Program Notes:
John Corigliano (b. 1938)
Phantasmagoria, Suite from The Ghost of Versailles
“I think it’s good for the composer to teach because you always have new students and you have to begin at the beginning and make things clear.”
–John CoriglianoNew York-born composer John Corigliano’s scores have won him multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer, and an Oscar. Even with such a towering reputation, the fact that his first opera commission came from the fabled Metropolitan Opera itself is a prestigious rarity. The Met commissioned Corigliano in 1980 to write an opera for its centennial season in 1983. The resulting opera, The Ghosts of Versailles — from which the Phantasmagoria is drawn — wouldn’t premiere until 1991.
Despite the delays, it was a smash hit at the time. The plot, which centers on revising history to prevent the beheading of Marie Antoinette, is convoluted and draws from famous operas like Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and Rossini’s Barber of Seville, both of which are based on plays by the French writer Beaumarchais. In brief, it is an opera within an opera, where the Count Almaviva is in Paris as an ambassador from Spain. He and Figaro attempt to rescue the queen, but mayhem ensues — the playwright Beaumarchais enters the opera himself to help get things back on course.
Corigliano himself explains the setting as follows: “My opera The Ghosts of Versailles takes place on three different planes of reality: (1) the world of eternity, inhabited by the ghosts of Versailles, including the playwright Beaumarchais and Marie Antoinette; (2) the world of the stage, inhabited by the 18th century characters of Beaumarchais (Figaro, Susanna, the Count and Countess, etc.); and (3) the world of historic reality, primarily the reality of the French Revolution itself, populated by the characters of (1) and (2). Thus The Ghosts of Versailles represents a journey from the most fantastic to the most realistic.”
OK then. Corigliano delineates between the three worlds through his music. There are spectral, abstract flutterings. There are soulful melodies, frenetic chase scenes, music that references historical periods. The Phantasmagoria is a reduction of the three-hour opera into a roughly 23-minute tone poem, sans voices. The music includes the opening “ghost” music, sections of Act 1, and the chase scenes and quotes from both Mozart and Rossini for the opera buffs.
The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra recently commissioned Corigliano to arrange the suite for solo cello and orchestra, adjusting the music into a quasi-concerto and handing some of the vocal lines to the soloist. This weekend marks the world premiere of the new arrangement.