'Written On Skin' (U.S. Stage Premiere)

The Program
08-11 Skin_GP2 copy 7/30/15 2:46 PM Page 1
Tuesday Evening, August 11, 2015 at 7:30

Thursday Evening, August 13, 2015 at 7:30
Saturday Afternoon, August 15, 2015 at 3:00
Written on Skin (U.S. stage premiere)

Opera in Three Parts
Music by George Benjamin
Text by Martin Crimp
This performance is approximately one hour and 40 minutes long

and will be performed without intermission.
Presented in collaboration with the New York Philharmonic as part of
the Lincoln CenterNew York Philharmonic Opera Initiative
(Program continued)
Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off.
The Mostly Mozart Festival presentation of Written on Skin is made possible in part by
major support from Sarah Billinghurst Solomon and Howard Solomon.
These performances are made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center.
David H. Koch Theater
Mostly Mozart Festival
The Mostly Mozart Festival is made possible by Sarah Billinghurst Solomon and Howard Solomon,
Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, Chris and Bruce Crawford, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels
Foundation, Inc., Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, S.H. and Helen R. Scheuer Family Foundation, and
Friends of Mostly Mozart.
Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts.
Artist Catering provided by Zabars and zabars.com
MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center
United Airlines is a Supporter of Lincoln Center
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Summer at Lincoln Center is supported by Diet Pepsi
Time Out New York is a Media Partner of Summer at Lincoln Center
Used by arrangement with European American Music Distributors Company, U.S. and Canadian agent
for Faber Music Ltd., London, publisher and copyright owner
UPCOMING MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL EVENTS:

Thursday Night, August 13, at 10:00 in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse
A Little Night Music
International Contemporary Ensemble
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Pianos
ALLDAI FUJIKURA PROGRAM
flicker; Calling; halcyon; Returning; Sakana; The Voice; Glacier; Breathless
Friday and Saturday Evenings, August 1415, at 7:30 in Avery Fisher Hall
Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra
Cristian Macelaru, Conductor M|M
Lars Vogt, Piano
MOZART: Symphony No. 39
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4
Pre-concert recitals by Jon Manasse, clarinet, Ilya Finkelshteyn, cello, and Jon Nakamatsu, piano,
at 6:30
Friday Night, August 14, at 10:00 in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse
A Little Night Music
Lars Vogt, Piano
SCHUBERT: Sonata in C minor, D.958
BEETHOVEN: Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
M|M
Mostly Mozart debut
For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit MostlyMozart.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at
(212) 875-5766 to learn about program cancellations or request a Mostly Mozart brochure.
Visit MostlyMozart.org for full festival listings.
Join the conversation: #LCMozart
We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the
performers and your fellow audience members.
In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave
before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building.
Written on Skin
(U.S. stage premiere)
Opera in Three Parts

Music by George Benjamin
Text by Martin Crimp
Mahler Chamber Orchestra M|M
Alan Gilbert, Conductor M|M
Christopher Purves, The Protector M|M
Barbara Hannigan, Agns M|M
Tim Mead, Angel 1/Boy M|M
Victoria Simmonds, Angel 2/Marie M|M
Robert Murray, Angel 3/John M|M
Angel Archivists: David Alexander Parker M|M,
Laura Harling M|M, Peter Hobday M|M, Sarah Northgraves M|M
Katie Mitchell, Director M|M
Dan Ayling, Associate Director M|M
Vicki Mortimer, Scenic and Costume Design
Jon Clark, Lighting Design M|M
M|M
Post-performance discussion with George Benjamin, Alan Gilbert, and

Jane Moss on August 11
Post-performance discussion with George Benjamin and Jane Moss on
August 13
Written on Skin is a production of the Aix-en-Provence Festival, in co-production

with the Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam, Thtre du Capitole, Toulouse, and
The Royal Opera, London. It was commissioned by the Aix-en-Provence Festival,
the Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam, Thtre du Capitole, Toulouse, and The Royal
Opera, London.
M|M Mostly Mozart debut
RECORD AD
Welcome to Mostly Mozart

I am pleased to welcome you to the 49th Mostly Mozart Festival, our annual
celebration of the innovative and inspiring spirit of our namesake composer.
This summer, in addition to a stellar roster of guest conductors and soloists,
we are joined by composer-in-residence George Benjamin, a leading contemporary voice whose celebrated opera Written on Skin receives its U.S. stage
premiere. This landmark event is the first in a series of staged opera works to
be presented in a new partnership with the New York Philharmonic.
Written on Skin continues our tradition of hearing Mozart afresh in the context
of the great music of our time. Under the inspired baton of Rene and Robert
Belfer Music Director Louis Langre, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra
delights this year with the Classical repertoire that is its specialty, in addition
to Beethovens joyous Seventh Symphony and Haydns triumphant Creation.
Guest appearances include maestro Cornelius Meister making his New York
debut; Edward Gardner, who also leads the Academy of Ancient Music in a
Mendelssohn program on period instruments; and Andrew Manze with violinist Joshua Bell in an evening of Bach, Mozart, and Schumann. Other preeminent soloists include Emanuel Ax, Matthias Goerne, and festival newcomers
Sol Gabetta and Alina Ibragimova, who also perform intimate recitals in our
expanded Little Night Music series. And dont miss returning favorite Emerson
String Quartet and artists-in-residence the International Contemporary
Ensemble, as well as invigorating pre-concert recitals and lectures, a panel discussion, and a film on Haydn.
With so much to choose from, we invite you to make the most of this rich and
splendid season. I look forward to seeing you often.
Jane Moss
Ehrenkranz Artistic Director
Synopsis
Mostly Mozart Festival I Synopsis
By Martin Crimp
PART I
Scene 1: Chorus of Angels
Erase the Saturday car-park from the market place,
fade out the living, snap back the dead to life.
A Chorus of Angels takes us back 800 years, to a time when every book is
a precious object written on skin. They bring to life two of the storys protagonists: the Protector, a wealthy and intelligent landowner addicted to
purity and violence, and his obedient wife, his property, Agns. One of
the angels then transforms into the third protagonist, the Boy, an illuminator of manuscripts.
Scene 2: The Protector, Agns, and the Boy
In front of his wife, the Protector asks the Boy to celebrate his life and good
deeds in an illuminated book. It should show his enemies in Hell, and his
own family in Paradise. As proof of his skill, the Boy shows the Protector a
flattering miniature of a rich and merciful man. Agns distrusts the Boy and
is suspicious of the making of pictures, but the Protector overrules her and
instructs her to welcome him into their house.
Scene 3: Chorus of Angels
The Angels evoke the brutality of the biblical creation story, invent man and
drown him, bulldoze him screaming into a pit, and its hostility to women,
invent her/strip her/blame her for everything.
Scene 4: Agns and the Boy
Without telling her husband, Agns goes to the Boys workshop to find out
how a book is made. The Boy shows her a miniature of Eve, but she
laughs at it. She challenges the Boy to make a picture of a real woman,
like herself, a woman with precise and recognizable features, a woman that
he, the Boy, could sexually desire.
Scene 5: The Protector and the visitors, John and Marie
As winter comes, the Protector broods about a change in his wifes behavior. She hardly talks or eats, has started to turn her back to him in bed, and
pretends to be asleep, but he knows shes awake and can hear her eyelashes scrape the pillow/like an insect. When Agnss sister Marie arrives
with her husband, John, she questions the enterprise of the book, and in particular the wisdom of inviting a strange Boy to eat at the family table with
Agns. The Protector emphatically defends both Boy and book, and threatens to exclude John and Marie from his property.
The same night, when Agns is alone, the Boy slips into her room to show
her the picture she asked for. At first she claims not to know what he means,
but soon recognizes that the painted image of a sleepless woman in bed is
a portrait of herself, her naked limbs tangled with the covers. As they examine
the picture together, the sexual tension grows until Agns offers herself to
the Boy.
PART II
Scene 7: The Protectors bad dream
The Protector dreams not only that his people are rebelling against the
expense of the book, but also, more disturbingly, that there are rumors of a
secret page, wet like a womans mouth, where Agns is shown gripping
the Boy in a secret bed.
Scene 8: The Protector and Agns
The Protector wakes up from the dream and reaches out for his wife. She,
however, is standing at the window watching black smoke in the distance, as
the Protectors men burn enemy villages.
She asks her husband to touch and kiss her, but hes disgusted at being
approached in this way by his wife and repels her, saying that only her childishness can excuse her behavior. She angrily refuses to accept the label
child, and tells him that if he wants to know the truth about her, he should
go to the Boy: Ask him what I am.
Scene 9: The Protector and the Boy
The Protector finds the Boy in the wood looking at his own reflection in the
blade of a knife. He demands to know the name of the woman who
screams and sweats with you/in a secret bed, is it Agns? The Boy, not
wanting to betray Agns, tells the Protector that he is sleeping with Agnss
sister, Marie, and conjures up an absurd scene of Maries erotic fantasies. The
Protector is happy to believe the Boy, and reports back to Agns that the Boy
is sleeping with that whore your sister.
Believing that what her husband said is true, Agns furiously accuses the Boy
of betraying her. He explains he lied to protect her, but this only makes her
more angry: it wasnt to protect her, it was to protect himself. If he truly loves
her then he should have the courage to tell the truth, and at the same time
punish her husband for treating her like a child. She demands that the Boy, as
proof of his fidelity, create a new, shocking image that will destroy her husbands complacency once and for all.
PART III
Scene 11: The Protector, Agns, and the Boy
The Boy shows the Protector and Agns some pages from the completed
book, a sequence of atrocities that make the Protector increasingly impatient
to see Paradise. The Boy is surprised: he claims that these are indeed pictures
of Paradise here on earth; doesnt the Protector recognize his own family
and property?
Agns then asks to be shown Hell. The Boy gives her a page of writing. This
frustrates Agns because, as a woman, she hasnt been taught to read. But
the Boy goes, leaving Agns and her husband alone with the secret page.
The Protector reads aloud the page of writing. In it the Boy describes in sensuous detail his relationship with Agns. For the Protector, this is devastating,
but for Agns it is confirmation that the Boy has done exactly as she asked.
Excited and fascinated by the writing, indifferent to his distress, she asks her
husband to show her the word for love.
Scene 13: Chorus of Angels and the Protector
The Angels evoke the cruelty of a god who creates man out of dust only to fill
his mind with conflicting desires and make him ashamed to be human. Torn
between mercy and violence, the Protector goes back to the wood, and, cutting one long clean incision through the bone, murders the Boy.
The Protector attempts to reassert control over Agns. She is told what to say,
what she may or may not call herself, and, sitting at a long dining table, is
forced to eat the meal set in front of her to prove her obedience. The
Protector repeatedly asks her how the food tastes and is infuriated by her insistence that the meal tastes good. He then reveals that she has eaten the Boys
heart. Far from breaking her will, this provokes a defiant outburst in which
Agns claims that no possible act of violence, not if you strip me to the bone
with acid, will ever take the taste of the Boys heart out of her mouth.
Scene 15: The Boy/Angel 1
The Boy reappears as an Angel to present one final picture: in it, the Protector
takes a knife to kill Agns, but she prefers to take her own life by jumping from
the balcony. The picture shows her as a falling figure forever suspended by
the illuminator in the night sky, while three small angels painted in the margin
turn to meet the viewers gaze.
Conversation with the Director
Mostly Mozart Festival I Conversation with the Director
Katie Mitchell speaks with Alain Perroux about the staging of Written on Skin.
ALAIN PERROUX: You have directed several plays by Martin Crimp,
notably Attempts on Her Life and The City. What is it that attracts you to
Crimps theatrical world?
KATIE MITCHELL: I love the precision and the rigor of his language. In his
work, the language is like a taut muscle, with nothing flabby or slack about
it. That means the director has to set the bar very high, and really try their
utmost to ensure this language gets across to the audience. I love the challenge that represents. I also love the austerity of the ideas that his works
feed on, which are about time, failed love, society, and how it takes the
wrong path.
When it starts, you think the play is telling a simple love story between a
man and a woman, when in fact its dealing with much broader ideas, like
the failure of communism, the collapse of capitalism, or the meaning of life.
Martins plays put caustic language together with big ideas, with a very precise, highly developed sense of psychologybecause Martin is a great
master of psychology. Each of his plays is a very finished piece of work.
AP: These are qualities that appear in the text for Written on Skin. Do you
find elements in it that are specific to the genre of opera?
KM: The biggest difference between one of Martins plays and this opera
text is that at a basic level it has fewer words. Martin here creates a very
economical language that allows George Benjamin to fill the spaces
between the words with music and sound. This text is just the tiniest bit
more poetic, its closer to a poem than a play, but it responds to the psychological demands that theater makes of a text. It manages to distill a narrative and dramatic content into a form that can be set to music, without
losing the psychological imperatives or clarity.
AP: How do you deal with the highly distinctive lines where the characters
are narrating their own actions?
KM: This technique is a challenge for the director and the performer, who
doesnt know if he or she is the narrator or the person being narrated! Of
course, you can choose to ignore it, but then the result would turn out
vague. So we have to find a justification to explain why the characters are
describing themselves in this way, and consequently why their past
actions and words are in a present-day frameanother feature that is quite
original and fairly complex to deal with.
We decided that there should simply be two very clearly represented periods: that of the narrators, and that of the characters. I thought if the narrator-characters relate the things theyre doing, they must have done them
before. So why not make them come back from the dead and ask them to
Mostly Mozart Festival I Conversation with the Director
repeat their past gestures? That sounds complicated to me when I describe

it, but for the audience it will be very easy to grasp. Youll see people brought
back to life to act out the most difficult parts of their lives again, while theyre
narrating them. Were trying to create a world in which this narration never
detracts from the power of the human situations that the opera is exploring.
AP: Vicki Mortimers sets and costumes also contribute a great deal to making these different dimensions clear. How do you go about making two different periods co-exist in the same space?
KM: There are two periods being shown in this opera, and our aim was to
make this clear on stage. At the beginning, we spent a lot of time doing
research on the 13th century and on events that happened to real people. Its
our job to make sure that the performers gestures seem as true, precise,
and believable as in real life, within a powerful world. We looked closely at
the architecture and clothes of that period, and read its literature. And it
dawned on us that we couldnt stay completely in the 13th century. It clicked
into place when we realized that we did not have to follow the rules of naturalism. The tone of the opera is like a form of surrealism, the surrealism of
dreams, where everything looks real down to the last detail, but without the
logic of life. In a dream like that, the people of the 13th century can come
back to life and act in the world of today. That makes the mixture of today
and long ago much easier.
AP: To what extent does George Benjamins music influence your production?
KM: In an opera production the music determines all your choices, much
more than the text of a play. Usually I decide whether to accept or turn down
a project Im offered on the basis of the sound. Sometimes the plot is interesting, but really what persuades me to accept or decline an offer is the
sound of the work. I decided to agree to direct Written on Skin after I heard
[George Benjamins] Into the Little Hill. I thought, Thats a fascinating musical landscape, so beautifulI have to do it!
Extract of the Festival dAix-en-Provence 2012 program book, courtesy of

Festival dAix-en-Provence. Translation from the French by Kenneth Chalmers.
Note on the Music
Mostly Mozart Festival I Note on the Music
By Paul Schiavo
Written on Skin (200912)

GEORGE BENJAMIN
Born January 31, 1960, in London
What is the relationship between spiritual experience and physical passion? How does the past inform the present, and vice versa? Can art
speak truth to power, and at what cost? Can love and self-sacrifice overcome violence and cruelty?
These are some of the questions posed in Written on Skin, the provocative opera by composer George Benjamin and author Martin Crimp. First
performed in 2012 at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Written on Skin
receives its U.S. stage premiere at this years Mostly Mozart Festival,
where Benjamin is composer-in-residence. Written on Skin is his second
opera, and his second collaboration with Crimp. Their earlier chamber
opera, Into the Little Hill (2006), will also be performed in concert at Alice
Tully Hall on Sunday. Although executed on a larger scale, Written on
Skin extends themes, dramaturgical devices, and musical procedures
broached in the earlier work. Among these are the investing of a centuries-old tale with modern significance; examining the position of art
and artists in a corrupt, materialist society; merging narration and dialogue into a novel hybrid; and using unconventional instruments to
achieve new sonorities.
It may seem surprising that Benjamin waited until he was 50 before composing his first full-scale opera. Born in London in 1960, he began writing
music early and was only 16 when he was admitted to the Paris
Conservatory, where he studied with Olivier Messiaen and attended the
French composers famed analysis class. Unbeknownst to his students,
Messiaen was at that time working on his opera Saint Franois dAssise,
and he devoted his classthe last one he taught before retiring from the
Conservatory facultylargely to examining major operas. Yet that study,
and further work at Cambridge University, did not lure Benjamin quickly
into opera. In fact, he didnt leap quickly into any compositional genre.
Instead, Benjamin proceeded deliberately during his 20s and 30s, grappling with the problems of late-modern music, in which old rules and procedures no longer held sway and composers faced a dizzying array of possibilities. Working slowly, he established a coherent and expressive style
and made his reputation chiefly by way of orchestral music.
Significantly, though, Benjamins orchestral compositions tended to draw
inspiration from literary or pictorial ideas. Ringed by the Flat Horizon, his
first major work (completed when he was 20), evokes the picture of a
thunderstorm in the New Mexico desert and verses by T.S. Eliot. At First
Light was inspired by a painting of Turners, and Sudden Time takes its
title and generative idea from the Wallace Stevens poem Martial
Cadenza. Other early works use poetic texts more explicitly. A Mind of
Winter is a setting for soprano and small orchestra of another Stevens poem,
The Snow Man, Benjamins music evoking the bare, frozen landscape suggested by the verses. Upon Silence, for mezzo-soprano and strings, employs
as its text William Butler Yeatss Long-legged Fly.
All this suggests a composer for whom opera would seem a fertile medium.
Benjamin long considered writing such a work, and for years he jotted down
in a notebook possible subjects for operatic treatment. His list reportedly
extended to some 50 ideas before a chance meeting with Crimp, in 2005, led
to the creation of Into the Little Hill. Benjamin completed the score for that
piece in six monthsvery quickly, by his standardsand Written on Skin
confirmed that opera was indeed a congenial format for him. The composer
credits both the narrative structure of opera and his collaborator for the relative ease with which he was able to compose these works. Its having a story
to tell, and its having such an interesting and provocative and structural and
imaginative person to work with, he told an interviewer. He [Crimp] multiplies my speed of composition by eight times....
Benjamins contribution to both operas has proved dynamic and imaginative,
and his music for Written on Skin illuminates the story in remarkable ways.
Avoiding the conventions of Romantic operabig arias, excessive emotional
effusion, purely illustrative sonoritiesit conveys the tension, violence, and
tenderness of the various scenes while creating what is often an otherworldly atmosphere. The fairly large orchestra for which it is scored includes
unusual instruments, among them bass viol, cowbells, mandolins, and glass
harmonica. The vocal lines are seamlessly woven into a fabric of kaleidoscopically changing instrumental colors and textures. Integration of vocal and
instrumental music, a goal of modern opera for well over a century, has rarely
been so well-achieved.
Written on Skin is loosely based on an incident that reportedly befell the

Catalan troubadour Guillem de Cabestaing (11621212). As related in a razo,
an explanatory text giving background to a troubadours story-song, Guillem
fell in love with his patrons wife, with tragic consequences. In refashioning
the story as an opera, Crimp has preserved its essence while making notable
changes. For one thing, the identities of the main characters are altered. The
vengeful husband is known only as the Protector, a title replete with irony.
His wife is called Agnsfittingly, since she is indeed a sacrificial lamb. And
instead of a troubadour, her lover is a visual artist, a maker of illuminated manuscripts, the ornately illustrated tomes that were so laboriously created during
the Middle Ages. He, too, is not named but is called only the Boy, a moniker
suggestive of youth and innocence. So, too, does his voice; Benjamin wrote
the role for a countertenor.
The text includes a band of angels who function like the chorus in Greek
drama. These celestial beings also provide one of the protagonists, the Boy,
who appears as an angel transformed. Crucially, however, the Boy is not just
an angel but an artist. The opera clearly equates the two and implies that the
Boys angelic attributes are also those of artists generally. But uniquely to
artists, the Boy is able to impart meaning to human experience. On one level,
he can extol his patrons riches and high social standing. More essentially, the
Boy validates Agnss existence not only by showing her love but by transforming that experience into art.
In a crucial scene, Agns, upon hearing the account of their passion the Boy has
written, demands to be shown the word for love in his manuscript, as though
the emotion she has felt will become real, or least attain heightened reality, by
being transformed into a symbol. Here the full import of the operas title
becomes clear. Written on Skin indicates not just script upon the artificial skin of
parchment by which books were created in the Middle Ages, it also tells of the
power of writingof artto move us viscerally and even awaken us physically.
Paul Schiavo serves as program annotator for the St. Louis and Seattle
Symphonies, and writes frequently for concerts at Lincoln Center.
Copyright 2015 by Paul Schiavo
Conversation with the Composer
Mostly Mozart Festival I Conversation with the Composer
The following is excerpted from an interview with George Benjamin by

Alain Perroux.
ALAIN PERROUX: Would it be right to think of your first operatic work, Into
the Little Hill, as a stage along the road to the large form that youve
developed in Written on Skin?
GEORGE BENJAMIN: Writing music for the theater has always been an
ambition of mine, and it is something that transferred into my instrumental
pieces. But up until now I had held back from writing an opera for three reasons: I didnt feel technically ready, I found it hard to arrive at a way of composing that allowed me to be direct, authentic, and modern all at the same
time, and most of all, I hadnt yet found the right person to collaborate with.
After 20 years of looking, I had almost given up hope, when, thanks to the
efforts of a mutual friendthe scholar and violist Laurence DreyfusI came
into contact with Martin Crimp. Another factor was the enthusiasm of
Josphine Markovits, musical director of the Festival dAutomne in Paris.
She offered to present our first opera as part of a retrospective of my music
in Paris in 2006, and so we wrote Into the Little Hill. I had only six months
to compose this first opera, so I had to be pragmatic. It was going to be the
longest piece I had written, by far, at 40 minutesand at the time I couldnt
envisage writing a complete opera for a full orchestra. After that experience,
which proved most happy, Martin and I wanted to work together again.
AP: The question faced by every opera composer is the necessity of the
music in relation to the text. How have you answered it?
GB: This is the question I asked myself in every bar. What is the dramatic purpose of the music if it is not to be reduced to creating a generalized emotion,
like in film music? What is its purpose at every second of the drama and
within the structure of the opera? Because it doesnt make sense if the overall form works well, but the intensity of the moment is weak, or vice versa.
Besides, its not possible any more to compose operas as was done in the
19th century or in the early 20th. Now that were accustomed to cinematic
realism, it seems impossible to me to write a realistic opera like those from
the turn of the 20th century. To me, a domestic drama with post-serial music
sounds wrong; youre always asking the question, Why are they singing?
AP: In what way did Martin Crimps theatrical world make it possible for you
to resolve this issue?
GB: In both our operas, Martin and I chose ancient stories observed from a
contemporary vantage point. And the means of employing this element of
perspective are incredibly simple: the characters are their own narrators. I
find this technique interesting for a number of reasons. The singers can
demonstrate to the audience that the dramatic situation is artificial: whats
on stage does not pretend to be reality. The audience can then perhaps be
more at ease, as there is no attempt to disguise the strangeness of the
medium, and I believe this in turnalmost paradoxicallyopens the way for

a greater degree of spontaneity and dramatic immediacy.
AP: Over all, your vocal writing is extremely varied.
GB: I above all wanted to avoid the zigzagging clich of much contemporary
vocal writing. So in the main I avoided constant changes of register, and certain disjunct intervals which have become somewhat stale to my ears. I was
particularly keen for the vocal line to reflect the characters intentions at every
moment, through their tessitura, rhythmic pacing, and intervallic flavor, as I try
to serve the drama and find a degree of truth. Ive tried to avoid a generic
response to the text at all times. Besides, the vocal parts of Written on Skin
were not composed in the abstract, but specifically for the singers who first
performed the roles. I met each singer a long time before starting to compose,
and took page after page of notes on the specific qualities of their voices.
AP: Your orchestration is also very varied. You have a fairly classic basis of
strings, woodwind, and brass, but with a lot of percussion and some rare
instruments like the bass viol and the glass harmonica added. What is the reason for this unusual amalgam?
GB: Its essential that most of the words are audibleand I didnt want the
singers to have to shout and fight the orchestra. So the orchestral norm is
restraint and clarity. As a result, the rare moments when this norm is broken
make an impact. I use the orchestra like a colored background, almost as an
illuminator might; it envelops the singers in a constantly changing tissue of
sound. Conventional instruments are sometimes used in ways that are anything but conventional. For example, in Scene 7, the scene of the Protectors
nightmare, I wanted the characters to sing in a rapid, hushed manner, and that
means that the orchestra has to be very soft. But because this was a nightmare, I also felt the necessity to create a lumpy, heavy, thick, almost sickening sound, akin to the feeling of being trapped in a bad dream. So at that point
many instruments play, but all in the low register, and most with special mutes
that dampen the sound.
AP: Verdi spoke of the tinta or distinctive color that he tried to find for each
opera. What would you say was the color of Written on Skin?
GB: Although we were telling this story from a contemporary point of view,
the image of medieval illuminators and their technique was a key source of
inspiration for both Martin and me. What does one see in an illumination? A
formal frame, sometimes with a high degree of colorful ornamentation, and
inside this frame a fairly abstract representation of a religious scene or a scene
from nature. The score of Written on Skin is something similar: it is made up
of a succession of frames. These are not presented as segregated blocks, for
the music flows across them, but beneath the rhythmic and architectural surface you find a continuous sequence of frames.
In Umberto Ecos book On Beauty I discovered some images of the apocalypse from a remarkable 11th-century Spanish manuscript. The book dates
from a period before that of Written on Skin. Its style is more primitive, but
the colors of its illuminations are absolutely extraordinary: they all share a similar geometric background against which are placed fantastically inventive
imagery. The relationship between the formal background and this fantastic
imagery is all the more astounding in that they never merge, but interact. The
result is coarser and less decorative than in the most famous illuminated
books, such as Les Belles Heures du Duc de Berry. Less ornate, less complex,
with primary colors, but an extraordinary range of imagery. This is the tinta that
I was looking for in Written on Skin.
Extract of the Festival dAix-en-Provence 2012 program book, courtesy of

Festival dAix-en-Provence. Translation from the French by Kenneth Chalmers.
MAURICE FOXALL
Meet the Artists
Mostly Mozart Festival I Meet the Artists
George Benjamin
George Benjamin (composer) studied composition with Olivier Messiaen
and piano with Yvonne Loriod. His first orchestral work, Ringed by the Flat
Horizon, was performed at the BBC Proms when he was only 20. Antara
was commissioned by IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination
Acoustique/Musique) for the tenth anniversary of the Centre Pompidou in
1987. Mr. Benjamin conducted the first performances of Sudden Time at the
Meltdown festival at Southbank Centre in 1993 and Three Inventions for
chamber orchestra at the Salzburg Festival in 1995. The London Symphony
Orchestra and Pierre Boulez gave the world premiere of Palimpsests in 2002
to mark the opening of the LSOs season-long retrospective of his work, By
George, a project that also included the premiere by Pierre-Laurent Aimard
of Shadowlines.
Mr. Benjamins Into the Little Hill, a chamber opera to a text by Martin Crimp,
premiered in Paris in 2006 as part of a retrospective of his work at the
Festival dAutomne. Written on Skin, their second collaboration, was commissioned and premiered by the Aix-en-Provence Festival and has subsequently been scheduled in over 20 cities worldwide. The opera has been
recorded and broadcast, and is the recipient of prizes in the UK and abroad.
Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Crimp are now working on their third operatic creation,
a full-scale opera for the Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden, to be premiered in 2018. His latest work, Dream of the Song, for countertenor,
female voices, and orchestra, will be premiered by the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra in September 2015.
Mr. Benjamin is a CBE, Commandeur dans lOrdre des Arts et des Lettres,
and an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society. He lives in
London, and since 2001 he has been the Henry Purcell Professor of
Composition at Kings College, London. Mr. Benjamin is this summers
Mostly Mozart Festival composer-in-residence.
GAUTIER DEBLONDE/NB PICTURES
Martin Crimp
Martin Crimp (text) was born in 1956
and began writing for theater in the
1980s. His plays include The Rest
Will Be Familiar to You from Cinema
(2013), In the Republic of Happiness
(2012), Play House (2012), The City
(2008), Fewer Emergencies (2005),
Cruel and Tender (2004, written for
director Luc Bondy), Face to the Wall
(2002),
The
Country
(2000),
Attempts on Her Life (1997), The
Treatment (1993), Getting Attention
(1992), No One Sees the Video
(1991), Play with Repeats (1989), Dealing with Clair (1988), and Definitely the
Bahamas (1987). His work is translated into many languages and produced all
over the world.
Mr. Crimps translations include Gross und Klein (2012), Rhinoceros (2007),
The False Servant (2004), The Triumph of Love (1999), The Maids (1999), The
Chairs (1997), Roberto Zucco (1997), a new version of The Seagull (2006) for
Londons National Theatre, and a contemporary adaptation of The
Misanthrope (1996).
Mr. Crimp has written two opera texts for George Benjamin: Into the Little Hill
and Written on Skin.
CHRIS LEE
Alan Gilbert
Alan Gilbert (conductor), music director of the New York Philharmonic,
began his tenure with the orchestra
in 2009, the first native New Yorker
in the post. He and the Philharmonic
have introduced the positions
of composer-in-residence, artist-inresidence, and artist-in-association;
CONTACT!, the new-music series;
the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, an exploration of todays music; and the New
York Philharmonic Global Academy,
collaborations with partners worldwide offering training of pre-professional musicians, often alongside performance residencies.
In the 201516 season Mr. Gilbert conducts Richard Strausss Ein Heldenleben to welcome concertmaster Frank Huang, Carnegie Halls opening-night
gala, and five world premieres. He will co-curate the second NY PHIL BIENNIAL and perform on violin in Messiaens Quartet for the End of Time. He also
leads the Philharmonic as part of the Shanghai Orchestra Academy
Residency and Partnership and appears at Santa Barbaras Music Academy of
the West. Philharmonic tenure highlights have included acclaimed stagings of
Ligetis Le Grand Macabre, Janceks The Cunning Little Vixen, Stephen
Sondheims Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson, and
Honeggers Joan of Arc at the Stake starring Marion Cotillard, as well as 24
world premieres, The Nielsen Project, Verdis Requiem, Bachs B-minor
Mass, the score from 2001: A Space Odyssey alongside the film, Mahlers
Resurrection Symphony on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and nine tours
around the world.
Conductor laureate of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of Hamburgs NDR Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Gilbert
regularly conducts leading orchestras nationally and internationally. In 201516
he makes debuts with Teatro alla Scala Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden,
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and the London Symphony Orchestra,
and he returns to the Cleveland Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony
Orchestra. The Juilliard Schools director of conducting and orchestral studies,
his honors include election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
(2014) and a Foreign Policy Association Medal (2015).
CHRIS GLOAD
Christopher Purves
Baritone Christopher Purves (The
Protector) has received much praise
for his acclaimed interpretations of a
diverse range of roles and repertoire.
Highlights in 201415 include Philip
Glasss The Perfect American with
Opera Queensland at the Brisbane
Festival; Handels Messiah in Perth,
Adelaide, and Melbourne, and with
the Washington Symphony Orchestra; the title role of Gianni Schicchi at
Opera North; St. John Passion at the
Royal Concertgebouw; St. Matthew
Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music; Pellas et Mlisande at Welsh
National Opera; and Saul at Glyndebourne.
In 201314 Mr. Purvess engagements included Alberich in Das Rheingold at
Houston Grand Opera, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at Lyric Opera of
Chicago and Scottish Opera, Written on Skin with Opra Comique in Paris,
Elgars The Kingdom at the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra,
Haydns Die Schpfung with the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, Handels
Messiah with Le Concert dAstre, and Berliozs Lenfance du Christ with the
BBC Symphony Orchestra. Other recent operatic highlights include appearances at the Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden, Teatro alla Scala, Salzburger
Festspiele, Berlin and Bavarian State Operas, Netherlands Opera, and English
National Opera.
Mr. Purves has a great affinity for contemporary repertoire and has originated
roles in a number of world premieres, most notably the Protector in George
Benjamins Written on Skin at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Royal Opera
HouseCovent Garden, Bavarian State Opera, and Netherlands Opera, and the
role of Walt Disney in The Perfect American at Madrids Teatro Real and
English National Opera.
An established singer of Baroque music, Mr. Purvess recent highlights include
appearances with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of
Ancient Music, Gabrieli Consort, and Le Concert dAstre. In 2012 his debut
solo CD, Handels Finest Arias for Base Voice, with Arcangelo and Jonathan
Cohen, was released on Hyperion Records to critical acclaim.
Barbara Hannigan
RAPHAEL BRAND
A frequent guest of the Berlin

Philharmonic, soprano Barbara
Hannigan (Agns) has appeared with
most of the other leading orchestras
and conductors worldwide, including
Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski, Kirill
Petrenko, Alan Gilbert, Antonio
Pappano, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Much sought after in contemporary
music, Ms. Hannigan has devoted an
extraordinary amount of her life to
singing the music of our time, and
has given over 80 world premieres.
She has worked extensively with composers including Gyrgy Ligeti, Pierre
Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, Gerald Barry, Salvatore Sciarrino, George Benjamin,
and Hans Abrahamsen, to name a few.
As a singing actress, her operatic repertoire includes her highly praised debut
as Bergs Lulu at La Monnaie in Brussels, Marie in Zimmermanns Die
Soldaten at the Bavarian State Opera, and Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, also
at La Monnaie. She will make role debuts as Mlisande (Aix-en-Provence
Festival) and in La voix humaine (Paris National Opera) this season.
Ms. Hannigan made her own conducting debut in 2010 at the Thtre du
Chtelet in Paris with Stravinskys Renard, and has since conducted the
Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, National Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome,
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne,
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Her conducting debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam was awarded De Ovatie
prize for the best classical concert of 2014.
For her performances in 2012 and 2013 Ms. Hannigan was named Singer of
the Year by Opernwelt magazine and Musical Personality of the Year by the
Syndicate of the French Press. Her 2013 Deutsche Grammophon recording of
Dutilleuxs Correspondances with Salonen and the Orchestre Philharmonique
de Radio France won the Gramophone Award as well as Frances Victoires de
la Musique.
BENJAMIN EALOVEGA
Tim Mead
British countertenor Tim Mead
(Angel 1/Boy) most recently triumphed in the title role of the U.S.
premiere of Handels Riccardo primo
at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
Highlights of the 201415 season
included the title role in Philip Glasss
Akhnaten at Opera Vlaanderen, the
world premiere of Theo Loevendies
The Rise of Spinoza at the
Concertgebouw, Bachs B-minor
Mass with the English Concert,
Messiah with the Handel and Haydn
Society and Academy of Ancient Music, and a solo recital in Rome. This
autumn Mr. Mead will make his role debut as Oberon in Brittens A
Midsummer Nights Dream at Bergen National Opera.
Operatic highlights include Goffredo and Eustazio in Rinaldo; the title role in
Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne; Endimione in La Calisto at the Bavarian State
Opera; the Voice of Apollo in Death in Venice at English National Opera and
the Netherlands Opera; Tolomeo in Julius Caesar and Ottone in
Lincoronazione di Poppea at English National Opera; the title role in Orlando
at Scottish Opera and Chicago Opera Theater; and the world premiere of The
Minotaur for the Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden.
In concert Mr. Mead has sung with the New York Philharmonic, Orchestra of
the Age of Enlightenment, Le Concert dAstre, Royal Scottish National
Orchestra, Les Arts Florissants, London Handel Festival, the Netherlands Bach
Society, the English Concert, Akademie fr Alte Musik Berlin, and the Dresden
Baroque Orchestra, among others. His extensive discography includes Bachs

St. Matthew Passion and B-minor Mass, Handel operas and oratorios, and
Monteverdis Lincoronazione di Poppea.
Mr. Mead studied music as a choral scholar at Kings College, Cambridge,
before continuing his vocal studies at the Royal College of Music.
MAT SMITH PHOTOGRAPHY
Victoria Simmonds
In 1999 mezzo-soprano Victoria
Simmonds (Angel 2/Marie) sang an
acclaimed Rosina in Il barbiere di
Siviglia for British Youth Opera and
Sesto in La clemenza di Tito for
Glyndebourne Tour. In 2000 Ms.
Simmonds made her English
National Opera debut as Nancy Tang
in John Adamss Nixon in China, and
she went on to become a company
principal. She has sung at all of the
major UK opera companies and created the title role in Jonathan Doves
highly acclaimed The Adventures of Pinocchio for Opera North, a role that she
reprised in 2010. Engagements abroad include appearances at the Aix-enProvence Festival, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Opernhaus Halle, and the
Netherlands Opera.
Recent and future operatic commitments include Fox in The Cunning Little
Vixen for Garsington Opera, a new commission by Luke Bedford for the Royal
Opera HouseCovent Garden, Mad Hatter and Alices Mother in Alice in
Wonderland, Minsk Woman in Jonathan Doves Flight for Opera Holland Park,
and Boy in Joanna Lees The Way Back Home for English National Opera.
Ms. Simmonds sang a major role in the world premiere of Written on Skin, as
well as at the Netherlands Opera, Opra Comique, Royal Opera House
Covent Garden, La Scala, Wiener Festwochen, and the Bavarian State Opera.
She reprises the role in a European tour with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
Other engagements include a tour to Singapore with London Sinfonietta,
Janceks Glagolitic Mass with the Cambridge University Musical Society,
Beethovens Ninth Symphony for Garsington Opera, Verdis Requiem for the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Haydns Lord Nelson Mass with City of
London Choir, Elgars The Dream of Gerontius in Wells Cathedral and with
Berliner Kantorei, Tippets A Child of Our Time with the Auckland Philharmonia
Orchestra, and a recording of Offenbachs Fantasio for Opera Rara.
SUSSIE AHLBURG
Robert Murray
Tenor Robert Murray (Angel 3/John)
studied at the Royal College of
Music and the National Opera
Studio. He was a Jette Parker Young
Artist at the Royal Opera House
Covent Garden. Operatic roles
include Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni
for the Royal Opera HouseCovent
Garden, the title role in Albert
Herring for Glyndebourne Tour, Tom
Rakewell in The Rakes Progress for
Garsington Opera, Ferrando in Cos
fan tutte for Opera North, Benvolio in
Romo et Juliette at the Salzburg Festival, the Earl of Essex in Brittens
Gloriana at the Staatsoper Hamburg, and Bob Boles in Peter Grimes at the
Aldeburgh Festival.
Concert performances include Haydns Lord Nelson Mass with John Eliot
Gardiner for the BBC Proms, the Evangelist in Bachs St. John Passion for the
London Handel Festival, Mendelssohns Elijah at the BBC Proms with the
Gabrieli Consort & Players, and Mozarts Requiem at Londons Mostly Mozart
Festival at the Barbican Centre with Harry Christophers and the Sixteen. At the
Aldeburgh Festival he has performed Brittens War Requiem with Simone
Young, and Brittens Our Hunting Fathers with the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Ads. At the Edinburgh International
Festival Mr. Murray has performed in Strausss Elektra with the Royal Scottish
National Orchestra and Edward Gardner, Deliuss A Mass of Life with Andrew
Davis, and Purcells King Arthur, or The British Worthy with Harry Christophers
and the Sixteen.
Recent and future engagements include a tour of Handels Messiah with the
Academy of Ancient Music, Haydns Creation with Gustavo Dudamel and the
Simn Bolvar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, a return to Bostons Handel
and Haydn Society, and a tour of George Benjamins Written on Skin with the
Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
David Alexander Parker

Actor David Alexander Parker (Angel
Archivist) trained at Arts Educational
Schools London and also earned a
bachelors degree with honors in theater, film, and television from the
University of Leeds. He started acting at a young age while touring with
the National Youth Music Theatre
and began television work at age 16
on the BBC. In 2012 and 2013 Mr.
Parker toured throughout Europe as
part of the original acting ensemble
in Written on Skin. He has also
played Friar Lawrence in Shooting Stars Theatre Companys production of
Romeo and Juliet. Mr. Parker has appeared in the feature film Psychotic and
the short film Shifter, shown at Londons FrightFest at the Empire Leicester
Square. He also appears in the short films Versus, The Guardian of Thebes,
Grace Under Pressure, and The Green Man. He recently appeared in a commercial for Bulmers Cider and will appear in both a documentary for Discovery
ID and a Virgin Stills campaign later this year.
Laura Harling
Laura Harling (Angel Archivist) studied fine art at Kingston University
before training as an actor at Drama
Studio London. Her theater credits
include Lovesong of the Electric Bear
(the Hope Theatre), Say It with
Flowers (Hampstead Theatre),
Written on Skin (Royal Opera House
Covent Garden and European tour),
On Misanthrope (Etcetera Theatre),
The Moonflower (Riverside Studios),
Woman Bomb (Tristan Bates), Dido
and Aeneas (the Actors Church), A
Midsummer Nights Dream (Rose Playhouse), A Woman Alone (Jack Studio
Theatre), A Christmas Carol (Barbican/Royal Shakespeare Company), and
Morning and Evening (Hampstead Theatre). She has appeared in several films
as well, including Robert Altmans Gosford Park, Suri Krishnammas New Years
Day, and Jeff Woolnoughs Lost Souls. Ms. Harlings television credits include
Silent Witness, My Family, Casualty, David Copperfield, The History of Tom
Jones, a Foundling (BBC); Invasion Earth (BBC Scotland); and Young Jane in
Jane Eyre (London Weekend Television). Ms. Harling also works as a theater
producer. In 2010 she established First Draft Theatre, where she works with
writers to develop new ideas.
Peter Hobday
Actor Peter Hobday (Angel Archivist)
trained at the Royal Central School of
Speech and Drama in London. His
theater credits include The Cherry
Orchard (Young Vic), Bird (Forward
Theatre Project, UK tour 201415),
Say It with Flowers (Hampstead
Theatre), On Misanthrope (Etcetera
Theatre), Hugh (Arcola Theatre), Sold
(Pleasance Courtyard), The Edge
(New Diorama), and Divine Words
(Central School of Speech and
Drama). He has also made several
opera appearances, including performances in The Way Back Home (Young
Vic) and Written on Skin (Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden and European
tour). He has performed in the film Roses in Winter and also has appeared on
television in The Mimic.
Sarah Northgraves
Sarah Northgravess (Angel Archivist)
theater credits include appearances
in Katie Mitchells productions of
Alcina (Aix-en-Provence Festival),
Say It with Flowers (Hampstead
Theatre Downstairs), and Written on
Skin (Aix-en-Provence Festival, Royal
Opera HouseCovent Garden, and
European tour), as well as Attempts
on Her Life and Ivanov (National
Theatre). Ms. Northgraves has also
appeared in Claim and Shame
(Theatre 503), A Dolls House
(Greenwich Playhouse), Tis Pity Shes a Whore (White Bear), Miss Julie
(Brockley Jack), Dangerous Corner (UK tour), Murder by Misadventure (UK
tour), Storeys (Man in the Moon), Bloody Poetry (Bristol Old Vic Studio and
tour), A Clergymans Daughter (Southwark Playhouse), King Jamess Ear (Old
Red Lion), Doctor Faustus, Leonardos Last Supper, and The White Devil. She
has appeared in a short film, Train Station.
Katie Mitchell
Katie Mitchells (director) recent theater productions include Happy Days
(Schauspielhaus, Hamburg), a remounting of five of her previous productions
at Brandstichter 2015 (Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam); 2071 (Royal Court

Theatre, London); The Cherry Orchard (Young Vic, London); The Forbidden
Zone (Salzburg Festival and Schaubhne, Berlin); A Sorrow Beyond Dreams
(Burgtheater, Vienna); Lungs and The Yellow Wallpaper (Schaubhne, Berlin);
The Rest Will Be Familiar to You from Cinema (Schauspielhaus, Hamburg); Say
It with Flowers and The Trial of Ubu (Hampstead Theatre); Night Train (Schauspiel Kln, Avignon Festival, and Berlins Theatertreffen); Ten Billion (Royal
Court and Avignon Festival); Rings of Saturn and Waves (Schauspiel Kln); and
Hansel and Gretel and A Woman Killed with Kindness (National Theatre).
Ms. Mitchell has been an associate director at the Royal Shakespeare
Company, the National Theatre, and the Royal Court Theatre. Opera productions include Alcina (Aix-en-Provence Festival); The Way Back Home (English
National Opera/Young Vic); Trauernacht and The House Taken Over (Aix-enProvence Festival); Le vin herb (Berlin State Opera); Written on Skin (Aix-enProvence Festival and Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden); Al gran sole carico
damore (Berlin State Opera and Salzburg Festival); Orest (De Nederlandse
Opera); and Clemency (Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden). For film and television, Ms. Mitchell has directed The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd, Jenu fa,
Rough for Theatre II, and The Turn of the Screw. She was awarded an OBE in
2009 for services to drama.
Dan Ayling
Dan Aylings (associate director) directing credits include Vast White Stillness
(Brighton Festival/Spitalfields Music); Struileag (Commonwealth Games,
Glasgow); works for the TNE Festival (Historic Dockyard, Chatham); Written
on Skin (Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Opera, Wiener
Festwochen, Opra Comique); CITY (Norwich and Norfolk Festival);
Remember Me (Sound and Spitalfields Festivals); Clemency (Edinburgh
International and SO Festivals); FLOW, Fewer Emergencies, and City of Lost
Angels (Print Room); Again the Room Was Plunged into Silence (Barbican
Theatre); As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams and Cricket Remixed (Almeida
Theatre); and Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat and Eschara (UK tour, Union
Theatre). His associate/assistant director credits include Alcina (Aix-enProvence Festival), The Man Jesus starring Simon Callow (UK tour), Cos fan
tutte (English National Opera), Written on Skin (Aix-en-Provence Festival,
Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden), Clemency (Royal Opera House 2), Heart
of Darkness (ROH2, Opera East), and Four Quartets (Lincoln Center), among
others. Mr. Ayling has also worked extensively with Almeida Opera, Cryptic,
and National Youth Music Theatre.
Mr. Ayling trained at Birkbeck (University of London), where he received a
master of fine art degree in theater directing, and the Guildhall School of
Music and Drama, where he received a bachelors degree (Hons) in stage
management and technical theater.
Vicki Mortimer
Born in the UK, Vicki Mortimer (scenic and costume design) studied at the
Slade School of Fine Art. She has worked regularly with Katie Mitchell, including for Kta Kabanov and Jephtha (Welsh National Opera), Al gran sole
carico damore (Salzburg Festival and Berlin State Opera), Parthenogenesis
(Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden, Linbury Studio Theatre), St. Matthew
Passion (Glyndebourne), Written on Skin (Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden,
Aix-en-Provence Festival), Neither (Berlin State Opera), Trauernacht (Aix-enProvence Festival), and The Way Back Home (English National Opera and Paris
National Opera), as well as many productions at Londons National Theatre
such as The Cat in the Hat, Pains of Youth, Ivanov, Attempts on Her Life, Three
Sisters, Waves, and The Seagull. Other work includes Die Entfhrung aus dem
Serail, Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg, and Cos fan tutte (Glyndebourne);
Wozzeck (Lyric Opera of Chicago); Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing , and The
Silver Tassie (set designs); Othello, Burnt by the Sun, and Last of the
Haussmans (National Theatre); The Country, The City, and My Zinc Bed (Royal
Court Theatre); and designs for the Donmar Warehouse, Almeida Theatre, and
Royal Shakespeare Company. Ms. Mortimers dance designs include Raven
Girl (Royal Ballet), Genus (Paris Opera Ballet), and Yantra (Stuttgart Ballet).
Jon Clark
Jon Clark (lighting design) studied at Bretton Hall, Leeds University. His
recent opera work includes Krl Roger (Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden);
Written on Skin (Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden; Aix-en-Provence
Festival; Thtre du Capitole, Toulouse; Netherlands Opera); The Perfect
American (Madrids Teatro Real, English National Opera); Wozzeck, Caligula,
and The Return of Ulysses (ENO); Macbeth (Copenhagen); La bohme
(Dutch National Opera and ENO); and Footfalls and Neither (Schiller Theatre,
Berlin). Mr. Clarks recent theater lighting designs include King Charles III, for
which his lighting was nominated for an Olivier Award; American Psycho and
King Lear (Almeida Theatre); Trelawny of the Wells (Donmar Warehouse);
The Beaux Stratagem, Othello, The Effect, Hamlet, Collaborators, Greenland,
The Cat in the Hat, Pains of Youth, and Beauty and the Beast (National
Theatre, London); Hamlet, The Tempest, King Lear, Twelfth Night, and The
Comedy of Errors (Royal Shakespeare Company); The Pride (Royal Court
Theatre); A Season in the Congo and A Streetcar Named Desire (Young Vic);
and The Commitments and Made in Dagenham (West End). Mr. Clark has
designed for dance companies internationally. Future projects include Lucia
di Lammermoor and Ltoile (Royal Opera HouseCovent Garden), Much
Ado about Nothing (National Theatre), and Dr. Seusss The Lorax (Old Vic).
Mahler Chamber Orchestra

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra, renowned for its passion and creativity, was
founded in 1997 with the shared vision of being a free and international
ensemble. The orchestra is a nomadic collective of exceptional musicians,
with 45 members of the core ensemble spanning 20 different countries and
uniting for specific tours in Europe and around the world. The orchestra is on
the move nearly 180 days per year, and has so far performed in 35 countries
across five continents. It is governed collectively by its management team and
orchestra board, and decisions are made democratically with the participation
of all musicians.
At the heart of the orchestras music making is a shared passion for chamber
music. Its core repertoire lies in the Viennese Classical and early Romantic
periods; the group also performs contemporary works and world premieres.
The orchestra received its most significant artistic impulses from its founding
mentor, Claudio Abbado, and from Conductor Laureate Daniel Harding. Pianist
Leif Ove Andsnes, violinist Isabelle Faust, and the conductors Daniele Gatti
and Teodor Currentzis are current artistic partners who inspire and shape the
orchestra during long-term collaborations.
Highlights this summer include the conclusion of a four-year project, The
Beethoven Journey, with Leif Ove Andsnes, in Norway and at the BBC Proms
in London, a return to the Lucerne Festival with Gatti, and the launch of a Carl
Nielsen portrait at the Musikfest Berlin.
The orchestra musicians all share a strong desire to continually deepen their
engagement with audiences. This has inspired a growing number of offstage
musical encounters and projects that bring music, learning, and creativity to
communities around the globe.
Jane Moss
Jane Moss, Lincoln Centers vice president of programming since 1992, was
named Ehrenkranz Artistic Director of Lincoln Center in 2011, a position that
includes her role as artistic director of the Mostly Mozart Festival. In that capacity, she has initiated and led the transformation and expansion of the festival
into a multidisciplinary, multilayered, and far-reaching exploration of its namesake genius and his influence on succeeding generations. Ms. Moss has also
created several major new initiatives at Lincoln Center, including the international, multi-genre Lincoln Center Festival, the New Visions series, which links
the worlds of the theater and classical music, and Lincoln Centers American
Songbook series, which focuses on classic and contemporary expressions of
American song. In the fall of 2010 Ms. Moss launched the multidisciplinary
White Light Festival, focused on exploring the many dimensions of transcendence and our interior lives as expressed by a dynamic, international spectrum
of distinctive music, dance, and theater artists. The programming she has introduced and directs represents a continuing contribution to the vitality of New
Yorks cultural landscape. Ms. Moss also oversees Great Performers, Lincoln
Centers major season-long classical music series; Midsummer Night Swing;
and the free Lincoln Center Out of Doors summer series. She has played an
important role as an innovator in musical and music-based presentation and is
a recipient of the French Order of the Legion of Honor.
Prior to joining Lincoln Center, Ms. Moss worked as an arts consultant, designing and developing projects and programming initiatives for a variety of foundations and arts organizations, including the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Fund
and the Pew Charitable Trusts. As executive director of Meet The Composer,
a national organization serving American composers, Ms. Moss created the
countrys largest composer commissioning program, as well as a program supporting collaborations between composers and choreographers. In addition,
she served as executive director of New Yorks leading Off-Broadway theater
company, Playwrights Horizons, and executive director of the Alliance of Resident Theaters/New York.

Lincoln Centers Mostly Mozart FestivalAmericas first indoor summer music
festivalwas launched as an experiment in 1966. Called Midsummer
Serenades: A Mozart Festival, its first two seasons were devoted exclusively
to the music of Mozart. Now a New York institution, Mostly Mozart continues
to broaden its focus to include works by Mozarts predecessors, contemporaries, and related successors. In addition to concerts by the Mostly Mozart
Festival Orchestra, Mostly Mozart now includes concerts by the worlds
outstanding period-instrument ensembles, chamber orchestras and ensembles, and acclaimed soloists, as well as opera productions, dance, film, latenight performances, and visual art installations. Contemporary music has
become an essential part of the festival, embodied in annual artists-inresidence, including Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, PierreLaurent Aimard, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Among the
many artists and ensembles who have had long associations with the festival
are Joshua Bell, Christian Tetzlaff, Itzhak Perlman, Emanuel Ax, Garrick
Ohlsson, Stephen Hough, Osmo Vnsk, the Emerson String Quartet, Freiburg
Baroque Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Mark
Morris Dance Group.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles:
presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and
community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter
of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 15 programs, series, and festivals,
including American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival,
Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart
Festival, and the White Light Festival, as well as the Emmy Awardwinning
MOLINAVISUALS
Live From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of the Lincoln
Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex
and the 11 resident organizations. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2 billion campus renovation, completed in October 2012.
Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Violin I
Henja Semmler
(Germany),
Concertmaster
Annette zu Castell
(Germany)
Kirsty Hilton (Australia)
Lisa Lee (United States)
Sophie Rowell
(Australia)
Timothy Summers
(United States)
Tristan Thry (France)
Yi Yang (China)
Violin II
Johannes Lrstad
(Sweden), Principal
Michael Brooks Reid
(Australia)
Christian Heubes
(Germany)
Andrea Kim (Germany)
Jana Ludvickova (Czech
Republic)
Sonja Starke (Germany)
Viola
Batrice Muthelet
(France), Principal
Yannick Dondelinger
(United Kingdom)
Aurlie Entringer
(France)
Hanne Skjelbred (Norway)
Delphine Tissot (France)
Eve Wickert (United
States)
Cello
Frank-Michael
Guthmann (Germany),
Principal
David Drost (Germany)
Stefan Faludi (Germany)
Christophe Morin
(France)
Thomas Reler
(Germany)
Philipp von Steinaecker
(Germany)
Bass
Axel Ruge (Germany)
Sung-Hyuck Hong
(South Korea)
Apostol Kosev
(Bulgaria)
David Murray (United
States)
Flute
Chiara Tonelli (Italy)
Bastien Pelat (France),
Piccolo
Jlia Gllego (Spain),
Piccolo/Alto Flute
Oboe
Mizuho Yoshii-Smith
(Japan)
Akiko Butsuda (Japan)
Clarinet
Vicent Alberola
Ferrando (Spain)
Benot Savin (France)
Nina Janen-Deinzer
(Germany),
Bass Clarinet
Jaan Bossier (Belgium)
Bassoon
Fredrik Ekdahl
(Sweden)
Alessandro Battaglini
(Italy), Contrabassoon
Horn
Stefn Jn Bernhardsson
(Iceland)
Luise Bruch (Germany)
Peter Erdei (Hungary)
Tobias Heimann
(Germany)
Trumpet
Christopher Dicken
(United Kingdom),
Piccolo Trumpet
Brandon Ridenour
(United States),
Piccolo Trumpet
Valentn Garvie
(Argentina)
Sarah Slater (Australia)
Trombone
Andreas Klein
(Germany)
Iaki Ducun (Spain)
Mark Hampson (United
Kingdom)
Tuba
Jonathan Riches
(United Kingdom)
Percussion
Martin Piechotta
(Germany)
Igor Caiazza (Italy)
Christian Miglioranza
(Italy)
Rizumu Sugishita
(Japan)
Harp
Gael Gandino (France)
Glass Harmonica
Philipp A. Marguerre
(Germany)
Bass Viola da Gamba
Loren Ludwig (United
States)
Lincoln Center Programming Department

Jane Moss, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director
Hanako Yamaguchi, Director, Music Programming
Jon Nakagawa, Director, Contemporary Programming
Jill Sternheimer, Acting Director, Public Programming
Lisa Takemoto, Production Manager
Charles Cermele, Producer, Contemporary Programming
Kate Monaghan, Associate Director, Programming
Claudia Norman, Producer, Public Programming
Mauricio Lomelin, Producer, Contemporary Programming
Julia Lin, Associate Producer
Nicole Cotton, Production Coordinator
Regina Grande, Assistant to the Artistic Director
Luna Shyr, Programming Publications Editor
Claire Raphaelson, House Seat Coordinator
Stepan Atamian, Theatrical Productions Intern; Annie Guo, Production Intern;
Grace Hertz, House Program Intern
Program Annotators:
Don Anderson, Peter A. Hoyt, Kathryn L. Libin, Paul Schiavo, David Wright
For Written on Skin
Robert Mahon, Associate Director, Production
Blair Hartman, Assistant Production Coordinator
Andrew Hill, Production Electrician
Celeste Montemarano, Supertitles
For Aix-en-Provence Festival
Gerry Cornelius, Musical Assistant
Alphonse Cemin, Pianist/Repetitor
Matt Hellyer, Scenic Assistant
Matthew Watkins, Stage Manager
Ester Pieri, Deputy Stage Manager
Jerome Lasnon, Chief Carpenter
Raphael Caron, Deputy Chief Carpenter
Jeremie Allemand, Electrician
Annabel Cartallas, Wardrobe
Marion Rinaudo, Props
Stphan Hugonnier, Company Manager
David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center

operated by
City Center of Music and Drama, Inc.
Board of Governors
Alair Townsend, Chairman
Gillian Attfield, Secretary-Treasurer
Randall Bourscheidt
Randal R. Craft Jr.
Marlene Hess
Robert I. Lipp
Ira Millstein

Ex-Officio
Hon. Bill de Blasio, Mayor of the City of New York
Hon. Gale A. Brewer, Manhattan Borough President
Hon. Melissa Mark-Viverito, Speaker of the New York City Council
Hon. Tom Finkelpearl, Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs
Founders
Fiorello H. LaGuardia
Newbold Morris
Morton Baum
Founding Directors
Mrs. Lytle Hull (18931976)
Mrs. Arthur M. Reis (18891978)
Governors Emeriti
Martin E. Segal (19162012)
Martin J. Oppenheimer
Nancy Lassalle
Staff
David P. Thiele, Managing Director
Theater Management
Joseph Padua, Director of Operations
Meghan VonVett, Technical Director
Mari Eckroate, House Manager
Lauren Rosen, Performance Manager
Edward J. Gebel, Chief Engineer
Todd Tango, Treasurer
William Holze, Assistant Treasurer
Frank Lavaia, Master Carpenter
Thomas Maher, Master Electrician
Ben Dancyger, Master of Properties
Rafael Diaz, Maintenance Supervisor
Darwin Gonzalez, Performance Porter
Clement Mitcham, Security Supervisor
Aracely Diaz, Mail Room Supervisor
Information Technology
Stephan Czarnomski, Director
Yolanda Colon, Assistant Manager
John Abramowsky, Sr., Programmer
Eric Farrar, Support Specialist
Anthony Vignola, Network Engineer
Telephone Sales & Customer Service
Nadia Stone, Director
Rosemary Sciarrone, Assistant Manager
Keyvan Pourazar, Assistant Manager
Shirley Koehler, Assistant to the Director
The David H. Koch Theater is owned by the City of New York, which has given
funds for its refurbishment and which provides an operating subsidy through the
Department of Cultural Affairs.

'Written On Skin' (U.S. Stage Premiere)

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'Written On Skin' (U.S. Stage Premiere)

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The Program

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Tuesday Evening, August 11, 2015 at 7:30

Written on Skin (U.S. stage premiere)

This performance is approximately one hour and 40 minutes long

David H. Koch Theater

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Mostly Mozart Festival

UPCOMING MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL EVENTS:

Mostly Mozart debut

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Mostly Mozart Festival

(U.S. stage premiere)

Opera in Three Parts

Post-performance discussion with George Benjamin, Alan Gilbert, and

Written on Skin is a production of the Aix-en-Provence Festival, in co-production

M|M Mostly Mozart debut

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Mostly Mozart Festival

Welcome to Mostly Mozart

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Synopsis

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Synopsis

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Synopsis

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Conversation with the Director

Mostly Mozart Festival I Conversation with the Director

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Conversation with the Director

repeat their past gestures? That sounds complicated to me when I describe

Extract of the Festival dAix-en-Provence 2012 program book, courtesy of

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Note on the Music

Mostly Mozart Festival I Note on the Music

Written on Skin (200912)

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Note on the Music

Written on Skin is loosely based on an incident that reportedly befell the

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Note on the Music

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Conversation with the Composer

Mostly Mozart Festival I Conversation with the Composer

The following is excerpted from an interview with George Benjamin by

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Conversation with the Composer

medium, and I believe this in turnalmost paradoxicallyopens the way for

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Conversation with the Composer

Extract of the Festival dAix-en-Provence 2012 program book, courtesy of

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Meet the Artists

Mostly Mozart Festival I Meet the Artists

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Meet the Artists

GAUTIER DEBLONDE/NB PICTURES

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Meet the Artists

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Meet the Artists