School of Music
U N C G
Liz Frazer
soprano
Benjamin Blozan, piano
Graduate Recital
Sunday, March 22, 2009
3:30 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
Vaghissima sembianza Stefano Donaudy (1879-1925)
Sorge il sol, che fait tu
O del mio amato ben
Le colibiri (1882) Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
Le charme
Extase Henri Duparc (1848-1932)
Four Songs and Sonnets to Ophelia Jake Heggie (b. 1961)
Spring is arisen; Opheliaʼs Song
Women have loved before as I love now
Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Spring
Intermission
Las horas de una estancia (1943) Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
El alba
La mañana
El mediodia
La tarde
La noche
Ainʼt it pretty night from Susannah Carlisle Floyd (b. 1926)
What good would the moon be from Street Scene Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
Liz Frazer is a student of Dr. Carla LeFevre
________
In partial fulfillment of the degree requirements for the
Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance
Stefano Donaudy (1879-1925)
Texts by Alberto Donaudy (1880-1941)
Sorge il sol! Che fait tu? …
Maggiolata
Sorge il sol! Che fai tu?
Che fai lassù?
Se dormi, svègliati: è primavera!
Se vegli, lèvati: vienne a gioir!
Sorge il sol! Che fai tu?
Che fai lassù?
È tempo venuto di correrre ancor
pei campi stellanti di mille colori;
di sciogliere canti, di cogliere fiori,
di ber lungo i rivi,
dʼavere nel cor le gioie dʼamor!
Sorge il sol! Che fai tu?
Vienne a gioir…
Chè se tu non vieni,
non sbocciano i fior.
Vaghissima sembianza…
Vaghissima sembianza
dʼantica donna amata,
chi, dunque, vʼha ristratta
con tanta simiglianza
chʼio guardo, e parlo, e credo dʼavervi
a me davanti come ai bei di dʼamor?
La cara rimembranza
che in cor mi sʼè destata
sì ardente vʼha già fatta rinascer la speranza,
che un bacio, un voto, un grido dʼamore
più non chiedo che a lei
che muta è ognor.
O del mio amato ben…
O del mio amato ben perduto incanto!
Lungi è dagli occhi miei
chi mʼera gloria e vanto!
Or per le mute stanze
sempre lo cerco e chiamo
con pieno il cor di speranze…
Ma cerco invan, chiamo invan!
E il pianger mʼè sì caro,
sol nutro il cor.
Mi sembra, senza lui, triste ogni loco.
Notte mi sembra ilgirono;
mi sembra gelo un foco.
Se pur talvolta spero
di darmi ad altra cura,
Translations by Martha Gerhart
The sun is rising! What are you doing? …
May Song
The sun is rising! What are you doing?
What are you doing up there?
If you are sleeping, wake up: itʼs spring!
If you are awake, get up! Come rejoice!
The sun is rising! What are you doing?
What are you doing up there?
The time has come to run again through
the fields sparkling with a thousand colors,
to disperse songs, to gather flowers,
to drink along the river banks,
to have in your heart the joys of love!
The sun is rising! What are you doing?
Come rejoice…
Because if you do not come,
the flowers will not bloom.
Most charming semblance…
Most charming semblance
of my formerly loved woman,
who, then, has portrayed you
with such likeness
that I gaze, and speak, and believe to have
you before me as in the beautiful days of love?
The cherished memory
which in my heart has been awakened
so ardently has already revived hope there,
so that a kiss, a vow, a cry of love
I no longer ask except of her
who is forever silent.
Oh of my dearly beloved…
Oh lost enchantment of my dearly beloved!
Far from my sight is
the one who was for me glory and pride!
Now throughout the silent rooms
always I seek him and call out
with my heart full of hopes…
But I seek in vain, I call out in vain!
And weeping is to me so dear
that with weeping only do I nourish my heart.
Without him, every place seems sad to me.
The day seems like night to me;
fire seems ice-cold to me.
Even though at times I hope
to devote myself to another concern,
sol mi tormenta un pensiero:
ma, senza lui, che farò?
Mi par così la vita vana cosa
senza il mio ben.
Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
Le Colibri
Text by Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle
(1818-1894)
Le vert colibri, le roi des collines,
Voyant la rosée et le soleil clair,
Luire dans son nid tissé dʼherbes fines,
Comme un frais rayon sʼéchappe dans lʼair.
Il se hate et vole aux sources voisines,
Où les bambous font le bruit de la mer,
Où laçoka rouge aux odeurs divines
Sʼouvre et porte au Coeur un humide éclair.
Vers la fleur dorée, il descend, se pose,
Et boit tant dʼamour dans la coupe rose,
Quʼil meurt, ne sachant sʼil la pu tarir!
Sur ta levre pure, ô ma bien-aimée,
Telle aussi mon âme eut voulu mourir,
Du premier baiser qui lʼa parfumée.
Le Charme
Text by Armand Silvestre (1837-1901)
Quand ton sourire me surprit,
Je sentis frémir tout mon être,
Mais ce qui domptait momn esprit
Je ne pus dʼabord le connaître.
Quand ton regard tomba sur moi,
Je sentis mon âme se fonder,
Mais ce que serait cet émoi,
Je ne pus dʼabord en répondre.
Ce qui me vainquit à jamais,
Ce fut un plus douloureux charme,
Et je nʼai su que je taimais,
Quʼen voyant ta première larme.
Henri Duparc (1848-1932)
Extase
Text by Henri Cazalis (1840-1909)
Sur un lys pâle mon coeur dort
Dʼun sommeil doux comme la mort…
Mort exquise, mort parfumée
Du soufflé de la bien-aimée…
Sur ton sein pâle mon coeur dort
Dʼun sommeil doux comme la mort…
a single though torments me:
but without him, what will I do?
Life thus seems to me a futile thing
without my beloved.
The Hummingbird
Translation by Pierre Bernac
The green hummingbird, the king of the hills,
Seeing the dew and the bright sun
shining into his nest, woven of fine grasses,
darts into the air like a ray of light.
He hurries and flies to the nearby springs,
where bamboos make a sound like the sea,
where the red hibiscus with its divine fragrance
unfolds the dewy brilliance at its heart.
He descends to the golden flower, alights,
and drinks so much love from the rosy cup,
that he dies, not knowing if he had exhausted
its nectar!
On your pure lips, O my beloved,
likewise my soul wished to die,
of the first kiss which perfumed it.
The Charm
Translation by Pierre Bernac
When your smile caught me unawares,
I felt a trembling throughout my being,
but the reason for the subjection of my spirit
I did not at first know.
When your glance fell on me,
I felt my soul melt,
but what emotion this was,
I could not at first tell.
That which vanquished me for ever,
was a more sorrowful charm,
and I knew that I loved you
only when I saw your first tears.
Ecstasy
Translation by Pierre Bernac
On a pale lily my heart sleeps
a sleep as sweet as death…
Exquisite death, death perfumed
by the breath of the beloved…
On you pale breast my heart sleeps
a sleep as sweet as death…
Jake Heggie (b. 1961)
Song & Sonnets to Ophelia
1. Opheliaʼs Song
Text by Jake Heggie
The hills are green my dear one,
and blossoms are filling the air.
The spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there.
In this flowery field Iʼll lay me
and dream of the open air.
The spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there.
Taste of the honey. Sip of the wine.
Pine for a chalice of gold.
I have a dear one and he is mine.
Thicker than water. Water so cold.
In this flowery field Iʼll lay me
and dream of the open air.
The spring is arisen and I am a prisoner there.
2. Women Have Loved Before
Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I only in such utter, ancient way
Do suffer love; in me alone survive
The unregenerate passions of a day
When treacherous queens, with death upon
the tread,
Heedless and willful, took their knights to bed.
Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
Las Horas de una Estancia
Text by Silvina Ocampo (1903-1994)
El Alba
Tiene un nombre con alas es ta estancia,
parece una isla sola enla distancia.
Le yerra dejó manchas de amapola,
las esquila dejó nubes enel suelo.
Con venturosas cantos en mi cielo,
el patio y el aljibe me a gradecen
esta naciente luz.
Rosadas crecen, como si no crecieran ramas.
3. Not In a Silver Casket
Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red conundrum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a loversʼ-knot, not in a ring,
Worked in such fashion and the legend plain—
Semper Fidlelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:
Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
“Look what I have!—And there are all for you.”
4. Spring
Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only underground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing
flowers.
The Hours on a Cattle Ranch
Translations by Ted Burton
The Dawn
This cattle ranch has a name with wings,
it looks like a lonely island in the distance.
Stains of poppies left on the prairie,
the cowbells cast shadows on the ground.
With fortunate songs in my sky,
the patio and the cistern thank me for
this dawning light.
Rosebushes grow, as if branches didnʼt grow.
Quieta, la madreselva sube en glorieta,
y lenta la trenzada mecedora evoca
una pacifica señora.
Soy la dorada espera en las persianas.
Me contemplan sin verme las paisanas
atentas, con saludos apacibles,
deslumbradas por trenes invisibles,
con las manos somber andose los ojos
buscando las lecheras los rastrojos.
La Mañana
Parece del humo el polvo que levantan
las ruedas.
Los caballos no se espantan.
De terracotta una kujer suspira
y la palmera placida se estira.
Aqui será la rosa más rosadas
y la tarde más dulce prolongada.
Se oirá major la forma del silencio.
El estudioso canto de la urraca
y la sagrada imagen de la vaca
y el árbol y la sombra reverencio.
El Mediodia
No omito la tormenta venerada,
tampoco omito la ornitologia,
la botanica tan enumerada.
Hago dormir la agusana da oveja
con hilo negro atado en una oreja,
Abunda en mi la fiel monotonia:
Ocupan lentas horas los modestos dialogos
y las frutas en los cestos,
las sentenciosas voces en la sombra
y una melancolia que me a sombra.
Oscuras casuarinas y el umbral de las puertas
me temen.
El ritual comienzo de la siesta.
Suavemente me espera enamorada
y elocuente.
La Tarde
En las largas entrada de eucaliptos,
el coche de caballos y el otoño,
el fo llaje herrumbrado y algún
moño que vuela con el viento,
circunscriptos quedarán en la estancia,
como el sol, como
el ámbito azul del parasol
como el mugido triste del ganado.
En horas de la siesta y del peinado,
en la penumbra inmóvil,
una rosa nocturnamente blanca y temblorosa,
inventando un pasado que la enciende,
en la cerrada habitación trasciende
con un zumbido musical remoto,
la ancha distancia y el recuerdo ignoto.
Quiet, the honeysuckle climbs in its arbor,
and the lazy, braided rocking chair evokes
a peaceful woman.
I am the golden expectation in the curtains.
The attentive country women, with gentle
greetings, dazzled by invisibles trains,
the milkmaids, with their hands shading their
eyes, searching through the stubble field,
contemplate me without seeing me.
Morning
The dust that the wheels stir up looks like
smoke.
The horses are not frightened.
From the patio a woman sighs
and the palm tree stretches itself.
Here will be the pinkest rose
and the sweetest and longest afternoon.
The form of the silence will be heard better.
I revere the studious songs of the magpie,
and the sacred image of the cow,
and the tree and the shade
Midday
I donʼt neglect the venerable storm,
nor do I neglect ornithology,
nor the enumerated botanicals.
I let sleep the worm-eaten sheep
with black thread ties to her ear.
Faithful monotony abounds in me:
the modest dialogues and the fruits in baskets
occupy slow hours,
as do the sententious voices in the shadow,
and a melancholy that surprises me.
Dark river oaks and the threshold of doors are
afraid of me.
I begin the ritual of the siesta;
gently it waits for me, enamored and eloquent.
Afternoon
In the long driveway of eucalyptus,
the horse carriage and the autumn,
the rusty foliage and some tuft
that flies with the wind,
will stay confined in the cattle ranch,
like the sun,
like the blue circumference of the parasol,
like the sad mooing of the livestock.
In times of siesta and of hair combing,
in the immobile half-light,
a rose, nocturnally white and trembling,
inventing a past that ignites her,
in the closed up room transcends,
with a remote musical buzz,
broad distance and undiscovered memory.
La grávida mujer y el mes de enero son míos,
y alas moscas,
la osamente y aquella flor podrigo y macilenta
que llevará la homiga a su hormiguero.
La Noche
Soy el sueño de Elisa y Micaela,
y el relente que busca la diamela.
En mis horas las alas del murciélago vuelan,
las cabelleras se estremecen,
despacio las hortensias convalecen.
Mi noche sin orillas.Como un piélago,
entra al cuarto del peon que está dormido;
lo abandona a sus sueños, abstraído,
o en insistentes y callados lazos
le cambia la postura de los brazos.
Mi noche no ha de ser interrumpida
ni por tranvias ni por muchas casas,
mi noche en un declive indefinida,
con silenciosas plumas de torcazas
se acerca lentamente a las lagunas
y en el fondo del barro deja lunas.
Carlisle Floyd (b. 1926 )
Ainʼt it a pretty night
from Susannah
Libretto by Floyd
Ainʼt it a pretty night! The skyʼs so dark and
velvetlike and itʼs all it up with stars. Itʼs like a
great big blanket reflecting fireflies over a
pond. Look at all them starts, Little Bat. The
longer yʼ look the more yʼ see. The sky seems
so heavy with stars that it might fall right down
out of heaven and cover us all up with one big
blanket of velvet all stitched with diamonds.
Ainʼt it a pretty night. Just think, those stars
can all look down and see way beyond where
we can: They can see way beyond them
mountains to Nashville and Asheville anʼ
Knoxville. I wonder what itʼs like out there, out
there beyond them mountains where the folks
talk nice, anʼ the folks dress nice like yʼ see in
the mail order catalogs.
I aim to leave this valley someday anʼ find out
fer myself: To see all the tall buildinʼs and all
the street lights and to be one oʼ them folks
myself. I wonder if Iʼd get lonesome fer the
valley though, fer the sound of crickets and the
smell of pine straw, fer soft little rabbits and anʼ
bloominʼ things anʼ the mountains turninʼ gold
in the fall. But I could always come back if I
got homesick fer the valley. So Iʼll leave it
someday anʼ see fer myself. Someday Iʼll
The pregnant woman and the month of
January are mine, and the flies, the skeleton,
and that rotten and withered flower
that the ant will carry off to her anthill.
Night
I am the dreams of Elisa and Micaela,
and the dew that seeks the Arabian jasmine.
In my hours the wings of the bat fly,
the cowgirls shiver,
slowly the hydrangeas convalesce.
My night is without shores, like a high sea,
enters into the room of the peasant who is
asleep;
it leaves him to his dreams, lost in thought,
or it changes the position of his arms into
insistent and quiet knots.
My night need not be interrupted
by streetcars, nor by many houses;
my night, an indefinite slope,
with silent feathers of wood pigeons,
slowly approaches the lakes,
and leaves moonlight in the depths of the mud.
leave anʼ then Iʼll come back when Iʼve seen
whatʼs beyond them mountains.
Ainʼt it pretty night. The skyʼs so heavy with
tonight that it could fall right down out of
heaven anʼ cover us up in one big blanket of
velvet and diamonʼs.
Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
What Good Would the Moon Be
from Street Scene
Lyrics by Langston Hughes
Iʼve looked in the windows at diamonds,
Theyʼre beautiful but theyʼre cold.
Iʼve seen Broadway in fur coats
That cost a fortune so Iʼm told.
I guess Iʼd look nice in diamonds, and sables
might add to my charms,
But if someone I donʼt care for would buy them
Iʼd rather have two loving arms!
What good would the moon be
Unless the right one shared its beams?
What good would dreams-come-true be
If love wasnʼt in those dreams?
And a primrose path What would be the fun
Of walking down a path like that without the
right one?
What good would the night be
Unless the right lips whisper low:
Kiss me, oh, darling, kiss me,
While evening stars still glow?
No it wonʼt be a primrose path for me,
No, it wonʼt be diamonds or gold,
But maybe there will be
Someone whoʼll love me,
Someone whoʼll love just me
To have and to hold.
