Paradise Lost: Musical Interpretations

ACT ONE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOoa2yBfDsE

 ACT TWO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-ESN3c6lH8

PENDERECKI, Krzysztof (*Dębica, 23 de Novembro de 1933 ~Cracóvia, 29 de Março de 2020) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krzyszt... PARADISE LOST' Opera/ Oratorio in Two Acts, 1978 Libretto: Christoph Fry, after John Milton's Epic Poem "Paradise Lost" Premiere at the Chicago Lyric Opera (29 November 1979), which had commissioned the Work. (Text language: Polish, German, English, Hebrew) "Sacra Rappresentazione, Not only to a Christian audience" CAST: Milton: ARNOLD MOSS (speaking role) Adam: WILLIAM STONE (baritone) Eve: ELLEN SHADE (soprano) Satan: PETER VAN GINKEL (bass-baritone) Beelzebub: MICHAEL BALLAM (tenor) Moloch: WILLIAM POWERS (bass) Belial: MELVYN LOWERY (tenor) Mammon: EDWARD HULS (baritone) Death: PAUL ESSWOOD (counter-tenor) Sin: JOY DAVIDSON (contralto) Zephon: SUSAN BRUMMELL (soprano) Ithuriel JOHN PATRICK THOMAS (counter-tenor) Gabriel: JAMES SCHWISOW (tenor) Raphael: DALE TERBEEK (counter-tenor) Michael: FRANK LITTLE (tenor) Messias: ALAN OPIE (baritone) Voice of God: ARNOLD MOSS with a consort of six singing voices: John Brandstetter; David Howell; Edward Huls; Daniel McConnell; William Mitchell. ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS OF CHICAGO LYRIC OPERA Conducted by BRUNO BARTOLETTI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradis...) 'PARADISE LOST' is an Opera/Oratorio in Two Acts with Music by Krzysztof Penderecki and an English Libretto by Christopher Fry, based in John Milton's Epic Poem, presented in a static, formal style. Penderecki himself characterized the work as a Sacra Rappresentazione (Sacred Representation) rather than an Opera. He wrote the opera on commission for the 1976 US Bicentennial celebrations. The first performance was given on 29 November 1978, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The same production was given at La Scala, Milan on 31 January 1979. (...) "ACT 1 tells the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden in a retrospective series of scenes or tableaux: the ousting of the rebellious (fallen) angels from the presence of God and their casting into the Pit of Hell, the creation of Man, the temptation of Eve by Satan (dramatic baritone). In ACT 2, Adam is shown the consequences of the "original sin" that will be visited upon the coming generations. This is structured as a passacaglia that delivers the horrific images of death, pestilence, war, and flood in a gradually accumulating tension. But some hope is perhaps indicated by the composer's use of a D major chord at the end. The Archangel Michael (heroic tenor) encourages Adam to rely on God's justice as Adam and Eve peaceably leave the Garden. (...) The Opera is cast in over 40 short Scenes, and presented in a static, formal style. There is a speaking narrator (a fictionalized Milton), various allegorical characters, Gods and Devils, the use of pantomime, and use of the SATB and Boys' chorus to deliver commentary (for example, the voice of God is created from the male voices singing in middle Eastern tunings). But there are also many dances (five dancers) at significant points in the story - the creation of Adam (lyric baritone) and Eve (lyric soprano), their romance and marriage, Eve's insights after eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge - and other elements in Renaissance Florentine style (sudden change and contrast of scenes). (...) The commission for a Piece commemorating the Bicentenary of the United States called for an adequate choice of subject. Penderecki found it in Milton’s "Paradise Lost". The Librettist Christopher Fry omitted the philosophical elements, selecting 1,500 lines from among more than 10,000 in the Poem. Fry, also shifted the emphasis: In the 17th-century English Epic, the symbolic central figures had been Satan and God, but in Fry’s arrangement their roles seem less important, and the Libretto focuses on the first people and their lives within the orbit of good and evil. This Universal theme and the Libretto’s handling of fundamental existential questions – the origins of Evil, the cost of free will, man’s "fallen" nature and the transforming power of Love - mean that Penderecki’s Work can be seen as addressed 'Not only to a Christian audience'." COVER: 'THE HERALD' (partial), Bronze Statue Of A Male Angel, Frederick Hart. NOTE: You can listen the Antoni Wit version, 1998. https://ninateka.pl/kolekcje/en/three... 1. Beginning of 1st act 2. Scene from 1st act 3. Chaos from 1st act 4. Satan's aria from 1st act 5. Eve's dream from 1st act 6. Bridge above chaos from 2nd act 7. Satan returns to hell from 2nd act 8. Adagietto 9. Passacaglia and finale from 2nd act Producer: Polskie Radio S.A. Production year: 1998 Duration: 1: 26'51''

BBC3 Radio version of Duchess of Malfi

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000xsj1

The 2018 RSC version of Duchess of Malfi

Trailer gives you a sense of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVJWExXXEjI

Photos from the production:

https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-duchess-of-malfi/maria-aberg-2018-production

A summary of the play from a power/gender perspective;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AaDCkVNDPU

Duchess on her relationship with Bosola:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8nkX9jQ4oU

Duchess on her relationship with Cariola:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b99EPQF74Sg

Duchess on Ferdinand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkHvZP1FPqg

Analysis of the toxic masculinity in the production:

https://open.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1135&context=emc

The 2014 version at the Globe (Gemma Arteton as Duchess)

Compare with this much more traditional staging that uses shadows, candlelight and 17th century clothing—though that, too, has its connotations of masculine power:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoIP7Ftz5BI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnV54axNsw8

Differences between Enlightenment and Romantic thought

Enlightenment Literature was heavily indebted to the contemporary trends in philosophical and scientific thinking: as such, it emphasised logical and rational discourse, as a way of understanding the world. Philosophers like Kant and Voltaire opposed both faith based governance and morality, in favour of reason. This led to a heavy emphasis on epistolary literature, like Richardson's Clarissa, an abundance of Odes to figures like Newton and the first dictionaries and encyclopaediae.

In contrast, the Romantic period kicked back against this. Instead of reason and Kantian ethics, the Romantics found morality to be mutable and individualistic; the scientific values of the enlightenment and the industrial revolution were disavowed in favour of the naturalism of Wordsworth's 'Prelude' and Keats' 'To Autumn.' Natural spaces in these poems are liminal, exploring the boundaries of human endevour, where Enlightenment works, satires, political essays, etc., firmly entrenched themselves in society. In short, Romanticism seeks to find the role of the individual in a chaotic and mutable world, while the Enlightenment looks for the empirical and justifiable strictures of such a world.

Some more interesting ideas here:

https://medium.com/illumination/enlightenment-and-romanticism-89f9d65f186d

Abstract from a new(ish) book by Robert D Hume called:

Gothic Versus Romantic: A Revaluation of The Gothic Novel

"The Gothic novel is defined not by its stock devices—ruined abbeys and the like—but by its use of a particular atmosphere for essentially psychological purposes. Mary Shelley, Maturin, Melville, and Faulkner develop a form crudely forged by Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, and M. G. Lewis. Their Gothic novels attempt to immerse the reader in an extraordinary world in which ordinary standards and moral judgments become meaningless and good and evil are seen as inextricably intertwined. Gothic writing is closely related to romantic: both are the product of a profound reaction against everyday reality and conventional religious explanations of existence. But while romantic writing is the product of faith in an ultimate order, Gothic writing is a gloomy exploration of the limitations of man. The one attempts to transcend the flux of the purely temporal to find joy and security in a higher beauty; the other is mired in the temporal and within it can find only absurdities and unresolvable ambiguities."