The Bear & Le pauvre matelot: Cast lists and synopses

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Yale Opera

9

may 5 & 6, 2017 new double bill

walton

milhaud

The Bear

Le pauvre matelot

Robert Blocker, Dean

(The poor sailor)

D

0

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k Cross, Artistic D a r ic ire Y s ct ri

Yale Opera

9

milhaud

walton

The Bear

Le pauvre matelot (The poor sailor)

may 5 & 6, 2017 Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall Friday & Saturday at 7:30 pm

douglas dickson & timothy shaindlin music preparation and direction dustin wills stage direction rebecca welles costume designer doug harry lighting designer johnny moreno projection designer

Yale Opera

The Bear Some reunions can be murder Music by William Walton Libretto by Paul Dehn and William Walton after a vaudeville by Anton Chekhov By arrangement with C.F. Peters Corporation Performed in English with projected English text Musical direction by Douglas Dickson

cast in order of appearance Luka Madame Popova’s manservant

stephen clark, bass-baritone

Madame Yeliena Ivanovna Popova the young widow of a landowner

alexandra urquiola, mezzo-soprano

Grigory Stephanovitch Smirnov a middle-aged landowner

bryan murray, baritone

Synopsis

Poor Madame Popova. She’s locked herself indoors for the past year in mourning for her dead husband, Nicolas. It’s the first day of Spring and yet still, she dresses all in black. Her servant Luka encourages her to take a greater interest in life! But she won’t have it. She’s vowed to stay in mourning for the rest of her life to prove her fidelity to Nicolas – even though he was an abusive philanderer.

Then, a knock on the door!? Smirnov forces his way past the servants into Popova’s dining room demanding immediate repayment of debts owed to him by her late husband, or else his estate will be put up for sale the very next day. Popova promises to settle the debt by the week’s end, but Smirnov insists it will be too late. He abandons all manners, shouts and stomps sending Popova for the door. Left

alone, he rages about the evils of his debtors and the illogical nature of women, and eventually spirals out of control.

Popova returns to chastise him for his lack of manners. They volley insults back and forth, each one trying whatever they can to win. As they compete, Smirnov grows more and more enamored of her beauty and tenacity while Popova becomes more and more furious at his boorishness.

She brands him a “Bear” – an insult so great that he challenges her to a duel.

She accepts, but he has to show her how to use the pistols. By this time he is so overcome with passion for her that he refuses to fire and instead declares his love for her. She threatens to shoot him, but he begs her instead to marry him. She orders him to leave, and then orders him to stay.

Yale Opera

Le pauvre matelot (The Poor Sailor) A widow in mourning, loaded for love Music by Darius Milhaud Libretto by Jean Cocteau By arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc., publisher and copyright owner Performed in French with projected English translation Musical direction by Timothy Shaindlin

cast in order of appearance Wife

natalia rubis, soprano

Friend

dean murphy, baritone

Father-in-law

stephen clark, bass-baritone

Sailor

lucas van lierop, tenor

Synopsis

In a small seaside town, a woman waits in her struggling bar for the return of her sailor husband who has been gone for fifteen years. She hasn’t heard any word of his whereabouts and imagines him dead, or maybe he’ll return rich, or maybe he’s lost at sea, or, or, or... she lives in an unhappy dream. The woman finds companionship with a friend who keeps a shop across the street, and who has proposed marriage to her – but she refuses to marry him because the specter of her husband looms over her.

Her pitiful father also resides with her and begs her to move on and marry the young man from across the street.

This is the stasis where the aimless trio has lived for years and years.

ACT I On this evening, the woman and her father are drowning their sorrows, the friend skulks, and the bar has been empty (it usually is). Before the friend retires to his shop that night, he borrows a hammer from the woman then heads home. Late in the night the sailor finally returns, and before returning home to his wife, he first visits the friend to inquire about his wife’s fidelity. The sailor has changed so much that the friend mistakes him for a drunkard and tries to attack him – but soon he recognizes his long lost friend. The sailor reveals that he returns with riches in tow, and concocts a plan to trick his wife.

ACT II The next morning, He returns home and - taking advantage of his changed appearance – introduces himself to his wife as an “acquaintance” of her husband. He informs her and that her husband is alive but he owes many debts and is currently in hiding, but will return in a week’s time. He then spins a tale of how an exotic Queen romantically tempted both himself and her husband; how her husband refused her advances and was turned away penniless but he acquiesced and was rewarded with an expensive string of pearls, which he shows to her. The woman is overcome with emotion and admits she has no money to cover her husband’s debts. Her husband (still playing the trick) asks to stay the night in the bar and hide his treasure there, which she accepts… The friend, distraught and desiring to see the woman to find out what’s happening, returns the hammer to the woman late in the evening. They exchange some brief words at the door and she takes the hammer.

ACT III Hours pass deep into night and further into the earliest morning. And in those rare hours, the nightmares that have been lurking beneath the surface erupt…

Yale Opera Production Staff

dustin wills Stage Director

erika niemi heltzel Manager

rebecca l. welles Costume Designer

julie hurley Stage Manager

doug harry Lighting Designer & Master Electrician

zachary johnson Assistant Stage Manager cailey harwood-smith Properties Master

johnny moreno Projection Designer

bobby graham Wardrobe Assistant

yaara beer Projection Assistant zachary johnson & dean murphy Student Assistants

jill brunelle Surtitle Operator

concert programs & box office Krista Johnson, Kate Gonzales communications Donna Yoo, Katie Dune, David Brensilver operations Tara Deming, Chris Melillo piano curators Barbara Renner, Robert Crowson, Brian Daley, William Harold media production Matthew LeFevre, Travis Wurges

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Robert Blocker, Dean