Berkeley BohÉme
Songs and Texts from Bohemian Paris
Friday, June 26Th, 7pm • BERKELEY Hills
Join us at historic Villa Maybeck for an inspired evening of literature and song as author Zack Rogow presents passages from his latest translation, “The Water Drinkers,” offering a window into the 19th century Parisian world of Henry Murger, best known for writing the book that inspired Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohéme. In true salon style, the evening’s readings will be paired with beautiful arias by Puccini and his contemporaries, sung by the renowned Greco-Parisian soprano Daphne Touchais, accompanied by celebrated Berkeley pianist Miles Graber.
“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
The Program
— Opening Introductions —
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Zack Rogow - readings
Daphne Touchais - voice
Miles Graber - piano
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READING
“Bohemia in Paris”
MUSIC
Excerpt from Leoncavallo’s Bohéme
Mimi’s Aria: “Musette Scaria Sulla Bocca Viva”
Excerpts from Puccini’s Bohéme
Musetta's Aria: "Quando m'en vo"
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Reading
“The Water Drinkers”
MUSIC
Two songs on texts by Baudelaire
Henri Duparc: "L'invitation au voyage"
Maurice Rollinat: "Le Jet d'eau"
On the theme of Spleen by Verlaine
Claude Debussy: "Spleen"
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Reading
"Heated Romance in a Cold Spell"
MUSIC
Aria from L'Amour Masqué, by André Messager
"J'ai deux amants"
Aria from Phi Phi by Henri Christiné
"Bien chapeautée"
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– Food, Drinks & Dessert –
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).
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. For more about the Villa Maybeck event space, see: Ljohnharris.com.