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Tippett - The Midsummer Marriage (Murray, Nicholls, Edward Gardner, ENO) (320kbps .mp3)
Tippett's great opera The Midsummer Marriage, with the LPO and Edward Gardner, live from the Royal Festival Hall, London.
Presented by Andrew McGregor, with expert commentary by Joanna Bullivant and Oliver Soden.
Mark: Robert Murray
Jenifer: Rachel Nicholls
King Fisher: Ashley Riches
Bella: Jennifer France
Jack: Toby Spence
Sosostris: Claire Barnett-Jones
She-Ancient: Susan Bickley
He-Ancient: Joshua Bloom
London Philharmonic Choir
English National Opera Chorus
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor
The Midsummer Marriage is Tippett's answer to Mozart's The Magic Flute, an opera rich in symbolism and psychology, trials and transformations. Robert Murray and Rachel Nicholls are Mark and Jenifer, Jennifer France and Toby Spence, Bella and Jack, two couples tested by a series of supernatural interventions on the shortest night of the year.
With its modern myth of hope and renewal clad in deliriously beautiful music, it’s an ideal way for Edward Gardner to make his debut as the LPO’s Principal Conductor, as the LPO joins forces with the ENO Chorus, London Philharmonic Choir and a world-class, all-British cast for this landmark concert performance.
Broadcast: 25 September 2021
SYNOPSIS:
Act 1 (Morning)
It is the dawn of midsummer day. Young people gather in a wood for the wedding of young ‘royal’ couple, Mark and Jenifer. Startled by strange, distant music, they hide as a group of dancers comes from the temple, led by two ‘Ancients’, named for characters in Shaw’s Back to Methuselah. Mark arrives, and calls for a new dance in celebration of his wedding, but to teach Mark the perils of disrupting tradition, the He-Ancient trips the attendant, Strephon (perhaps the personification of Mark’s ‘shadow’). Mark sings rapturously of his happiness, but when Jenifer arrives, she is dressed for a journey rather than a wedding and ascends the stone staircase to disappear from sight. Jenifer’s father, King Fisher, storms on: he is a business tycoon. King Fisher is accompanied by his secretary, Bella, and is in a fury at Jenifer’s elopement. Mark escapes through the gates, descending into the cave behind. The Ancients refuse to open the gates for King Fisher, who is unable to bribe the chorus to come to his aid. Bella suggests that her boyfriend, Jack, a mechanic, might force them open, but Jack’s attempts are hindered by a warning from a disembodied voice. Suddenly Jenifer and Mark reappear, transformed. Each sings of their experiences, but they find themselves again in disagreement: this time, Jenifer enters the gates and Mark climbs the staircase, leaving King Fisher protesting and the chorus laughing in the sunshine.
Act 2 (Afternoon)
Strephon begins a dance but is interrupted by the chorus. Separating from the group, Bella proposes to Jack, and they sing a lullaby to their future child. Then come the first three of the opera’s four Ritual Dances, each of which combines a season with an element (The Earth in Autumn, The Waters in Winter, The Air in Spring). Strephon, variously transfigured as three hunted animals (a hare, a fish, a bird) is pursued in each by a female dancer (as a hound, an otter, and a hawk). The bird’s plight frightens Bella, who clings to Jack. She straightens her hair, puts on her make-up, and they run off to join the others.
Act 3 (Evening and Night)
The chorus is celebrating after a party, some rather the worse for wear. King Fisher arrives with a gun. In the hopes of finding Mark and Jenifer he has brought a clairvoyante, Madame Sosostris. Jack pretends to be Sosostris but the true clairvoyante eventually appears, more than life-size, swathed in swirling black veils. She sings of the horrible burden of her oracular powers, and describes a vision of Mark and Jenifer making love. King Fisher cannot bear to listen and destroys her crystal ball, demanding that Jack strip away Sosostris’s veils. Jack refuses and he and Bella leave the opera for their life together. King Fisher steels himself to unveil Sosostris and reveals the bud of an enormous flower, which blooms, petal by petal, to show Mark and Jenifer entwined within. Almost blinded by the radiant sight, he crumples, dead, to the ground. As in legend, the death or sacrifice of the fisher king becomes part of an age-old fertility rite, and the fourth Ritual Dance (Fire in Summer) can now take place. Mark, Jenifer, and Strephon are all enclosed by the petals of the flower, which bursts into flame. The moonlight gives way to the dawn and the morning mist: it is midsummer day once again. Mark and Jenifer emerge, dressed for a wedding. All go off into the distance, leaving the stage flooded with light, and the temple and buildings revealed as nothing more than ruins.
© ROH
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