Herrmann's Wuthering Heights in Cleveland

A very interesting musical program is scheduled for today, March 8, in the current season of Red {an orchestra} (Cleveland, Ohio). A rare chance to listen to Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights opera. By the way, the orchestra informs that the show has not been canceled in spite of the snowy weather
EDIT:

Because of Cleveland's snowy weather,

"Bernard Herrmann: More than the Movies"

IS CANCELLED

BERNARD HERRMANN: MORE THAN THE MOVIES | 3.8.08

Red's sixth season comes to an exciting conclusion with a concert featuring the music of film composer Bernard Herrmann, whose scores for classic films of Alfred Hitchcock--Vertigo, North By Northwest and Psycho--are unmatched in their distinctive style. His style as a film composer, keen psychological atmospheres made with simple means, was formed in his concert music. His early pieces in the manner of his idol, Arnold Schoenberg, matured as he worked in radio and then Hollywood, his ambition remaining high, even as his film music eclipsed all other efforts. In this unique program, film clips featuring Herrmann's Hollywood music mingle with a suite from Psycho, and work from his time in the 1930s at CBS Radio. The highlight of the program is a group of excerpts from his unproduced opera, Wuthering Heights, perhaps the greatest unknown opera in the history of American music.

Saturday March 08, 2008 8:00 PM

Masonic Auditorium
Jonathan Sheffer, conductor
Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano
Michael Todd Simpson, baritone
Dorothy Silver, Narrator

Wuthering Heights (excerpts, Cleveland Premiere)

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has some more information:

And Herrmann composed an opera, "Wuthering Heights," that Jonathan Sheffer, artistic director and conductor of Red (an orchestra), deems a masterpiece. (...)
Sheffer is most excited to lead excerpts from "Wuthering Heights," which has received few productions and only one recording (conducted on the Unicorn label in the 1960s by the composer). Soprano Renee Fleming can be heard singing Cathy's Act II aria, "I have dreamt," with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under James Levine on a Decca compact disc.
As a composer himself who has scored and conducted films, Sheffer long has been intrigued with Herrmann, a tortured soul often in conflict with others as well as his own demons.
"I think that's what attracted him to 'Wuthering Heights,' what attracted him to Cathy and Heathcliff," said Sheffer. "Cathy is a divided soul. She loves Heathcliff but marries Edgar Linton. She couldn't love Heathcliff, because civilized society wouldn't allow it." (...)
Part of Herrmann's inner battle stemmed from his desire to be considered seriously beyond the realm of celluloid. The composer- conductor came to resent his success in the movie business.
"He nurtured the feeling of having been a sellout, like Cathy in 'Wuthering Heights,' " said Sheffer. "Herrmann was an irascible person, hard to like. His first in-laws didn't want their daughter to marry him."
Nevertheless, she did, and more. Lucille Fletcher wrote the libretto for her husband's operatic adaptation of "Wuthering Heights," though the marriage later collapsed. (...)
With Eos in 2000, Sheffer performed excerpts from "Wuthering Heights," an experience that convinced him that the work, despite problems, is as good as or better than most American operas. (...)
Sheffer isn't theorizing. With former Lyric Opera of Chicago artistic director Matthew Epstein, he compiled a list of 25 prominent American operas."
I really think 'Wuthering Heights' is better than any of them," Sheffer said.

At Saturday's concert, he'll conduct five excerpts that trace the relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff, who were played in the 1939 film version by Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. The score includes an interlude that film buffs will recognize as the ardent main theme from "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."
The opera "shows the passionate side of Herrmann," said Sheffer. "It has a through-composed quality that puts me in mind of Puccini and Tchaikovsky."
Herrmann was incapable of revising the opera, which Sheffer believes would thrive with judicious cuts. After his Eos performance in 2000, he learned that the Herrmann family might be willing for the piece to be staged in a new version. The real challenge, said Sheffer, is getting an opera company interested.
Meanwhile, there's Saturday's performance to whet the appetite for "Wuthering Heights" and to remind an audience of Herrmann's heightened ability to add striking emotion and atmosphere to visual images.
The program "gives you a sense of the man," Sheffer said, "and how the movies affect us all." (Donald Rosenberg)

Categories: Music, Opera, Wuthering Heights