Editorial Mondigromax
Lord Byron. Un estiu sense estiu
Lord Byron. Un estiu sense estiu Lord Byron. A summer without summer
Agustí Charles
LByron. Un estiu sense estiu
Chamber opera in two acts
Composition Agustí Charles
Libretto Marc Rosich
Year of composition 2009 -2010
Duration approx. 2 hours and 45 minutes, with one intermission
Language Catalan with overtitles
In Darmstadt, with the Staatsorchester Darmstadt and the Chorus of the Staatstheater
In Barcelona, with the Orquestra BCN 216 and the Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
Commission: Staatstheater Darmstadt (Germany)
Co-production: Staatstheater Darmstadt, Gran Teatre del Liceu and Teatros del Canal
World premiere: March 12, 2011, at Staatstheater Darmstadt (Germany), with a total of nine performances until May 2011.
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability.
Percy B. Shelly, from “Mutability”
The libretto of Marc Rosich sets the action of the opera in Europe after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. At the same time as this event, the volcano Tambora became active in the Pacific Ocean and from it a toxic cloud of ash erupted which crossed the entire planet upsetting the natural seasonal order. The cloud reached Geneva in the summer of 1816 bringing with it alarming storms, and so trapping a curious group of exiles in their summer villas, the group including Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, his lover Mary, her step-sister Claire Clairmont, and Doctor Polidori. The fruit of this encounter in the middle of the “summer without summer” was two of the most important texts of Gothic literature, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and The Vampire by J.W. Polidori.
Score LByron 567 pages. Editorial Mondigromax
Lord Byron. Un estiu sense estiu
June 25, 27 and 28, 2011
Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona
March 12 until May, 2011
World premiere. Nine performances
Staatstheater Darmstadt, Germany
Music
Agustí Charles
Libretto
Marc Rossich
Conductor
Martin Lukas Meister
Stage director
Alfonso Romero Mora
Set design & light design
Dirk Becker
Costume design
Gabriela Salaverri
Conductor of chorus Staatstheater Darmstadt
André Weiss
Conductor of chorus Gran Teatre del Liceu
José Luís Basso
Cast
Lord Byron
Gerson Sales
John William Polidori
Malte Godglück
Percy B. Shelley
Norbert Schmittberg
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
Muriel Schwarz
Claire Clairmont
Margaret Rose Koenn
William Fletcher
Lasse Penttinen
Press Quotes
Lord Byron and the Catalan pride
Nothing could have filled Catalan pride more today than hearing their language in a German theater used by magnificent voices. Agustí Charles, for his part, makes one hundred percent use of the text and composes complex lines relying profusely on the chorus, which he uses to recreate the sounds of telluric forces. March 14, 2011, La Vanguardia
The Seven Deaths of Romance
What is striking about the first full-length opera by Agustí Charles is the orientation towards the historical given while at the same time being up to date… the questions raised here continue to probe after the curtain has fallen. And that is one of the best things that can be said of a work of art. March 15, 2011, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, FAZ
Hypnotic chill
The dark side of gothic romance, which Byron and his literary friends explored in their summer workshop, determines the keynote of this music, which, despite its rejection of any operatic convention, develops an almost hypnotic power….
The production gives a face to the “lament of the earth” conjured up in the libretto. Alfonso Romero Mora sets large pictures… May 2011, Opernwelt
A Catalan Lord Byron in Germany
…an opera that received on Saturday night, with 10 minutes of applause… the approval of the public of what was, after World War II, the capital of the musical avant-garde.
Charles writes for this opera a dense orchestral score, of which the elaborate timbral work stands out… March 14, 2011, El País
