New program books in my collection : 'Notorious' by Hans Gefors (Göteborg) and 'Penthesilea' by Pascal Dusapin (Strasbourg)

This Wednesday morning, I have received two program books in the mail :

- Pascal Dusapin : Penthesilea, (first performed in Brussels), from Strasbourg (first performance on September 26th ;
- Hans Gefors : Notorious, first performance in Göteborg, September 19th, 2015.

I have already described the program book for the world première performance of Penthesilea in Brussels. The 100 pages French program book contains :

- complete cast and crew ;
- introduction on the opera in the carrier of Pascal Dusapin ;
- Beate Haeckl : synopsis, trilingual (French, German, English) ;
- an article by the composer, reproduced from the Belgian book ;
- an interview with the conductor Franck Ollu ;
- the orchestra setting ;
- interview with the director Pierre Audi ;
- Antonin Artaud : Le Théâtre et la Cruauté, from Le Théâtre et son double (1938) ;
- Marie Faucher : Pascal Dusapin : l'invention musicale à fleur de peau ;
- Ruth Orthman : J'ai dit un mot à la place de l'autre (Aux origines du livret) ;
- Meroe's monologue from the play by Heinrich von Kleist ;
- Marie Lenormand : Sanglante fête des roses ;
- excerpt from The Bacchae by Euripides ;
- Murat Alat : Les vertus d'une existence en vitrine ;
- an excerpt of Oscar Wilde's Salome ;
- complete libretto in German and French ;
- biographies of the artists, with B&W headshots ;
- several colour photos from the original production.

The 144 pages program book for Notorious is in Swedish. It contains :

- complete cast and crew ;
- introduction and synopsis (with English translations) ;
- Hans Gefors : The Genesis of the opera (with English translation) ;
- biographies of composer Hans Gefors and librettist Kerstin Perski ;
- Kerstin Perski : The Notorious libretto (with English translation) ;
- an article by the conductor Patrik Ringborg ;
- biographies of cast and crew with B&W headshots ;
- an article by Paul Duncan on the Hitchcock movie ;
- an interview with Hans Gefors ;
- complete and detailed chronology from the commission of the opera early 2009 to the world première in 2015 ;
- complete libretto in Swedish with English translation ;
- several colour photos from the original production.

Scanned covers of all the program books I have (almost 400) in my collection are available in this flickr folder.

Today : world première of 'Notorious' by Hans Gefors in Göteborg

Today, the new opera composed by Hans Gefors, Notorious, with a libretto in Swedish by Kerstin Perski after Alfred Hitchcock's movie, will be performed in Göteborg.

Previous opera by Hans Gefors include Christina (1986), Der Park (1991), Clara (1998) and Skuggspel (2004).

During World War II, the CIA agent Devlin persuades the American Alicia, daughter of a notorious Nazi, to become a spy in Rio de Janeiro. They grow attracted to each other, but the mission compels Alicia to seduce a man on the enemy side. Blinded by jealousy, Devlin is forced to watch Alicia give herself to another man. (reproduced from the Göteborg Opera website)

The cast includes soprano Nina Stemme (Alicia Hauser), baritone John Lundgren (Devlin), tenor Michael Weinius (Alex Sebastian), mezzo-soprano Katarina Karnéus (Madame Sebastian), tenor Jón Ketilsson (Prescott), bass Anders Lorentzson (Alicia's Father), and tenor Jonas Olofsson (Emil Hupka). Patrik Ringborg conducts the Chorus and Orchestral of the Göteborg Opera. Keith Warner directs.

The orchestral setting is the following :

- 3 flutes (3rd also piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 1 baritone saxophone ;
- 4 French horns, 3 trumpets (1st also piccola trumpet), 2 trombones, 1 bass trombone, 1 cimbasso ;
- 4 percussionists ;
- harp, electric guitar ;
- strings.

The opera should last about 150 minutes. The first performance will be broadcast live by Swedish Radio SR P2. Two further performance will be recorded by the Swedish Television. Let's hope a DVD will be published.