Aylesbury Opera

Performers

Notes on the performers

Founded by David Hayes, Aylesbury Opera began in 1979 as an evening class at Aylesbury College of Further Education. Their first production was Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in November 1980. Originally known as Aylesbury Opera Group, they performed at the College, various schools and then for twelve years at Aylesbury’s Civic Centre. Since 2002 Aylesbury Opera have staged their main productions at The Court Theatre, Tring. Each March they produce a fully staged opera with orchestra, recently Janáček’s Jenůfa in March 2022. They also put on regular concerts of both full operas and popular opera highlights programmes. These usually take place at churches in the Aylesbury area. Recent concert performances include an Opera Gala at St Mary’s Aylesbury in July 2021 and Handel’s Saul at Holy Trinity Church, Bledlowin November 2021. Both of these concerts featured an orchestra. Their next performance will be Stravinsky’s ‘The Rake’s Progress’, a staged production of with full orchestra, performing on 24 & 25 February 2023, 7.30pm at the Court Theatre, Tring.

Programme

Programme notes

Gaetano Donizetti (1797 – 1848)

La Favorita

1. Spiritu gentil
2. O mio Fernando

La favorita (‘The Favourite’) is a grand opera in four acts to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Baculard d’Arnaud. It premiered on 2 December 1840 at the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique in Paris, France. Leonora, the beautiful, mysterious lady who so completely captures the heart of the monk, Fernando, that he forsakes his calling to defeat the Moors in battle to win her hand. Alas, she is the mistress of the king, who is so besotted with her he is determined to defy the pope himself to make Leonora his queen. It’s a tragic opera, so no one wins—except the audience.

Richard Wagner (1813 – 1813)

Wesendonck Lieder

1. Im Treibhaus
2. Schmerzen

Wagner set five poems by Mathilde Wesendonck while he was working on his opera Tristan und Isolde. The songs, together with the Siegfried Idyll, are the two non-operatic works by Wagner most regularly performed. Mathilde Wesendonck was the wife of Otto Wesendonck, one of his patrons, whom Wagner met in Zürich, where he had fled on his escape from Saxony after the May Uprising in Dresden in 1849. For a time, Wagner and his wife Minna lived together in the Asyl (sanctuary), a small cottage on the Wesendonck estate. It is sometimes claimed that Wagner and Mathilde had a love affair; in any case, the situation and mutual infatuation certainly contributed to the intensity in the conception of Tristan und Isolde.

Giacomo Puccini (1858 – 1924)

La Bohème

1. Donde lieta usci
2. Sole e Amore

La favorita (‘The Favourite’) is a grand opera in four acts to a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Baculard d’Arnaud. It premiered on 2 December 1840 at the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique in Paris, France. Leonora, the beautiful, mysterious lady who so completely captures the heart of the monk, Fernando, that he forsakes his calling to defeat the Moors in battle to win her hand. Alas, she is the mistress of the king, who is so besotted with her he is determined to defy the pope himself to make Leonora his queen. It’s a tragic opera, so no one wins—except the audience.

Jules Emil Frederic Massenet (1842 – 1912)

Manon

1. Allons! il le faut!

Manon is Massenet’s most popular and enduring opera and, having “quickly conquered the world’s stages”, it has maintained an important place in the repertory since its creation. It is the quintessential example of the charm and vitality of the music and culture of the Parisian Belle Époque. ‘Adieu, notre petite table’, Manon’s aria from Act II of Manon begins Allons! Il le faut! Manon has been told by a nobleman that her love Des Grieux will soon be kidnapped by his father’s men in order to get him away from her. She knows that the happy days they have spent in Des Grieux’s apartment will soon be at an end and takes the opportunity to bid adieu to the table at which she and her love ate many meals together.

Guiseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901)

Giuseppe Verdi was the greatest of all Italian opera composers. He was the most eminent composer in Italian opera after the eras of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini. More than 100 years after his death, the works of Verdi form a major part of today’s opera repertoire. “The Drinking Song” from La Traviata, “The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” from Nabucco, and “La Donna è Mobile” from Rigoletto are as well known in popular culture as they are in the world of opera. Father and daughter relationships are a recurrent theme in his work, as are the subjects of injustice, oppression, and religious hypocrisy. Although he was a profoundly serious man, his final opera, Falstaff, was a brilliant comedy.