The Visitors (opera)
The Visitors is an opera in three acts and a prologue composed by Carlos Chávez to an English-language libretto by the American poet Chester Kallman. The work was Chávez's only opera. Its first version, with the title Panfilo and Lauretta, premiered in New York City in 1957. The final version with the title The Visitors was premiered in Guanajuato City, Mexico, in 1999, twenty years after the composer's death. The story is set in 14th century Tuscany during the time of the Black Death. The libretto (like those for Pagliacci and Ariadne auf Naxos) uses the device of a play within a play to reflect and intensify the relationships between the protagonists, who in this case are loosely based on characters in The Decameron. Performance history The Visitors was originally commissioned in 1953 by Lincoln Kirstein, with the intention of premiering it in 1954 in New York City. Chávez began working on the score with the provisional title of The Tuscan Players in the spring of 1953 and continued working on it until 1956. The opera finally premiered with the title Panfilo and Lauretta on 9 May 1957 in the Brander Matthews Theatre at Columbia University, conducted by Howard Shanet. It was then presented on three occasions in Mexico, conducted by the composer: in October 1959 (in English) in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City; in 1963, again at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, but in a Spanish translation by Noel Lindsay and Eduardo Hernández Moncada with the title El amor propiciado (Love Propitiated); and in 1968 with the title of Los Visitantes (The Visitors) as part of the cultural programme for the XIX Olympic Games. In the succeeding thirty years the opera went unperformed apart from excerpts conducted by Chávez at the Cabrillo Music Festival in Aptos, California, in 1973. However, he continued to revise the score up until his death in 1978. In 1997, his daughter entrusted the manuscript and her father's revisions to the composer and musicologist Max Lifchitz, who within two years had prepared the definitive version of the score. The world premiere of this version took place in October 1999 (the centenary of Chávez's birth) during the Festival Internacional Cervantino in the Teatro Juárez, Guanajuato City. Conducted by José Areán with stage direction by Sergio Vela, the opera was performed with its original English libretto and its final title, The Visitors. Scoring The opera is scored for 5 solo voices (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone and bass; an SATB chorus; and an orchestra consisting of 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 French horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, harp, timpani, percussion, and strings. Roles Synopsis Time: 14th century Place: Tuscany Act 1 Lauretta, Elissa, Panfilo and Dioneo have sought refuge from the Black Plague in a villa near Florence. To pass the time they devise and perform plays. The first to be performed is devised by Panfilo and tells the story of Cupid and Psyche