Good article about this weekend's performances:
https://triblive.com/aande/music/stewar ... n-theatre/ :
"No one in high school ever said John Milton rocks. Leave it to Stewart Copeland, still best known as the founder and drummer of The Police, to bring that kind of energy to “Paradise Lost.”
Copeland defied F. Scott Fitzgerald’s comment about no second acts in American life by adding a different layer to his music and becoming a successful composer for film and concert halls.
His new piece, “Satan’s Fall,” was commissioned by the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, which has been preparing for its premiere since the fall.
“It’s like no other choral piece I’ve ever done,” says Mendelssohn Choir artistic director Matthew Mehaffey. “It’s rhythm-driven with explosions of sound that are very rock-oriented.”
Mehaffey will conduct the Mendelssohn Choir and an instrumental ensemble in the world premiere of Copeland’s “Satan’s Fall” on Feb. 7 and 8 at the Roxian Theatre in McKees Rocks.
Thinking about Satan
Copeland met Mehaffey in 2016 when the composer came to town to play the world premiere of his Concerto for Trap-Set and Orchestra, “The Tyrant’s Crush,” with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
But he had been thinking about the subject of “Satan’s Fall” for a long time.
Copeland created his libretto from books five and six of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” in which the archangel Gabriel warns Adam and Eve and about Satan.
“It’s often said Satan gets all the best lines,” notes Copeland. “In any tale, the bad guy is usually more interesting than the good guy. That’s just a fundamental of drama.”
He says he’s always been interested in religion and the concept of Satan.
“How can an almighty creator have an adversary?” he asks. “How can there by a yang when the yin is so almighty?”
Copeland quotes Milton about the reactions of the assembled angels to God’s announcement of the messiah to whom all are to bow: “All seem well pleased, but not so well pleased was Satan.”
“My piece,” Copeland says, “is about the three days of battle that result, which waxes and wanes very colorfully and violently and aggressively. To tell the story of this battle, you need 80 men and women on stage singing heavy metal.”
Two different brains
Being a composer engages Copeland with music in a different way than did his life as a rock performer.
“They’re two very different brains at work,” he says. “Playing rock is power and energy, not a lot of thinking, very instinctive. The other guy is a sensitive guy, a contemplative character who loves children.”
Mehaffey selected the repertoire for the show’s opening to be thematically linked with the premiere. He will begin with an arrangement combining The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” with The Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil.”
After two pieces of medieval music and medieval-sounding music, Copeland will come on stage to talk about “Satan’s Fall,” and how the music of composer Carl Orff influenced him. Copeland will then conclude the first half by conducting the Mendelssohn Choir in “O Fortuna,” the famous opening chorus of Orff’s cantata, “Carmina Burana.”
“Satan’s Fall” will be presented after the intermission."
Posted: 07 Aug 2019 16:09