Ensemble for the Romantic Century
New Works Reading Series
Beethoven vs. Beethoven
Script and music design by Eve Wolf
Directed by Donald T. Sanders
Special thanks to The Augustine Foundation for making this series possible.
CAST
(in order of appearance)
Piano…………………………….…………………………..………………..Albert Cano Smit
Narrator; Anton Schindler.……………………………………………..……..Neal Hellegers
Ludwig van Beethoven ………………………………………………………Charles Turner
Beethoven’s neighbor; Imperial Judge; Magisterial Judge;
18th century Judge; Constable; Wagon Driver, Priest………..……….………James Langton
Johanna van Beethoven; Nanni……………….………………………………Yelena Shmulenson
Headmaster Giannatasio del Rio; Kaspar Karl van Beethoven ……………... James Lurie
Young Karl van Beethoven (ages 9-12); Karl van Beethoven (20)………..…Frank Pagliaro
Music Direction: Eve Wolf
Production Design: Vanessa James
Lighting Design: Beverly Emmons
Script Consultant: Renée Silverman
Casting: Sue Zizza
Production Stage Manager: Paul Blankenship
Technical Coordinator: James Greenfield
Music Program
Act I
Sonata n. 32 in C minor, op. 111 (1821-1822) Beethoven
Maestoso – Allegro con brio ed appassionato
Queen of the Night Aria from The Magic Flute (recorded) Mozart
Et Incarnatus Est from the Missa Solemnis (recorded) Beethoven
Es ist Vollbracht (live and recorded) Beethoven
Act II
Sonata n. 28 in A major op. 101 (1816) Beethoven
Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung
Ave Maria Cherubini
Sonata op. 101 Beethoven
Lebhaft. Marschmäßig. Vivace alla marcia
Sonata op. 101 Beethoven
Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit.
Symphony No. 9 (selections- live and recorded) Beethoven/Liszt
Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
Act III
Bagatelle op. 126 n. 4 Beethoven
Presto
Symphony No. 9 (recorded and live) Beethoven/Liszt
Molto vivace
Finale - Presto
Allegro assai
Poco allegro stringendo il Tempo sempre più Allegro
Sanctus and Praeludium from the Missa Solemnis (recorded) Beethoven
Grosse Fuge in Bb Major, op. 133 (selections) Beethoven/Winkler
Sonata n. 32 in C minor, op. 111 Beethoven
Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile
NOTE FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
Eve Wolf, pianist, Founder and Executive Artistic Director, ERC
“ Unfortunately we are dragged down from the otherworldly element in art
only too rudely into the earthly and human sides of life.”
- Ludwig van Beethoven
I have loved Beethoven’s music since I was a small child. When asked who my favorite composer is, I have always answered– Beethoven! Beethoven’s music has always seemed to me the most deeply autobiographical musical writing of any major composer and at the same time, his music portrays the universal inner struggle of all people. Above all, his music offers hope amid despair. I have long known about Beethoven’s character foibles, and the knowledge that he was a deeply flawed person has never bothered me. When I first mentioned the idea for this drama to a few friends and colleagues, they worried that I would be pulling Beethoven off his pedestal into the gutter by exposing some of his most unlikeable sides to the public. I heartily disagree!
Beethoven struggled as we all struggle – more so than most of us. And he was imperfect, as are we all. His doomed romances, his deafness, his rude manners, his misogyny, his solitude and loneliness were epic. But nothing reveals Beethoven’s flaws more so than his battle for custody of his nephew Karl. Beethoven deeply longed to have a family, and when his brother died he saw his chance to create the family he had never had. To do this he practically stole the nine-year old boy from his mother – Beethoven’s sister-in-law, Johanna, – using every bit of influence he could muster to win the court case, which lasted over four years. It was very much like a modern divorce custody battle. Beethoven had a history in this area. His mother (whom Beethoven described as his “best friend”) had died when he was sixteen, and since his father was an alcoholic he had become, in effect, the parental figure to his two younger brothers. At nineteen he had successfully sued for half of his no-longer-employable father’s pension and for custody of his two younger brothers, and he worried over them as a father would have done. He later sued his brother Johann to try to prevent him from marrying a woman Ludwig also despised. Beethoven was relentless. He called Johanna van Beethoven, his brother Kaspar Karl’s widow, “The Queen of the Night” - a prostitute in other words. This was untrue, but Johanna had in fact been convicted of theft and insurance fraud (a set of pearls was involved!) while still in her teens. She was no saint, but she deeply loved her son and fought hard to keep him. Women had few legal rights at the time, yet she battled Beethoven to maintain custody, even petitioning the Emperor himself to intervene in her case. Beethoven ruthlessly used Johanna’s teenage misdeeds against her in court, and his position as a famous male, and his contacts with the aristocracy and the highest echelons of society could not be matched by a woman of no means.
Once he had won custody of his nephew, Beethoven again revealed his character flaws. He became both a loving parent and an abusive one (He himself had been beaten by his father, who had forced him to practice the piano at all hours of the day and night). He wanted Karl to become a great man, and he could not accept that Karl was just an ordinary boy, with no artistic aspirations. Beethoven had been taken out of school at the age of ten, before he had even learned to multiply, but although he was an abusive parent (one wonders how common beating children was at that time), he made sure that Karl had the best education, including University studies.
Beethoven’s early biographers built up the Great Man Myth for Beethoven, while Karl was downgraded in history. The myth of Karl as a lazy, frivolous mediocrity who could not live up to Beethoven’s idea of a self-disciplined man was invented by others, including by Beethoven’s sometime amanuensis Anton Schindler. In fact, in spite of Beethoven’s difficult parenting and his attempt to block Karl from ever seeing his mother, Karl loved his uncle (as well as his mother), and Beethoven loved Karl in his own conflicted and tormented way. Karl tenderly cared for Beethoven during the composer’s long, last illness. In spite of Karl’s suicide attempt and his rejection of Beethoven’s castigation of his mother Johanna, Ludwig van Beethoven declared Karl the sole, universal heir of all of his possessions, including sketches for a 10th symphony. Karl was away on military duty when his uncle died, and he did not arrive in time to attend his funeral, a fact that he regretted until the end of his life.
Karl became a respected man who did well in his chosen career in the military. He never defended himself against the accusations made after his uncle’s death. He left the military after five years, married, and had four daughters as well as a son, whom he named Ludwig. As he had inherited money from both of his uncles, he was able to spend the rest of his life as a man of leisure in Vienna. He was an irreproachable husband and a good father who devoted himself entirely to bringing up his children. He is said to have improvised beautifully at the piano. He died in 1858, and his only son, Ludwig, emigrated to America, where he worked for the Michigan Central Railroad Company in Detroit. He married a concert pianist, Maria Nitsche; their only son, Karl Julius, died childless, thus the Beethoven name died out.
When, in 1903, a play, “Beethoven and his Nephew”, represented Karl with all the usual distortions, his children published a letter to the author in which they stated that the play contained misrepresentations of their father.
“....at what period is our father supposed to have behaved so frivolously; for if in other cases it goes hand in hand, so to speak, that such profligate youths also show poor progress in their studies, we, on the contrary, are in possession of all his certificates, all of which are first-class, that is ‘eminent.’ Before his open grave, his former headmaster, as well as the Professor of Music Herr Bokler, pronounced eulogies in which both gentlemen described him as their best and most able pupil. In addition, during his military career he enjoyed the best conduct-rating; an honorable discharge from the same, which is likewise in our hands, may serve as proof.... But even granting that there was such a period in our father’s life, would it not rather be admirable than blameworthy, and certainly not to be made a reproach to him even beyond the grave, that by moral force he escaped from it and still became the strong-principled, steadfast, and highly regarded man which, in the strictest sense of the word, he was....”
Beethoven was driven by inner psychological forces that one can now only analyze at a distance of two centuries. Many have tried to do so. Beethoven was the abused child of a tyrannical father; a genius who had to take parental responsibilities while still in his teens, thereby delaying the start of what would become a brilliant career; a musician who began to go deaf in his mid-twenties and whose increasing isolation led to misanthropy. The story of Beethoven and Karl is even more touching when seen within the context of the composer’s history and psychology as well as Karl’s later success. Of course history can never be objective, but for me, the “real” story does not diminish Beethoven. In fact, I can only love him more, and love his music more, for knowing that he was a frail mortal as well as a genius touched “by the gods.” Beethoven himself believed that he had an important gift to give humanity, and at age 31 he wrote that he had decided not to commit suicide, despite his increasing deafness, because of that mission. “It seemed to me impossible to leave the world before I had brought forth all that I felt destined to bring forth.” We can only be grateful that this tormented man did not give into the demons of despair and that despite his imperfections he created perfect works for humanity.
“Persevere, do not only practice your art, but endeavor also to fathom its inner meaning; it deserves this effort. For only art and science can raise men to the level of gods.”
----Beethoven’s letter to a little girl, about eight or ten years old, who had sent
him a present of a little handmade purse.
PROGRAM NOTES
by James Melo, ERC’s musicologist
“In Beethoven’s music the dreamer will recognize his dreams, the sailor his storms, and the wolf his forests.”
(Victor Hugo)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) belongs to that class of creative artists whose works transcend the medium and the context in which they were created and become emblematic of a broader, vaster experience. The universality of Beethoven’s music is one of the defining topics in the history of Western music and culture. The immense scholarly literature that continues to grow around his life and works is a reflection of the inexhaustibility of his music and the galvanizing power of his personality. Born in Bonn into a musical family (his father was a court singer), Beethoven did not develop along the lines of a child prodigy. From the beginning, his musical development was relatively slow, but deliberate. He underwent all the expected training in composition, harmony, theory, and instrument performance that was common at the time, but it was only when he settled in Vienna in 1792 that his career entered the tracks that would bring him to such a glorious place in the history of Western music. By the time of his artistic maturity in Vienna, he was widely recognized as the greatest composer alive.
This towering figure of Western culture was not a very ingratiating person. Beethoven the person was very different from Beethoven the composer. Beginning with his childhood, in a household that was less than ideal by many standards (including a violent and abusive father), Beethoven seemed to be constantly at war with the world and the people in it, even though he had a longing for affection and companionship and thought of his music as a way of consoling people and bringing them together. His personal life was a series of disappointments in love, especially as he was constantly falling in love with aristocratic women who would never be able to reciprocate his love and would never have married him. The famous story of the “immortal beloved” is only one instance of what became a painful pattern in his life. He was also socially maladroit, had difficulty in sustaining social relations, and was prone to losing his temper very easily. His relationships with his brothers and his obsession with obtaining custody of his nephew Karl (dramatized in the program tonight) were lifelong burdens that caused him untold grief and anxiety. Throughout his life, he had a clear sense that his music represented some kind of alternative universe, and he himself noted on many occasions that, the more chaotic and disorganized his personal life was, the more refined, pure, and ordered was his compositional practice. His stylistic evolution has been the subject of untold numbers of scholarly and academic studies, and the fascination of tracing the growth of such a magnificent artist has never abated. Already in 1818, there were articles dividing Beethoven’s career into three stylistic phases, a timeframe that was then perpetuated through all his early biographies and continues to be a topic of Beethoven scholarship today. Generally, these three phases reflect a linear process that brought Beethoven from being a composer steeped in the Classical tradition to one who opened the doors to a future as distant as the 20th century: the first period (circa 1791-1802) was marked by a cultivation of Classical forms and compositional procedures, and incipient experimentation into broadening those schemes; the second (or “heroic”) period (circa 1802-1816/17) was characterized by a heightened individuality and subjectivity, and is the period that contains some of Beethoven’s most famous and immediately accessible compositions; the third period (circa 1817-1827) marked a turn toward inwardness and abstraction, and a forward-looking musical language that brought Beethoven well beyond the conventions of his time. It is from this period that the music in tonight’s program was drawn.
Beethoven’s late style is characterized by a mixture of contemporaneous and archaic compositional procedures, including the revival of Baroque contrapuntal techniques, a subversion of the syntactical elements of the musical discourse, a complete reinterpretation of classical forms, an emphasis on the purely rhetorical aspects of music, and juxtaposition of the grotesque and the sublime. Within the musical structures themselves, there is often a sense of cumulative growth and development, as the musical material is constantly varied, recombined, and recontextualized. While this is true of Beethoven’s creative process in general, in his third period these techniques achieved a much higher level of sophistication and purpose.
Theodor W. Adorno, in his influential essay Spätstil Beethovens (Late Style in Beethoven, 1937), called the Missa solemnis an “alienated masterpiece”. He certainly did not mean the comment in any derogatory way, but rather as an indicator of the forward-looking style of the piece, which was so far ahead of its time that it spoke more clearly to a future audience, beyond its historical context. This towering masterpiece, one of Beethoven’s most daunting and demanding works, is all the more remarkable because Beethoven was not a particularly religious person, even though he was deeply spiritual in a pantheistic way, particularly in his later years. The Missa solemnis, then, is best seen as a deeply personal statement rather than a liturgical work, and this deeply personal nature is made obvious in the epigram that Beethoven wrote on the finished score: “From the heart—may it return to the heart.” There is also an inherent theatricality to the Missa Solemnis that brings it into the sphere of secular music, or even within the scope of an opera. And, despite the fact that this is essentially a vocal work (it calls for four soloists and chorus), the vocal parts seem to have been written against the natural resources of the voice. Both the parts for the soloists and for the chorus are fiendishly difficult. Such an approach reflects a tendency that can be discerned in Beethoven throughout his career, but which became pervasive in his later years: a certain disregard for the comfort of the performer, stemming from the highly abstract and, at the same time, intensely emotional quality of his music. Besides, it is generally agreed that, contrary to Mozart, for example, Beethoven was not really a “vocal” composer, but rather an “instrumental” one. In much of his vocal music, therefore, he treats the voices as instruments, and this is certainly the case here. The Missa Solemnis was composed between 1819 and 1823 and dedicated to Beethoven’s patron, Archduke Rudolf of Austria. It was performed complete for the first time on April 7, 1824 in St. Petersburg, Russia, under the auspices of another Beethoven’s patron, prince Nikolai Galitzin. The dimensions and difficulties of the Missa Solemnis preclude its use as a liturgical piece, and it thus remains the gloriously “alienated” masterpiece that Theodor W. Adorno thought it was.
Beethoven composed piano sonatas throughout his career and, most importantly, at major junctures of stylistic change or formal experimentation. Taken as a whole, the 32 piano sonatas provide a complete picture of Beethoven’s evolution as a composer, and it was often in the piano sonatas that major compositional changes were first tried out and applied later to other genres. Taking into consideration that standard division of Beethoven’s creative life into three periods, the piano sonatas can easily be grouped according to the general characteristics that define each of these periods: in the first period, the sonatas follow classical models inherited from Haydn and Mozart, but in general the scope and dimensions of the musical forms are broader and structurally more complex; in the second period, the musical forms are subjected to a highly individual treatment that lends them an unprecedented rhetorical power and that seems to challenge the resources of the piano in increasingly more adventurous and daring ways; finally, in the third period, the sonata is essentially reconceived into music of almost symphonic depth, with musical textures enriched by a highly imaginative treatment of traditional (even archaic) devices. In this phase, Beethoven’s power to convey the most intense emotions is completely actualized in the music. Some moments in the late sonatas (as is the case with the late string quartets as well) give the impression of being philosophical utterances in music.
The Piano Sonata op. 101 (1815-16) is cast in the traditional four movements that came to define the late Classical sonata, but its language is far from classical. The work is generally understood to inaugurate Beethoven’s third stylistic phase. In it, many of the features that came to define that last phase of Beethoven’s career are already present: broader and more complex musical forms, a revival of contrapuntal and fugal techniques, density and sophistication in the techniques of motivic variation, and an element of interiority and inwardness that signals a new vision of what music could mean. Pianistically, the Sonata op. 101 also marks an ostensible preoccupation and exploitation of all the technical and expressive resources of the pianos available to Beethoven. It is a landmark work in the sense that its musical language is deliberately fashioned according to those possibilities. For instance, the very opening of the sonata presents a musical texture of interlocking voices that depends on the cantabile quality of the modern pianos to achieve its desired effect. It was in connection with this sonata that Beethoven used the German term Hammerklavier to indicate the modern piano, but the sonata that eventually came to carry that title is the next one, the Sonata op. 106. There is a lyrical and introspective quality to op. 101, which is due in great part to the fact that, by the time of its composition, Beethoven was almost completely deaf. He himself described the work as “a series of impressions and reveries,” signaling that its appreciation should be guided by the same subjective premises that motivated its composition.
The Piano Sonata op. 111 (1821-22), Beethoven’s last work in this genre, was also dedicated to Archduke Rudolf of Austria. Its compositional history dates from the summer of 1820, when Beethoven was working on the Misssa Solemnis, and at that time he had already conceived the idea of writing a set of three piano sonatas (which became the group of sonatas Opp. 109, 110, and 111). Each of these sonatas offers a rethinking of the traditional piano sonata, but none more so than the Sonata op. 111, a work of unsurpassed musical beauty and transcendence. The assertive and heroic motive that constitutes the theme of the first movement is found in drafts dating from 1801-1802, a period in which Beethoven was still engaged with the most traditional forms of the Classical period. Typical of Beethoven, once he identified the potential for development in a musical idea, no matter how unprepossessing at first sight, his creative genius was able to transmute it beyond any expectations. This is exactly what happens here, where the incisive nature of the opening motive informs the entire character of the movement, as it is invested with a nervous energy that subverts any concerns for formal constraints. The second movement, in stark contrast, begins with an arietta that contains some of Beethoven’s most sublime musical utterances. Time seems to have been stretched beyond the ordinary levels of perception, and every musical note, every motive, every phrase is heard in the white heat of unblinking concentration. It is hard to imagine many other moments in the history of Western music where so much profundity, sublimity, and transcendence is achieved with such simple means as in this arietta. Beethoven’s dictum that music offers a more profound revelation than any philosophy could very well be applied to this short arietta and its inexhaustible inner landscapes. The arietta is followed by a series of extraordinarily inventive variations, each one a miracle of thematic development that could stand as a textbook on composition. Variation technique was always a favored procedure by Beethoven, and it is no surprise that, as his music became increasingly abstract and free from formal boundaries, he would turn more regularly to this old, tried and true process of composition. The variations in the Sonata op. 111 represent the culmination of a lifetime’s experience with the richness and nuances of thematic transformation, which is such a distinctive feature of Beethoven’s style in general. In the last variations of the Sonata op. 111, one cannot help but imagine that a new world is being unveiled, that we are leaving behind some form of existence to embrace another that belongs to a different realm. No wonder that Thomas Mann, in his novel Doktor Faustus (which contains a lengthy and perceptive analysis of the Sonata op. 111), called this work a “farewell to the sonata”. It clearly stands at the threshold of a highly promising future. And so it is that Beethoven dropped a projected third movement for the sonata. As it stands, he clearly realized that nothing needed to be said anymore.
The concept of the bagatelle as a trifle, something unambitious and unprepossessing, has a clearly Romantic ring to it. It was during the Romantic period that musical miniatures achieved relevance as legitimate genres (witness, for instance, the preludes of Chopin), but Beethoven opened the door with his sets of late bagatelles for piano. The set of six Bagatelles op. 126 were published in 1825, dedicated to Beethoven’s brother Nikolaus Johann van Beethoven. Beethoven conceived the work as a cycle of short pieces, which are linked through tonal and motivic elements. He clearly had a very high regard for this set of short piano pieces, and indeed they represent in a nutshell some of the most distinctive marks of Beethoven’s language.
During the 19th century, it was common for composers to make piano transcriptions of orchestral works (their own or by other composers) as a way of providing repertoire for domestic music making and to allow the general public to familiarize itself with works that they would probably never hear in their original versions. Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was particularly prolific in this regard, and his arrangements of works by other composers gained a place in the piano repertoire due to their virtuosity and pianistic flair and panache. Liszt’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies are considered to be some of the most difficult piano music ever written. There is no indication that Liszt planned the transcriptions as a set, but the popularity and interest generated by them led the publisher Brietkopf & Härtel to suggest that Liszt made a complete set of transcriptions of all the nine symphonies. When he began working on the transcription for the Ninth Symphony, however, he was defeated by the fourth movement. According to him, no amount of work could do justice to the complexity of the fourth movement, and he literally begged the publisher to consider his transcriptions to be complete with the third movement of the Ninth Symphony.
The song Es ist Vollbracht (“It is finished”), WoO 97, was composed in 1815 but not published during Beethoven’s lifetime. It belongs to a collective work, a singspiel titled Die Ehrenpfort (“The Gates of Glory”) that was meant to celebrate the second seizure of Paris following the return of Napoleon from exile in Elba. It is an overtly political work, which has not been very favorably received as part of Beethoven’s canon. The libretto for Die Ehrenpfort was by G.F. Treitschke, who had revised the libretto for Beethoven’s opera Fidelio and approached the composer with the request for the composition of the final chorus of the collective singspiel.
Cherubini’s Ave Maria, for one soprano voice, belongs to the venerable tradition of the hymn of praise of the Virgin Mary, to which so many composers contributed. It was published in 1850 in a collection of motets for the liturgical year. As with other works in this genre, the Virgin Mary is represented as the embodiment of grace and salvation, and the intercessor between mortals and God.
The aria Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (“Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart”), sung by the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) is certainly one of the most hair-raising arias in the entire operatic repertoire. The unnaturalness of the Queen of the Night’S emotions and desires is portrayed by Mozart through a vocal texture that is equally unnatural, at the limits of the vocal range, which causes the singer to sound as if possessed by a demonic force. Its technical difficulty remains a great challenge to any singer today.
SONG TEXTS
Es ist Vollbracht
Es ist vollbracht! It is finishe!
Zum Herrn hinauf drang unser Bethen. Up to the Lord came our prayer.
Er hörte, was die Völker flehten, He heard what the people pleaded,
Und hat gehüthet und gewacht. And hathguarded and watched.
Es ist vollbracht! It is finished!
Es ist vollbracht! It is finished!
Was frevelvoll der Höll' entkommen, The criminal who had escaped from Hell,
Zum zweytenmahl ist's weggenommen, Is defeated for the second time,
Geschleudert in die alte Nacht. Humped in the everlasting night.
Es ist vollbracht! It is finished!
Es ist vollbracht! It is finished!
Im Raum von wenig bangen Tagen, In the space of little anxious days,
Das Werk, das keine Worte sagen. The work that say no words.
Geschehen schon, eh' wir's gedacht. It has happened already, before we thought it.
Es ist vollbracht! It is finished!
Es ist vollbracht! It is finisheed!
Der Fürsten treu Zusammenhalten, The loyalty of the Princes,
Ihr ernstes, rechtes, frommes Walten, Their seriousness, righteousness, rule,
Gab uns den Sieg, nächst Gottes Macht! Gave us victory, thorugh the power of God!
Es ist vollbracht! It is finished!
Sanctus
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hostes.
Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
Pleni sunt cæli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis. Osanna in the highest.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in excelsis. Glory to thee, o Lord in the highest.
Et incarnatus est
Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto, And by the power of the Holy Spirit He became
ex Maria virgine; et homo factus est. Incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
Ave Maria
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus, Blessed art thou among women,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. And blessed the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Holy Mary, Mother of God,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus, Pray for us, sinners.
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. Now and in the hour of our death. Amen.
BIOS
(in alphabetical order)
Max Barros (Co-Artistic Director ERC, pianist) has been hailed by the critics in Brazil and the US as one of the most versatile pianists of his generation. He won the soloist of the year the São Paulo Arts Critics Association (1985), the “Discovery Award” from the French Diapason magazine for his recordings of Camargo Guarnieri’s piano concertos with the Warsaw Philharmonic for Naxos. He has been praised for his “elegance of rhythm” and “refinement of tone” (New York Times) and his “unfaltering brio” (Gramophone). He is in the process of recording the complete piano works of Camargo Guarnieri for Naxos. Mr. Barros has performed in all the major concert halls of New York City and Brazil, and in major productions by ERC in New York City and abroad. Mr. Barros is the Vice-President of the Brazilian Music Foundation in New York, and a Steinway Artist.
Paul Blankenship (Production Stage Manager) Off-Broadway: Fiercely Independent, Maestro, Because I Could Not Stop: An Encounter with Emily Dickinson; Hereafter Musical; If This Hat Could Talk; A Doll’s Life, Elizabeth and Essex; Colette Collage; The Fantasticks; Café Society. Regional: The School For Husbands (Westport Country Playhouse); The Bungler (Long Wharf Theatre); Wonderful Tennessee (McCarter Theatre); Mirette (Goodspeed Opera House); Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (Walnut Street Theatre); My Fair Lady (Cleveland Opera); The Grapes of Wrath (Cleveland Play House); Play It By Heart (The Human Race Theatre Co.); Steel Pier (Actors’ Playhouse); Jacques Brel (Florida Studio Theatre); Romeo and Juliet (Alley Theatre); Othello, All’s Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare Festival of Dallas); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It (Houston Shakespeare Festival). Tours: The Fantasticks (National & Japanese Tours), Jesus Christ Superstar (European Tour), Camelot (World Tour w/Richard Harris), Senator Joe (National Tour); The Glass Menagerie (National Tour). MFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University.
Beverly Emmons (Lighting Designer) Broadway: Stick Fly, Annie Get Your Gun, Jekyll & Hyde, The Heiress, Passion, Amadeus and The Elephant Man. Off B’way: Joseph Chaikin, Robert Wilson. Regionals: the Guthrie, Arena Stage, The Alley in Houston, Children's Theatre of Minneapolis. Dance: Martha Graham, Trisha Brown, Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham. Awards: one Tony award, seven Tony nominations, a 1976 Lumen, a 1980 Obie, Theatre Wing awards. Created TheLightingArchive.org. Career is documented at the performingartslegacy.org
Jimmy Greenfield (technical coordinator) is a sculptor and the owner and director of Soapbox Gallery.
Neil Hellegers (Narrator, Anton Schindler) is an actor and award-winning audiobook narrator who lives in Brooklyn, NYC. An ardent Stratfordian, Neil has performed and taught Shakespeare internationally and digitally, and has been seen playing bearded professionals on many screens (House of Cards, Law & Order: SVU, Madam Secretary, Blindspot, Gotham, et al.) He has narrated over 350 titles for numerous publishers, producers and independent authors alike, with a focus on genre and literary fiction. Neil has a BA in Theater Arts from UPenn in Philadelphia, a MFA in Acting from Trinity Rep, and is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA and PANA.
Vanessa James (Production Designer) is an international designer of sets and costumes for theatre and opera and an art director for film and TV. Her New York stage credits include William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, Arthur Penn’s production of Chambers, Kenneth Koch’s Red Robbins, and Donald Sanders’ 33 Scenes on the Possibility of Human Happiness andThomas Cole; A Waking Dream for the Joseph Papp Public Theatre. She is the resident designer for the Ensemble for the Romantic Century for whom she has designed the recent productions of Akhmatova and Jules Verne at BAM/Fisher and Van Gough’s Ear, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart, Because I Could Not Stop: An encounter with Emily Dickinson at The Signature Theatre and Maestro and Hans Christian Andersen at The Duke Theater. She has been nominated for three Emmy awards for art direction. Examples of her work are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute library and the New York Museum of the Moving Image. She is a professor at Mount Holyoke College and is the author of two books of popular reference The Genealogy of Greek Mythology, and Shakespeare’s Genealogies.
James Langton (Beethoven’s neighbor; Imperial Judge; Magisterial Judge; 18th century Judge; Constable; Priest) trained as an actor at The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and later studied music at the Guildhall School, London. James was the singer and leader of the acclaimed Pasadena Roof Orchestra as well as leading his own swing big band in London called ‘The Solid Senders’, hugely popular with listeners and dancers alike. As an actor, he performed both on stage in the UK and on British TV, taking on a role in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ (starring Ralph Fiennes) that originated at London’s Almeida Theatre before transferring to Broadway. James moved permanently to the New York, becoming a leading narrator of more than 500 audiobooks and the winner of two coveted Audie Awards. He made regular voice-over appearances on the David Letterman TV show. As well as his own narration work, he now manages the studios of the New York Public Library, supervising their recordings for the blind and print disabled. James has hosted radio shows on SiriusXM, WFDU (New York), WKCR (New York) and his show “This Thing Called Swing” has been syndicated to multiple stations worldwide.
James Lurie: (Headmaster Giannatasio del Rio; Kaspar Karl van Beethoven; Wagon Driver;) Many leading Off-Broadway and Regional theater roles. A few favorites include Oleanna, Dear Kenneth Blake (Los Angeles’ Dramalogue Award), The Great Society, and Noises Off. Television appearances include recurring roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Picket Fences, guest appearances on Bull, The Blacklist, Gotham, Law & Order: SVU, etc., and 23 appearances on the David Letterman Show. James is an award-winning audiobook narrator with over 70 titles to his credit, including AudioFile Magazines “Best Audiobooks of 2018 – Biography” for “RFK: His Words for Our Times”. He has also narrated hundreds of documentaries for the History Channel, PBS, National Geographic and Discovery. At one point, James had narrated 3 of the 4 highest rated shows ever for the History Channel. His podcast “Embrace Everything: The World of Gustav Mahler” (in which James plays Mahler) won the Gold Medal for Music in the 2022 New York Festivals Radio Awards.
James Melo (ERC musicologist, playwright) is a Senior-Supervising Editor at the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) at the Graduate Center (CUNY), and the New York correspondent for the music magazine Sinfónica in Uruguay. He has written program notes for major concert halls in the United States and Brazil, as well as for CDs on several labels. He was the program notes writer for the National Philharmonic in Strathmore, Maryland, and for the Montreal Chamber Music Festival. He is the author of the liner notes for the complete recordings of the works of Heitor Villa-Lobos and of Camargo Guarnieri on Naxos. He is on the faculty of the Diller-Quaile School of Music in New York City and is active as a translator in Brazil and the US. His most recent publication, an essay on Friedrich Nietzsche and the aesthetics of the Romantic song, was published this year by Cambridge Scholars.
Frank Pagliaro (Young Karl van Beethoven (ages 9-12); Karl van Beethoven (age 20)) cut his teeth at the Cape Cod Theatre Company, home of the Harwich Junior Theatre. After receiving the Louise J. Ober '64 Theatre Award as an undergrad at Williams College, he trained at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and Upright Citizens Brigade. Recent stage credits include Lucio in Measure for Measure (Curtain Call), Tom in Escape from Happiness (Stella Adler), and Tuzenbach in Three Sisters (Columbia University). In October, Frank produced and directed Clifford Odets' Waiting for Lefty as a benefit for the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, a labor and immigrant rights organization headquartered in Western Massachusetts. frankpagliaro.com
Caity Quinn (ERC Development and Business Manager; playwright) has been a member of the staff at ERC since 2008. She has been instrumental in winning numerous ERC grants, including over ten years of funding from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and NYC’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA); The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for ‘July 5th’, and Maestro, about the life of celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini. Ms. Quinn works closely with Eve Wolf and Don Sanders to implement and fulfill ERC’s mission. Ms. Quinn is also a playwright and drama teacher. She has collaborated with film director Robert Eggers (The Northman) on numerous theatre projects, including a Commedia dell’Arte version of Faust. Recent projects include teaching theatre K-8 at a tiny island school in Maine, directing Rabbit Hole and Six Characters in Search of an Author at Purdue, appearing at Theatre Passe Muraille in the bilingual French-English production of The Sound of Cracking Boneswith Pleiades Theatre in Toronto. Her play “Within and Without: The Flood” won the award Le Prix Initiative Jeunesse ALPHA Assurances in 2017. She has been nominated twice for the Brickenden Award for Best Youth Play/Musical in Ontario.
Donald T. Sanders, Director, (Director of Theatrical Production Ensemble for the Romantic Century/ERC) Notable ERC productions: Van Gogh's Ear with Carter Hudson; Seduction, Smoke and Music with Sinead Cusack and Jeremy Irons; Because I Could Not Stop, An Encounter with Emily Dickinson with Angelica Page; for ERC Audio Drama Division: Tchaikovsky, None But The Lonely Heartwith Vanessa Redgrave and Stephen Fry; Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon with Thibault de Montalembert. B.A. University of Pennsylvania (President, Penn Players,Thouron Scholar); C.I.D University of Bristol England; MFA Yale School of Drama. Career debut, the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, 1968, The American Pig, An Anti-Imperialist Vaudeville; Founder and Executive Artistic Director MIFA, the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts/MIFA. Awards: NEA, NYSCA, NYCDCA, MCC, National Philanthropic Trust, NYTimes Critic's Picks, Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres France.
Yelena Shmulenson (Johanna van Beethoven; Nanni) grew up in Ukraine and emigrated to the US in the 90s. She’s perhaps best known as the icepick-wielding ‘Dora’ in the Coen brothers’ Oscar-nominated film A Serious Man. Other film and TV credits: Orange is the New Black (‘Inmate Boyle’, recurring), Blue Vloods, Madame Secretray, The Knick, Boardwalk Empire (as ‘Mrs. Manny Horvitz’), Chicago Med, Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd, Romeo & Juliet in Yiddish, and Chinese Puzzle (w/Audrey Tautou). Stage credits include The Dybbuk 2020, The Golem of Havana (LaMama NYC/Miami New Drama), The Essence: A Yiddish Theater Dim Sum (NY/Stockholm/Bucharest), two seasons at the Ellis Island Theatre, five seasons at the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater, Covers, knock, and Old New Year with The Lost & Found Project, Tevye Served Raw (NY/Bucharest/Dresden), etc. She is also a dialect coach/translator for numerous projects, she narrates audiobooks, and is fluent in five languages.
Renée Silverman (ERC script consultant, archival producer, ERC playwright) is a seasoned filmmaker with over twenty-five years’ experience as a producer, director, writer and archival researcher. She is the US producer on the feature documentaries, Wim Wenders: Desperado, winner of the Rose D’Or, Cannes with Francis Ford Coppola, Patti Smith and Werner Herzog and It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story in wide distribution in Europe. A New York based stringer for ARD and ZDF public tv, she produced hundreds of stories covering culture, politics, and breaking news. Renée’s is the co-director of the award-winning documentaries, Refugee Kids: One Small School Takes on the World and Sosúa: Make a Better World for PBS. Her archival producing credits include the Oscar nominated documentary RBG and United Skateson HBO. A script consultant with filmmakers and playwrights, she founded a documentary story structure workshop for the Gotham (formerly the IFP) and will teach screenwriting at SVA starting January 2023.
Albert Cano Smit (pianist) Praised as “a moving young poet” and “a great romantic” (by Christophe Huss – Le Devoir), Spanish/Dutch pianist Albert Cano Smit enjoys a growing international career on the orchestral, recital, and chamber music stages. Noted for his captivating performances, storytelling quality and nuanced musicality, the First Prize winner of the 2019 Young Concert Artists International Auditions has appeared as a soloist with the San Diego, Montreal, Las Vegas, Manchester, and Barcelona symphony orchestras, amongst others. He also won First Prize at the 2017 Walter W. Naumburg Piano Competition, which presented him in recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Most recently, Albert was awarded the 2020 Arthur Rubinstein Piano Prize from The Juilliard School.
Charles Turner (Ludwig van Beethoven) A native New Yorker. Charles has appeared in ten Broadway show, including The Gin Game, You Can't Take it With You, The Trip to Bountiful, Dividing the Estate and On Golden Pond. Off-Broadway: The Orphans' Home Cycle (Signature Theatre), The Play About the Baby (with Marian Seldes). Regional:King Lear, Fences, The Oedipus Plays (D.C.) Shakespeare and Athens Festival). Awards: Drama Desk. AUDELCO. Film/TV: "Madam Secretary," "Chappelle's Show " Anemone Me. MFA, Yale School of Drama. Dedication: sisters Debbie and Nancy; grandchildren Khari and Aalliyah.
Eve Wolf (Playwright; Founder and Executive Director of ERC; pianist) During the past twenty-two seasons, Wolf has written scripts and been music designer for more than twenty-five of ERC’s theatrical concerts, including ERC’s new Radio Drama Division, and has performed as pianist in most of the ensemble’s forty-plus original productions. Highlights: Audio: Anna Akhmatova, - starring Vanessa Redgrave (2021); Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon – starring Thibeault de Montalembert (2022); Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart - starring Stephen Fry and Vanessa Redgrave. (2022); Notable Plays: Maestro (The Duke at 42nd Street), Van Gogh’s Ear (Signature Theater), 2017 - a New York Times Critic’s Pick; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Signature Theater), 2018; The Dreyfus Affair (BAM), 2017; Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone (BAM) 2016 - a New York Times Critic’s Pick; Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon (BAM), 2015, a New York Times Critic’s Pick. Ms. Wolf has served on the faculty of the Curtis Institute and been a professional mentor at The Juilliard School, and is currently on the faculty of Columbia University-Teachers College.
Sue Zizza (Audio Producer) is a transmedia storyteller. She is a producer, director, writer, sound designer, and owner of SueMedia Productions, a full service audio production company producing sound for all media: Audiobooks, Podcasts, TV, Film,VR. etc. Sue has produced award winning audio fiction for the web, public radio, and audiobooks for more than 3 decades. Her work has been featured at the 2022 Tribeca Festival as well as honored over the years by The Audies (9 nominations, two wins); The Gabriel’s; The International Festival of New York; The National Federation of Community Broadcasters; and the Communicator Awards. In 2021 she was named The Corwin Award winner for lifetime achievement in producing audio fiction. Sue’s sound clients have included: Cleo TV, PBS, Audible, Blackstone, MacMillan Publishers, and USA Networks -Sci-Fi Channel.