Countdown for Herrmann's Wuthering Heights at Minnesota Opera (II)

As we have been reporting, April 16 marks the premiere of a new production of Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights opera at the Minnesota Opera. In the meantime, several activities have been organised, such as the following one scheduled for today, April 4:

Wuthering Heights Monday, April 4, 2011 Guest speaker: Bruce Crawford Buy Tickets

Noted film expert Bruce Crawford will discuss Bernard Herrmann's life and career, from CBS Radio to Carnegie Hall to Hollywood, and his lasting impact on our culture. Wuthering Heights was considered by Herrmann himself as the masterwork of his life. He was intensely protective of the piece, which took him several years to complete. Hermann did not allow any cuts or revisions, which kept the opera from being performed until after his death. Herrmann's music, in whatever form, is distinct and memorable and his opera is no exception.

Those not able to attend may find of interest the director's notes. Eric Simonson writes,

One of the most interesting things about Wuthering Heights adaptations – in films, plays, musicals and operas – is that the second half of Emily Brontë’s story is usually discarded. Cathy’s death happens about halfway through the novel and the second half of the story details Heathcliff’s later years of spite and longing. This is interesting to me, at least, because I think, despite the fact that half of the tale is missing, it’s usually still there in heart and spirit. Heathcliff’s love is not usual by any stretch of the imagination. It’s fraught with angst and heartbreak and elation and hate and all the most extreme of human emotions. Cathy shares these feelings and together, their love is nuclear charged. So it’s wonderful and fitting that Wuthering Heights is not just a romance; it’s a gothic romance. There is a supernatural aspect to what is going on here; a suggestion that this love is extraordinary and beyond this mortal world.
In our production, we have embraced the “gothic” and the “natural” (of super-natural) parts of the romance. Bernard Herrmann’s music is a wonderful match in this regard. The composer of great Hitchcock thrillers, as well as classic romances (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Jane Eyre) expresses perfectly the eternal, and eternally haunted, love that overtakes Cathy and Heathcliff. And Wuthering Heights, the building – the lonely manor of a farmhouse, out of the middle barren Moors – is the perfect setting for this ghost story.
But ultimately, it’s the natural order of things that gets the best of Cathy and Heathcliff. No matter how hard they try, they will never escape two things: their unquenchable love for one another; and the societal order which keeps them apart. Nature – unrelenting, fickle, awesome, lethal, beautiful, and cruel – is their master, and their refuge; and it’s the constant backdrop of this story, Bernard Hermann’s music, and this production.

Categories: Music, Opera, Wuthering Heights