“The Great Escape”
A few words from Artistic Director Adriana Zabala on our upcoming program at Emory University, entitled, “The Great Escape”:
Texas Cold’ em
During the January ice storm in Texas, while working for the Austin Lyric Opera, I spent three days stuck in my hotel room as the ice relentlessly pelted the state capitol. Rehearsals had been cancelled- everything had been cancelled. As soon as roads were opened and the weather had cleared, I took to the road in my rental car and cruised the city just for the fun of moving and enjoying the colorful town. My sense of unbridled freedom soared as I cranked up Paul Simon’s 50 Ways to Leave your Lover on the radio. As I sang along with every cool rhyme and rhythm, I started to think about escaping, leaving, changing venues, fleeing situations of danger or oppression, escaping into other states of minds, the lure of new places, ideas, and lovers, this universal compulsion to unleash the imagination in dreams…and the theme of this evening’s program came alive as Jack slipped out the back, and Ryan and I were on the phone just as Gus hopped on the bus…
Road-Trip!
When we get excited about the possibilities in a program, our happiest problem is that there is always so much amazing material to discover, and so much we want to include. As the program was born on the road, we let the road inspire the concert structure into a metaphorical “road-trip of life.” And each section addresses themes related to escape in many different manifestations.
The Vaughan Williams song to the poem of Robert Louis Stevenson sets the tone for the journey into the unknown with the bold insistence, “All I seek the heaven above, and the road below me.” The lure of the exotic is powerfully invoked in the Ravel, Schumann and the folk tune about one woman’s obsession for the Gipsy Davy. In ending the first half, disappointment and disillusionment, and the fleeing an undesirable or dangerous situation are frankly addressed in Weill’s Je ne t’aime pas and Mercer’s excerpt of action and triumph from St. Louis Woman. Following the aftermath of Sleep Peaceful we are lulled by Britten’s use of Puck’s incantation for serene sleep and a harmonious resolution upon waking… “Jack shall have Jill, naught shall go ill, the man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.”
We begin the second part with several odes to rest and resignation, ending the set with a languorous selection from Larsen’s Cowboy Songs. Continuing with songs of Fauré and Schumann, which touch on nostalgia and dreams that might have been, Nick Drake’s Time of No Reply poses a plaintive questioning of life’s meaning and unanswered questions. The last several songs metaphorically and literally contemplate the afterlife, creating a dialog between the eerie Dickinson poem and the contrasting tones of the Vaughan Williams and Wolf songs. Finally we end with a practical endorsement of alternative afterlife accommodations courtesy of Berlin’s Pack up Your Sins.
The composers and poets whose songs we have selected for “The Great Escape” all spoke to us on levels often moving, sometimes humorous, and always profound- we hope you will find moments of the same on this splendid ride, and will sit back and enjoy “The Great Escape!” - A.Z.
