Peer Gynt
Grieg and Ibsen
“Tremendously entertaining.”
“Spectacular…masterful”
“A captivating surprise…yet true-to-the-music”
“Whimsical, entertaining, and eye-opening”
By Bill Barclay
Edvard Grieg,
adapted from Ibsen
set Cristina Todesco
clothes Charles Schoonmaker
seven actors
soprano
hardanger fiddle
orchestra & chorus
costumes, furniture, lights
props and puppetry
80 minutes
or 2-act full version
Downloads
Our flagship production showcases dynamic interplay between orchestra, chorus, actors and puppetry in a creative distillation of over five hours of material. It exists in two versions – 105 minutes including an intermission, and a 80 minute one-act. All eight of the famous suite movements are included, with over a dozen thrilling imports from Grieg’s original incidental score only found in the 1980’s.
“As a whole, BSO’s rendition of Peer Gynt was spectacular for its ingenuity and creativity, making the experience more enriching. The performance ended with thunderous applause from the audience. Although traditional performances have their own merits in encouraging the audience to listen carefully, masterfully combining theater and orchestra can help orchestras reach new audiences”
-The Tech
“Barclay’s stage direction made full use of the space, and simple props of chairs, tables, and coat racks left the Norwegian countryside and other exotic locations up to the imagination.”
-Boston Classical Music Review
“The result, which won and deserved a cheering, standing ovation on Friday, was witty and engaging, and flowed seamlessly. Creatively set on two movable platforms, three trunks, a few footstools and chairs and some stylized trees, designed by Cristina Todesco, and dressed in wonderfully detailed costumes and puppets by Charles Schoonmaker, it was full of energy and fun.”
-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“A combination of surrealness and tenderness spelled by rustic comedy…the direction, cast, and simple production were decidedly convincing, and the audience really responded.”
-The Shepherd Express
Gallery
Production photographs © Robert Torres
program note
Henrik Ibsen’s sprawling verse play has always been intimidating to stage. His protagonist encounters a who’s who of Scandinavian folklore across three continents, 40 scenes, and 60 years. As a contrast, Grieg’s original incidental score survives neatly in two concert suites, fashioned by the composer after the 1876 Oslo premier. This new adaptation tonight tries to tame the story while going back to the wilder incidental score, mining for fresh bits of Grieg you’ve probably not heard before.
It’s hard to identify a more exuberant writer than Ibsen in 1867. In its grab bag of genres from fantasy to naturalism, Peer Gynt is said to anticipate the literary modernism of the First World War. I rather think it anticipates film, cutting from place to place, exploring fantastical imagery, and using comedy to connect us to Peer the person (who many believed had actually lived). Those innovations still amaze readers today, and all this before he wrote his greatest plays: Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, and The Master Builder.
Like the play that barely contains him, Peer has a foot in both romantic and modernist impulses. A dreamer and an opportunist, he pursues the world’s temptations in the mold of the self-made man, only to realize at death’s door the hollowing consequences of individualism. In all the translations I’ve read, the word Self reigns supreme in Peer Gynt. His simple aim is to be who he is above all else. After all, didn’t Shakespeare counsel us to be true to thyself ‘above all’? Peer dares us to criticize him for this. What is amazingly insightful is in the decades since Ibsen wrote Peer Gynt, our global industrialized economy has only increasingly spun on this idea, as does our social media, celebritizing the Self one Instagram photo at a time. But where does compassion factor in? Where meaning? Is pleasure all? Peer’s cautionary tale of hedonism becomes more relevant with each passing day.
It is a joy to bring theatrical tools so fully into the concert hall with this iconic score. Too often, Peer Gynt is only known to us through Grieg’s greatest hits. I have labored to find homes for as many unfamiliar movements from the original score as I could. To serve the music, the text had to be written from scratch, economizing the narrative while retaining the spirit of Ibsen’s many different meters and rhyme schemes. We have committed to a rare fully staged presentation in the concert hall so that Grieg’s iconic music can reunite with the grandeur of the story and the caprice of its characters. Above all, we have stayed true to the spirit of equal partnership between Ibsen and Grieg in our ‘concert-theatre’ approach. I hope we are honouring these legends most however, in making something that feels true to us too.
-Bill Barclay
Writer and Director
