Ernest Bloch's MACBETH to be Performed at Manhattan School of Music

The Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater will be presenting Ernest Bloch's Macbeth on Wednesday, December 10 and Friday, December 12 at 7:30 pm.; and on Sunday, December 14 at 2:30 p.m. in the School's Borden Auditorium. Bloch's only opera, composed when the composer was in his early 20's, is set to a libretto by the composer's friend, the poet Edmond Fleg, after Shakespeare's play. Laurent Pillot conducts and Dona D. Vaughn, Artistic Director of MSM's Opera Theater, is the stage director. The artistic team includes Michael V. Moore, scenic design; Daniel James Cole, costume design; Tyler Micoleau, lighting design; Anne Ford-Coates, hair and makeup design; Jo Heginbotham, choreographer; and Adam Alexander, fight director. English supertitles are by William Tracy.

The Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater's Mabeth will be the American premiere of the French version, styled a "lyric drama." It will be performed with a prologue in three acts, basically uncut, including Lady Macduff's aria. The running time will be approximately - Prologue and Act 1, 65 minutes; 20 minute intermission; and Acts 2 and 3, 79 minutes. This production is made possible by the Joseph F. McCrindle Endowment for Opera Productions at Manhattan School of Music.

An opening night Pre-Performance Talk with Gordon Ostrowski, assistant dean of opera studies and production will take place on Wednesday, December 10 at 6:00 p.m. in the School's Greenfield Hall. This Pre-Performance Talk allows interested audience members the opportunity to hear directly from the production's artistic team on the ins-and-outs of this production as well as hear a sampling of the evening's music. This event is free and tickets are not required.

Ernest Bloch completed Macbeth at the age of twenty-six, having started its composition five years earlier while residing in Geneva working in his father's business and raising a family, all at the same time. Bloch wrote about his only opera, "In Macbeth the essential thing is the psychology of the characters; I based my work passionately on this in my musical conception." Influences of Wagner, Debussy and Mussorgsky are heard in its score.

In 1907, an unfinished Macbeth was given a performance at the home of George Bizet's son, and a guest was Albert Carré, director of the Paris Opéra Comique. As a result, an interview was arranged for Bloch and Fleg (Macbeth's librettist) to meet with the director, who immediately asked for the opera's performance rights to take place within two years.

Bloch completed Macbeth in September1909, and the opera received its first performance in Paris on November 30, 1910, followed with twelve additional performances. At the time, it was met with mixed reviews - from tremendous admiration to intense dislike. Suzanne Bloch, Ernest Bloch's daughter wrote about those first performances, "Bloch cherished a letter from a young woman musician, telling of her appreciation to Bloch, and signed Nadia Boulanger. At the same time, Gabriel Faure, Boulanger's teacher, wrote that he was impressed by the opera but disturbed by the violence, the 'laideurs' in the work. He felt that even though there was ugliness in the drama the music shouldn't necessarily express it."

Two performances followed in 1911, and the opera would not be performed again until 1938 when the Teatro San Carlo presented the opera's Italian premiere in Naples with an Italian translation by Mary Tibaldi Chiesa. Productions followed in Rome (1953), Trieste (1953), Brussels (1957), and La Scala (1960). Pierre Colombo, the Swiss conductor, led a concert performance of Macbeth in 1966 over Radio France, and in November 1968 conducted the entire opera in Switzerland at the Grand Theatre de Geneve.

Macbeth's first United States performance was a 1957 student production that took place at the Karamu House in Cleveland. In 1960, fifty years after it was composed, the opera was performed at the University of California at Berkeley by The Opera Workshop. Subsequent performances were also mounted at Baylor University of Texas in 1969 and 1970. The Juilliard American Opera Center gave the first New York performances to critical acclaim in May 1973, performed in Bloch's own English translation, conducted by Peter Herman Adler and directed by John Houseman. Two recent performances have been staged by Andreas Mitisek, both in the cut English version, by the Chicago Opera Theater this past September, and the Long Beach Opera in June 2013.

Ernest Bloch (1880 -1959)

The creator of music of great spiritual expression, Ernest Bloch was born on July 24, 1880 in Geneva, Switzerland. In his native city, he studied violin with Louis Rey and composition with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and later studied in Brussels (violin with Eugene Ysaye), Frankfurt and Munich.

His first published work was the "Historiettes au crépuscule" (1904 for mezzo-soprano and piano). Also in 1904, he married and returned to Geneva, selling clocks in his father's shop during the day, and composing at night. In 1911, following the French success of his 1910 premiere of Macbeth, Bloch was appointed to a professorship in Geneva, and conducted symphony concerts in Lausanne and Neuchâtel. His composition style changed during this time, as he began composing highly emotional works with the idea that music might be reborn from the soul. He became concerned with the Jewish soul; works from this time include the "Israel Symphony" (1912-16) and "Schelomo" (1916).

Ernest Bloch travelled to the United Sates in 1916 and with the successful premiere by the Boston Symphony of his Trois Poèmes Juifs in 1917; was encouraged to settle in the United States. He assumed the directorship of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1920, becoming head of the San Francisco Conservatory in 1925. In 1924, he became an American citizen. During the 1930's he returned to Switzerland, travelling throughout Europe on concert tours and conducting his own music. Bloch returned to the United States in 1941 making his home in Agate Beach, Oregon. In 1943 he was appointed to a professorship at the University of California at Berkeley. Ernest Bloch passed away on July 15, 1959. His students included Roger Sessions, George Antheil and Douglas Moore.