Wuthering Heights

April 16, 17, 19, 21 and 23, 2011

A gothic romance by a Hollywood legend.

Wuthering Heights is based on Emily Brontë's gothic romance. Unable to bridge the chasm of social class, Heathcliff and Catherine are consumed by a love that can never be, and its legacy haunts the windswept Yorkshire moors. The music of the opera, composed by Hollywood legend Bernard Herrmann, underscores the novel's passion, prejudice and mystery.

Bernard Herrmann was an Academy Award-winning American composer whose unforgettable collaborations include Psycho with Alfred Hitchcock, Citizen Kane with Orson Welles and Taxi Driver with Martin Scorsese.  Minnesota Opera's new production of his only opera celebrates the centennial of the composer's birth and is the first major revival of this forgotten masterpiece since it was written in Minneapolis in 1951.

Sung in English with English captions projected above the stage.

Estimated run time, including intermission is 2 hours and 50 minutes.

Hear Michael Christie talk about the music at Watch+Listen.

Learn more about Community Events in conjunction with Wuthering Heights at Events.

Dates + Performances

*Section F is Partial View. Stage and/or surtitles may be obstructed from seats in this area.

+Student/Senior discount is available Tuesdays and Thursdays only. To order, call the Ticket Office at 612-333-6669 Mon.-Fri., 9am-6pm.

Prologue

Mr. Lockwood seeks shelter at Wuthering Heights, the ancestral home of the Earnshaw family, as a storm rages outside. Nelly, the housekeeper, warns him to be quiet as the current owner of the manor, Heathcliff, will be angered if he discovers there is a visitor. Alone in an unused bedroom, Lockwood discovers an old diary belonging to Catherine Earnshaw, a deceased former resident of the house. Once asleep, he begins to have nightmares about Cathy, whose ghost he envisions outside his window. Lockwood cries out, disturbing Heathcliff, who enters the room. Greatly agitated, Heathcliff anxiously looks out the window, but sees no one and is utterly devastated.

Act I

Scene one  It is twenty years earlier. Cathy and Heathcliff enter Wuthering Heights after a walk on the moors. They are clearly in love, and Cathy recalls the day he first came to their house after her father discovered him as a homeless boy in Liverpool and took him in. Cathy’s alcoholic brother, Hindley, is now master of their home and treats Heathcliff poorly. He is upset to find them in an embrace and orders Heathcliff to work in the fields with Joseph, the farmhand. Joseph wishes to break for mass, but Hindley demands that he hold the ritual inside the house to keep an eye on Cathy and Heathcliff. As Joseph dozes off, the couple revels in the moonlight and escapes through a window.

Scene two  On Christmas Eve, the household awaits the arrival of their neighbors, siblings Edgar and Isabella, along with Cathy, who has been their guest for several weeks. Nelly plays with Hindley’s young son Hareton while observing the forlorn Heathcliff. She offers to smarten his disheveled attire for the impending visit, but he will have none of it – Cathy will like him as he is. Rushing toward the door, Heathcliff is cuffed by Hindley, who insists on greeting his guests rather than the “stable boy.” Cathy remarks on his sulky demeanor while Heathcliff sizes up Edgar, a potential rival. Hoping to keep Heathcliff and Cathy apart, Hindley continues to bait him and the two scuffle, leaving the room. Carolers sing outside.

Act II

The following spring, Cathy awaits another visit from Edgar. Heathcliff invites her for a walk, but she fears they will be discovered by Joseph. He berates her for spending so much time with the Lintons, and she rebukes him for being childish. Heathcliff rushes off as Edgar enters. Cathy asks Nelly to stop spying on them and to leave the room as well. When she doesn’t, Cathy disciplines her. Edgar intercedes, and she strikes him too. The spat passes, and as Cathy and Edgar make up, Nelly feels a dreadful foreboding for Heathcliff, knowing that he and the young woman will never be together.
 
Hareton enters the room, fearful of his drunken father. Hindley stumbles in and picks up a carving knife, intending to harm the child. Nelly has seen this behavior before and tries to make a game out of it, while putting herself between father and son. Hindley snatches the child and threatens to throw him down the stairs until Heathcliff stops him. Cathy returns, and unaware Heathcliff is nearby, confides in Nelly her intention to marry Edgar. Heathcliff rushes from the room, and mortified that she has been overheard, Cathy runs outside into a raging storm, crying out his name.

 

Act III

It is three years later and Cathy is married to Edgar. She now resides in the Lintons’ home at Thrushcross Grange, a short distance from Wuthering Heights. Their scene of domestic tranquility is interrupted when Nelly announces a visitor – Heathcliff has returned after a lengthy absence. He has become a fully grown, good-looking and perfectly groomed young man, with a face chiseled by experience. Cathy chides him for his silence, but Heathcliff counters that it has been a difficult period. Now flush with cash, he intends to buy Wuthering Heights from Hindley, who is financially mired with huge gambling debts. Cathy is once again enthralled by her childhood soul mate, and Edgar can barely hide his jealousy. He asks for a moment alone with his wife.
 
Meanwhile, Isabella is also entranced by Heathcliff and admits she was attracted to his non-conforming ways back when they met at Christmastime. He hardly pays her much attention, even when she sings a song to him. Cathy returns, asking that they be left alone, but Isabella refuses, stating that she is now Heathcliff’s friend. Cathy exposes all of his faults, claiming he could never marry a Linton. Heathcliff sneers – if she could love a Linton, why couldn’t he? Upset, Cathy tries to leave the room and encounters Edgar. Seeing how distraught she has become, he orders Heathcliff to leave his house, and he does so while cursing them both. Now completely unhinged, Cathy admits she does not loves Edgar and recalls the simplicity of her childhood. She longs for the grave and is hardly comforted by Nelly’s feeble attempts to calm her nerves.

Act IV

The following March, Isabella writes a letter revealing her unhappiness. Her impulsive marriage to Heathcliff has been a failure, and the walls of Wuthering Heights have become a prison. A drunken Hindley wields a pistol, deriding the streetwise vagrant who robbed him of his father’s love and his birthright. Isabella is jealous of the apparent affair she thinks Heathcliff is having with Cathy, and is ready to watch him die, only to scream out at the last minute, saving Heathcliff’s life. He wrestles the gun out of Hindley’s hand and scorns his unloved wife, who leaves the room in a wild frenzy.
 
Cathy enters, showing the effects of a long illness. She only wishes for peace, and Heathcliff asks why she betrayed her heart by marrying Edgar, which ultimately has caused them both so much pain. After they forgive one another, Cathy vividly envisions the afterlife and dies. Unable to face her mortality, Heathcliff challenges her spirit to haunt him forever and drive him mad.

print synopsis

Wuthering Heights

Creative Team

The Cast

Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine's brother

Edgar Linton, the Earnshaws' neighbor

Setting

Jesse Blumberg (Mr. Lockwood)

Baritone Jesse Blumberg is an artist equally at home on opera, concert, and recital stages. Last season, he performed the role of the Celebrant in Bernstein's Mass at London's Royal Festival Hall under the baton of Marin Alsop, debuted with Boston Lyric Opera as Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos, and performed recitals in Paris with the Mirror Visions Ensemble. In 2007, he created the role of Connie Rivers in The Grapes of Wrath (recorded by P.S. Classics) at the Minnesota Opera, and later made his Utah and Pittsburgh Opera debuts in the same production. Other recent appearances include leading and featured roles with Annapolis Opera, Opera Delaware, Opera Vivente and the Boston Early Music Festival.

In concert, Jesse has been a featured soloist with American Bach Soloists, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Sacred Music in a Sacred Space and the Berkshire Choral Festival. He has also given the world premieres of two important chamber works: Ricky Ian Gordon's Green Sneakers (recorded by Blue Griffin Recording) and Lisa Bielawa's The Lay of the Love and Death, the former at the Vail Valley Music Festival, and the latter at Alice Tully Hall. He has toured with the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Waverly Consort, and given recitals for the Marilyn Horne Foundation. Last season, he and pianist Martin Katz performed Schubert's two monumental song cycles, Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, over one weekend in Ann Arbor, and will soon repeat this pairing in New York City. Jesse has been recognized in many song and opera competitions, and in 2008 was awarded Third Prize at the International Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau, becoming its first American prizewinner in over thirty years.

His 2010–2011 engagements include song recitals in New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., debuts with New York Festival of Song, Clarion Society, University Musical Society, Green Mountain Project and Apollo's Fire, and returns to American Bach Soloists, Minnesota Opera and the Boston Early Music Festival. Jesse received a Master of Music degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and undergraduate degrees in history and music from the University of Michigan. Jesse is also the founder and artistic director of the Five Boroughs Music Festival, a new concert series in New York City.

Michael Christie (conductor)

Michael Christie is the Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival (Boulder, CO) and the Virginia G. Piper Music Director of the Phoenix Symphony. He has served as Music Director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Queensland Orchestra (Brisbane, Australia). With his orchestras, he has embarked on a series of ambitious projects focusing on symphonic cycles and interdisciplinary collaborations with visual artists, dance companies and theater groups, as well as on contemporary composers such as Gorecki, Ligeti, Adams, Goijov, Tan Dun, Rouse and Higdon, among many others.

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of his work since coming to international attention in 1995 when he was awarded a special prize for "Outstanding Potential" at the First International Sibelius Conductor's Competition in Helsinki, has been the extraordinary audience development initiatives he has undertaken. His "variety is key" approach to programming along with an infectious enthusiasm for communicating with patrons has yielded industry leading increases in participation and attendance in Boulder and Phoenix in particular.

He has enjoyed performing with the great orchestras of the world, including the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and St. Louis Symphony in the United States and the radio orchestras of Scandinavia and orchestras in almost every European country. He began his professional conducting training at the Zurich Opera and is looking forward to a full schedule of opera engagements in the coming seasons, including his debut performances with the Minnesota Opera this spring.

Jane Greenwood (costume designer)

Jane Greenwood has designed for Off-Broadway, opera, dance and film, including over 125 productions for Broadway since Ballad Of The Sad Café in 1963. Most recently she designed on Broadway: House of Blue Leaves, Championship Season, Driving Miss Daisy, Million Dollar Quartet, Collected Stories and A View From The Bridge. She designed costumes for the world premiere of Moby Dick at The Dallas Opera last spring that will continue onto The State Opera of South Australia in the fall. Ms. Greenwood has 16 Tony Award Nominations: Waiting for Godot (2009), Heartbreak House (2007,1984), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2005) Morning's at Seven (2002) A Delicate Balance (1996), The Heiress (1995), Passion (1994), She Loves Me (1993), The Sisters of Rosensweig (1993), Two Shakespearean Actors (1992), Our Town (1989), Medea; Hay Fever (1971), Les Blancs (1971), More Stately Mansions (1968) and Tartuffe (1965). Awards for costume design include The Lucille Award: Sylvia (1996), Old Money (2001); The Henry Hewes Award: Our Leading Lady (2007): The Helen Hayes Award:(Washington); The Irene Sharaff Award and The Lilly Award, She is also in The Theatre Hall of Fame. Ms. Greenwood has been a professor at Yale School of Drama since 1976.

Wendall K. Harrington (projection designer)

Wendall Harrington received the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and American Theatre Wing awards for her design of The Who's Tommy. Her Broadway credits include Grey Gardens, The Good Body, Vincent in Brixton, Amy's View, Putting It Together, The Capeman, Ragtime, John Leguizamo's Freak, Company, Racing Demon, Four Baboons Adoring The Sun, The Will Rogers Follies, The Heidi Chronicles, My One and Only and They're Playing Our Song. Opera credits include Rusalka, The Grapes of Wrath and Transatlantic for Minnesota Opera, Die Gezeichneten for Los Angeles Opera, Nixon in China for Opera Theatre of St. Louis and A View from the Bridge at Metropolitan Opera; The Juniper Tree at ART; The Photographer at BAM; The Magic Flute in Florence; and Orfeo in Vienna. Ballet credits include The Nutcracker for San Francisco Ballet, Othello for ABT, Ballet mécanique and Deconstructing English for Doug Varone; and Anna Karenina for the Royal Danish Ballet. Off-Broadway and regional credits include The Investigation, Hapgood, As Thousands Cheer, Night and Her Stars, Merrily We Roll Along (three times) and the ill-fated Whistle Down the Wind. Concerts include Stop Making Sense (Talking Heads), Old Friends (Simon and Garfunkel), No Apologies (Chris Rock) and John Fogerty's Déjà Vu Tour, as well as William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and Experience with VocalEssense. Ms. Harrington is the former design director of Esquire Magazine and created player introductions for the New York Knicks, Liberty and Rangers and has two fine daughters. She designed and directed the premiere of Snapshots with the Elements Quartet and Arjuna's Dilemma, a new opera based on the Bhagavad Gita. She teaches Projection Design at the Yale School of Drama.

Sara Jakubiak (Catherine)

The young American soprano Sara Jakubiak has been described as "a singer who is going places and should delight audiences for years to come" by the New Haven Register and possessed of a voice which is "rich and resonant, highly expressive and solid from top to bottom" by Tulsa World.

In 2010–2011, Sara Jakubiak makes her New York City Opera debut as Dede in Bernstein's A Quiet Place, also appearing in concert in "Lucky to Be Me" for NYCO; debuts with Virginia Opera as Eurydice in Orphée; sings as soloist in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra; and appears in recital with baritone Ross Benoliel for Music at Bunker Hill.

In the 2009–2010 season, she made her debut with Chicago Opera Theater as Beatrice in Jake Heggie's Three Decembers, sang Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder with Symphony Pro Musica, performed as soloist in Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust with the American Symphony Orchestra, and reprised the role of Mimì in La bohème with Syracuse Opera.

Recent engagements included her company debut at Tulsa Opera as Mimì, singing as Countess in Le nozze di Figaro with both the Seoul Arts Center in Korea and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, and as soloist with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in an opera gala concert, and covering Patricia Racette as Magda in La rondine with Los Angeles Opera. She spent summer 2007 as an apprentice artist at Santa Fe Opera, where she covered both the title role in Strauss's Daphne and Mimì in La bohème, and performed the title roles in both Jenufa and Rusalka in a program of opera scenes. In addition to Mimì, she has also appeared as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Varvara in Kat'a Kabanova, and Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream with Yale Opera.

Other operatic highlights include the roles of Giorgetta in Il tabarro and appearing in Purcell's The Fairy Queen with the Orchestra Sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, Italy as well as both the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro and Blanche in Dialogues des Carmélites with the Cleveland Institute. During her time as a studio artist at Central City Opera, she appeared in a program of opera scenes as the title role in Floyd's Susannah and Elettra in Idomeneo and performed the role of Musetta in concert excerpts with Maestro Paul Nadler and the Southwest Florida Symphony.

Sara Jakubiak's concert performance credits include appearing as soloist in Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, Britten's War Requiem, Mahler's Symphony No. 2, and Penderecki's Credo conducted by the composer with the Yale Philharmonic. She has also performed as soloist in Beethoven's Mass in C with the Beethoven Festival in Warsaw and sung Messaien's Poèmes pour Mi in recital at Yale. Ms. Jakubiak is featured on the Naxos label's eight-volume collection of Charles Ives songs in the series "American Classics," released in 2008.

Ms. Jakubiak holds master's degrees from both Yale University and the Cleveland Institute of Music. She was a regional finalist in the 2007 National Council Auditions and was also the recipient of the Judith Raskin Memorial Award from Santa Fe Opera in 2007.

Eric Margiore (Edgar)

Lyric tenor, Eric Margiore who was praised by Opera News for "ripping into his role with brilliance and style, brio and high-octane vocalism," is establishing himself as an international contender in the principal Italian bel canto and romantic tenor repertoire. The tenor is quickly becoming known for his uniquely Italianate timbre and his "American Idol looks," with a "real presence, intelligence, and level-10 intensity."

The year 2011 is a very busy season for the young tenor including what was his official European debut and role debut as Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf, Germany. Mr. Margiore then reprised a role he has done often, Alfredo in La traviata, this time with the Hawaii Opera Theatre. He will then sing Edgar Linton in Herrmann’s, Wuthering Heights, for his debut at the Minnesota Opera followed by travels to London, England for a debut in the role of Fritz Kobus in Mascagni’s rarely heard, L’amico Fritz, with Opera Holland Park. Eric will sing his first Don José in Carmen with the Crested Butted Opera Festival in Colorado and then finish his season by opening the new Baltimore Opera (Lyric Opera Baltimore) as Alfredo in La traviata with Elizabeth Futral as Violetta and Metropolitan Opera maestro, Steven White. Earlier in the season Eric performed on a gala concert benefiting the re-grand opening of Lyric Opera Baltimore. Furthermore, in 2012, Eric will sing his first Roméo in Roméo et Juiliette with Annapolis Opera and will be singing eleven performances of Rodolfo in La bohème with the Central City Opera in Colorado.

2010 and 2009 were important seasons for Eric. He sang Alfredo in La traviata, and the tenor soloist in Verdi's Reqiuem, with the Utah Festival Opera. He also performed as a soloist in concert with Marcello Giordani, for the Marcello and Friends encore series, as the soloist in a Holiday Pops Concert with the Stockton Symphony Orchestra, and as a featured soloist in a gala concert for the Mississippi Opera, Passion and Fireworks. He reprised the role of Il Duca di Mantova in Rigoletto with Opera Naples and was then again commended by Opera News, in his return to the Opera Theatre of St. Louis for his official company debut and role debut as Narraboth in Salome under the baton of Maestro Stephen Lord. He also sang gala concerts with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis as well as with the Virginia Opera, and Eric made his debut in Asia with Opera Hong Kong in performances of Tamino in Die Zauberflöte in Hong Kong and Beijing, China, with Paul Curran directing and Maestro Jari Hamalainen conducting.

The 2008 season saw Eric Margiore making his stage debut with the role of Gérald in Lakmé at Tulsa Opera. He then made his role and house debut of Il Duca di Mantova in Rigoletto with the Palm Beach Opera and sang with the Sarasota Opera. Other notable appearances included his role debut of Alfredo in La traviata at the Shreveport Opera, Cassio in Otello with the Vero Beach Opera under the baton of Maestro Steven Crawford; and concert appearances including a musical revue at Radio City Music Hall, Mozart's Coronation Mass in his third appearance at Carnegie Hall, The World of Opera: Concert of Arias and Duets for the Vero Beach Opera, followed by a Sicilian-themed holiday concert with the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra in Louisiana.

During the 2007 season, Eric joined the New York City Opera to make his State Theater debut in a gala concert Opera for All led by principal conductor Maestro George Manahan. As well in his debut season he was assigned to cover Le Prince Charmant in Massenet’s Cendrillon. In the same year Mr. Margiore began his collaboration with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis where he covered both Arturo and Riccardo, in the Malibran version of I puritani. While in residence, he was selected as a soloist for the Colin Graham Memorial Concert and had his unofficial debut with the company when he stepped in last minute to sing, Arturo in two important performances of I puritani that were praised by Opera News. Mr. Margiore then joined the Charleston Symphony Orchestra for a concert performance of West Side Story in which he was praised for his singing of Tony. Eric then sang his role debut of Rodolfo in La bohème with the Opera Ischia Festival in Italy, while also performing several concerts in southern Italy. Further projects included a gala concert Tutti in Piazza in Stockton, California as well as the compact disc recording of Thomas Pasatieri’s La Divina as the Young Conductor on Albany Records with the Opera Company of Brooklyn.

In 2006, after his transition from baritone, Eric sang Azael in Debussy’s L’enfant prodigue for his debut with Opera Naples, a concert of Neapolitan songs and opera arias, Festa Italiana, with the Stockton Symphony Orchestra as well as Alfredo in La traviata, Rodolfo in La bohème, and Il Duca di Mantova in Rigoletto with the New Opera Festival di Roma, in Rome, Italy.

In addition to his performing, Eric has been recognized by many important vocal competitions and foundations. He was the winner of a grant from the William Matheus Sullivan Foundation, the Licia Albanese/Puccini Foundation, and was an international quarterfinalist in Placido Domingo’s Operalia, in two separate years. He was also a two-time winner in the Connecticut Opera Guild Competition, a finalist in the Lyric Opera of Chicago's Young Artist Auditions and a Metropolitan Opera National semifinalist.

Eric hails from Long Island, New York, USA, and he is a proud Italian-American coming from a Sicilian and Neapolitan family heritage. Eric finished his professional training at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Glimmerglass Opera, and Chautuaqua Opera's young artist programs and holds degrees from New York University and the Mannes College of Music.

Eric hails from Long Island, New York, and he is a proud Italian-American coming from a Sicilian and Neapolitan family heritage. Eric finished his professional training at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Glimmerglass Opera and Chautuaqua Opera's young artist programs and holds degrees from New York University and the Mannes College of Music.

Rodolfo Nieto (Joseph)

Bass-baritone Rodolfo Nieto most recently appeared as Don Alfonso for Cedar Rapids Opera Theater's production of Così fan tutte. Other roles for that company include the Imperial Commissioner in Madame Butterfly and Pooh-Bah in The Mikado. During the 2008 season he was a Opera Colorado Young Artist, where he sang the roles of Don Magnifico and Alidoro in Cinderella and Godofredo in La Curandera for its outreach program. In 2007, Mr. Nieto appeared as Gravitas in the world premiere of Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings at Theatre@Boston Court.

Mr. Nieto attended Northwestern University, where he performed as Prince Gremin in Eugene Onegin, Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte and Simone in Gianni Schicchi. At Luther College, he has sung the title role in The Marriage of Figaro, the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance and Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte. As a resident artist for the Minnesota Opera last season, Mr. Nieto appeared as the Third Inquisitor and Spanish Captain in Casanova's Homecoming, the Friend of Nottingham in Roberto Devereux, Colline in La bohème and the First Guard in Salome. This season, he sings Dr. Grenvil in La traviata and Joseph in Wuthering Heights.

Neil Patel (set designer)

Minnesota Opera: Mary Stuart, Madame Butterfly, Orazi e Curiazi, Roberto Devereux; Opera Theater of St Louis: Anna Karenina, Gloriana, Cavalleria rusticana, Suor Angelica; Santa Fe Opera: Madame Mao, Carmen; New York City Opera: Alcina; Nikikai Opera Theater Tokyo: Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte. BAM Next Wave: War of the Worlds, Hotel Cassiopeia. Broadway: [title of show], Wonderland, Fat Pig, Oleanna, Ring of Fire, Sideman, 'Night Mother. West End: Underneath the Lintel, Sideman. Regional Theater: Guthrie, Steppenwolf, Mark Taper Forum, Arena among many others. International Theater: RSC/Stratford, Hebbel Theater Berlin, Parco Theater Tokyo, Theater Archa Prague, Edinburgh International Festival. Dance: Pilobolus' Shadowland (Teatro Nuovo Apolo Madrid/Zurich Schiffbau) Television: In Treatment (HBO). Awards: OBIE (Sustained Excellence 1996, 2001), Helen Hayes (2008). Education: Yale College.

Lee Poulis (Heathcliff)

Recently named "Best Young Singer" twice by Die Welt's annual survey of German music critics, young American baritone Lee Poulis has already established himself as a fast-rising international talent. After Mr. Poulis stepped in at the last minute to perform the role of Renato in Un ballo in maschera at Teatro Municipal de Santiago, critics praised his "beautiful lyric baritone timbre" and "dark, robust voice" adding "with his promising future, it would be advisable to have him in other productions in Chile." The production of Doctor Atomic in which he sang the role of Robert Oppenheimer, in Saarbrücken, was one of three nominated for the 2010 prestigious German "Der Faust" theater prize.

In the 2010–2011 season, Lee Poulis makes his debut with both Minnesota Opera as Heathcliff in Herrmann's Wuthering Heights and with Sarasota Opera in the title role of Don Giovanni. He also returns to Theater Bonn as a member of the ensemble to perform the roles of Escamillo in Carmen, Pantalon in The Love for Three Oranges, Ping in Turandot and the Father in Hänsel und Gretel. He returned to the ensemble at Theater Bonn in 2009–2010 in the roles of Wolfram in Tannhäuser, the Father in Hänsel und Gretel, Belcore in L'elisir d'amore and Pantalon in Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges and performed the role of Robert Oppenheimer in Doctor Atomic with Saarländisches Staatstheater in Saarbrücken.

Mr. Poulis' 2008–2009 season included the role of Valentin in Faust with Theater Chemnitz, appearing as soloist in Hanns Eissler's Deutsche Sinfonie with Beethovenfest Bonn in Germany, and several principal roles as a member of the ensemble at Theater Bonn, including Germont in La traviata, Yeletsky in Pique Dame, Renato in Un ballo in maschera, Michonnet in Adriana Lecouvreur and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. His frequent appearances at Washington National Opera have included Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Dandini in La Cenerentola, Senator Raitcliffe in the world premiere of Scott Wheeler's Democracy, Masetto in Don Giovanni and De Siriex in Fedora for the company's Trilogy Gala. As a member of San Francisco Opera's prestigious Merola Program, he performed the roles of Charlot in Ibert's Angelique and Mr. Gobineau in The Medium, and added the roles of Count in Le nozze di Figaro and Germont in La traviata to his repertoire while at Los Angeles Opera. Mr. Poulis also performed four roles in Shostakovich's The Nose at the Bard Summerscape Festival, and Marcello in La bohème in a concert performance with the Newton Symphony Orchestra.

Other international credits on the operatic stage include the roles of Marcello in La bohème with Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Starveling in A Midsummer Night's Dream with Teatro Real in Madrid, Masetto in Don Giovanni with both Opera Bilbao and Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, and sang as Wanderer in a scene with Erda from Siegfried for La Fura dels Baus at the British Museum.

Mr. Poulis' concert repertoire engagements include Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the American Youth Symphony, Mozart's Requiem with the Masterworks Chorale, Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem with the Waltham Philharmonic and the Masterworks Chorale, Haydn's Missa in Angustiis with the Reston Chorale, Lord Nelson Mass at the Beijing Concert Hall, Fauré's Requiem with both the Atlantic Union College and the Gemini Youth Orchestra, and Handel's Messiah with Commonwealth Opera. Mr. Poulis has also appeared in recital recently with the Marilyn Horne Foundation at Carnegie's Weill Hall as well as in Washington D.C. with the Washington Vocal Arts Society.

Lee Poulis is the first prize winner in the 2008 Liederkranz Foundation Vocal Competition, top prize winner in the 2008 Francisco Viñas International Voice Competition, and first prize winner in the 2007 Chester Ludgin International Verdi Baritone Competition, as well as an Encouragement Award recipient in the 2008 George London Foundation Awards competition. In addition to San Francisco Opera's Merola Program, he is an alumnus of Washington National Opera's Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, as well as Music Academy of the West. Mr. Poulis is a graduate of Harvard University.

Joshua Ross (Hareton)

Joshua Ross, freshman at Shattuck-St. Mary's School in Faribault, Minnesota and originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, is a member of the school's Vocal Performance Program. A recent graduate of the St. Thomas Choir School, he studies voice with Dr. Christopher Aspaas at St. Olaf College. Joshua is a member of Minnesota Opera's educational program Project Opera. He has performed in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Carnegie Hall, New York and recently appeared with the St. Olaf Choir and Magnum Chorum in their performance of Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.

Eric Simonson (stage director and dramaturg)

Writer and director Eric Simonson recently directed Rusalka for Colorado Opera. Other directing credits include The Grapes of Wrath at Minnesota Opera, Pittsburgh Opera and Carnegie Hall; numerous plays for Steppenwolf Theatre; and productions at The Huntington Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Primary Stages in NY, Court Theatre in Chicago, LA Theatre Works, The Kennedy Center, City Theater in Pittsburgh, Seattle Rep, and San Jose Rep. His production of The Song of Jacob Zulu played on Broadway and received six Tony Awards including Best Director. His film directing credits include documentaries A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin (Academy Award) On Tiptoe (Academy Award nomination) and Studs Terkel: Listening to America, all of which aired on HBO. Playwriting credits include Lombardi (currently running on Broadway), Bang the Drum Slowly, Work Song (co-written with Jeff Hatcher), Honest and Fake. Mr. Simonson is a member of Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, and unions SDC, WGA and SAG. He is the recipient of the Princess Grace Statue Award for sustained artistic achievement; a Jefferson Citation; the Frankel Award for new play development; and an Emmy nomination and International Documentary Award for his film On Tiptoe. Mr. Simonson is currently overseeing Minnesota’s New Works Initiative, which includes Bernard Herrmann’s Wuthering Heights and the premiere of Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell’s Silent Night next fall.

Heidi Spesard-Noble (Choreographer)

Heidi Spesard-Noble is a highly versatile dancer, singer and choreographer in the Twin Cities performing arts community. Her choreography credits include Midlife: the Crisis Musical, Brigadoon, The Christmas Show and Big Bang at Chanhassen Dinner Theatre, Jesus Christ Superstar at Hamline University, Runaways at Macalaster College, Evita at Cretin-Durham and the Minnesota Opera’s productions of Carmen, La traviata, Orazi e Curiazi and Lakmé. She has also served as assistant choreographer for Doug Varone in this season's Cinderella as well as for productions of The Grapes of Wrath in Minnesota, Salt Lake City and Pittsburgh.

At Chanhassen she has appeared in numerous productions including The Music Man as Pic-a-little, My Fair Lady as Lady Boxington, Can Can as Marie, Crazy For You as Mitzi, 42nd Street as Anytime Annie, Phantom as Fleur, Hello Dolly, Oklahoma as the Saloon Girl and Brigadoon as Maggie.

As a dancer, Ms. Spesard-Noble was recently seen in Cinderalla with Ballet of the Dolls. Other dance credits include the Opera’s The Merry Widow, Minnesota Dance Theatre’s Nutcracker Fantasy, The Rite of Spring, Beauty and the Beast, Swan Lake, Mythical Hunters and Allegro Brilliant, and An American in Paris, Cakewalk and Valse Fantasie with the State Ballet of Missouri. She received her BFA in dance from the University of Utah.

Victoria Vargas (Nelly)

Mezzo-soprano Victoria Vargas completes her master of music degree from Manhattan School of Music this May, where she appeared as Euryclée in Fauré's Pénélope, and the Beggar and Mrs. Peachum in The Beggar's Opera. Other credits include Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro for Ash Lawn Opera and Martina Arroyo's Prelude to Performance; the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, the title role in Carmen and Dorabella in Così fan tutte for Hillman Opera; Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music for Lyric Arts International; and Miss Todd in The Old Main and the Thief for Fredonia Opera Theater.

Ms. Vargas has been a young artist at Sarasota Opera, where she covered the role of Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria rusticana. She covered the same role at Chautauqua Opera last summer, won the opera company's Guild Studio Artist Award and has been invited back as an Apprentice Artist, where she will perform Laura in Luisa Miller and the Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte. For her first season as a Minnesota Opera Resident Artist, Ms. Vargas will sing Tisbe in Cinderella, Anna in Mary Stuart, Flora in La traviata and Nelly in Wuthering Heights.

Ben Wager (Hindley)

Ben Wager is a 2009 graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, where his roles included: Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Enrico in Anna Bolena, the title role in Mendelssohn's Elijah, Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte and Padre Guardiano in La forza del destino.

In the 2010–2011 season, Ben will make his debuts at Opera Cleveland as Nourabad in Les pêcheurs de perles and at Dallas Opera for Masetto in Don Giovanni, as well as a return to Minnesota Opera the role of Hindley Earnshaw in Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights. As a member of the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which he joined in 2009, he will sing Panthus in Les Troyens, Doctor Grenvil in La traviata, Angelotti in Tosca, and Escamillo in Carmen.

For the 2009–2010 season, as a member of the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper Berlin he performed a number of roles, including Zuniga in Carmen, Angelotti in Tosca and Sarastro in an abridged version of Die Zauberflöte. Additional engagements included Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Mozarteum of Salzburg under Ivor Bolton, Rossini's Stabat mater with the Oregon Symphony and his debut at Los Angeles Opera as Julian Pinelli in Schreker's Die Gezeichneten.

During the 2008–2009 season, he concluded his residency at AVA with Enrico in Anna Bolena, Il Vescovo in La fiamma, and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, joined Minnesota Opera to sing the bass roles in the North American premiere of Jonathan Dove's The Adventures of Pinocchio and made his debut at Opera Company of Philadelphia as Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia.

Mr. Wager spent the summer of 2008 as a member of the prestigious Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera, where he sang the role of Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni. In February 2008, Mr. Wager sang Monterone in Rigoletto with Opera New Jersey, followed by Masetto in Don Giovanni for his debut at Chicago Opera Theatre under the baton of Jane Glover.

Robert Wierzel (lighting designer)

As a lighting designer, Mr. Wierzel has worked with artists from diverse disciplines and backgrounds in theatre, dance, contemporary music, museums and opera on stages throughout the country and abroad.

Productions with the opera companies of Paris-Garnier (Les indes galantes); Tokyo (Opera Chushingura); Toronto; New York City Opera; Glimmerglass; Seattle; Boston Lyric; Minnesota; San Francisco; Houston; Washington; Virginia; Chicago (including Lyric Opera and Chicago Opera Theatre); Montreal; Vancouver; Florida Grand; Portland; Wolf Trap; San Diego; Omaha; among others.

In New York, his work has been seen on and off Broadway, including the musical Fela! Recently on Broadway at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre (Tony Award nomination). Other productions include David Copperfield’s Broadway debut Dreams and Nightmares; Grace Jones’ Hurricane show at the Hammerstein Ballroom; productions at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre (Othello); The Signature Theatre (Two Trains Running, Hot ‘N Throbbing); MCC (Intrigue With Faye); The Roundabout (The Deep Blue Sea); Classic Stage Company (Savanna Bay); Playwrights Horizons (Jack’s Holiday, Moe’s Lucky Seven); Mostly Mozart Festival (Il re pastore); BAM (Arjuna’s Dilemma, Il matrimonio segreto); The Acting Company (Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Fire); Lincoln Center Festival/American Songbook Series (Orpheus and Euridice – choreographed by Doug Varone); Gotham Chamber Opera (Tears of the Night/Voices of the Forest), among others.

Robert has numerous collaborations (25 years) with choreographer Bill T. Jones and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (several Bessie Awards, along with productions at the Lyon Opera Ballet and Berlin Opera Ballet); and Walking The Line (with Bill T. Jones) at The Louvre Museum, Paris. Robert has collaborated with the composer Philip Glass (Hydrogen Jukebox, Les enfants terribles – which won him an American Theatre Wing Lighting Design Award), and the visual artists Peter McGough, Paul Kaiser, Lesley Dill, Robert Longo, Bill Katz, Red Grooms and Gretchen Bender, among others.

His extensive regional theatre work includes productions at A.C.T. San Francisco; Center Stage-Baltimore; Arena Stage; Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Shakespeare Theatre DC; Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre; Westport Country Playhouse; Goodman Theatre; The Guthrie; Mark Taper Forum; Geva Theatre; Actors Theatre/Louisville; Old Globe/San Diego; Laguna Playhouse; Yale Rep and the Berkley Rep, among many others.

His dance collaborations include works with choreographers Doug Varone; Larry Goldhuber and Heidi Latsky (Worse Case Scenario-Bessie Award); Seán Curran; Molissa Fenely; Donna Uchizono; Alonzo King; Charlie Moulton; Arthur Aviles; Margo Sappington; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and the Trisha Brown Dance Company.

In addition, he has designed the lighting for selected art exhibitions including the Red Grooms installation at Grand Central Station; at the Yale Art Gallery – Baule: African Art, Western Eyes and Love and Loss: American Portrait And Mourning Miniatures; To Know the Dark; Making It New – The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy, among others, and The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-1950, at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Adriana Zabala (Isabella)

As the title character in the American premiere of Dove's The Adventures of Pinocchio at the Minnesota Opera, Adriana Zabala was recently praised by The Wall Street Journal as showing "tremendous stamina and boy-like flair." The New York Times hailed her as "a vivid, fearless presence," and the L.A. Times as "extraordinary" for her portrayal of the Barbarian Girl in the American premiere of Philip Glass' Waiting for the Barbarians with the Austin Lyric Opera. Ms. Zabala enjoys a vibrant and unique career that includes opera, song repertoire, new works, concert, oratorio and cabaret. She performs extensively throughout the United States and internationally, and served for five years as Artistic Director of the Southeastern Festival of Song.

Within the last few seasons Ms. Zabala has been seen on the stages of Seattle Opera, Minnesota Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, the Wildwood Festival, Syracuse Opera, Arizona Opera, Lyric Opera of San Antonio, Opera Carolina, Lake George Opera, and Opera Pacific. She has also been a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Spokane Symphony, the Syracuse Symphony, the Virginia Symphony, the Madison Symphony, the New York Festival of Song and at the Caramoor International Music Festival with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. She has appeared in recital in the Barns at Wolf Trap, the The Kennedy Center's Millenium Stage, The Dallas Museum of Art, Ventford Hall in Lenox, MA, and in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Recent highlights include Ms. Zabala's European debut under Maestro Lorin Maazel as Mercédès in Carmen at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain, her Carnegie Hall debut on a concert with pianist and composer Gregg Kallor, premiering Exhilaration, Kallor's settings of nine Emily Dickinson poems, her critically acclaimed portrayal of the Barbarian Girl in the American premiere of Phillip Glass' Waiting for the Barbarians with the Austin Lyric Opera, and appearing as the alto solist with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with Bryn Terfel as Elijah.

She also made her Canadian debut with Opera Lyra Ottawa as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, sang the title role in La Cenerentola with the Atlanta Opera, returned to Opera Carolina as Rosina in The Barber of Seville and celebrated the release and critical success of the compact disc Exhilaration: Dickinson and Yeats Songs. Opera News Online raved "Kallor has found a wonderful exponent in Adriana Zabala, a gifted, agile mezzo-soprano. Kallor knows how to make these words sing, and Zabala gives perfect flight to them. Singing with uncommon clarity and natural beauty, she seems to be deep inside both the poems and Kallor's musical realizations."

Upcoming engagements include an appearance as featured soloist with the United Nations Association International Choir in the world premiere of Jan Gilbert's That The Dove May Rest, Cherubino with Vermont's Green Mountain Opera Company and Hansel in Hansel and Gretel with the Austin Lyric Opera.

Adriana Zabala was born Georgia and raised in Miami, Caracas, Venezuela and Lake Jackson, Texas. She received her undergraduate degree from Lousiana State University, was a Fulbright Scholar in Salzburg, Austria, studying German Lieder at the Mozarteum, and earned her masters degree at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Ms. Zabala was a Resident Artist for two seasons with Minnesota Opera, where she performed the roles of Cherubino, Annina and Rosina, among others. She spent the following season as a Young Artist with the Seattle Opera, singing the title role in La Cenerentola. Ms. Zabala is an alumna of the apprentice programs at the Berkshire Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, Operafestival di Roma and the Wolf Trap Opera Company.

Bernard Herrmann – you may not recognize the name but you’ve probably heard his music if you are a vintage film fan or have caught the newest Dodge suv commercials. With over 50 motion pictures scores, some to legendary Alfred Hitchcock films, his musical footprint is deep and his legacy is still esteemed to this day. The composer’s lifelong obsession, however, was to produce his only opera, Wuthering Heights.

The composer may have conceived the idea as early as 1943, while working on the Orson Welles film, Jane Eyre, after the novel by Charlotte Brontë. Having read most of the staples of 19th-century literature in his youth (he would also set Melville’s Moby Dick as a dramatic cantata), Herrmann was certainly familiar with her sister Emily’s classic tale, also set in northern England. In 1946, he and his first wife, Lucille Fletcher, traveled to the United Kingdom for a conducting engagement with the Halle Orchestra of Manchester. Herrmann asked the orchestra’s manager to show them the Yorkshire moors and the farmhouse “Top Withens” that inspired the novel. Already an accomplished dramatist (her fame rests on the radio play Sorry, Wrong Number), Fletcher drafted a libretto based on the first part of Wuthering Heights up to the death of Catherine Earnshaw Linton. In 1947, Herrmann began to compose, and as he would state, “It was my intention to emphasize the fact that this opera places utmost importance upon the expressiveness of the vocal roles. The orchestra may be said to be descriptive of the landscape and weather of each act inasmuch as the novel itself depends greatly upon the oneness of the characters with their environment and also the mood and color of the day.”

Given the constraints of the film industry, Herrmann was accustomed to working under a tight schedule. Wuthering Heights became somewhat of a challenge with no enforced deadline. Consequently, the composer had some difficulty finding time to complete it and had to retreat from New York and Hollywood to work in earnest. Curiously, in 1948, he found a refuge in Minnesota – his friend Dmitri Mitropoulis was the music director of the Minneapolis Symphony, and his soon-to-be second wife, Lucy Anderson, was living nearby. Herrmann hid himself away, finding solace deep within in the former wcco studios, where he could compose uninterrupted.

After another visit to the English moors in 1949 for his second honeymoon (with Lucy), the opera was completed in 1951, at 3:54 p.m., as Herrmann would meticulously notate on the score. In many respects, the music belongs to his lush neo-Romantic scores of the 40s, which produced such evocative films as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Hangover Square, Jane Eyre, The Magnificent Ambersons and Citizen Kane. Herrmann was not a melodist – most of his signature moments are composed of a repeated 3–5 note motive inverted, reharmonized or reversed, over a rhythmic ostinato. The voices sing in a declamatory “parlando” style, while the orchestra truly tells the story, precipitating the ever-changing atmosphere of the Heights.

The length of the opera – about three-and-a-half hours – presented a daunting task, and the characteristically irascible composer refused to allow any cuts. He believed it to be a natural fit for his English connection, the Halle Orchestra, but the director Sir John Barbirolli claimed they did not have the resources to stage the piece. Most opera companies agreed. San Francisco Opera considered a mounting with Leopold Stokowski (a friend of the composer) as conductor, but the project was dropped due to illness – at least that may have been the polite reason. Herrmann’s aggravation over casting had become the real issue. New York City Opera and Heidelberg Opera were other possibilities that never made it to fruition. In truth, Herrmann’s aggressive personality got in the way of any further prospects, and out of frustration, he underwrote the expense of producing a recording on his own. The opera remained unproduced at the time of his death, and it was not until November 6, 1982, thirty-one years after it was completed, when Portland Opera gave the belated world premiere. In a production that probably caused Herrmann a turn in the grave, about 40 minutes were excised, and the action was rearranged as a flashback, with Lockwood present in an appended epilogue for his first encounter with the aging Heathcliff in desperate search of Catherine’s ghost.

Is Wuthering Heights a gothic tale, infused with the supernatural? Or is it a Victorian romance with star-crossed, yet hopelessly irreconcilable love? Critics were stymied when the original novel first appeared in 1847. Many found it shockingly perverse, while others were surprised by the intensity of the violence, even for a male author (Emily Brontë had published under an alias, Ellis Bell). Contemporaries found its “human beings, like the trees, grow gnarled and dwarfed and distorted by the inclement climate” and the novel “so rude, so unfinished and so careless.” Some opinions were mixed: “The book is original; it is powerful; full of suggestiveness. But still it is coarse … the whole tone of the style of the book smacks of lowness. It would indicate that the writer was not accustomed to the society of gentlemen, and was not afraid, indeed, rather gloried, in showing it.”

Stranger still is that the novel could be written by a personality such as Emily Brontë. The daughter of an Irish parson, she and her siblings, Charlotte, Anne and Branwell, lived in Haworth, Yorkshire in relative isolation. With few other children to play with, the Brontës retreated inside themselves, creating the magical fairy kingdom of Gondal, yielding many beautiful poems. Though her sisters were more adept at participating in the real world, Emily had only lived away from home for short periods, employed as an impatient and unsuccessful governess. She never married, nor were there any offers. Back in Haworth, she was joined by her brother, who had left his position in disgrace after succumbing to his affection for his employer’s wife. Branwell became erratic and turned to drink, and much like Emily’s character Hindley, who loses his wife at an early age, drank himself into a weakened state, then died of tuberculosis. He was said to wander around with a carving knife, ready to meet Satan. One of his bouts with melancholia, which entailed eleven nights without sleep followed by weeks of mental exhaustion and starvation, also imitates Catherine’s breakdown and final illness.

So how Emily Brontë, secluded from society and never knowing romantic love, could write a tempestuous story such as Wuthering Heights remains a mystery. Equally amazing is that her only book could be an enduring literary masterpiece, the subject of several major motion pictures, a pbs mini-series, Mexican (as Abismos de pasión) and French (as Hurlevent) adaptations, an mtv special and two operas (the other being one by Carlisle Floyd, premiered by Santa Fe Opera in 1958). At first glance, the topsy-turvy structure of the novel seems haphazard and rambling. Two narrators are featured, Mr. Lockwood, Heathcliff’s tenant at Thrushcross Grange, and Ellen “Nelly” Dean, alternately housekeeper to the Earnshaws and Lintons. Though commonly set in the 1840s, the opening line states that it is actually 1801, and the narrative consists of the preceding 30 years.

The prologue of the opera focuses on Lockwood’s second visit to the Heights, ancestral home established by an earlier Hareton Earnshaw circa 1500. He is unable to make it home to the Grange due to bad weather and is forced to spend the night. Shown to Catherine’s former lodging by the servant Zillah, he has a series of terrifying dreams, one of which includes the apparition of a child claiming to be Catherine. In the novel, when Lockwood returns to the Grange, Nelly tells the entire story of the three generations inhabiting these acres just outside the city of Gimmerton.

Nelly recalls Hindley and Catherine’s childhood and how she, though the daughter of a retainer, played with them both as an equal. One day, old Mr. Earnshaw goes on a seemingly random trip to Liverpool, and instead of returning with the promised gifts for the children (a whip for Cathy, a fiddle for Hindley and some fruit for Nelly), he presents a gypsy boy, christened Heathcliff after Earnshaw’s first and now-deceased son. The three youths don’t take kindly to the new arrival, informally referring to him as “it.” Father Earnshaw shows a preference for Heathcliff, feeding a growing antipathy with Hindley which would fully manifest itself after the death of both parents. At that time, Hindley has been away at college, and when he returns to the Heights to take his rightful place as lord of the manor, he is accompanied by a new wife, Frances. Enjoying only a brief stretch as mistress of the house, Frances dies after giving birth to Hareton. This brings us to Act I, scene one of the opera and provides the context for Hindley’s excessively brutal behavior.

Between the two scenes of Act I, a little more action takes place. Catherine and Heathcliff have formed a friendship, and on their many wild forays on the moors, happen upon Thrushcross Grange. They peer into the window to see the “civilized” world of Edgar and Isabella Linton as they squabble over the possession of a small pet. The intruders startle the household, and Skulker, the guardian bulldog, sets upon Catherine, biting her on the ankle. Father and mother Linton take her inside to heal, while all the occupants deride the vulgar-tongued and dirtily untamed Heathcliff. Catherine remains for five weeks. Scene two marks her homecoming to the Heights, now a gentrified lady.

Acts II and III remain faithful to their source, though Heathcliff’s return after a three-year absence is slightly more dramatic in the opera (in the book, the reunion is mostly described, not witnessed) as is Isabella’s sudden interest in him. By Act IV she has severely regretted her rash marriage, and in Brontë’s story, Nelly receives the letter she is seen writing, and repeats it from memory verbatim. Not long after that, Isabella, though no longer welcome at the Grange by Edgar for her family betrayal, arrives bleeding from a knife wound delivered by Heathcliff. In the same episode, Hindley has pulled his gun and has been harshly beaten for his efforts. He dies under mysterious circumstances soon after, and Isabella flees to the south of England. Torn between the love for her husband and the primordial bond she feels with Heathcliff, Catherine starves herself to death (at the Grange and not at the Heights as she does in the opera). Heathcliff pays her a secret visit just before she expires and then again at her grave, feverishly trying to lie beside her.

Most adaptations of Wuthering Heights conclude with an anguished Heathcliff bemoaning his fate without Catherine, even dying at that point in some cases. But the novel has another story to tell. In her final hours, Catherine unexpectedly gives birth to a seven-month baby, Cathy II. Nelly skips ahead a number of years to Cathy’s teen years. Edgar has kept her sequestered in the Grange for all this time, though she is yearning to know what lies beyond the park. When Edgar, full of forgiveness, visits a dying Isabella, Cathy sneaks out to Penistone Crags and encounters Hareton for the first time. Edgar returns to the Grange with Linton, the son of Isabella and Heathcliff, but the latter lays claim to his progeny and brings him to the Heights. Cathy and Linton correspond in secret, and a duality of a sort ensues. Life at Wuthering Heights has taken a turn for the worse as Heathcliff treats his sickly son with cruelty and lets Hareton freely roam without education or affection. Edgar is taken ill and just before he dies, Heathcliff detains Cathy and forces her to marry Linton. As women under the marriage laws of the era cannot inherit property, Heathcliff assumes control of the Grange after the perpetually ailing Linton expires two months later.

The circular pattern of Brontë’s novel is finally resolved. At the beginning, Lockwood rents Thrushcross Grange, and after meeting his landlord for the first time, discovers an unhappy, entrapped Cathy II, an unkempt, dimwitted Hareton and an irritable, despondent Heathcliff. By the end, after an absence of many months, Lockwood returns to discover Heathcliff’s passing. Unable to forget Catherine even after 17 years (once again lying beside her corpse when Edgar is laid to rest in the adjacent plot), he also has mortally starved himself and has been buried on the other side of Catherine’s grave. Their souls are rumored to roam the moors.

Wuthering Heights evokes a whirlwind of conflicted sympathies. Is the Byronic Heathcliff truly a villain? He is the first to make a compromise after Catherine’s mannered return to the Heights, asking Nelly to make him “decent” and “good.” He then accumulates wealth in order to please her and expects she will leave her husband. When that doesn’t happen, he marries Isabella to vex her by mirroring Catherine’s own loveless match for material gain. The downward spiral begins, his happiness merely a ghost of what once was. We never find out the terrible things Heathcliff did or who he had to ruin in order to obtain his wealth, but something dark and demonic has occurred. The first sign of damage reveals itself when he hangs Isabella’s pet Springer to hasten their elopement. His physical abuse at Hindley’s hands may psychologically justify his tendency to strike whomever might is arm’s length, be it Isabella, Hareton, Cathy II, Linton or a now-demoralized Hindley. Yet, toward the end of his life, he begins to show signs of tenderness. Heathcliff’s final days are wistfully spent at the window where Lockwood has just seen Catherine’s ghost, and he ends up dying in her bed with his hand reaching out to the open window. His final words to Nelly, “I believe you think me a fiend, something too horrible to live under a decent roof,” seem to indicate that his veil of evil is more intentional than inherent.

An alternate theory suggests Nelly is the motivating force behind the malevolence at the Heights. Benign as she is in the opera, a closer examination of the novel’s text (where she is chief narrator) reveals a sort of Iago-like presence to Catherine and Heathcliff’s Othello. Once treated as an equal in the Earnshaw household, she is relegated to the kitchen by the intruder Heathcliff after a feeble attempt to get rid of him. She is not prepared to be ruled by Catherine as mistress of the Heights or of the Grange, and tacitly shows her contempt on various occasions. She knows Heathcliff is listening when Catherine describes how it would “degrade” her to marry him, thus setting in motion his departure and the ensuing disasters. A pathological busybody, Nelly manages to be nearby or actually in the room at all of the key moments. She adroitly camouflages her errors – as Catherine lies dying, she doesn’t seek medical attention or even inform her employer. Her meddling doesn’t stop with the first generation. She is an essential go-between, allowing forbidden communications between Cathy II and Linton, which eventually guarantees Heathcliff’s triumph over the Grange. Upon Lockwood’s arrival, she seeks him as an ally with her sympathetic telling of the past events, and plots to marry him off to Cathy II to secure her position as housekeeper (not surprisingly, Brontë herself didn’t like to have servants in the house.)

Close family relationships frame the story. There is an undercurrent insinuating Heathcliff is Mr. Earnshaw’s illegitimate child. Certainly Mrs. Earnshaw’s chilly reaction to the additional family member is quite revealing. Catherine’s telling admissions “I am Heathcliff” and “he’s more myself than I am” may be driven by relation of flesh rather than personality. There is a certain lack of sexuality about their dysfunctional connection, yet in the next generation, one interpretation suggests Heathcliff is the real father of Cathy II. The timeline certainly works – he returns to the Heights just seven months before she is born premature. Whether between half-siblings or first cousins, the marriages betray a certain xenophobia that keeps strangers out of the Grange/Heights territory, one reason Lockwood is so coolly welcomed.

Brontë sums up her tale neatly and succinctly. After Linton Heathcliff’s death, Cathy grows closer to her other cousin, Hareton, and transforms the illiterate young man from a simpleton to a gentleman. They marry and move to the Grange, thereby uniting the troubled history of the Earnshaws and Lintons into a future of hope, albeit tenuous. The final lines of the novel, delivered by Lockwood, imply some closure or at least wishful thinking, for Catherine and Heathcliff appear to be finally together in eternity, the intensity of their everlasting bond refusing to be extinguished.

print background notes

Bernard Herrmann

b New York, June 28, 1911; d Los Angeles, December 24, 1975

A first generation American, Bernard Herrmann was the son of Russian immigrants. Originally from Odessa, his father, Abraham Dardick, started as a whaler and plantation worker . Eventually making his way to New York City, Dardick changed his surname to the more German appearing and socially acceptable “Herrmann,” married Ida Gorenstein, studied ophthalmology and opened his own eyewear shop.

His son Benny had two younger siblings, and all three children were exposed to music at an early age. Each learned to play an instrument, and Benny would listen to his father’s 78s as well as attend Young People’s concerts at Carnegie Hall. By age 13 he had read Berlioz’s famous treaty on orchestration, which would later have a profound effect on his remarkable tone color. Herrmann attended New York University and the Juilliard School. At the same time, he became involved with the Young Composers’ Group, with Aaron Copland as its nominal leader, and later formed The New Chamber Orchestra, performing a mixture of newer English and American compositions.

In 1934, Herrmann landed a position as an assistant conductor at cbs Radio. Once firmly established, he began to present adventurous programming, featuring contemporary works by lesser-known composers. As radio was then the premier form of home entertainment, success in the field made Herrmann’s early career. By 1937, he was working on the station’s “Columbia Workshop” and two years later on the drama series “The Mercury Theatre on the Air,” led by a 23-year-old Orson Welles. Their collaboration, the provocative War of the Worlds, resulted in Herrmann’s participation in his first motion picture, Citizen Kane (1941).

Welles later claimed that 50% of the success of Citizen Kane was the music. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences agreed, and nominated the score in 1942. It didn’t win – the award went to another Herrmann project, The Devil and Daniel Webster, his only Oscar. When the cbs Symphony was disbanded in 1951, Herrmann made a clean break and moved to Hollywood. He would significantly challenge the prevailing methods of movie score composition, mired by expatriate composers tethered to 19th-century European traditions. His experience in radio taught him to use less traditional instrumentation that could better convey the drama, and he orchestrated his own music, rarely done in the film industry.

It was in 1954 when his greatest collaboration began with Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry. The director was a tedious micro-manager and would leave notes for his film composers as to exactly what he wanted, and Herrmann was the first to ignore them. In their next work, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), the composer was given a prominent role. In a trademark Hitchcockian cameo in the film’s penultimate pivotal scene at Royal Albert Hall as the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Further Hitchcock movies included The Wrong Man (1956), Vertigo (1958), North By Northwest (1959), and most famously, Psycho (1960). The director wanted the terrifying shower scene to be silent, but Herrmann won him over and created some of his most memorable music, a series of monotone high pitched strings that reflects both the plunging of the blade and the sounds of birds (the murderer’s hobby in the film is taxidermy). Herrmann also worked on Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), but as there was no music, his role was merely advisory. Their next project, Marnie (1964), resulted in a box office failure, and both artists were feeling pressure to knuckle under to Hollywood’s newest trend, a movie’s trademark “title song” that would enhance its marketability. Herrmann was not a superb melodist – his strengths lay elsewhere – and he felt degraded by such a simplistic approach. For Torn Curtain (1966), Hitchcock specifically requested a theme, and as usual, Herrmann disregarded his instructions. When the director first heard the music, he immediately rejected it, paid the composer and found someone else.

Herrmann was devastated by the split. He severed his ties with Hollywood and began to spend more time in England. His mood must have brightened when he received an offer from French director François Truffaut for a film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s futuristic and dystopic Fahrenheit 451 (1966). Though a great fan of modern French composers, Truffaut knew Herrmann would give him music of the 21st century.

The composer’s output slowed in the late 1960s as he turned to making recordings, but his career would take a sudden turn toward the end of his life. While screening the murder sequence of Brian de Palma’s new movie Sisters (1972), a film editor decided to play the shower music from Psycho to fill the silent void. De Palma found that it fit perfectly and Herrmann was engaged for this movie and for the one that followed, Obsession (1974), chosen over John Williams. Martin Scorsese, a longtime fan, hired him to score Taxi Driver, and after completing the final recording session, Herrmann died in his sleep at age 64.

print composer biography

Director's Notes

                                       Eric Simonson

One of the most interesting things about Wuthering Heights  adaptations – in films, plays, musicals and operas – is that the second half of Emily Brontë’s story is usually discarded. Cathy’s death happens about halfway through the novel and the second half of the story details Heathcliff’s later years of spite and longing. This is interesting to me, at least, because I think, despite the fact that half of the tale is missing, it’s usually still there in heart and spirit. Heathcliff’s love is not usual by any stretch of the imagination. It’s fraught with angst and heartbreak and elation and hate and all the most extreme of human emotions. Cathy shares these feelings and together, their love is nuclear charged. So it’s wonderful and fitting that Wuthering Heights  is not just a romance; it’s a gothic romance. There is a supernatural aspect to what is going on here; a suggestion that this love is extraordinary and beyond this mortal world.

In our production, we have embraced the “gothic” and the “natural” (of super-natural) parts of the romance. Bernard Herrmann’s music is a wonderful match in this regard. The composer of great Hitchcock thrillers, as well as classic romances (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Jane Eyre) expresses perfectly the eternal, and eternally haunted, love that overtakes Cathy and Heathcliff. And Wuthering Heights, the building – the lonely manor of a farmhouse, out of the middle barren Moors – is the perfect setting for this ghost story.  

But ultimately, it’s the natural order of things that gets the best of Cathy and Heathcliff. No matter how hard they try, they will never escape two things: their unquenchable love for one another; and the societal order which keeps them apart. Nature – unrelenting, fickle, awesome, lethal, beautiful, and cruel – is their master, and their refuge; and it’s the constant backdrop of this story, Bernard Hermann’s music, and this production.

Recommended Reading

Steven C. Smith

A Heart at Fire's Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights.
New York: Pearson Longman, © 2009.

Recommended Listening

Unicorn-Kachina

Beaton; Bell
Herrmann; Pro Arte Orchestra

Silver Screen Records

Bernard Herrmann – The Essential Film Music Collection
various artists

Milan Records

Bernard Herrmann: Film Scores from Citizen Kane to Taxi Driver
E. Bernstein; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

London

Renée Fleming – I Want Magic – American Opera Arias
(includes Cathy's aria "I have dreamt" from Wuthering Heights)

Recommended Viewing

Music For The Movies: Bernard Herrmann

a documentary directed by Joshua Waletzky

To Learn More …

A class devoted to Wuthering Heights will be held on Monday, April 4, 2011 from 7:00–9:00 p.m. at the Minnesota Opera Center. The discussion will be led by noted film expert Bruce Crawford.