Program Notes

Phantasmagoria (2000)
John Corigliano (b. 1938)

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.

The architecture of the three-hour opera is mirrored in microcosm in Phantasmagoria, which begins with spectral ghost music and a melodic fragment from Marie Antoinette’s first aria that reappears throughout the work. Sliding harmonics and cluster-chords create a liquid tableau behind this melody.

The world of the stage is highly stylized; as the characters would suggest, it is set in the world of 18th-century opera buffa. This section of Phantasmagoria comprises parts of Figaro’s Act I aria and the many chase scenes that occur throughout the opera. Subliminal quotes from Mozart and Rossini (and even one from Wagner) are interspersed with rhythmically eccentric passages of great virtuosity for the orchestral players.

Throughout the work, the ghost music floats in and out, binding the other sections together. After the buffa reaches a climax (with of all things, the Tristan chord), we arrive at a setting of the septet (Quintet and Miserere) from Act II. This highly lyrical ensemble is set in the Conciergerie prison, and unites the Almaviva family (2) with Marie Antoinette (1) in the very real French Revolution (3).

The end of the septet flows into the ghost music, and Marie Antoinette’s melodic motto leads to a conclusion of liquid repose.

– John Corigliano

Lumina (2020)
Nina Shekar (b. 1995)

Lumina explores the spectrum of light and dark and the murkiness in between. Using swift contrasts between bright, sharp timbres and cloudy textures and dense harmonies, the piece captures sudden bursts of radiance amongst the eeriness of shadows.

– Nina Shekar

Violin Concerto (Procession) (2022)
Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980)
[West Coast Premiere]

Violin Concerto (Procession) casts the soloist as a soothsayer, sorcerer, healer, and pied piper-type character, leading the orchestra through five interconnected healing spells. Part one, “Procession in a Spiral”, references medieval penitential processions; part two, “St. Vitus,” is an homage to the patron saint of dancing, who could reportedly cast out eveil spirits; part three, “O My Soul,” is a twisted reworking of the hymn of the same name; and part four, “Bone to Bone, Blood to Blood,” derives its name from the 9th-century Merseburg Charm, a spell meant to cure broken limbs. In the final movement, “Procession Ascending,” the soloist straightens out the spiral of the first section and leads the orchestra straight into the sky. Violin Concerto (Procession) was commissioned by the National Symphony and the Cincinnati Symphony for soloist Jennifer Koh.

– Missy Mazzoli

Three Hallucinations (1981)
John Corigliano (b. 1938)

Three Hallucinations for Orchestra is based upon music written for Ken Russell’s film “Altered States.” The three pieces—Sacrifice, Hymn, Ritual—are interconnected in this score, as well as interrelated motivically and melodically. In the film, Mr. Russell devised several extended religious hallucinations, and the outer two movements of this work (Sacrifice and Ritual) are taken directly from the original film score.

Sacrifice depicts the pagan slaying of a seven-eyed goat, superimposed against other images of death (primarily the death of the hero’s father) and sensuality. The movement begins, however, with a slow introduction, setting up a trance-like state. This is interrupted by the bleating sound of oboes playing in a highly primitive manner. The motto thus introduced—an ornamented and repeated single note C—figures not only in the development of this movement, but as the motivic “theme” of the final movement’s dance.

Other ingredients combine with the oboe motive—specifically, an interval relationship (the tritone or flatted-fifth)—and a melodic fragment (of the hymn Rock of Ages). A final superimposition of all these ingredients culminates in a gigantic orchestral glissando which ends the movement.

The second movement, “Hymn,” develops and extends the previously heard fragment of “Rock of Ages,” fading in and out of a realistic version of the music into more hallucinatory visions. Blurred visions of choral “Amens” (plagal cadences) float like clouds around this music.

The last movement, “Ritual,” interrupts a series of these cadences with frenzied energy, and the momentum leads to a savage ritual dance (in the film, the Hinchi Indians’ mushroom rite). The full-orchestral forces are augmented here by two sets of four timpani each and also by an expanded percussion section, and the work ends in a burst of cumulative energy.

– John Corigliano