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Friday and Saturday, June 26 and 27, 2015
PRELUDE TO
PARSIFAL
(1877-1882)
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Wagner’s Prelude to
Parsifal
is scored for three flutes, three oboes,
English horn, three clarinets, three bassoons, contrabassoon,
four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and
strings. The performance time is 13 minutes. This is the first
performance of this work by the Grant Park Orchestra.
In 1848, Wagner drafted the script for a drama titled “Jesus
of Nazareth.” He seems never to have intended this scenario to serve as the basis of
an opera (Wagner was always his own librettist), but it did contain scenes that he later
used in
Parsifal
, most significantly the
Good Friday Spell
. Eight years later, he sketched
another stage work,
Die Sieger
(“
The Victors
”), that reflected his interest in Buddhist
thought and doctrine and also contributed to the final form of
Parsifal
, especially
the idea of the “rebirth” of Kundry. It was not until after composing
Das Rheingold
,
DieWalküre
andmuchof
Siegfried
thatthislooseassemblyofsketches,plansandideasfor
Parsifal
finally crystallized. In April 1857, after a cold, rainy spring, sunlight flooded the
garden at Wagner’s villa near Zurich one morning and sent him into an almost visionary
state. He later wrote, “The garden was breaking into leaf, the birds were singing, and
I could rejoice in the fruitful quiet I had so long thirsted for. Suddenly it came to me
that this was Good Friday, and I remembered the great message it had once brought
to me as I was reading Wolfram’s
Parzival
.... Its essence now became clear to me in
overwhelming significance, and on the basis of the Good Friday idea I quickly
conceived an entire drama in three acts of which I made a brief and hasty sketch.”
However,
Tristan und Isolde
intervened (Wagner considered using Parsifal as a minor
character in that opera, but abandoned the idea), and the next step in the creation
of
Parsifal
was not taken until 1865, when Wagner presented a detailed outline of the
libretto to his fanatical admirer, King Ludwig II of Bavaria.
It was yet another dozen years — after
Die Meistersinger
, after
Götterdämmerung
—
before the libretto of
Parsifal
took on its final form in 1877. The Prelude was composed
EMILY ELLSWORTH
has been Artistic Director of Anima since 1996. She has prepared
the Chorus for performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of
Mahler’s SymphoniesNo. 3 andNo. 8withChristophEschenbach, Stravinsky’s
Symphony
of Psalms
with Sir Georg Solti, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with Claudio Abbado
and the Berlin Philharmonic. She has conducted the young singers in performances
with Julia Roberts, Garth Brooks, Dennis DeYoung, Chicago area orchestras, featured
broadcasts on WFMT, five CD recordings, and appearances at national conventions for
Chorus America (2004 and 2005) and the American Choral Director’s Association (1999
and 2003) as well as concert tours of Italy, Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, Hong
Kong, mainland China and South Africa. Ms. Ellsworth has served on the Music Panel
for the National Endowment for the Arts, received the YWCA’s Outstanding Leader for
Arts and Culture Award for DuPage County (1999), and is in demand both nationally
and internationally as a guest clinician. She is also the editor of the Opera Workshop
series for Boosey and Hawkes Publishing. Ms. Ellsworth has more than twenty years of
teaching experience, having served on the music faculties of the College of DuPage,
St. Andrews College in North Carolina, and the University of Southern California. She
has also served on the music faculty of Doreen Rao’s Choral Music Experience Institute
for Choral Teacher Education since 1988. Emily Ellsworth holds a Bachelor of Music
with Special Departmental Honors from Macalester College under Dale Warland and
a Master of Music in Vocal Arts with Honors from the University of Southern California.
She also holds the Artist/Teacher diploma from the Choral Music Experience Institute.
