Eternity and the Underworld
Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 7:30 pm
Zilkha Hall, Hobby Center For The Performing Arts
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This program sets old against new, the promise of everlasting peace against the frustration of unfulfilled dreams.
Bach’s meditation on death in Cantata 82 depicts the great beyond as a peaceful refuge. One of his best-known vehicles for solo voice, Ich habe genug also blends the melancholy sound of the Baroque oboe with accompanying strings, to magical effect. In contrast, Jonathan Dove’s L’altra Euridice (The Other Eurydice) transports us to the underworld, from which Pluto exposes the treachery of humanity in a remarkable chamber opera for bass-baritone plus a mix of period and modern instruments. Ars Lyrica’s provocative new staging of both works will provide plenty of food for thought about the next world.
Concert Information
Season subscriptions and single tickets
In-person: In-person single tickets may be purchased through the Hobby Center website, or by calling 713-315-2525 (option 4). The in-person season subscription period has closed.
Online: The online concert broadcast of this performance is only available to in-person and digital subscribers. No Digital Single Event Passes are available.
On the program
J. S. Bach, Ich habe genug, BWV 82
Jonathan Dove, L’altra Euridice (2001) *
*Houston premiere
Run time
One hour, no intermission
Change of plans?
Subscribers can exchange their Ars Lyrica 2021/22 Zilkha Hall concert tickets for another 2021/22 Ars Lyrica Zilkha Hall concert or turn their tickets into a donation. Call 713-315-2525 (option 4) to exchange or donate Zilkha Hall tickets.
About the Artists
º Ars Lyrica debut
Artist reviews
“...the most powerful singer here was Douglas Williams, a bass-baritone with a superb sense of drama.”
-The New York Times
"Williams is possessed of a one-of-a-kind instrument, and you can hear it every time he opens his mouth to speak or sing."
- Atlanta Journal Constitution
About the Composer
Jonathan Dove’s music has filled opera houses with delighted audiences of all ages on five continents. Few, if any, contemporary composers have so successfully or consistently explored the potential of opera to communicate, to create wonder and to enrich people’s lives.
Born in 1959 to architect parents, Dove’s early musical experience came from playing the piano, organ and viola. Later he studied composition with Robin Holloway at Cambridge and, after graduation, worked as a freelance accompanist, repetiteur, animateur and arranger. His early professional experience gave him a deep understanding of singers and the complex mechanics of the opera house. Opera and the voice have been the central priorities in Dove’s output throughout his subsequent career.
Starting with his breakthrough opera Flight, commissioned by Glyndebourne in 1998, Dove has gone on to write almost thirty operatic works. Flight, a rare example of a successful modern comic opera, has been produced and broadcast many times, in Europe, the USA and Australia.
Dove’s innate understanding of the individual voice is exemplified in his large and varied choral and song output, and his confident optimism has made him the natural choice as the composer for big occasions. In 2010 A Song of Joys for chorus and orchestra opened the festivities at the Last Night of the Proms, and in 2016 an expanded version of Our Revels Now Are Ended premiered at the same occasion.
Throughout his career Dove has made a serious commitment to community development through innovative musical projects. Tobias and the Angel, a 75-minute opera written in 1999, brings together children, community choirs, and professional singers and musicians in a vivid and moving retelling of the Book of Tobit. His 2012 opera Life is a Dream, written for Birmingham Opera Company, was performed by professionals and community choruses in a disused Birmingham warehouse, and a church opera involving community singers The Walk from The Garden was premiered at Salisbury Cathedral as part of the 2012 Salisbury International Arts Festival.
Center Stage with Jonathan Dove
