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专辑简介

Carlisle Floyd, a soon-to-be 90 year-old Southern gentleman, is one of America’s preeminent operatic composers and his latest work, The Prince of Players premiered in March 2016. Oddly enough, his adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte’s towering novel of love and loss, made its 1958 stage début at the Santa Fé Opera but is only now getting its first commercial recording.

Working with Floyd’s own setting of Bronte’s text, the opera opens with a much older Heathcliff (Kelly Markgraf) hearing the disembodied voice of his childhood sweetheart Catherine “Cathy” Earnshaw (Georgia Jarman). Eighteen years earlier, we find the couple together in the tense Earnshaw family home. Brother Hindley (Chad Shelton) is jealous of Heathcliff whom Father Earnshaw (Matthew Burns) had taken in as a poor youth. A violent argument between father and son ends with Mr. Earnshaw’s fatal heart attack, leaving Hindley in charge of Wuthering Heights.

Cathy and Heathcliff spy on the Thrushcross Grange, the house of their neighbors, Edgar Linton (Vale Rideout) and his sister Isabella (Heather Buck). When Cathy twists her ankle, the Lintons insist on her recovering in their luxurious mansion. Later, Edgar comes to visit and when he makes fun of Heathcliff’s awkward manners he gets doused by Heathcliff’s cup of tea. Hindley thrashes Heathcliff and things will never be the same.

Cathy gets engaged to Edgar but still longs for Heathcliff. Years later, her childhood boyfriend returns as a very wealthy man and, after beating Hindley in a card game, Heathcliff takes ownership of Wuthering Heights. Rejected by Cathy, Heathcliff decides to marry Isabella. After Cathy becomes pregnant she falls seriously ill and expresses a desire to die if she can be with Heathcliff once more. Heathcliff arrives too late to save his beloved Cathy as she dies in his arms.

Maestro Joseph Mechavich leads his Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the choral forces of the Florentine Opera Company, one of America’s oldest such vocal organizations, in a precedent setting performance that will make listeners unfamiliar with this work sit up and take notice. Composer Floyd writes beautiful vocal lines and the cast led by stunning soprano Jarman takes full advantage of them. Vocal colleagues Markgraf, Rideout, Buck, and Shelton provide excellent support and credible recreations of their characters. Veteran mezzo-soprano Suzanne Mentzer turns in a great rendition of the old serving woman Nelly Dean.