Jane Eyre: Fantasy Overture by Tracey Rush

Another Jane Eyre world premiere. A few days ago it was a new musical opening in Redlands, California. Today we announce the world premiere of Jane Eyre: Fantasy Overture by Tracey Rush. The premiere will take place today, May 11, in Des Moines, Iowa:

Des Moines Community Orchestra
Spring Concert

Our Spring Concert concludes or concert season. Music Director and Conductor, Carl Johnson, will lead the orchestra as we perform music that will stir your spirit!

May 11, 2008
Concert begins at 2:00 p.m. in Sheslow Auditorium
Pre-concert talk begins at 1:00 p.m. Sheslow.
Program: "Women's Night Out" (...)

Jane Eyre: Fantasy Overture [world premiere, commissioned work] (Tracey Rush)

• Chilldhood at Gateshead (loneliness)
• The Red-Room (fear)
• Lowood: Death of Helen (redemption)
• Flight form Thornfield (despair)
• Reunion (love)

This is how the composer describes her piece in the program notes:

Ever since high school, when I first read Charlotte Brontë's great novel, "Jane Eyre," I dreamed of turning it into a Broadway musical. Twenty-some years later, in the mid-90s, a playwright friend of mine and I began the daunting task of doing just that. He had almost completed the first draft of the script and I had written several songs when Paul Gordon and John Caird beat us to it, and their version of "Jane Eyre' opened on Broadway. Realizing there wasn't much chance the theater-going public would welcome a second show on the same book (even though ours would have been better!), we abandoned Jane.
Jump forward another decade to when I received a phone call from Carl Johnson inviting me to write a work for the DMCO's "Women's Night Out" program. While describing the orchestra's ability, the maestro told me the orchestra had recently performed Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy Overture. It didn't take long for me to realize this was the perfect opportunity to resurrect my previous work on Jane, and do my own concert fantasy with those themes that I had loved so much while working on the project, but which had been languishing in the piano bench all these years.
Patterned after Tchaikovsky's concert fantasy, Jane Eyre: Fantasy Overture is not meant to tell the story of the novel but merely has representative themes of the characters and incidental music (background music for action on stage). Each theme depicts a different emotion in Jane's life, and shows her development and growth into the incredible character that she was.
The work opens with "Childhood at Gateshead," based on the plaintive four-note motif which spells out J(C)-A-N(G)-E. "The Red-Room" was a song to be sung by the young Jane during her terrifying experience of being locked up in the room which gave her nightmares. "Lowood: Death of Helen," is the turning point in our feisty heroine's life when her best friend at the boarding school teaches Jane about forgiveness and acceptance with her dying breath. "Flight from Thornfield" accompanies Jane as her sense of honor forces her to flee from yet another nightmarish situation - being left at the altar after discovering Edward's first wife is alive and insane and living at Thornfield. Finally, no musical would be complete without the big love duet, and "Reunion" was to be sung by Jane and Edward when at last they are reunited. [Tracey Rush, composer]

The DesMoines Register adds:

She patterned "Jane Eyre: Fantasy Overture" after Tchaikovsky's overture to "Romeo and Juliet" and wove together themes for different stages of Jane's life: her childhood, her years in boarding school, her rocky love life and happily-ever-after ending.
With the help of a computer software program called Finale, Rush e-mailed conductor Johnson audio clips and digital copies of the written score.
"She was nervous that it wasn't quite what I would want, but it was great," he said. (Michael Morain)

A sample of the piece (albeit in an ugly à la midi synthesized sound) can be heard here.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Music