Baritone Justin Hopkins & Soprano Alison Buchanan in American Symphony Orchestra's 'The Vampire', Carnegie Hall, 2 PM, Mar. 17, 2013

Justin Hopkins

Alison Buchanan

AMERICAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRESENTS THE VAMPIRE—A RARE CONCERT PERFORMANCE OF MARSCHNER’S DER VAMPYR—AT CARNEGIE HALL MARCH 17

CAST INCLUDES: NICHOLAS PALLESEN (BARITONE), CARSTEN WITTMOSER (BASS-BARITONE), VALE RIDEOUT (TENOR), ALISON BUCHANAN (SOPRANO), JUSTIN HOPKINS (BASS-BARITONE), TAMARA WILSON (SOPRANO), GLENN SEVEN ALLEN (TENOR), JENNIFER TILLER (SOPRANO), JAMIE BARTON (ALTO) & THE COLLEGIATE CHORALE SINGERS

“[A] remarkable, adventurous orchestra—led by [an] equally remarkable, adventurous music director”—The New York Times

On March 17 the American Symphony Orchestra and Music Director and Conductor Leon Botstein present The Vampire, the fifth concert of their 50th Anniversary Carnegie Hall Season. The program consists of a rare concert performance of Heinrich August Marschner’s two-act Romantic opera Der Vampyr and features a cast of acclaimed soloists: baritone Nicholas Pallesen, bass-baritone Carsten Wittmoser, tenor Vale Rideout, soprano Alison Buchanan, bass-baritone Justin Hopkins, soprano Tamara Wilson, tenor Glenn Seven Allen, soprano Jennifer Tiller and alto Jamie Barton. The Collegiate Chorale Singers, directed by James Bagwell, will also appear.

Completed in 1827, Der Vampyr takes as its source material the 1821 play Der Vampir oder die Totenbraut (“The Vampire, or the Bride of the Dead”) by Heinrich Ludwig Ritter, which in turn is based on John Polidori’s 1819 novella The Vampyre. Polidori, who was Lord Byron’s physician, wrote the novella following the fabled 1816 gathering on the shores of Lake Geneva at which participants including Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Shelley’s fiancée at the time) passed the time by reading aloud German ghost stories and (at Byron’s suggestion) inventing new ones of their own—the best known of which is of course Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. At the time of its anonymous publication, The Vampyre was widely and persistently attributed to Byron.

With a libretto by Marschner’s brother-in-law, August Wohlbrück, Der Vampyr looks back to Mozart’s Don Giovanni on the one hand and forward to Wagner’s Flying Dutchman on the other. The vampiric protagonist Lord Ruthven, who must kill three virgins in order to stay “alive,” is clearly related to the Don Juan, serial-seducer type—though he shares the pale, mesmerizing countenance of Wagner’s Dutchman—and the libretto points to Wagner in its emphasis on the relations between men. In fact, Wagner collaborated on a production of Der Vampyr with his brother Albert during his early operatic apprenticeship in Würzburg, and his extended conclusion for the character Aubry’s aria “Wie ein schöner Frühlingsmorgen” is featured in the present performance.

PROGRAM DETAILS:

American Symphony Orchestra
The Vampire
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Carnegie Hall
1:00 p.m. Conductor’s Notes Q&A (free for ticket holders)
2:00 p.m. Concert

Approximate run time: 2 hours and 50 minutes including one 20-minute intermission.

MARSCHNER: Der Vampyr

Performers Vale Rideout, Tenor
Nicholas Pallesen, Baritone
Carsten Wittmoser, Bass-Baritone
Alison Buchanan, Soprano
Justin Hopkins, Bass-Baritone
Tamara Wilson, Soprano
Glenn Seven Allen, Tenor
Jennifer Tiller, Soprano
Jamie Barton, Alto
The Collegiate Chorale Singers, James Bagwell, Music Director