Nicola LeFanu_Dream Hunter_EP72026_Score

Lefanu

Dream Hunter

Chamber Opera Score

NICOLA LEFANU

Dream Hunter

Chamber Opera for four singers and small chamber ensemble

Libretto by John Fuller

Full Score

Commissioned by the Mornington Trust, with funds from the Britten Pears Foundation, for performance by Lontano.

Conductor: Odaline de la Martinez

Director: Carmen Jacobi

DREAM HUNTER

Set in Corsica in the late nineteenth century, the opera explores the ambiguity surrounding the mazzere – women gifted with the prescience of death. If they foresee death, do they also cause it? The men may hunt by day, but the women hunt in their dreams.

The four characters are Domenico, a widowed smallholder; his daughters Angela and Catarina, and Sampiero, son of the mayor. The scene is Domenico’s farmhouse; there is a central living/kitchen area, with a main door (upstage) and a side door (stage right), and (to stage left) a bedroom area.

SYNOPSIS

1. The young women are preparing the evening meal. Angela, the older sister, is eagerly awaiting Sampiero, hoping that their betrothal can be celebrated. Catarina thinks he is a conceited young man who will deceive Angela.

2. Catarina’s thoughts are far away: she tells her sister of her strange dream last night: she had hunted down a fox and wounded it. What does the dream mean?

3. Sampiero arrives: he is betrothed to Angela, but it is her younger sister Catarina whom he wants. His hand is injured; Catarina wonders if she foretold it in her dream.

4. When Angela exits to fetch water, Sampiero tries to make love to Catarina; she repulses him – it is clear this has happened before. He is startled when she tells him that she foretold his injury in her dream. Angela, returning and finding them together, is suspicious.

5. Domenico arrives home, with a wild boar he has shot (out of season, as Sampiero points out). The men argue: Sampiero is in debt to Domenico, but he pays up, and the men agree on Angela’s dowry. In a trio, the three young people wonder about the bad omens for the wedding: does Catarina have the power to cause injury, as well as foresee it? Domenico and Sampiero sit down to eat and drink and celebrate the wedding agreement; Catarina is horrified that her father is giving up his land to Sampiero and that Angela is marrying him; she runs into her bedroom.

6. Angela, alone, wonders about marriage, men’s infidelity and her own future.

7. After their meal, Domenico and Sampiero are drinking together. Domenico soon gets drunk. In the bedroom, Catarina tries to reassure Angela that she has no interest in any man, let alone Sampiero. She is increasingly troubled by her strange dreams, that seem to take her into a different world. Angela and she get into bed. As Angela blows out the candle, she realises that Sampiero is only marrying her in order to have Catarina too.

8. In the kitchen Domenico has fallen asleep; Sampiero steals back some of the money he paid; then, made bold by drink, he decides to go in to the sleeping sisters.

9: Finale. As Sampiero tiptoes towards the girls’ bed, he sees that Catarina is restlessly dreaming. She is hunting in her dreams; as she becomes increasingly agitated, Angela wakes and discovers Sampiero. They are both terrified as Catarina rises, a sleepwalker. Sampiero rushes out to the kitchen, waking Domenico; he cries out to Domenico that Catarina is a witch, a mazzera. Sampiero runs off into the night. Domenico comes to the bedroom; Angela has realised what may be happening, and sends Domenico after Sampiero, lest Catarina harms him by her dreaming. Catarina wakes, and tells Angela that she dreamed she was hunting down a wild boar, and killed it. She saw death in its eyes, and they were Sampiero’s eyes. Domenico returns. He has Sampiero’s dead body on his shoulders; the young man had fallen from the cliff path. Angela grieves for her lost love; Domenico fears a vendetta. Alone in the bedroom, Catarina acknowledges her future: all her life, she will be a hunter.

Cast:

Catarina (soprano)

Angela (mezzo soprano)

Sampiero (tenor)

Domenico (bass baritone)

Instrumentation:

Flute, doubling piccolo, alto flute

Clarinet, doubling bass clarinet

Tenor trombone (with F attachment)

Percussion* (one player)

Harp

Violin

Cello

* Xylophone; crotales; suspended cymbal, bow as well as sticks; 3 tom-toms; string drum (lion’s roar); hourglass drum (squeeze drum); 4 skulls (temple blocks); guiro; maracas; guiro; maracas; rainstick; tambourine

Duration: 50 minutes

Angela

preparing the evening meal; Catarina

enters. He holds up a bottle of brandy; his left hand is bound up in a handkerchief.

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The

opens and Domenico appears with a dead boar over his shoulders

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To themselves, each character in their own thoughts.

Domenico and Sampiero sit down together at the table. Angela begins to serve the stew.

Domenico takes up the money Sampiero gave him.

Sampiero pulls the cork of the bottle. Gradually lights dim, passing from Domenico and Sampiero at the table, to Catarina in the bedroom, until finally only Angela is visible, spotlit.

Sampiero opens another bottle. (Lighting passes from the men to the two women in the bedroom.)

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Domenico starts in his sleep as Sampiero takes the money

Sampiero puts the money in his shirt and goes back to the table for more to drink.

Catarina stands, a sleepwalker. Angela screams. Sampiero rushes out of the bedroom into the kitchen, which wakes Domenico.

(poco rit.) (offstage, urgent)

Angela runs to the door.

Angela opens the door..

con sord. pedal gliss

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Domenico is there with the body of Sampiero over his shoulders.

Angela is at the door. Catarina remains in the bedroom; she is very still, except for occasionly rocking herself.

Angela

has been rocking herself; she becomes still as she sings.

Nicola LeFanu

Nicola LeFanu studied at Oxford, RCM and, as a Harkness Fellow, at Harvard. She has Honorary doctorates from the Universities of Durham, Aberdeen, and Open University, and is FRCM and F TCL. She has composed over sixty works which have been played and broadcast all over the world. She has been commissioned by the BBC (including the Proms), by festivals in UK and beyond, and by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists. LeFanu has a particular affinity for vocal music and has composed six operas, including Dawnpath, (1977), The Green Children, a children’s opera (1990), The Wildman (1995) and Dream Hunter (2011). She has taught at King’s College London and the University of York.

Nicola LeFanu studierte in Oxford, am Royal College of Music sowie als „Harkness Fellow“ in Harvard. Sie trägt die Ehrendoktorwürde der Universitäten Durham und Aberdeen und der britischen Open University und ist „Fellow“ des Royal College of Music sowie des Trinity College London. Ihre über 60 Werke wurden in der ganzen Welt aufgeführt und übertragen. Kompositionsaufträge erhielt sie von der BBC (unter anderem für die Proms), von Festivals in und außerhalb von Großbritannien sowie von namhaften Orchestern, Ensembles und Solisten. LeFanus besonderes Interesse gilt der Vokalmusik, und ihr Werk umfasst sechs Opern, darunter Dawnpath (1977), die Kinderoper The Green Children (1990), The Wildman (1995) sowie Dream Hunter (2011). Lehrtätigkeiten übte sie am King’s College London und an der Universität York aus.

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