Montezuma is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in three acts by the American composer Roger Sessions

Roger Sessions

Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...

, with an English libretto by Giuseppe Antonio Borgese

Giuseppe Antonio Borgese

Giuseppe Antonio Borgese was an Italian writer, journalist and literary critic.-Biography:Borgese was born in Polizzi Generosa, near Palermo...

 that incorporates bits of the Aztec

Aztec

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

 language, Nahuatl

Nahuatl

Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

, as well as Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, and French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

.

Performance history

Montezuma was first performed on 19 April 1964 at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, in a German translation.

The American premiere (and the first performance with the original English libretto) was given on 31 March 1976 by the Opera Company of Boston

Opera Company of Boston

The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts that was active during the late 1950s through the early 1990s. The company was founded by American conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Boston Opera Group. At one time, the touring arm of the...

, conducted by Sarah Caldwell

Sarah Caldwell

Sarah Caldwell was a notable American opera conductor, impresario, and stage director of opera.- Life :Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a child prodigy and gave public performances on the violin by the time she was ten years old...

. The cast included Richard Lewis

Richard Lewis (tenor)

Richard Lewis CBE was a Welsh tenor.Born Thomas Thomas in Manchester to Welsh parents, Lewis began his career as a boy soprano and studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1939 to 1941...

 (Montezuma), Alexander Stevenson

Alexander Stevenson

Sir Alexander Stewart Stevenson was a councilman and a lay preacher.Alexander Stevenson was born on 9 April 1860 at Dalry, Ayrshire, Scotland. His family moved and he was educated at Grange School, Bo'ness, West Lothian, Scotland....

 (Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Young), Donald Gramm

Donald Gramm

Donald Gramm was an American bass-baritone whose career was divided between opera and concert performances. His appearances were primarily limited to the United States, which at the time was unusual for an American singer...

 (Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Old), Brent Ellis (Cortez), Phyllis Bryn-Julson (Malinche), Alan Crofoot

Alan Crofoot

Alan Crofoot was a Canadian operatic Heldentenor and character tenor specialist, as well as actor, who is best remembered as the host of Mr Piper, a children's television series made in 1963. It was originally shown by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and also became well-known in the...

 (Jerónimo Aguilar/veteran), and Eunice Alberts

Eunice Alberts

Eunice Alberts is an American contralto who had an active career as a concert soloist and opera singer during the 1950s through the 1980s. She began her career as a concert soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the young age of 19 and quickly became a lauded oratorio singer during the late...

 as Cuaximatl.

The New York City premiere was given in February, 1982 by the Juilliard American Opera Center, conducted by Frederik Prausnitz. Bernal was sung by Robert Keefe, Cortez by James Dietsch, Alvarado by Cornelius Sullivan, Montezuma by Robert Grayson, and Malinche by Hei-Kyung Hong

Hei-Kyung Hong

Hong Hei-Kyung is a South Korean-American operatic lyric soprano.Hong studied at Yea Won Music School in Seoul and through scholarships went to the United States alone at age 15 to study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and its American Opera Center...

. The scenery was designed by Ming Cho Lee

Ming Cho Lee

Ming Cho Lee is a Chinese-born American theatrical set designer and a longtime professor at the Yale School of Drama....

 and the lighting was by Beverly Emmons

Beverly Emmons

Beverly Emmons is a lighting designer for the stage, dance and opera.-Career:Emmons graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965 and then worked as an assistant to Jules Fisher. Her first credit as a lighting designer was with the Off-Broadway play Sensations in 1970. Emmons first Broadway work...

.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast 19 April 1964 (Conductor: Heinrich Hollreiser Heinrich Hollreiser Heinrich Hollreiser was a German conductor.Born in Munich, he attended the State Academy of Music there, and went on to serve as the conductor at the opera houses in Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Duisburg. From 1942-1945 he served as the principal conductor of the Bavarian State Opera, while... )
Bernal Díaz del Castillo Bernal Díaz del Castillo Bernal Díaz del Castillo was a conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards for Hernán Cortés, himself serving as a rodelero under Cortés.-Early life:... , the Old	bass	Ernst Krukowski
Bernal Díaz del Castillo Bernal Díaz del Castillo Bernal Díaz del Castillo was a conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards for Hernán Cortés, himself serving as a rodelero under Cortés.-Early life:... , the Young	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Karl Ernst Mercker
Cacamatzin Cacamatzin Cacamatzin was the king of Texcoco, the second most important city of the Aztec Empire.Cacamatzin was a son of the previous king Nezahualpilli by one of his mistresses. Traditionally, the Texcocan kings were elected by the nobility from the most able of the royal family...	tenor	Martin Vantin
Cuauhtemoc Cuauhtémoc Cuauhtémoc was the Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan from 1520 to 1521...	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Barry McDaniel Barry McDaniel Barry McDaniel is an American operatic baritone who spent his career almost exclusively in Germany. He was also a celebrated concert singer and recitalist.- Biography and development :...
Cuaximatl	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Yonako Nagano
Fray Olmedo de la Merced	bass	Manfred Röhrl
Guidela	baritone
Hernán Cortez Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century...	baritone	William Dooley William Dooley William Dooley is an American operatic bass-baritone who has sung with many of the world's greatest opera companies. He began his career in Germany in the late 1950s, ultimately becoming a leading performer at the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1962-1964...
Itlamal	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Marina Türke
Malinche La Malinche La Malinche , known also as Malintzin, Malinalli or Doña Marina, was a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, who played a role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico, acting as interpreter, advisor, lover and intermediary for Hernán Cortés...	soprano	Annabelle Bernard
Jeronimo Aguilar	baritone	Walter Dicks
Montezuma Moctezuma II Moctezuma , also known by a number of variant spellings including Montezuma, Moteuczoma, Motecuhzoma and referred to in full by early Nahuatl texts as Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, was the ninth tlatoani or ruler of Tenochtitlan, reigning from 1502 to 1520...	tenor	Helmut Melchert
Netzahualcoyotl	bass	Martti Talvela Martti Talvela Martti Talvela was a Finnish operatic bass.Born in Hiitola, Finland , he studied in Lahti and Stockholm, and made his operatic debut in Helsinki in 1960 as Sparafucile. At , he was the tallest singer of his century. He trained as a boxer in his youth and developed the stamina necessary for the...
Passer-by 1	baritone	Wilhelm Lang
Passer-by 2	baritone	Robert Koffmane
Pedro de Alvarado Pedro de Alvarado Pedro de Alvarado y Contreras was a Spanish conquistador and governor of Guatemala. He participated in the conquest of Cuba, in Juan de Grijalva's exploration of the coasts of Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and in the conquest of Mexico led by Hernan Cortes...	tenor	Loren Driscoll Loren Driscoll Loren Driscoll was an American tenor who had an active international career from the 1950s through the mid 1980s...
A Soldier of Cortez's Army	tenor	Cornelis van Dijk
Teuhtlilli, an ambassador of Montezuma	tenor	Helmut Krebs Helmut Krebs Helmut Krebs was a distinguished German tenor in opera and concert, who sang a wide range of roles from Baroque to contemporary works.-Professional career:...
Veteran	baritone	Hanns Heinz Nissen

Reception

Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath

Edward Heath

Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....

, after hearing the US premiere in Boston in 1976, said "I found it fascinating. … I liked the subject—one of the few instances of an important event in history where the British played no part. In the tragedy of Montezuma we share no responsibility".

Sources

• Anon. 1964. 'American Opera Staged in Berlin First'. The Times (6 May).
• Brody, Martin. 1992. 'Montezuma (ii)' in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  The New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes....
  
  , ed. Stanley Sadie (London) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
• Davies, Peter Maxwell
  Peter Maxwell Davies
  Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
  
  . 1964a. 'Sessions's Opera Stirs Berliners: "Montezuma" Is Greeted by Violent Reactions'. New York Times (21 April).
• Davies, Peter Maxwell. 1964b. '"Montezuma" Creates a Stir in Berlin'. New York Times (3 May).
• Davis, Peter G. 1982. 'Montezuma's Revenge'. New York Magazine (8 March): 89.
• Harbison, John. 1977. "Roger Sessions and Montezuma". Tempo, new series, no. 121 (June): 2–5.
• Kessler, Daniel. 2008. Sarah Caldwell: The First Woman of Opera. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810859470 (cloth) ISBN 9780810861107 (pbk).
• Mason, Charles Norman. 1982. 'A Comprehensive Analysis of Roger Sessions' Opera Montezuma. DMA diss. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois.
• Olmstead, Andrea. 1985. 'The Plum'd Serpent: Antonio Borgese's and Roger Sessions's Montezuma. Tempo, new series, no. 152 (March): 13–22.
• Olmstead, Andrea. 2008. Roger Sessions: A Biography. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780415977135 (hardback) ISBN 9780415977142 (pbk.) ISBN 9780203931479 (ebook)
• Porter, Andrew. 1978. 'The Matter of Mexico', in his Music of Three Seasons: 1974-1977, 337–44. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
• Porter, Andrew. 1982. 'A Magnificent Epic'. The New Yorker (March): 128 & 132.
• Prausnitz, Frederik. 2002. Roger Sessions: How a "Difficult" Composer Got That Way. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195108922
• Smith, Patrick J. 1976. 'Boston Opera: "Montezuma"'. High Fidelity/Musical America 26, no. 7 (July): MA-24.
• Soria, Dorle J. 1976. 'Artist Life'. High Fidelity/Musical America 26, no. 7 (July): MA-5 & MA-35.
• Steinberg, Michael
  Michael Steinberg (music critic)
  Michael Steinberg was an American music critic, musicologist, and writer. Born in Breslau, Germany , Steinberg left Germany as one of the Kindertransport child refugees...
  
  . 1976. 'Enter Montezuma: Roger Sessions' Complex Opera Finally Gets Its U.S. Premiere in Boston—A Dozen Years after Its World Premiere in Berlin'. Opera News 40, no. 19 (April 3): 10–16.