Word: ethane
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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John Allanbrook first heard Ethan Frome fragmentally on a demo tape his father had recorded in the '50s. After hearing the tape and reading the score, Allanbrook Jr. became convinced, that "it was a good piece and meant to be preformed." Ethan Frome is hardly a simple musical undertaking, demanding not only a well-appointed string section, but also a full brass section, concert bassoon, bass clarinet. English horn and piccolo. After informing his father of his production plans, Allanbrook Jr. spent 12-hour days throughout the summer entering the score into the computer program Finale in order to produce...
...paying the orchestra members for their time, creating a new standard in the Harvard pits which is usually staffed by under-rehearsed, if generous, volunteers. Likening parts to "the romantic climaxes of West Side Story" and others to "Jaws 20 years before its time," Allanbrook Jr. emphasizes Ethan Frome's unique ability to "bring down the idea that opera is a rarified musical form" because it is "accessible and unified--as music and theater should be when put together...
When Douglas Allanbrook began composing in the '50s after several years with Nadia "a lot of people thought of the necessity of writing American works" that would be accessible and relevant to American audiences. Along these lines, a friend suggested that he write an opera based upon Ethan Frome--Edith Wharton's tragic account of forbidden love set in frigid Starkfield, Mass. Allanbrook wrote the opera in Naples in 1951 on the continuation of a Fulbright scholarship that allowed him to go to the opera at Santo Carlo every weekend. A friend he met at Harvard, John Hart...
...contrast to traditionally "suitable" subjects for opera, like classical mythology, pastoral romance and gothic drama, Ethan Frome cuts a different figure. Edith Wharton's book contains very little dialogue, and when the characters speak, they talk about timber and tobacco pouches, not their passionate and undying love...
...made even more skeptical about Ethan's prospects when the ending is considered. In the novella, Ethan and Mattie attempt suicide by sledding very fast into a tree, how this works into the opera remains the show's biggest mystery. When asked about the suitability of the Ethan Frome for opera, Lee Poulis '02, who will make his Harvard debut in the title role, commented that "all opera is based on love." Despite a certain frigidity, Ethan Frome is a beautifully tragic love story...