Upcoming Events ofthe SeventySixth Season of The William

Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot

Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, all programs

take place in the West Building,

West Garden Court.

Curtis on Tour

Music by Brahms, Mozart, and Puts

October r, 3:30

The Canales Project, in partnership

with TEDx Mid Atlantic

Sandeep Das, tabla 

Lara Downes, piano

Kaoru Watanabe, shinobue bamboo flute

October 8, 3:30

Dali Quartet

With Orlando Cotto, percussion

Music by Ricardo Lorenz, Guido LopezGavilan, and Jorge Mazon-Rico Melao

October 15, 3:30

Lina Bahn, violin, and

Matt Haimovitz, cello

With Artichoke Dance Company

Voices ofthe Ocean

October 22,3:30

Pomerium

Flemish Musical Mastery in the

Age ofBosch and Bloemaert

Celebrating Bosch to Bloemaert: Early

Netherlandish Drawingsfrom the Museum

Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

October 29, 3:30

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The department of music produced

these program notes. Copyright © 2017

Board ofTrustees, National Gallery of

Art, Washington

Cover Edvard Munch, Anxiety (detail), 

1896, National Gallery ofArt, Washington, The Epstein Family Collection

76TH SEASON OF CONCERTS
Program

New York Opera Society

Lettersfrom Ruth

SEPTEMBER 24, 2017/3:30

WEST BUILDING, WEST GARDEN COURT

Presented in celebration ofEdvard Munch: Color in Context

Music by Gisle Kverndokk

Libretto by Aksel-Otto Bull and Gisle Kverndokk

Based on Ruth Maier's Diary—

A YoungJewish Girl's Life under Nazism, by Jan Erik Void

Commissioned by Musikkteaterforum, Norway

Cast

Ruth Maier /Visa Jordheim

Gunvor Hofitno Helen Karloski

Judith, multiple roles Molly Allen

The Mother, multiple roles Sarah Murphy

Professor Williger, multiple roles Shannon DeVine

Herman Thimig John Tiranno

Mr. Strom John Tiranno

Gustav Vigeland, multiple roles Kenneth Overton

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The Musicians

NEW YORK OPERA SOCIETY

The New York Opera Society (NYOS) develops new audiences for opera by commissioning, creating, and funding distinctive and high-quality productions. To that end, NYOS 

serves as a conduit to the public by disseminating important messages, musical inspiration, and seminal artistic performances via partnerships with major performance venues, 

corporations, nonprofits, and governments to present the work of our artists in the

United States and abroad. NYOS annually tours new productions to international

festivals and presents a contemporary opera or new commission in the United States.

It also hosts a salon series and oversees an international artist-in-residence program and

substantive outreach programs. Recent highlights include productions of Falstaffand 

Madama Butterfly for its annual festival in Southern France; premieres at the Lincoln

Center and Teatro Sao Pedro, Sao Paulo, Brazil, of its contemporary Spanish opera, Las

Horas Vadas, by Guggenheim fellow and Juilliard faculty member Ricardo Llorca; and

three tours and a world premiere of the NYOS’s commission ofAhax and Moritz: A

Cartoon Opera in Seven Pranks, by Gisle Kverndokk. Other notable NYOS evenings have

taken place at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Embassy of Italy, New York’s World

Financial Center, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, and the United Nations. Audiences 

have included Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Royal Couple

of Norway, ambassadors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Queen Sofia of Spain, Stanley "Pucci

and Martin Scorsese (at a gala in their honor), and nearly every European and South

American embassy and consulate. NYOS has recently been favorably reviewed on PBS

and in Time, GQ, Opera News, and the Wall Street Journal. The New York Opera Society 

is led by a dedicated board of directors and philanthropist, Lesley Silvester.

The New York Opera Society thanks the Royal Norwegian Embassyforitssupport on

behalf of this project.

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Creative Team

GISLE KVERNDOKK/COMPOSER

Gisle Kverndokk is one of Norway’s foremost composers of musical theater. His works

have been performed all over Norway and Germany, as well as in Canada and the United

States. His opera Around the world in 80 days was commissioned for the opening of the new 

opera house in Oslo and premiered there in 2010. Kverndokk has written two children’s

operas for the New York Opera Society: Max and Moritz (2010) and Supersize Girl (2013).

He also has produced many symphonic works, chamber music, church music, and film

music and has collaborated with all the major orchestras in Norway. He has degrees from

the Norwegian Academy ofMusic, Oslo, and the Juilliard School in New York.

AKSEL-OTTO BULL / LIBRETTIST

Aksel-Otto Bull is a Norwegian stage director and playwright. He has directed over sixty

theater productions throughout Norway. He has been artistic director of the National

Theatre in Bergen and has for many years worked in theater education at the Nordic

Institute for Stage and Studio and the Bardar Academy in Oslo. He studied at the

London Academy ofMusic and Dramatic Art and the Drama Studio, London. Bull

and Kverndokk’s first opera collaboration was Easter, commissioned by the Bergen 

National Opera. It premiered in 2014 at Kilden Performing Arts Centre, Kristiansand,

directed by Bull. Their next collaboration was the musical Lettersfrom Ruth, commissioned by Musikkteaterforum in Oslo. It was presented at the New York Theatre Barn’s

New Works Series, 2015, in New York City.

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The Cast

ALISA JORDHEIM / SOPRANO / RUTH MAIER

Soprano Alisa Jordheim is praised for her compelling and vocally assured performances

in opera, oratorio, musical theater, both early and new music, and recital. A 2013 Merola

Opera Program participant,Jordheim has also performed with the Florentine, Caramoor,

Cincinnati, Madison, Central City, and Emerald City Operas; the Columbus Symphony

and Opera Chorus; at the Grant Park Music Festival with the Madison Bach Musicians;

the Columbus, Madison, Fox Valley, and Northwest Indiana Symphonies; the Greeley

and Dayton Philharmonics; and the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra.

Jordheim is the recipient of a 2016 Sullivan Foundation Award and 2015 Sullivan

Foundation Career Development Grant. A Fulbright scholar and a fellow of the

American Scandinavian Foundation,Jordheim studied and conducted research on 

singing diction in the Scandinavian languages at the University of Oslo in 2013-2014.

She frequently performs recitals ofsongs by Scandinavian composers, has published an

article on Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish singing diction in xhejotirnal ofSinging, and

has completed English and International Phonetic Alphabet translations of numerous

songs by Scandinavian composers. She is also an advocate of new music for voice, having

premiered works composed for her by Lori Laitman, Douglas Pew,Joanne Metcalf,

Josh Deutsch, and Rodney Rogers.

Jordheim is a native ofAppleton, Wisconsin, and completed her first two years of

undergraduate study at Lawrence University, where she studied with Patrice Michaels.

Jordheim earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees from the University

of Cincinnati College, Conservatory ofMusic.

HELEN KARLOSKI / MEZZO-SOPRANO / GUNVOR HOFMO

Mezzo-soprano Helen Karloski has been gaining recognition particularly in her portrayal

of the oratorio repertoire. In 2015, she was the recipient of the Ellen Lopin Blair Award

for First Place in the Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition. The Santa Fe

New Mexican wrote: “Her voice is beautifully suited for oratorio, and the sincerity of

her delivery, along with her poised bearing and physical presentation, forged an almost

palpable connection with the audience.” Karloski made her Carnegie Hall debut in

the 2016-2017 season, performing Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Bruckner’s Te Deum,

under the baton of Kent Tritle, with the Oratorio Society of New York. Additional

performances last season included Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the American 

Classical Orchestra and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Haydn’s “Lord Nelson”

Mass with Princeton Pro Musica, and a televised broadcast of Craig Hella Johnson’s

Considering Matthew Shepard with Conspirare. She was also a featured soloist on 

Conspirare’s Grammy-winning recording The Sacred Spirit ofRussia.

5
Karloski made her Lincoln Center debut in Mozart’s Solemn Vespers with the Mostly

Mozart Festival, under the baton of Ivan Fischer. She has made recent appearances

with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, the Omaha Symphony, Musica Sacra, the American

Classical Orchestra, and Sacred Music in a Sacred Space and has performed as the

alto soloist in Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the New York City

Ballet. Other solo engagements include Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Pittsburgh Symphony

Orchestra, Haydn’s Theresienmesse with Voices ofAscension, Bach’s Magnificat with the

Victoria Bach Festival, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Choral Society of Grace Church,

and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody with St. Andrew’s Music

Society. Favorite performances include The Cunning Little Vixen, Le Grande Macabre,

and My Fair Lady with the New York Philharmonic; Les Huguenots and Oresteia at

Bard SummerScape; and the New York City premiere of Elliot Goldenthal’s Grendel,

directed by Academy Award-nominee Julie Taymor.

MOLLY ALLEN / SOPRANO / JUDITH

Molly Allen holds her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in vocal performance from the

Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at Catholic University. She currently resides in the

Washington, DC, area where she teaches at Harmonic Music Studios and is a faculty 

member at the Performing Arts Institute ofWyoming Seminary in Pennsylvania.

When she is not teaching, Allen is pursuing a career in opera and has performed the

role of Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor.; Gilda in Rigoletto, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel,

Julie Jordan in Carousel, Miss Silverpeal in Der Schauspieldirektor,JouJou in The Merry

Widow, Cupidon in Bel Cantanti Opera Company’s production of Orphee aux Enfers,

and Nella in the Amalfi Coast Music and Arts Festival’s production of Gianni Schicchi.

She recently won the Xi’an Music Festival Vocal Competition in Xi’an, China, as well

as the Friday Morning Music Club Vocal Competition in Bethesda, Maryland.

SARA MURPHY / MEZZO-SOPRANO / THE MOTHER

Sara Murphy, “a gorgeous, deep, dark mezzo-soprano” (New York Times), is a vocal artist

who has been called “absolutely unforgettable for her versatility and ability to conquer

any sensitive soul” (El Nacional, Dominican Republic). The fall of 2016 marked her

European debut at Rome’s Teatro dell’ Opera as Ulrica in Verdi’s Un hallo in maschera,

under the baton ofJesus Lopez-Cobos. The current season continues with the role of

the Wife in the world premiere of Gisle Kverndokk’s sacred opera Upon this handful of

earth, and concludes at Carnegie Hall as Mary Magdalene in Elgar’s The Apostles with

the American Symphony Orchestra. Opera News named the recent release of Hindemith’s

The Long Christmas Dinner, in which Murphy portrays Mother Bayard and Ermengarde,

as one of the “ Fop Fen Opera Recordings of 2015.” Past season highlights include Ligeti’s

Requiem-, Schnittke’s Nagasaki and Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner with the

6

American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein; and Verdi’s Otello,

Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mahler’s Symphony no. 8, Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, and 

Tchaikovsky’s Ode to Joy at the Cincinnati May Festival, conducted by James Conlon.

Murphy’s portrayal of Britten’s Phaedra, Barber’s Dover Beach, and Verdi’s High Priestess

in Aida at Ravinia with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Conlon,

won acclaim from the Chicago Tribune-, “a rich, voluminous mezzo voice, excellent diction

and an acute feeling for words and music.” Murphy enjoys frequent performances of

Verdi’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Mahler’s Symphony no. 8, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder,

Mahler’s Riickert Lieder, and Elgar’s Sea Pictures. She holds degrees from Oberlin College

and Catholic University and is a first-prize winner of the Oratorio Society of New York

Solo Vocal Competition. She is also a grant recipient of Inter-Cities Performing Arts

and the Wagner Society of New York.

SHANNON DEVINE / BARITONE / PROFESSOR WILLIGER

Baritone Shannon DeVine recently made his Carnegie Hall debut in Vaughan Williams’s

Donna Nobis Pacem and was also Michele in II tabarro with the New York Vertical Players 

Repertory. The New York Times said, “Mr. DeVine is a very impressive baritone in the role 

of Michele,” and “can’t wait to see him on bigger and more important stages.” In 2012,

DeVine made his Opera Orchestra of New York debut under Eve Queler in the acclaimed 

concert ofWagner’s Rienzi. He has also performed Leporello in Don Giovanni and Ford

in Fa1stajfin Toulouse, France, as well as Valentin in Faust, Marcello in La boheme and

Count di Luna in II trovatore with One World Symphony, and Germont in La traviata

with Opera Company of Brooklyn. Recent performances include Scarpia in Tosca at the

Festival of the Aegean in Greece, and the world premiere ofI tre co?npagni with Encompass Opera in New York.

DeVine earned his master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he performed the

roles of Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Silvio in Pagliacci. His professional

debut came at age nineteen in the role of Prince Yamadori in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly

with the Connecticut Opera. Fie has also appeared with the Aspen Opera Theater Center

as Michele in Puccini’s II tabarro and as Ford in Falstajf underJulius Rudel, and as

Guglielmo in Cos)fan tutte and as Morales and El Dancaire with the Houston Grand

Opera in Ron Daniel’s new production of Carmen, under Alain Lombard. Other roles 

with the Houston Grand Opera include Riolobo in Florencia en elAmazonas and Top in

Copland’s The Tender Land. DeVine was a winner of a 2007 Licia Albanese-Puccini

Foundation award and also won the Verdi Concerto Competition at the Aspen Music

Festival. In 2003, he was at the Tanglewood xMusic Center for his debut as Jose Tripaldi

in the world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, under the baton of Robert Spano.

7
JOHN TIRANNO / TENOR / HERMAN THIMIG

TenorJohn Tiranno’s singing has been called “ardent and mellifluous” by the New York

Times. His notable performances include the world premiere of Gisle Kverndokk’s Upon

this handful ofEarth (a coproduction of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space and the New York

Opera Society); Berlioz’s Requiem (La Jolla Symphony and Chorus); Mahler’s Symphony

no. 8 and Paul Moravec’s The Blizzard Voices (Oratorio Society of New York); Richard

Strauss’s Deutsche Motette (Musica Sacra); Saint-Saens’s Requiem (Festival Internazionale

di Musica e Arte Sacra); creating the role ofTrouble in Kverndokk’s Max and Moritz

(New York Opera Society); Bach’s Mass in B Minor and the US premiere ofjuraj Filas’

Oratio Spei-Requiem (Sacred Music in a Sacred Space); Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle (the

Dessoff Choirs); Handel’s Messiah (Dayton Philharmonic); and recitals at King Abdullah

University of Science and Technology in Jedda, Saudi Arabia.

KENNETH OVERTON / BARITONE / GUSTAV VIGELAND

As a leading baritone, Kenneth Overton has sung with the San Francisco, Nashville,

Sacramento, and Connecticut Operas, the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, the

Boheme Opera of NewJersey, the Houston Ebony Opera Guild, and Operas Delaware,

Memphis, and Carolina. His roles with these companies include Papageno (Die Zauberflote), Sharpless (Madama Butterfly), Leporello (Don Giovanni), Schaunard (La boheme),

Ping (Turandot), Angelotti (Tosco), and Bello and Sid (Lafancuilla del West). Overton’s

interpretation of the title role in Porgy and Bess has been acclaimed as “breathtaking.” He

recently sang the role of Porgy with L’Opera de Montreal, the Palacio de Bellas Artes in

Mexico City, and the Royal Danish Opera. He made his international debut in the role 

at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in the critically acclaimed production from South Africa’s

Cape down Opera. He also performed the role in concert with the WDR Orchestra of

Cologne at the Klangvokal Music Festival in Dortmund and with the Lithuanian State

Symphony Orchestra, the Richmond Symphony, and the Paducha Symphony, and 

throughout the British Isles. Other concert performances include the Messiah with the

Phoenix Symphony and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and Elijah with the

New Jersey Symphony. This season Overton returns to David Geffen Hall in Mozart’s

Requiem with the National Chorale and debuts with the Hungarian State Opera as Porgy.

8

ANDREW ROSENBLUM / MUSIC DIRECTOR

Andrew Rosenblum, Chicago-based pianist and harpsichordist, has worked as a staff or

faculty keyboardist at Northwestern University, DePaul University, the Cleveland Institute

ofMusic, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and the Heifetz International Music Institute.

Highlights of his 2015-2016 season included coaching and performing in the Lyric 

Opera of Chicago’s production of Second Nature, a children’s opera by Matthew Aucoin, 

and soloing with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 5.

Rosenblum has performed in many prominent venues in the United States, including the

Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, and Severance Hall and has concertized internationally

in Guadalajara, Mexico, Gros Islet, St. Lucia, and Banff, Canada.

RAQUEL BARBIERI VIDAL / DIRECTOR

Raquel Barbieri Vidal was born in Buenos Aires, where she graduated as a regisseur

(opera director) fromTeatro Colon in 1997. She has directed Don Giovanni, Cost fan tutte,

Le nozze di Figaro, and Der Schauspieldirektor (Mozart); Madama Butterfly and La boheme

(Puccini); Faust and Romeo et Juliette (Gounod); Werther (Massenet); Andrea Chenier

(Giordano); L'ocassionefa il ladro (Rossini); Derfliegende Hollander (Wagner); The Bartered

Bride (Smetana); The Telephone (in the presence of the composer Gian Carlo Menotti);

La servo padrona (Pergolesi), Hary Janos (Kodaly); and La le<;on de chant electromagnetique

(Offenbach), in addition to playwriting Mujeres en la Opera, Desventuras de una Diva, Con

esafacha de tonta, and Malena...la del tango. She is also the librettist of the Argentinian

opera Camila O'Gorman and has worked for the following theaters and institutions:

Teatro Colon, Teatro San Martin, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Union Avenue Opera,

Ars Hungarica, Ensamble Lfrico Orquesta, Scottish Opera, Dvorak Theatre, Pontificia

Universidade do Rio Grande do Sul, Societa Dante Alighieri, and Alliance Frangaise.

CAITLIN RAIN / COSTUME DESIGNER

Caitlin Rain is from Dallas, Texas. Her recent projects include Coriolanus (Stella Adler 

Studios), Awake and Sing! (Olney Theatre Center), and The Bomb-itty of Errors (Second 

1'hought Theater). Her assistant design work includes productions with the Santa Fe

Opera, the Saito Kinen Festival, the Boston Ballet, and numerous regional theaters. She

earned a master of fine arts degree from Southern Methodist University. This is her

second project with the New York Opera Society.

9
Synopsis and Notes

Ruth Maier was born in 1920 and grew up in Vienna, Austria. She was an exceptionally

talented writer and painter and kept a diary throughout her life. In bustling Vienna, she

immersed herself in theater, literature, and the fine arts. In 1939, she fled to Norway

to escape Nazi persecution and lived with a family in Lillestrom, just outside Oslo. She

learned to speak Norwegian and in 1941, met the young, budding poet Gunvor Hofmo,

who became her intimate friend and lover. The two women had a stormy relationship

that lasted until Ruth was deported with other Norwegian Jews in November 1942. She

was killed in Auschwitz’s gas chamber upon arrival. Gunvor became one of Norway’s

greatest poets and kept Ruth’s diaries and much of her correspondence. In 1953, she

approached the Gyldendal publishing house to print the materials but was turned down. 

After Gunvor’s death in 1995, the Norwegian poetJan Erik Void went through Gunvor’s

papers and came across Ruth Maier’s works. After ten years of editing, they were published in 2007. Void was highly impressed by the literary value of the diaries, comparing

Ruth Maier’s talent to that of Hannah Arendt and Susan Sontag. The book was translated

into English by Jamie Bulloch in 2009.

Ruth was also one of the models for the statue Surprised, by Gustav Vigeland, which

is located in Oslo’s Frogner Park. Vigeland began work on the sculpture around 1904,

and the model for the statue’s face was Inga Syvertsen. The sculpture was completed in

1942. Ruth was surprised by another person entering the room while she was modeling

for Vigeland, and she tried to cover her naked body, hence the posture. The statue was

eventually cast in bronze in 2002. Additionally, Ruth was a model for Norwegian painter

Asmund Esval.

Ruth rented a room on Dalsbergstien 3, in Oslo, in the early fall of 1942. She was

arrested on November 26, 1942, and deported on the SS Donau the same day. Upon her

arrest, she penned one last note to Gunvor: “I believe that it is good that it has come to

this. Why should we not suffer, when there is so much suffering? Do not worry about me. 

Perhaps I would not want to trade with you.” Most of Ruth’s diary is preserved from 1933

to 1942. She wrote in her diary about the deteriorating conditions for Austria’s Jewish

population following the Anschluss in 1938, her reaction to the many changes in her life,

and her yearning for her family.

10

In a speech delivered on January 27, 2012, on the occasion of International Holocaust

Remembrance Day, Norway’s Prime MinisterJens Stoltenberg issued an official apology

for the role played by Norwegians in the deportations. As reported on the official

government website, Stoltenberg delivered his speech on the same dock in Oslo where

532 Jews boarded the Donau, bound for Nazi camps. Stoltenberg said:

The Holocaust came to Norway on Thursday 26 November 1942.

Ruth Maier was one of the many who was arrested that day. On

26 November, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, the sound

of heavy boots could be heard on the stairs of the boarding house

“Englehjemmet” in Oslo. A few minutes later, the slightJewish girl 

was seen by her friends being led out the door of Dalsbergstien 3.

Ruth Maier was last seen being forced into a black truck by two big 

Norwegian policemen. Five days later the twenty-two-year-old

was dead. Murdered in the gas chamber at Auschwitz. Fortunately,

it is part of being human that we learn from our mistakes. And it

is never too late. More than fifty years after the war ended, the

Storting decided to make a settlement, collectively and individually,

for the economic liquidation ofJewish assets. By so doing the state

accepted moral responsibility for the crimes committed against

Norwegian Jews during the Second World War. What about the

crimes against Ruth Maier and the otherJews? The murders were 

unquestionably carried out by the Nazis. But it was Norwegians

who carried out the arrests. It was Norwegians who drove the

trucks. And it happened in Norway.

Edvard Munch: Color in Context (at the Gallery through January 28, 2018) examines the

influence ofscientific discoveries, spiritual concepts, and aural discoveries of the late 

nineteenth-century on Munch’s use of color in his work. The ideas that took hold ot

Europe in this period had a lasting effect on artists and informed Ruth Maier’s work.

Her story—from her personal interest in theater and the other arts and her direct

involvement with literary figures and visual artists—is an embodiment of the convergence ofstylistic thinking and development across art forms.

Ruth Maier’s Diary is a selection ofMaier’s surviving diaries, letters, and notes from

1933 to 1942. Her texts have been edited by Jan Erik Void for the sanctity of private life

and to create a unified work of literature. Copyrights for the international editions of

Ruth Maier’s Diary are shared by Judith Suschitzky, Ruth Maier’s sister, and Jan Erik Void.

Judith Suschitzky has donated her copyright earnings to Amnesty International.

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