On Shuffle instigated the audience to pick from a hat to choose the song order for the musicians. With a bit of curating from the emcee to prevent any singer from having to perform two difficult pieces back to back, the show went on as if picking songs on shuffle from an app.
The musicians and emcee chose prompts from real life to engage listeners in relating each piece to emotion or memory from their own lives.
Program Notes
Laura McHugh
Prompt: Was there a time you wanted to kiss someone but weren’t sure if you could? Can you recall anything about that time?
1: Why Can’t I Kiss You by Jeff Blumenkrantz
Blumenkrantz wrote the music and lyrics to this piece, a stand-alone musical theater song. He is an actor, lyricist, and composer/pianist. In addition to numerous stage credits, he has appeared on tv many times on shows like Ugly Betty, Just Shoot Me!, and Law & Order.
Most people can understand having feelings for someone and being unsure if they feel the same in return. The singer isn’t asking the other person why they can’t kiss them; they’re asking themselves.
Prompt: What makes you feel sexy?
2: Sugar in the Cane by Paul Bowles, Lyrics: Tennessee Williams
This charming art song is part of a four-song work, the Blue Mountain Ballads. It is the last piece in the cycle and the best in the singer’s opinion. The composer and poet were friends, and Williams acted as a mentor to Paul Bowles. This is a tease. The singer knows they’re hot stuff and uses a lot of suggestive phrases like “I’m a check that ain’t been cashed” and “I’m potatoes not yet mashed” in a fun act of playful seduction. The piano’s *very sexy* bass line adds an element of fun to this piece. Laura discovered this piece in Jane Struss’s class at Longy and thought it fitted for today.
Prompt: What happens when you’re torn between love and a life of freedom?
3: Sempre libera: by: Giuseppi Verdi, 1853
One of Verdi’s most famous pieces from his opera La Traviata (The Fallen Woman). Alfredo is in Violetta’s salon. He confesses that he has loved her secretly for some time. Violetta, the Parisian courtesan, feels attracted to Alfredo and, for the first time in her life, feels a need for love and knows she is suffering from consumption. She is torn between a trembling love and an unbound life in this aria. Listen for a thoughtful “ah fors è lui”, “maybe he’s the one”, followed by the dramatic, “Sempre libera”, “always free”. Watch how the singer’s sense of emergency, torn between love, tragedy, and joie de vivre, brings us to a fantastic conclusion.
Source: https://opera-inside.com/sempre-libera-an-aria-from-the-opera-la-traviata/
Prompt: Have you ever got someone back for trying to trick you? Care to share?
4: Nun eilt herbei by: Otto Nicolai
Otto Nicolai’s opera Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor), based on Shakespeare, is his only opera still performed today, most often in Germany.
Frau Fluth (Alice Ford in the original Shakespeare) has received a love letter from the knight John Falstaff, who is not her husband. But she does not even consider replying to the advances of the fat arrogant man. When she goes to her neighbor to tell her about it, she sees her waving a letter. They notice that the letters are exactly the same. Incensed, the two friends decide to teach the gentleman a lesson.
Frau Fluth is agitated. The men think that women are easy victims. In the recitative-like introduction, she sings a high C in a virtuoso arpeggio. Afterward, the singer has to oscillate between serious indignation and sly craftiness. Finally, she betrays herself with her laughter (I love you! Hahaha!”) and announces her plan to clobber the fat knight. Then the songlike piece turns into a bravura aria full of coloratura.
Source:https://opera-inside.com/the-merry-wives-of-windsor-by-otto-nicolai-the-opera-guide-and-synopsis/
Taka Komagata
Prompt: Have you ever been in a secret relationship? How did that go?
5: O colombina is from from Act II of the Italian opera Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo.
The opera tells of Canio, actor and leader of a commedia dell’arte theater company, who murders his wife and her lover on stage during a performance. In the company’s performance, Colombina’s (Canio’s wife) husband Pagliaccio has gone away until morning. Alone, she anxiously awaits her lover Arlecchino, who comes to serenade her (“O Colombina”) from beneath her window.
O Colombina, your faithful,
loving Arlecchino is close at hand,
Calling you and sighing for you,
o wait for your poor swain!
Show me your sweet face,
for I long to kiss your little mouth
without delay.
Love plagues me and torments me! Ah!
O Colombina, open your window to me,
for close at hand, calling you
and sighing for you
is your poor Arlecchino!
Prompt: Have you ever felt betrayed? What happens when you fall prey to a rumor?
6: There is Her House from Signor Deluso by Thomas Pasatieri, 1974
León, returning to his beloved’s hometown, has heard a rumor that she will be married to someone else and tries to figure out what is going on but feels uncertain.
Prompt: Do you remember being reprimanded as a child? What was it like, and what does it seem like now that you look back on it?
7: Chisa na sora “Small sky” by: Toru Takemitsu 1962
Here. the poet looks up to the sky and remembers childhood. ‘Cotton clouds remind me of sadness. They recall an incident of being bad in childhood. But now, “At night, small stars twinkle like tears and remind me I was a bad kid…but it’s all a beautiful memory now.” Listen for a folk melody as if sung to a child.
Prompt: Have you ever shown up at your person’s place because you can’t stop thinking about them? Does this make you a stalker?
8: On the Street Where You Live, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, is from the 1956 Broadway musical My Fair Lady. At the end of the first act, Eliza’s high society suitor, Freddy Eynsford-Hill, is falling in love with Eliza and pining away outside Higgins’ front door. The song is a show-stopper, a powerful and beautiful declaration of love from a minor character barely involved in the story. “On the Street Where You Live” was nearly dropped from the show during previews because audiences had difficulty identifying the character, however, it’s gone on to be recorded by dozens of artists and is revered as an American classic.
Luisamaria Hernandez
Prompt: Would you do something dangerous and scary if it was to save the person you loved?
9: Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante by: George Bizet
The piece, “I say that nothing frightens me,” places Michaela, the sweet and innocent other woman in Bizet’s beloved opera Carmen in the middle of the smugglers-laden mountainside as she searches for Don Jose. As she goes through this frightening experience, she prays for courage and asks God to protect her.
Prompt: Who was the one that got away?
10: In quelle trine morbide
Manon finally lives the life she’s dreamed of while living with Geronte. She’s in Paris and living in luxury in quelle trine morbide “In those soft laces,” but her love for Des Grieux still haunts her and the reality chills her soul that a luscious lifestyle does not compare to the love that she shared with Des Grieux.
Prompt: If you had a chance to look back, what would you be grateful for in this life?
11: Gracias a la Vida by: Violeta Parra
This beloved song composed by Violeta Parra has been performed by many throughout Latin America. We hear a person reflecting on and giving thanks for their life. Retelling the simple things, the joys and sufferings that have made life worth living is beautiful and a bit melancholic as you hear the juxtaposition between the words and the melody.
Prompt: Does it ever feel like anyone can be on Spotify these days?
12: On Shuffle This piece explores our ability to take a simple beat and turn it into something more by adding words and melody inspired by what is around us.
All
13: Somewhere, this piece from West Side Story is a hopeful reminder that no matter where you are or who you are, there is always a place for you.
Noriko Yasuda
Prompt: Describe what it feels like to watch or be caught in a spring rainstorm.
14: Jardins sous pluie by: Claude Debussey
In the third movement from Estampes, a three-movement impressionist piece completed in 1903, Jardins describes a garden in France during a violent rainstorm. Sections suggest blowing wind, thunderstorms, and raindrops. It uses parts of French folk melodies “We’ll Not Return to the Woods” and “Sleep, Child, Sleep.” Chromatic, whole tone, and major and minor scales are used.
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