CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The Philadelphia Orchestra

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 8:00 PM

Pre-concert talk starts at 7:00 PM in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage with Jeremy Geffen, Director of Artistic Planning, Carnegie Hall.

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle, Conductor
Christine Brandes, Soprano
Heidi Grant Murphy, Soprano
Bernarda Fink, Mezzo-Soprano
Joseph Kaiser, Tenor
Mark Padmore, Tenor
Luca Pisaroni, Bass-Baritone
The Philadelphia Singers Chorale
David Hayes, Director

SCHUMANN Das Paradies und die Peri, Op. 50

This concert is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for choral music established by S. Donald Sussman in memory of Judith Arron and Robert Shaw.

Program Notes:

The Concert At a Glance

Showcasing Schumann’s finest symphonic and song-writing skills, this mammoth oratorio spins a charmingly convoluted story of good deeds across many lands—all done for the price of admission to paradise. The fate of the Peri—half mortal, half angel—hangs in the balance throughout this dramatic story. Based on a Persian tale about the child of a fallen angel who seeks entrance into heaven, Das Paradies und die Peri calls for six soloists and an eight-part choir. Although rarely performed today, it received critical acclaim at its 1843 premiere and brought Schumann international fame.


Notes on the Program
By Christopher H. Gibbs

ROBERT SCHUMANN Das Paradies und Die Peri, Op. 50
Born June 8, 1810, in Zwickau, Saxony; died July 29, 1856, in Endenich (near Bonn).

Composed in 1843, Das Paradies und Die Peri was first performed in Leipzig in December of that year; it received its Carnegie Hall premiere on March 18, 1902, with Johanna Gadski and Mary Hissem de Moss, soprano; Gertrude May Stein, contralto; Ellison van Hoose, tenor; Joseph S. Baernstein, bass; and the Oratorio Society of New York conducted by Frank Damrosch.

Scoring: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle), harp, strings, 2 soprano soloists, mezzo-soprano soloist, 2 tenor soloists, bass-baritone soloist, and mixed choir.

In many ways we best know Robert Schumann as his contemporaries did: as an extraordinary composer of song, keyboard, and chamber music, and as a formidable music critic. Achievements in other genres have always been somewhat more complicated. Although the four mature symphonies are relatively familiar repertoire, to this day they are still criticized in some quarters for their orchestration. His piano concerto is beloved, but the same cannot quite be said of the ones he wrote for violin or for cello. His longest and most ambitious works—choral and dramatic pieces—were unfamiliar fare in his own day and remain so in ours.

An exceptional case in Schumann’s time was the oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri, which tells a story drawn from Persian mythology of a spirit, a Peri, born of the union between a fallen angel and a mortal, who seeks admittance to Paradise. Schumann scored an enormous success when the work was premiered in Leipzig in December 1843 and it was soon performed all over Germany, then across Europe, and was even influential in Russia. He was pleased to learn that a New York performance was planned for 1848. It remained dear to his heart: “My life’s blood is bound up with this work,” Schumann wrote to the critic Franz Brendel in 1847.

There is some irony in the fact that a large choral composition first brought Schumann wide attention in Germany. He had been known primarily as a critic until that time and it was Peri that helped establish his name as a composer. The composition then became his international calling card. Its obscurity later in the 19th century and since may be due, in part, to its sentimental text, but more so to the general decline in performances of substantial choral pieces, once an extraordinarily popular mainstay of the repertory throughout Europe and America.

Over the course of his career Schumann would become intensely preoccupied writing certain kinds of music and then would concentrate, sometimes for years at a time, on little else. Piano compositions dominated the 1830s and account for all of his first 23 published opuses. The year 1840, the same year he married the young pianist and composer Clara Wieck, was his “Year of Song,” 1841 was the symphonic year, 1842 he devoted to chamber works, and then turned the next to oratorio.

He composed Das Paradies und die Peri during an intense four-month period between late February and mid-June 1843. As he was writing it, Clara remarked in her marriage diary (a volume she shared with Robert) that she thought it “the most splendid thing he has done so far, but he is working with his whole body and soul, and with such intensity that I sometimes worry he might become ill.”

Schumann was tremendously enthusiastic about the project. After so many years devoted to small-scale pieces, he had recently broadened his scope writing chamber music and symphonies. An oratorio showed even greater ambition and, as some critics noted at the time, seemed to point toward eventually writing operas. Although posterity tends not to associate dramatic music with Schumann, or with other self-styled conservative Romantics like Mendelssohn and Brahms, they all sought at various times to enter the realm that Wagner came to dominate so powerfully in Germany. Schumann was particularly engaged, hoping that “In time, my endeavors in this, the dramatic field, will be accorded a just assessment,” a prediction, unfortunately, that has yet to be realized. His lone opera, Genoveva (1847–48), was viewed by Franz Liszt as the greatest German opera of its time, excepting those of Wagner.

Das Paradies und die Peri was Schumann’s first sustained venture in dramatic music and with it he attempted to create something unusual. He informed a friend in May 1843 that “at the moment I am involved in a major project, the largest I have ever undertaken—it is not an opera—I nearly think of it as a new genre for the concert hall. I plan to put all my energy into it and hope to have it finished within the year.”

He finished the piece much sooner and noted in his diary: “On June 16 my Peri was completed after several days of strenuous work. What a great joy for the Schumann couple! Except for a few oratorios by [Carl] Loewe, which are basically didactic, I don’t know of anything similar in the musical repertory.” He also expressed his pleasure in a letter from the same time:

My chief item of news is that I finished Das Paradies und die Peri last Friday. It is my longest work and, I think, my best. As I wrote finis on the last page of the score, I felt so grateful that my strength had been equal to the strain. A work of these dimensions is no light undertaking. I realize better now what it means to write a succession of them, such as, for example, the eight operas that Mozart produced within such a short time. Have I told you the story of the Peri? If not, do make an effort to get it. You will find it in Moore’s Lalla Rookh. It is simply made for music. The whole conception is so poetic and ideal that I was quite carried away by it.

Schumann’s attraction to the poem is hardly surprising. As the son of a book publisher and dealer, Schumann was raised within an environment that fostered his deep and lasting love of literature. In 1822 the firm of Gebrüder Schumann released a German translation of Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance (1817) by the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779–1852). Schumann may have read it as a child. Years later, a longtime friend, Emil Flechsig, gave him his own translation of the poem, which relates several exotic tales somewhat in the manner of the Arabian Nights. Such Orientalism had great popular appeal at the time and in this case, as Schumann said, “it was simply made for music.” In fact, Wagner wrote to Schumann telling him that he also knew and admired the poem, and had even considered setting it himself, but could not come up with the right form for such an undertaking.

Schumann crafted the libretto from the earlier translations, adding some of his own verses at various points. He made his conducting debut leading the premiere performances in December 1843 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. After the great success of Peri he wrote in his diary: “An opera will be my next work, and I am fired up to proceed.” He soon took up the ambitious Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, which occupied him over much of the next decade. In addition to dozens of unrealized projects, Schumann eventually produced a series of works with elevated literary origins that often explore the solitary world of outcast anti-heroes, most remarkably Goethe’s Faust and Byron’s Manfred. Peri is the first in this tradition.

Although Schumann attempted to create “a new genre for the concert hall” with Peri, there were various precedents, not limited to Loewe’s “didactic oratorios.” Schumann the critic had pronounced the genre of the oratorio as dying, a few notable exceptions aside, such as Mendelssohn’s Paulus. There were also some secular and exotic choral works he admired, including Heinrich Marschner’s Klänge aus Osten, Félicien David’s Le Désert, and Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht. Schumann’s biographer John Daverio remarks that “the richness of Schumann’s Peri derives, in part, from the multiplicity of genres upon which it drew: secular and sacred oratorio, secular cantata, Requiem, fairy-tale opera, and grand opera.”

Opera for the concert hall is pretty much the definition of oratorio, a genre that came to its most famous flowering with Handel in 18th-century England and that enjoyed a strong revival in the early 19th century. Although Handel and most pre-Romantics set religious topics, secular themes became much more common in Schumann’s time. Peri combines the sacred and secular by using not a Christian theme, but rather an Oriental one from far away and long ago. Schumann said that he aimed “not for the chapel, but rather for cheerful folk.”

In the end, he fashioned an unusual mixture of plot, genre, and musical styles in the work, which negotiates between the sacred and secular, instrumental and vocal, opera and oratorio. Daverio goes so far as to suggest that the semi-divine figure of the Peri is “arguably an emblem for Schumann’s outlook on the oratorio as a genre.” For his part, Schumann on the title page of the score decided to call it simply a Dichtung (poem) for soloists, chorus, and orchestra.

In her attempt to gain entrance to Paradise, the Peri offers a series of three gifts (the first two are rejected) before she is ultimately successful with the third. Schumann’s score is divided into three parts reflecting the penitential offerings. At the outset an angel announces (in Moore’s words): “’Tis written in the Book of Fate / The Peri yet may be forgiven / Who brings to the eternal gate / The gift that is most dear to Heaven! / Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin / ’Tis sweet to let the pardon’d in!”

The first gift is the blood of a young soldier slain in India by the tyrant Gazna (“the last glorious drop his heart has shed”). After this offering fails, the Peri, now in plague-stricken Egypt, presents as her second gift the last sigh of a maiden who chooses to infect herself, dying in the arms of her sick lover (“One kiss the maiden gives, one last / Long kiss, which she expires in giving!”). The Peri is again unsuccessful. Moving on then to Syria, the Peri finds the gift that unlocks the gates to Paradise: tears of a despicable man who has wrought untold evil but who is overcome when he sees an innocent youth saying his prayers (“Blest tears of soul-felt penitence!”).

Das Paradies und die Peri is made up of 26 pieces. After a brief orchestral introduction, there begins a combination of solos, ensembles, and choruses seamlessly woven together. The solo numbers range from strophic songs near the beginning, to recitative, arioso, lullaby, and elaborate arias. The simpler numbers tend to be near the beginning with a progressive complexity reflecting the Peri’s progress toward Paradise. The choruses also project a variety of moods, with grand Handelian ones crowning finales and an exotic tone coloring the Chorus of Houris at the start of the third part.

Schumann took considerable satisfaction in the way sections flow in and out of one another, virtually abandoning traditional recitative passages in favor of a lyrical arioso style of presentation. Although the critic Ludwig Rellstab complained of just this feature, Schumann wrote to him that exactly this seamlessness was one of the work’s “formal innovations.” The distinctive tone of Das Paradies und die Peri derives in part from Schumann’s ability to merge the qualities of a supreme writer of song and an imaginative orchestrator (despite common views to the contrary) with the sound world of Romantic opera, especially those of Weber and Berlioz. His extraordinary achievement is ripe for rediscovery in the 21st century.

Program notes © 2007. All rights reserved. Program notes may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association.

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle, Conductor
Born in Liverpool in 1955, Simon Rattle studied at London’s Royal Academy of Music. In 1974 he won the John Player International Conducting Competition and became assistant conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony and Sinfonietta. A number of guest positions followed, including principal guest conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic.

Mr. Rattle became principal conductor and artistic adviser of the City of Birmingham Symphony in 1980 and subsequently their music director from 1990 to 1998. Mr. Rattle has worked with the UK’s Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, and the London Sinfonietta, and well as the Vienna Philharmonic. Mr. Rattle made his North American debut in 1979 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and served as their principal guest conductor from 1981 to 1994. Mr. Rattle is currently chief conductor and artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic, and principal artist with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. With Berlin, Mr. Rattle is presenting Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 1993. Mr. Rattle debuted at Glyndebourne in 1977 and at the English National Opera in 1985. He has also conducted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Netherlands Opera. His US opera debut was in 1988 with the Los Angeles Opera.

An exclusive EMI artist, Mr. Rattle has made over 70 recordings for the label. Recent releases include Holst’s The Planets with Matthews’s Pluto and world premiere recordings of Asteroids by Saariaho, Pintscher, Turnage, and Dean; Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 14; Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Le bourgeois gentilhomme suite; a Beethoven symphonies cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic; Debussy’s La mer; Dvořák tone poems; Schubert’s Symphony No. 9; and Orff’s Carmina Burana. Mr. Rattle's Mahler symphony cycle with the CBSO was completed in 2005.

Mr. Rattle has been made a Commander of the British Empire, Knight Bachelor, and has received several Outstanding Achievement Awards; the Albert Medal from the Royal Society of Arts; a BAFTA for his UK television series, Leaving Home; the Austrian Cross of Honor for Society and the Arts; and Echo-Klassik’s Conductor of the Year (Germany), as well as France’s Officier des Arts et des Lettres.

Christine Brandes, Soprano
In the 2007–08 season, soprano Christine Brandes’s operatic appearances include her Washington National Opera debut as Catherine in William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge and a return to the Central City Opera as Maria Corona in Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street. Her concert schedule includes performances of Mozart’s Requiem with the Handel and Haydn Society, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Music of the Baroque, Handel’s L’allegro with the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Seattle Symphony, and Haydn’s Mass in the Time of War with the San Francisco Symphony.

During the past season, Ms. Brandes debuted at Seattle Opera as Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, at the Minnesota Opera as Susanna in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, and at the Los Angeles Opera as both Drusilla in Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea and the Sandman in Humperdink’s Hänsel and Gretel. She also collaborated with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra for Handel’s Apollo and Dafne, the National Symphony for Messiah at the Kennedy Center, and the Atlanta Symphony for Bach’s St. John Passion.

Recent symphonic appearances have included concerts with the Cleveland and Minnesota orchestras, the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics, and the Chicago, Tokyo, National, New World, Toronto, Houston, Detroit, and Milwaukee symphonies. She also has bowed at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and at the Ravinia Festival, as well as with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, among others. She made her Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2001 at the Mann Center.

Ms. Brandes’s operatic career has been highlighted by engagements at Houston Grand Opera, San Diego Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Glimmerglass Opera, San Francisco Opera, the Opéra de Nancy, New York City Opera, Opera Pacific, and at the Opera Company of Philadelphia.

Ms. Brandes has recorded for EMI, BMG/Conifer Classics, Dorian, Harmonia Mundi USA, Virgin Classics, and Koch International.

Heidi Grant Murphy, Soprano
Soprano Heidi Grant Murphy began her 2007–08 season with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood in Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. She appeared at the Munich Festival as Susanna in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and in recital and chamber music programs at Music@Menlo and the La Jolla Summer Fest. Her fall season includes concert opera performances with San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Opera Lafayette (a performance which is also being recorded by NAXOS); the New York and Boston premieres of Roberto Sierra's song cycle Songs from the Diaspora, with pianist Kevin Murphy and the St. Lawrence String Quartet; engagements with the Atlanta, BBC, and São Paulo orchestras; recitals in Dallas and New York; and performances as Servilia in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at the Metropolitan Opera. Next summer Ms. Murphy will appear with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, and at the Ravinia Festival.

Ms. Murphy is a former winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and participated in the company’s Young Artist Development Program. In addition to the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Murphy has performed with opera companies including the Frankfurt Opera, Netherlands Opera, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Opera National de Paris, Santa Fe Opera, and at the Salzburg Festival. She has appeared with the Vienna, New York, and Los Angeles philharmonics; Cleveland and Minnesota orchestras; and Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Atlanta, St. Louis, Houston, Montreal, National, and Dallas symphonies. Ms. Murphy is making her Philadelphia Orchestra debut with these performances.

Ms. Murphy most recent recordings are Augusta Read Thomas’s Gathering Paradise with the New York Philharmonic on New World, and a compilation of Sondheim classics for XM Satellite Radio. She has made several recordings for Koch, Delos, Arabesque Records, Deutsche Grammophon, and PS Classics. She also appeared as Johanna in a Grammy-nominated recording of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd with the New York Philharmonic.

The recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from Western Washington University, Ms. Murphy also attended Indiana University. A native of Bellingham, Washington, Ms. Murphy lives in New York City with her husband, Kevin Murphy, and their four children.

Bernarda Fink, Mezzo-Soprano
Highlights of mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink’s 2007–08 season include European tours with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; performances of Bach’s St. John’s Passion with Concentus Musicus Wien, St. Matthew Passion with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and cantatas with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra on tour; and recital performances with artists such as Oleg Maisenberg, Thomas Quasthoff, her brother Marcos Fink, and Genia Kühmeier. Her season ends as Idamante in Mozart’s Idomeneo at Madrid’s Téatro Real. Recently, Ms. Fink sang the title role of Tancredi on a concert tour with René Jacobs throughout Europe.

Ms. Fink has appeared in recital at the Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and Wigmore Hall in London. She frequently performs with such orchestras as the Vienna, Berlin, London, and Czech philharmonics; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; the Bavarian Radio Orchestra; the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; and the Staatskapelle Dresden. She has also been heard at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York, and at opera houses in Europe and Argentina, including Vienna’s Theater an der Wien.

Ms. Fink’s recordings have received a number of awards, including Grammy Awards for her discs of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion with Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Teldec); a Gramophone Award for Caldara’s Maddalena ai piedi di Christo; and the Diapason d’Or Award for a disc of Lieder by Dvořák with Roger Vignoles. Her recordings of Argentinian songs with Mr. Fink and Mozart's La clemenza di Tito with Mr. Jacobs were also nominated for Grammy Awards. For Harmonia Mundi she has recorded Gluck’s Orfeo, CDs of lieder by Schumann and Brahms, Scarlatti’s Griselda, and Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été and Ravel's Shéhérazade.

Ms. Fink was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Slovenian parents, and received her vocal and musical education at the Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón. In February 2006 she was awarded the Austrian Honorary Medal for Art and Science by the Austrian chancellor.

Joseph Kaiser, Tenor
Tenor Joseph Kaiser, can be seen as Tamino in Kenneth Branagh’s recent film adaptation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Mr. Kaiser’s 2007–08 performances include debuts as Tamino at the Metropolitan Opera, Steva in Janáček’s Jenůfa at the Los Angeles Opera, Narraboth in Strauss’s Salome at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Mao-Tse Tung in Adams’s Nixon in China for Opera Colorado, and Jonas in Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater at the Santa Fe Opera. His concert schedule includes Berlioz’s Requiem with both the Atlanta Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic, and a North American recital tour, with pianist Craig Rutenberg.

During the 2006–07 season, Mr. Kaiser sang at the Salzburg Festival, made his Chicago Opera Theatre debut, and bowed in several roles at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Mr. Kaiser joined the Chicago Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center in the spring of 2004 and he made his Ravinia Festival debut in summer 2005 with the Chicago Symphony, in addition to making his Philadelphia Orchestra debut that summer.

Highlights of Mr. Kaiser’s recent seasons include appearances with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival; the world premiere of John Musto’s Volpone with Wolf Trap Opera; Baz Luhrmann’s Broadway production of Puccini’s La Bohème; his Lincoln Center Festival debut in Bright Sheng’s opera Silver River; and performances with New York City Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and Calgary Opera.

As a recitalist, Mr. Kaiser appeared at the Caramoor Festival with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, a performance later recorded for Bridge Classics; at the Chicago Humanities Festival; with Montreal’s André Turp Society; and on Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Debut Series. He presented his New York solo recital debut at Weill Hall as the Song Prize winner of the Julian Autrey Foundation. A prize winner in the 2005 Plácido Domingo Operalia competition, Mr. Kaiser also was recognized with the Robert Jacobson Memorial Grant by the George London Foundation, first prizes at the Elardo Opera Competition and Orlando Opera Heinz Rehfuss Singing Actor Award, and numerous scholarships at McGill University.

Mark Padmore, Tenor
English tenor Mark Padmore was born in London and grew up in Canterbury. After beginning his musical studies on the clarinet he gained a choral scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge and graduated with an honors degree in music.

Mr. Padmore’s recent opera appearances include Berlioz’s Les Troyens at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and Handel’s Jephtha at WNO and ENO. He also played Peter Quint in an acclaimed BBC television production of Britten’s Turn of the Screw. Future engagements include the Evangelist in a staging of Bach’s St Matthew Passion at Glyndebourne and Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress at La Monnaie. He recently recorded the title role in La clemenza di Tito with René Jacobs for Harmonia Mundi for which he received two Grammy nominations.

In concert Mr. Padmore has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Berlin, Vienna, and New York philharmonics; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; the London Symphony; and the BBC Symphony. He makes regular appearances with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and he has recently toured with the Hallé Orchestra. In 2008 he will be appearing as soloist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra on their European tour. Mr. Padmore is making his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in these performances.

Mr. Padmore has given recitals in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Milan, Moscow, New York, and Paris. He appears frequently at the Wigmore Hall in London and will perform the three Schubert song cycles there in May 2008. His chamber music collaborators include Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles, Andrew West, Natalie Clein, Imogen Cooper, Till Fellner, and Paul Lewis.

Mr. Padmore has made many recordings including Bach’s passions and cantatas, Haydn masses, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and operas by Rameau and Charpentier. His first solo recording for Harmonia Mundi, a recital of Handel arias with Andrew Manze and the English Concert, was released in April 2007. Future releases include Haydn’s Creation on Deutsche Grammophon and a disc of Dowland lute songs with Elizabeth Kenny on Hyperion. For more information, please visit markpadmore.com.

Luca Pisaroni, Bass-Baritone
Bass-Baritone Luca Pisaroni grew up in Busseto, Parma, and received his musical education at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, and in Buenos Aires and New York. After making his his professional debut in the title role of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in Klagenfurt in 2001, he was awarded the Vienna State Opera’s Eberhard Wächter Medal as Newcomer of the Season. In 2002 he made his Salzburg debut with Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass at the Whitsun Festival and has since appeared at the summer festival each season.

Mr. Pisaroni’s has also appeared at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, at the Metropolitan Opera, Opera Colorado, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and the Teatro Reál in Madrid.

In concert, Mr. Pisaroni has sung Zebul in Handel’s Jephtha with the Berlin Philharmonic under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Michael Haydn’s Requiem in C minor under Ivor Bolton, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor under Mark Minkowski at the Salzburg Festival, as well as Mozart’s Coronation Mass at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso in Toulouse and Brussels, both with the Ensemble Matheus.

Last summer, Mr. Pisaroni returned to the Salzburg Festival and made his Glyndebourne debut as Guglielmo in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte. He also sang Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Boston Symphony under James Levine at the Tanglewood Festival. His engagements this season include Mozart’s Figaro and Guglielmo at Netherlands Opera, J.S. Bach's St John's Passion at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Piccinni’s Iphigénie en Tauride with the Orchestre National de France, his San Francisco Opera debut, and the title role in The Marriage of Figaro at the Salzburg Festival.

Mr. Pisaroni has recorded Rossini’s La Cenerentola for Naxos, Mozart’s Mass in C minor with Louis Langrée for Virgin Classics, and Michael Haydn’s Requiem under Ivor Bolton for Oehms. His performance as Publius in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at the Salzburg Festival 2003 is available on DVD, as part of the TDK/Salzburger Festspieldokumente series.

The Philadelphia Singers Chorale
David Hayes, Director
The Philadelphia Singers is a unique chorus of professional singers who excel in solo as well as ensemble work. Founded in 1972 and now under the direction of David Hayes, the Philadelphia Singers performs regularly with leading national and local performing arts organizations, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Mannes Orchestra, the Curtis Institute of Music, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and Astral Artistic Services.

The Philadelphia Singers Chorale was founded in 1991 as the symphonic chorus of the Philadelphia Singers. The Chorale is composed of professional singers and talented volunteers. In its role as resident chorus of The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chorale appears with the Orchestra in all its choral subscription concerts, as well as annual performances of Handel's Messiah. Past performances with The Philadelphia Orchestra have included Verdi’s Requiem, Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloé for the opening of the Kimmel Center, Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, Liszt’s Dante Symphony, Mahler’s Second and Third symphonies, Brahms’s Requiem, Haydn’s Seasons, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and “Choral” Fantasy, Adams’s Harmonium, Honegger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, and Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible.

Members of the ensemble come from outstanding educational backgrounds, including Curtis, the Academy of Vocal Arts, the Juilliard School, the Peabody Conservatory, Westminster Choir College, the Eastman School of Music, and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, as well as vocal institutes in Austria, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.

David Hayes was appointed music director of the Philadelphia Singers in 1992. He studied conducting with Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School and with Otto-Werner Mueller at the Curtis Institute, where Mr. Hayes is a staff conductor; he is also director of orchestral and conducting studies at New York’s Mannes School of Music. He has performed as guest conductor with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Sinfonia Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Relâche Ensemble, the Springfield (MA) Symphony, the Louisiana and Warsaw philharmonics, the American Repertory Ballet, the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, and at the Verbier and Berkshire Choral festivals. Mr. Hayes is also a cover conductor for The Philadelphia Orchestra.