Opera on 3: Everest

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Opera on 3

Music: Classical: Opera

Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Opera on 3: Everest, by Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer

Everest, by Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Everest, by Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer

Composer Joby Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer's Everest. Life or death choices await.

Nicole Paiement conducts the UK premiere of Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer's opera Everest. May 1996: a blizzard closes in as four climbers confront the summit of Mount Everest.

The UK premiere of the opera by composer Joby Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer. May 1996, and as their plans disintegrate and a blizzard closes in, four climbers confront the summit of Mount Everest – and a life-or-death choice.  Based on a true story, the opera has a contemporary setting but an eternal theme: the limits of human courage, and the unbreakable power of nature.

Presented by Andrew McGregor
Recorded at the Barbican on Friday 23rd June 2023

Joby Talbot/Gene Scheer: Everest UK Premiere

Beck Weathers:  Daniel Okulitch (baritone)
Doug Hansen:   Craig Verm (baritone)
Jan Arnold:        Siân Griffiths (soprano)
Rob Hall:            Andrew Bidlack (tenor)
Meg Weathers:  Matilda McDonald (treble)
Guy Cotter:        Jimmy Holliday (bass)
Mike Groom:     Charles Gibbs (bass)
BBC Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Nicole Paiement (conductor)
Stephen Higgins (chorus master)
Leonard Foglia (director)
Kristen Barrett (revival director)

This opera contains occasional references and strong language which some listeners may find offensive or upsetting.

SYNOPSIS
Everest, May 10-11, 1996: Bad weather has affected this year's climbing season, and now multiple expeditions are attempting to summit on the same day. A bottleneck of climbers at the notorious Hillary Step has delayed the progress of Rob Hall's group and he now finds himself near the top of the mountain with his client Doug Hansen, long after the agreed turnaround time has passed. Unbeknownst to the two mountaineers, a ferocious storm is brewing below. Meanwhile, further down the mountain, another of Rob's clients, Beck Weathers, lies unconscious as the storm rages around him.

From the shadows of Mount Everest, the spirits of all those who have died attempting to reach the summit sing to Beck Weathers, who is unconscious on the mountain’s South Col. These ethereal spirits now turn their attention to Rob Hall, the expedition leader and guide, who is just reaching Everest’s highest peak at 2:30 p.m., thirty minutes past the safe turnaround time. Rob sees his client Doug Hansen a mere forty feet below.

The scene shifts back to Beck Weathers. In his unconscious, dreamlike state, he hallucinates that he is in his backyard enjoying a Texas barbecue. Beck holds court and begins to describe his experiences on Everest. Suddenly, from the edge of Beck’s consciousness, the voice of his daughter Meg sings to him.

As we see Rob straining to help Doug reach the summit, time stops and Doug sings an aria in which he describes the tormenting deep-seated obsession that has led him to this moment. As Rob takes a picture of Doug, Rob is jarred by the memory of taking pictures of his wife, Jan.

While Rob endeavours to get his client down from the summit of Everest, we see Beck, lying, delirious, on the South Col. Once again, his daughter calls out to him in vain. From the depths of his consciousness, ruminations on his struggle with profound depression slowly merge with the memory of the events that took place on the climb earlier that same day.

Rob is increasingly desperate. He has a disabled client on the top of the mountain as the storm begins raging around them both. Jan, Rob’s wife, is contacted and told of her husband’s life-threatening situation.

Beck, beginning to emerge from his coma, sees the climbers on the South Col huddling together in a frantic attempt to survive the storm. Beck’s internal soliloquy slowly allows him to make sense of what is happening, and to comprehend the cold, hard truth: he is dying.

In a quartet, Doug, Rob, Jan and Beck sing of their plight. As the quartet concludes, we see Rob desperately trying to get Doug to the South Summit, where he hopes they can make it through the night.

Beck has finally woken up to the harsh reality that if he is going to be saved, he will need to do it himself.
[Synposis by Gene Scheer and Joby Talbot, reproduced by permission of Chester Music Ltd.]


Post-Opera mountain music sequence: 

Alan Hovhaness: Symphony No. 2  Op 132 (Mysterious Mountain)
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo (conductor) 
(Live performance at the Barbican on 11/12/2015)

Judith Weir: Ox Mountain was covered by trees
Susan Bickley (mezzo-soprano) Ailish Tynan (soprano)
Iain Burnside (piano) 
      
Delius: Song of the High Hills 
Olivia Robinson (soprano)
Christopher Brown (tenor)
BBC Symphony Chorus 
BBC Symphony Orchestra 
Andrew Davis (conductor) 

Peter Sculthorpe: Mountains for piano
John McCabe (piano)

Jan Sandstrom: Yoik to the Mountain Wind
Swedish Chamber Choir
Simon Phipps (conductor)

Strauss: Alpine Symphony
BBC Symphony Orchestra, 
Semyon Bychkov (conductor) 
(Live performance from the BBC Proms on 28/08/2016)

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