Berkeley Boheme
Firday, June 26Th, 7pm • BERKELEY Hills
Join us at the beautiful and historic Villa Maybeck for an intimate evening
“Known to opera buffs as the author who inspired Puccini’s La Bohème, Henry Murger was actually a more complex, acerbic, and entertaining writer than we might realize. Now, with Zack Rogow’s carefully chosen selection of Murger’s sketches of bohemian life, translated here for the first time, English readers can enjoy the qualities that made Murger both one of the most renowned writers of his day and a master chronicler of the heartbreaks and follies of nineteenth-century Paris.”
—Mark Polizzotti, translator of Flaubert, Modiano, and Duras
The Program
— Opening Reception —
fff
Zack does slideshow and introduces theme of Bohemia in Paris
- Musetta's aria "Quando m'en vo"
One excerpt from Leoncavallo's Bohème:
- Mimi's aria "Musette svaria sulla bocca viva"
Zack reads from The Water Drinkers
Daphne performs two French art songs on texts by Baudelaire:
- Duparc, "L'invitation au voyage"
- Maurice Rollinat, "Le Jet d'eau"
Zack reads final piece from the Murger collection, "Heated Romance in a Cold Spell"
Aria from L'Amour Masqué, by Messager: "J'ai deux amants"
fff
The ARTISTS
Daphne Touchais
Born in Greece, Daphne studied art history and archeology in France before becoming an opera singer. After making her debut on stage as Papagena in Die Zauberflöte in the Netherlands, her career brought her on stages across the world and across genres, from Shanghai to Miami and from early Italian baroque to classic Broadway musicals. Since moving to Berkeley in 2020, she has sung with companies such as Ars Minerva, SF Symphony Chorus, The Albany Consort, West Edge Opera and Pocket Opera. Her upcoming engagements include the chorus concert with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (5/31), two concerts for the Berkeley Early Music Festival - a French cantata by Clerambault with the Handel Opera Project (6/8) and excerpts from Handel’s opera Athalia with The Albany Consort (6/9) - and Beethoven 9th with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (6/18-21).
Zack Rogow
Zack Rogow is the author, translator, or editor of more than 20 books and plays. In addition to Murger’s The Water Drinkers, he has translated Earthlight by André Breton, which received the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Award; and George Sand’s Horace, which received the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award (BABRA). His other translations include Colette’s Green Wheat and Shipwrecked on a Traffic Island. Zack’s translation of Marius by Marcel Pagnol was produced by the Storm Theatre (NYC), and the Aurora Theatre (Berkeley).
Miles Graber
Miles Graber received his musical training at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Anne Hull, Phyllis Kreuter, Hugh Aitken, and Louise Behrend. He has lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1971, where he has developed a wide reputation as an accompanist and collaborative pianist for instrumentalists and singers.
Mr. Graber is a staff accompanist at the San Domenico Conservatory in San Anselmo, California, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Northern California Flute Camp in Carmel Valley. Other accompanying posts have included the Mondavi Center for the Arts Young Artist Competition, the Irving M. Klein International String Competition, and the Summer Brass Institute.
about Villa Maybeck
Designed by Bernard Maybeck in 1921 to resemble a Palladian villa or palazzo, Villa Maybeck is the home of artist, writer and collector, L. John Harris, and a frequent venue for musical performances, poetry readings, plays and lectures. Musaics is delighted to announce that it will present a number of performances at Villa Maybeck in 2025. For more about the Villa Maybeck event space, see: Ljohnharris.com.