Boston's Odyssey Opera Announces 2017-18 Fifth Anniversary Season

Following Odyssey Opera's 2016-17 season dedicated to works inspired by the writings of Oscar Wilde, Artistic and General Director Gil Rose today announced the company's 2017-18 season: Trial by Fire: Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War, featuring operatic masterpieces that tell the story of martyr, saint, and military leader Joan of Arc (1412-1431). Representing a wide range of styles, Odyssey Opera presents five operas that interpret the mysterious medieval world Joan inhabited. Opening the season is Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans followed by L'assedio di Calais by Gaetano Donizetti, The Trial at Rouen by Norman Dello Joio, Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher by Arthur Honegger, and Giovanna d'Arco by Giuseppe Verdi.

One of the most celebrated figures of late medieval history, Joan of Arc has fascinated artists from every imaginable genre for nearly six centuries. The realm of classical music boasts a number of Joan of Arc operas. "Looking at the sheer number of artists who have produced works dedicated to Joan of Arc, we might well believe Mark Twain's assertion that she 'is easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced,'" says Rose. "Unlike many of opera's heroines, Joan of Arc is an unapologetically strong female protagonist who doesn't need a sweeping romance."

Joan of Arc's presence both as a warrior and spiritual visionary sparked the beginnings of France's rise as a great European power. Divine voices guided the 18-year old peasant girl to liberate the city of Orle?ans in 1429 and subsequently turn the tide for the French in the closing years of the Hundred Years' War. Burned as a heretic in 1431, the Maid of Orle?ans was portrayed by her enemies as a witch, and a madwoman, she was later pardoned and eventually recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. Today, she is a national hero of the French.

"This season, each one of Odyssey Opera's productions reflects the socio-political contexts from which they sprang, peppered with doses of religion, propaganda, or patriotism," says Rose. "Except for Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher, this is perhaps why they have faded into obscurity." Each composer represented in this season has, with their unique sonic language, captured the passion of the wondrous French maiden in operas that evoke a world filled with angelic and demonic voices, tolling bells, kings and clerics, soldiers and Joan's own people, the peasants of France.

Representing the 19th Century are three operas produced in the Romantic operatic tradition: Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco (1845), Tchaikovsky's Maid of Orle?ans (1878), and Donizetti's L'assedio di Calais (1836). In both Verdi's and Tchaikovsky's takes, Joan is cast as the soprano ingénue opposite an awkward romantic partner. Overshadowed by Verdi's great, later dramas, Giovanna d'Arco (Joan of Arc) still features one of Verdi's finest title roles. In this intriguing interpretation, Joan's purity and virginity is accentuated and gone is her death at the stake. In Maid of Orle?ans, Tchaikovsky's sixth opera, Joan (to be played by mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich) falls for a British soldier who switches alliances to the French army, a more accurate story. Unlike Verdi, Tchaikovsky remains true to Joan's fiery martyrdom, and her legendary encounter with Charles VII, and creates a lush musical portrait of an intrepid girl leading the French army. Donizetti's L'assedio di Calais (The Siege of Calais) focuses on the bleak wartime and tales of courage and self-sacrifice in the year-long Siege of Calais during the Hundred Years' War. This rarely-heard Italian Bel Canto work had a limited career during the composer's lifetime before disappearing for 150 years.

The 20th Century saw the canonization of Joan of Arc in 1909-a popular time for the patron saint for France. Odyssey Opera presents two pieces created during this period: The Trial at Rouen (1955) by Norman Dello Joio, and Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher (1938) by Arthur Honegger. Dello Joio was commissioned by the NBC Television Opera Theatre to produce an original 75-minute opera for television. The resulting work in two acts, The Trial at Rouen, premiered on April 8, 1956, on NBC. In collaboration with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera's performance marks the first time The Trial at Rouen will be performed off screen and on stage in front of a live audience. The most condensed of all the operas presented, it focuses on the period of the imprisonment and trial of Joan (to be played by soprano Heather Buck). Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher (Joan of Arc at the Stake) is a large-scale dramatic production and is the only work that has become ensconced in the classical music repertoire. It has enjoyed renewed international interest thanks to global productions featuring the popular French actress Marion Cotillard. The work is a hybrid of Honegger's eclectic score and sung/spoken libretto by poet/playwright Paul Claudel. Odyssey Opera's performance will feature the 50+ voices of the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum.

All performances will be conducted by Gil Rose. Tickets for Odyssey Opera's entire 2017-18 season go on sale August 1st at odysseyopera.org.

About Odyssey Opera

Founded in 2013 by artistic director/conductor Gil Rose, Odyssey Opera presents adventurous and eclectic works that affirm opera as a powerful expression of the human experience. Its world-class artists perform the operatic repertoire from its historic beginnings through lesser-known masterpieces to contemporary new works and commissions in varied formats and venues. Odyssey Opera sets standards of high musical and theatrical excellence and innovative programming to advance the operatic genre beyond the familiar and into undiscovered territory. Odyssey Opera takes its audience on a journey to places they've never been before. odysseyopera.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.