ENOCH ARDEN Op. 38, TrV. 181                                        Richard Strauss (1864–1949)

Poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

 

Samuel Mungo, Speaker
Robert Mills, Piano

 

Program Notes

At a time when he was busy composing many of his most renowned music, such as Don Quixote and Also sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss composed two melodramas for voice and piano: Enoch Arden (1897), and Das Schloss am Meere (The castle by the sea, 1899). Composed at this time, they can be considered mature works for a composer who, at 33, still had a long and creative career ahead of him. Strauss’s decision to turn his attention to the melodrama may have been driven as much by pragmatism as by artistic design.  In 1896, Ernst von Possart, who was the Intendant of the Munich Hofoper, had helped the composer obtain a position as chief conductor at the Munich Opera. As a way of returning the favor Strauss wrote the two melodramas for Possart, who had a strong reputation as an actor and reciter of poetry. Strauss and Possart performed the work extensively together, taking it on tour, and it became, for a while, one of the composer’s best-known works.

Tennyson’s Enoch Arden and other Poems was a publishing sensation when it appeared in 1864, during the time of his tenure as British Poet Laureate (and the year of Strauss's birth), selling 17,000 copies on the day of publication and 60,000 before the end of that year. The poem also lends its name to a principle in law where after being missing for a certain number of years (typically seven) a person may be declared dead for purposes of remarriage and inheritance of their survivors. Tennyson's Enoch Arden is a timeless tale of undying love, honour, and sacrifice, and is a story that has been interpreted in many ways and in various media since its writing, including numerous films, for example recently Castaway, with Tom Hanks. Strauss’ Enoch Arden has similarly been performed and recorded many times, with pianists such as Simon Tedeschi, Glenn Gould, and Emmanual Ax, and speakers such as Claude Rains, Benjamin Luxon and Patrick Stewart.

Strauss’s music does not look to enhance Tennyson’s idyllic text.  Instead, Strauss employs a leitmotivic method which enhances the patterning and repetitions which are such a significant feature of the poem. From the musician's point of view, a melodrama can be defined as a song without singing. But from the actor's perspective it could be called theatre without staging, an approach suggested by Enoch Arden. Considered in this way, it most resembles something of a radio play, with dramatic events described and acted out, but not actually seen. Like in a movie, we don't need music in the action-packed scenes. Instead, here it is in places where the focus of the poem turns inwards to the thoughts and emotions of the characters, that the music must fill in and elaborate.  It is not the external world but the inner life that Strauss’s music in Enoch Arden reveals, giving expression to the unknown, unsaid and suppressed.

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Samuel Mungo, Speaker

Dr. Samuel Mungo has been involved in Opera as an award-winning director, singer and teacher for more than 30 years. Nationally recognized as an expert in acting for the opera stage, he has presented masterclasses at National Opera Association, NATS, Hunter College and Northwestern University, among others.  Strengthened by his work on Sanford Meisner and the Alba Method of Emotional Access, he is an award-winning director of over 50 operas, both professional and collegiate. His work with the Alba Method was recently featured in NOA Now magazine. Professional directing credits include Die Entführung aus dem Serail for Florida Grand Opera, La traviata for Opera Carolina, and Hansel und Gretel for VIMA South Carolina. He is currently Director of Opera Studies at Northern Arizona University, a position he has held at the Peabody Conservatory and Texas State University. He has also served on the faculty of The Actor’s Studio Drama School, Towson University and New York University, and has served as Vice President and Board Member of National Opera Association.  He earned his MM from New England Conservatory and DMA from University of Colorado, and holds an Artist’s Diploma in Opera from The Boston Conservatory.

 

Robert Mills, piano

Dr. Robert Mills is a Clinical Associate Professor of Music and the vocal coach/accompanist for Arizona State University’s Musical Theater and Opera department. Dr. Mills holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of Maryland, as well as a Master of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Studies from Arizona State University. Additionally, Dr. Mills holds a Juris Doctor from Brigham Young University. Dr. Mills has collaborated with vocal artists, technicians and composers such as Ingo Titze, Phyllis Curtain, Ariel Bybee, Isola Jones, and David Conte in concert, workshop, and master class settings. Dr. Mills concertizes throughout the United States as a collaborative pianist and has a special affinity for contemporary American art song. He has premiered vocal works by the American composers David Conte, Judith Cloud, Virko Baley, Diana Blom, and Tyler Goodrich White. Dr. Mills can be heard on Summit Records, Canyon Records, and Transient Sound Records.