Samuel Barber: Antony and Cleopatra
19th December 2008
Schirmer Archives: Justino Diaz and Leontyne Price
For some critics the “spectacle was overpowering....even the audience seemed overproduced”, for others, like the New York Times’ Bernard Holland, the work was “crushed, to all appearances, beneath the grandeurs of Zeffirelli’s behemouth staging.”
In 1975 Antony and Cleopatra received a revival by the Juilliard Opera (and a significant revision). It was staged by its new librettist, Gian Carlo Menotti and conducted by James Conlon. In 1983 the Spoleto Festival performed this much revised version in Italy and Charleston, South Carolina, and garnered the critical praise the opera deserved: “a sign of Mr. Barber’s exceptional gifts that he could express such eloquent things by such simple means.” (New York Times) This revised version was also staged in 1991 by the Lyric Opera of Chicago and was broadcast on PBS’s Great Performances.
On January 15, the City Opera of New York brings Antony and Cleopatra back to New York in a concert performance as the innaugural event to commence international celebrations of Barber’s centennial in 2010. In conjunction with the performance, City Opera will co-present a provocative symposium on January 10, at New York’s Miller Theater. Singers, actors, Egyptologists, art historians, cultural critics, and Samuel Barber’s biographer will offer a wide-angle view of this American masterwork, an historic opera that may yet find a permanent place in the professional repertoire.
Listen to composer Lee Hoiby describe his work with Barber during the composition of Antony and Cleopatra at schirmer.com/newsletter
Samuel Barber
Antony and Cleopatra
2 hours SSATB chorus; ballet; Soprano; 12 Basses [1=Baritone], 8 Tenors [1=High Baritone]; lyric Soprano; Mezzo soprano; Alto; 5 Baritones [1=Tenor, 1=Bass];
2+pic.2+ca.2+bcl.2+cbn/4331/ timp.5perc/hp.pf.cel/str
