Almost 100 years ago, late in the summer of 1919, Igor Stravinsky began composing the ballet Pulcinella for chamber orchestra and three solo singers. It was premiered by the Ballet Russes at the Paris Opera on May 15, 1920. The dancer Léonide Massine created both the libretto and choreography, and Pablo Picasso designed the original costumes and sets. The ballet was commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev. The ballet score was later revised in 1922 by Stravinsky, creating the Pulcinella Suite for orchestra.
Pulcinella marked the beginning to Stravinsky's second phase as a composer, his neoclassical period. The ballet is based on on an 18th-century play Quartre Polichinelles semblables (Four identical Pulcinellas). For all its importance to Stravinsky's musical development, the idea for Pulcinella was not his, but that of the great Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. In 1919, Diaghilev proposed that Stravinsky take a look at some eighteenth-century scores with the idea of orchestrating them for a ballet. "When he said that the composer was Pergolesi, I thought he must be deranged," Stravinsky later remembered, but he did promise to at least consider the idea.
"I looked, and I fell in love," the composer recalled. Diaghilev showed Stravinsky a manuscript dating from 1700 which he had found in Italy; the subject of its many comic episodes was Pulcinella, the traditional hero of the Neapolitan commedia dell'arte, and a perfect fit for their own eighteenth-century ballet. Stravinsky later wrote that "Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course—the first of many love affairs in that direction—but it was a look in the mirror, too."
Pulcinella was a huge success --"one of those productions," the composer reported, "where everything harmonizes, where all the elements―subject, music, dancing, and artistic setting―form a coherent and homogeneous whole."
MÜNCHNER PHILHARMONIKER
COPLAND Music for the Theatre
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella
Julia Dawson, mezzo-soprano
Charles Sy, tenor
Douglas Williams, bass
Levi Hammer, pianist (Copland)
Rolf Verbeek, assistant conductor
Barbara Hannigan conductor
MUSIKKOLLEGIUM WINTERTHUR
COPLAND Music for the Theatre
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella
Ema Nikolovska, mezzo-soprano
Ziad Nehme, tenor
Antoin Herrera-Lopez Kessell, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor
Luis Castillo-Briceño assistant conductor
ORCHESTRE PHILHARMONIQUE DE RADIO FRANCE
WEBER Invitation à la valse (Orchestration d'Hector Berlioz)
WEILL Youkali
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella
OFFENBACH La Gaîté parisienne (Transcription by Manuel Rosenthal)
Julia Dawson, mezzo-soprano
Ziad Nehme, tenor
Douglas Williams, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor
LUDWIGSBURGER FESTSPIELE
GERSHWIN Girl Crazy Suite arr. Bill Elliot
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella
Coline Dutilleul, mezzo-soprano
Ziad Nehme, tenor
Douglas Williams, bass
Kunal Lahiry, pianist
Barbara Hannigan conductor
COPENHAGEN PHILHARMONIC
GERSHWIN Girl Crazy Suite arr. Bill Elliot
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella
Tuuri Dede, mezzo-soprano
James Way, tenor
Sam Carl, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor
SWEDISH RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
COPLAND Music for the Theatre
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella
Marta Świderska, mezzo-soprano
James Way, tenor
Antoin Herrera-Lopez Kessel, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor
MÜNCHNER PHILHARMONIKER
COPLAND Music for the Theatre
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella
Fleur Barron, mezzo-soprano
Gyula Rab, tenor
Douglas Williams, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor
LUDWIG ORCHESTRA
Barbara Hannigan, conductor
EQ Artists
Kate Howden, mezzo-soprano
James Way, tenor
Antoin Herrera-Lopez Kessel, bass
Ojai Music Festival
UNITED STATES / California
Libbey Bowl
06 June 2019, 7:30pm
Aldeburgh Festival
UNITED KINGDOM / Surrey
Snape Maltings Concert Hall