Herzen es zum Himmel zieht mit wunderbarer Macht.

Der Frühling will kommen, der Frühling meine Freud, nun mach ich mich fertig zum Wandern bereit.

The further my voice travels, the clearer it returns to me from below.

So far from me does my love dwell that I yearn for her more ardently over there.

With deep grief I am consumed, my joy is at an end; all hope on earth has left me; I am so lonely here, I am so lonely here.

So longingly sounded the song in the wood, so longingly it sounded through the night, drawing hearts heavenwards with wondrous power.

Spring is coming, Spring, my joy; now I will make ready to go journeying.

O mio babbino caro

O my dear papa

O mio babbino caro Mi piace, è bello, bello Vo’ andare in Porta Rossa A comperar l’anello!

Sì, sì, ci voglio andare!

E se l’amassi indarno, Andrei sul Ponte Vecchio, Ma per buttarmi in Arno!

Mi struggo e mi tormento!

O Dio, vorrei morir!

Babbo, pietà, pietà!

Babbo, pietà, pietà!

O my dear papa I like him, he is handsome, handsome I want to go to Porta Rossa To buy the ring!

Yes, yes, I want to go there!

And if my love were in vain, I would go to the Ponte Vecchio And throw myself in the Arno!

I am aching, I am tortured!

Oh God, I’d like to die!

Father, have pity, have pity!

Father, have pity, have pity!

PROGRAM NOTES Una voce poco fa

A voice has just

Una voce poco fa qui nel cor mi risuonò; il mio cor ferito è già, e Lindor fu che il piagò.

A voice has just echoed here into my heart my heart is already wounded and it was Lindoro who shot.

Sì, Lindoro mio sarà; lo giurai, la vincerò. (bis)

Yes, Lindoro will be mine I’ve swore it, I’ll win. (bis)

Il tutor ricuserà, io l’ingegno aguzzerò.

Alla fin s’accheterà e contenta io resterò.

The tutor will refuse, I’ll sharpen my mind finally, he’ll accept, and happy I’ll rest.

Sì, Lindoro mio sarà; lo giurai, la vincerò.

Sì, Lindoro mio sarà; lo giurai, sì.

Yes, Lindoro will be mine I’ve swore it, I’ll win.

Yes, Lindoro will be mine I’ve swore it, yes.

Io sono docile, son rispettosa, sono obbediente, dolce, amorosa; mi lascio reggere, mi lascio reggere, mi fo guidar, mi fo guidar.

I’m gentle, respectful I’m obedient, sweet, loving I let be ruled, I let be ruled, I let be guided, I let be guided.

Ma, ma se mi toccano dov’è il mio debole sarò una vipera, sarò e cento trappole prima di cedere farò giocar, giocar.

But, but if they touch where my weak spot is I’ll be a viper and a hundred traps before giving up I’ll make them fall.

E cento trappole prima di cedere farò giocar, farò giocar.

And into a hundred traps before giving up I’ll make them fall.

PROGRAM NOTES Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß

My lips, they give so fiery a kiss

Ich weiß es selber nicht, warum man gleich von Liebe spricht, wenn man in meiner Nähe ist, in meine Augen schaut und meine Hände küsst.

I don’t understand myself, why they keep talking of love, if they come near me, if they look into my eyes and kiss my hand.

Sie ist in mir aufs neu erwacht, ich hab’ das gleiche Los. Ich tanz’ wie sie um Mitternacht Und fühl das eine bloß:

She reawakened in me, mine is the same lot.

I dance like her at midnight And from deep within I feel:

I don’t understand myself, Ich weiß es selber nicht Why they talk of magic, warum man von dem Zauber spricht, you fight in vain, if you see me dem keiner widersteht, wenn er mich sieht If you pass me by. wenn er an mir vorüber geht.

But if the red light is on Doch wenn das rote Licht erglüht In the middle of the night Zur mitternächt’gen Stund And everybody listens to my song, Und alle lauschen meinem Lied, Then it is plain to see: dann wird mir klar der Grund: My lips, they give so fiery a kiss, Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß My limbs, they are supple and white, Meine Glieder sind schmiegsam und It is written for me in the stars: weiß(weich), Thou shalt kiss! Thou shalt love!

In den Sternen da steht es geschrieben: My feet, they glide and float, Du sollst küssen, du sollst lieben!

My eyes, they lure and glow, Meine Füße sie schweben dahin, And I dance as if entranced, ‘cause I know! meine Augen sie locken und glüh’n My lips give so fiery a kiss! und ich tanz’ wie im Rausch den ich weiß, In my veins meine Lippen sie küssen so heiß! runs a dancer’s blood, In meinen Adern drin, Because my beautiful mother da rollt das Blut der Tänzerin Was the Queen of dance in the gilded Denn meine schöne Mutter war Alcazar1.

Des Tanzes Knigin im gold’nen Alcazar.

She was so very beautifull, Sie war so wunderschön, I often saw her in my dreams, ich hab’ sie oft im Traum geseh’n.

If she beat the tamburine, to her Schlug sie das Tamburin, zu wildem Tanz, beguiling dance dann sah man alle Augen glühn!

All eyes were glowing admiringly!

PROGRAM NOTES L’ora, o Tirsi, è vaga e bella L’ora, o Tirsi, è vaga e bella.

Ride il giorno, ride intorno la fida pastorella.

Te sospira, per te spira.

Ma tu giungi e in un baleno viva e lieta, è dessa allor!

Ah! Vedi il ciel com’è sereno sul miracolo d’amor!

The hour, O Thyrsis, is attractive and lovely The hour, O Thyrsis, is attractive and lovely, the day smiles, smiles about your faithful little shepherdess.

She sighs for you, dies for you.

But you appear and in a trice she becomes joyful and alive!

Ah, see the sky!

How serene it is over the miracle of love!

UPCOMING CONSERVATORY EVENTS Apr. 20 I 4 pm The Big Pacific Double Reed Band Faye Spanos Concert Hall

Apr. 26 I 2 pm Conservatory Concert Hour Faye Spanos Concert Hall

Apr. 20 I 7:30 pm University Symphony Orchestra Faye Spanos Concert Hall

Apr. 26 I 7:30 pm Patricia Shands, clarinet Igor Veligan, violin Conservatory Recital Hall

Apr. 23 I 7:30 pm Pacific Percussion Ensemble Faye Spanos Concert Hall

Apr. 29 I 7:30 pm Chamber Ensemble Conservatory Recital Hall

Apr. 25 I 7:30 pm Trio 180 and Guests Guest artists: Myriam Cottin-Rack and Victor Veligan Conservatory Recital Hall

Apr. 30 I 7:30 pm Composers Club Conservatory Recital Hall

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