Tenor Thomas Glenn sang the role of the young scientist Robert Wilson in the world-premiere performances of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic at the San Francisco Opera in 2005. He made his San Francisco Opera debut as the Student in Doktor Faust and appeared with the company as Maintop in Billy Budd and Gastone in La Traviata. He was seen as Medvedenko in the Opera Center ’s production of The Seagull as well as Count Almaviva in the Merola Opera Program’s production of The Barber of Seville. Most recently, he sang the role of Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada. He began his solo career as the Evangelist in the Bach St. Matthew Passion and recently performed that role with the Cleveland Symphony.
Robert Orth is a leading baritone with major opera companies including those in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Houston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami, Portland, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Denver. He was named “Artist of the Year” by both New York City Opera and Seattle Opera. Last year New York City Opera gave him the Christopher Keene Award for new and unusual repertoire. He has appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Seattle, Denver, Indianapolis, and Washington, D.C., in repertoire ranging from Brahms’ Requiem to Broadway pops to his most requested symphonic piece, Carmina Burana.
Katherine Growdon (mezzo-soprano) was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2008, and has sung with the Mark Morris Dance group since. More recently, the NY Times praised her Dido and Sorceress with the company as “incisively authoritative.” A versatile artist in song and opera, Ms. Growdon has been described as a “fiery singing actress,” possessing a “rich, caramel tone” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Her operatic credits include Cherubino, Idamante, Nicklausse, Hansel, Meg Page, Count Orsini, and Mércèdes. In oratorio, she has been a featured soloist with the American Bach Soloists, Emmanuel Music, the Northwest Bach Festival and the San Francisco Bach Choir. In addition to Tanglewood, where she made her Boston Pops début as Charlotte Malcolm in A Little Night Music, she has been granted fellowships to the Carmel Bach Festival and the Aspen Music Festival. Ms. Growdon received her MM from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Oberlin College.
Absence
Abu Bakr al-Turtushi (Andalusia, ca. 1250)
Every night I scan the heavens with my eyes,
seeking the star that you are contemplating.
I question travelers from the four corners of the earth,
hoping to meet one who has breathed your beauty.
Every night, when the wind blows,
I let it blow upon my face,
I let it blow upon my face,
the breeze might bring me news of you.
Every face I see, secretly, I study,
hoping against hope,
to glimpse a trace of your beauty,
your beauty.
Life at War
Denise Levertov
The disasters numb within us,
caught in the chest, rolling in the brain like pebbles,
The feeling resembles lumps of raw dough,
Weighing down a child’s stomach on baking day!
The same old war continues,
We have breathed the grit of it in all all lives.
Our lungs are pocked with it,
The membrane of our dreams coated with it,
The imagination filled over with the grey filth of it,
yes the grey filth of it.
Life at War, life at war, it’s a life at war
The knowledge that humankind,
Whose eyes are flowers that perceive the stars,
Whose music excels the music of birds,
Still turns, without surprise, with mere regret,
To the scheduled breaking open of breasts,
Whose milk runs out over the entrails of still alive babies.
We are the humans, whose language imagines mercy,
It is we who do these things,
These acts are done to our own flesh.
Burned human flesh.
Yes, this is the knowledge, that jostles for space,
In our bodies along with all we go on knowing of joy, of love.
The Bastard Wind
Breyten Breytenbach
sleep my little love
sleep well sleep dark
wet as sugar in coffee
be happy in your dreams
buy a big house
blow on flutes
eat the oldest pears -
ones that grow sweeter growing old -
sleep sweeter than pears
keep away the threats
away the bastard wind
the bursts of rain
the plundering sun
away all hunger and court cases
and money…
the lack of money!
away the lack of money, and cancer
away all cancer
he bastard wind
the bursts of rain
the plundering sun
and hunger and court cases
and toothache
toothache and narcosis
and blind dogs
away the whole of idiotdom
except for you
and if you wish
please, me too
I’ll watch over your dreams
I wait armed against the sun
and the wind
and the rain
and if you laugh I’ll laugh
and if you cry
little love…
don’t cry
look I’ll but a hat for you
and fresh bread
and music for your hours
and crutches for your complaints
and if you wish
America and the moon
I’ll cut my beautiful country
free for you.
but that’s for tomorrow, mañana
sleep now my love
sleep soon, sleep far
sleep sweeter than nights
and higher, lighter, more loved
freer, longer
and happier than a feather
The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry
When despair of the world grows in me
And I wake, in the night at the least sound, in fear
of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down by the water,
rest your soul down by the water.
I come into the peace of wild things,
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water,
and feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light,
for a time I rest in the grace of the world
and am free.
The God Man
Anon. (Paiute, North America)
My Father has had pity on me,
I have eyes like my Father’s
I have hands like my Father’s
I have legs like my Father’s
My Father has had pity on me,
I have eyes like my Father’s
I have hands like my Father’s
I have legs like my Father’s
I have a form like my Father’s
