Woolf and Vavrek’s Jacqueline: Explore Further

“The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who we are in order to
become all that we can be.” –Jacqueline du Pré

Jacqueline du Pré was born in Oxford in 1945. She received her first cello at age 5, and by age 11, she earned an acclaimed scholarship that exposed her to some of the most outstanding music teachers available. Her life revolved around the cello, and she was one in the rare group of musicians with both a flawless technique and an innate capacity to be passionately expressive. At 15, she was the youngest person to be awarded the Queen’s Prize, and by age 18, she was already a soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

In 1965, du Pré made her definitive recording of the Elgar concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra, which was considered so perfect that other renowned cellists stopped playing it.

Jacqueline du Pré met her future husband, celebrated composer and pianist Daniel Barenboim, at a party in London in 1966. Originally born in Argentina to Argentinian-Jewish parents, Barenboim moved to Israel at 10, two years after his first recital as a pianist.

Within a year of their meeting, du Pré and Barenboim travelled to Israel to show solidarity in the weeks before the Six-Day War. The young couple stayed in Israel for the duration of the conflict, performing with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Du Pré and Barenboim then decided to marry spontaneously before leaving Jerusalem. Du Pré, who had expressed interest in converting to Judaism but had not yet begun the conversion process, participated in a whirlwind overnight conversion in which she took on the Hebrew name Shulamit. The ceremony took place in a house overlooking the newly liberated Old City of Jerusalem, and the reception was attended by friends, musicians, and the former Prime Minister of Israel.

In 1968, Jacqueline began experiencing numbness in her fingers, which her doctor misdiagnosed as exhaustion. Four years later, at 28 years old, she was finally diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and the numbness in her fingers had become so extreme that she could no longer play. After her final public performance, she became an active teacher and mentor. Jacqueline du Pré succumbed to her disease in 1987 at the age of 42.

Watch Jacqueline perform Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto with her superstar husband Daniel Barenboim conducting:

The Plot of Jacqueline

The story of Jacqueline falls into four movements—a nod to the structure of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, the work most closely associated with du Pré’s passionate performances and recordings. Within each movement, we are catapulted across time, and travel between the public Jacqueline, traveling the world at the height of her powers, and her inner struggle to understand, and come to terms with the multiple sclerosis that began to ravage her body at the age of 26. Her voice, her truest sense of self, and her constant companion, is embodied by the cellist and his instrument. Thus both Breckenridge and Haimovitz play core and initially fused aspects of Jacqueline, but their relationship is tested by her increasing illness.

I. Star Birth: Having just stepped off the stage, we see Jacqueline at a post concert gathering, telling absurd jokes; we meet her at 5-years-old, falling in love with her cello for the first time; we glimpse her in the recording studio, sure of every musical move; in a dramatic, war-torn moment, she converts to Judaism and marries the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim.
II. Super Nova: Her symptoms beginning to show, Jackie reacts to a diagnosis of “mental fatigue” and ponders the delirious excitement—and the continual exhaustion—of life on the road; as the first pressing of her new LP arrives she is dizzy with her own musical power.
III. Meteorite: At home and lonely, Jacqueline can hear her mother’s voice blaming the illness on her conversion; with Daniel away on tour, Jackie tries to outrun her disease, and imagines the sensual pleasures of a hoped-for recovery, even as a definitive diagnosis arrives. Trying in vain to reclaim the innocent passion of her youth, she explodes in rage as she rejects the cello once and for all.
IV. Impact: The cello mourns his lost love; we encounter a debilitated Jacqueline, still able to muster puckish humour; she takes control of her sense of self with a pair of shears, and looks into the future.

Jacqueline’s Influence on Cellist Matt Haimovitz

Matt Haimovitz began studying the cello at age 7, after his family relocated from Israel to California. Like Jacqueline du Pré, he showed a ferocious talent for the instrument at an early age. When Haimovitz was 12, he was noticed by Itzhak Perlman at a master class in Santa Barbara. Perlman quickly began mentoring Haimovitz, and it was through Perlman that many of Haimovitz’s career key points were initiated. “I was essentially adopted by the Perlman family,” Haimovitz recalls.

Perlman introduced Haimovitz to cellist Leonard Rose, and Haimovitz’s family moved to New York so that he could study with Rose at Julliard. Perlman also introduced Haimovitz to Zubin Mehta, the musical director of the New York Philharmonic and Israel Philharmonic. Through this relationship, Haimovitz began his professional career playing with orchestras and as a soloist. He was 13 years old.

On Passover Seder evening in New York that same year, Perlman called Haimovitz and asked him to come to his house. Pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim was Perlman’s guest and wanted to play some chamber music. Haimovitz took the bus to Perlman’s home, where he met Jacqueline du Pré’s husband, and they played a Brahms E minor sonata.

“I didn’t realize what an important moment that was for Daniel because that was the first time he had really played with another cellist since Jackie,” says Haimovitz. “He had been incredibly loyal and faithful to her, in that sense, not wanting to play with anyone else.” After playing together, Barenboim was so moved he lifted the 13-year-old cellist and hugged him. Over the next year, Haimovitz spent time with Barenboim and du Pré, eventually having his London debut conducted by Barenboim.

“Jacqueline was unbelievably generous,” Haimovitz remembers. It was a challenging time for both Barenboim and du Pré as they came to terms with du Pré’s musical and physical life coming to a tragic end. Yet for them, Haimovitz created a bridge that allowed Barenboim to rebuild his complex relationship with the cello. In London, Haimovitz spent the week with du Pré, as Barenboim wanted her to meet Haimovitz before they played together. Du Pré was very sick then, and Haimovitz fed and played for her. “Jackie was one of my idols,” Haimovitz explains. “Daniel wanted me to spend time with her.”

Haimovitz describes du Pré’s understanding of cello as visceral, organic, and natural. Du Pré attended Haimovitz’s London debut and every London performance he had from that point forward until she finally passed away when Haimovitz was 17. “We were very close,” Haimovitz adds thoughtfully.

THE CONCEPT

For composer Luna Pearl Woolf, Haimovitz’s account of his relationship with du Pré sparked the idea for the opera Jacqueline. Close collaborators for decades, Woolf has written numerous works for Haimovitz, who has performed her work all over the world. In February 2016, she heard Marnie Breckenridge and Matt Haimovitz perform together on her piece, Rumi: Quatrains of Love for soprano, cello, and piano. The idea of an operatic work for the two of them began to form.

“Marnie’s deep sense of joy in music making and her exuberant beauty reminded me of du Pré,” Woolf explains, “along with the heart-wrenching voice of Matt’s cello, and his connection to that world where Jacqueline inhabited, and their electric musical chemistry together … I felt that the two of them could make this story come alive, and that really excited me.”

At an OPERA America conference in 2014, Woolf introduced herself to Breckenridge and began collaborating on several projects. When Woolf pitched the idea for the opera, they both thought librettist Royce Vavrek would be the perfect voice for Jacqueline. Vavrek said of the project, “It just seemed like a confluence of really amazing fate that we would come together and create this dynamic portrait of Jacqueline and her virtuosity.”

Director Michael Hidetoshi Mori and several other opera producers were invited to Tippet Rise, an art centre in Montana, to hear the excerpts of Jacqueline, which Woolf and Vavrek had written to date. Mori was immediately intrigued. “Unlike many biographies, du Pré’s true story is one that was operatic in nature, dramatic at many stages, and tragic in the end. Our journey with this opera is to explore the heart and mind of Jacqueline as her identity is put into question.” Mori concludes, “In interpreting du Pré, we endeavour to understand and explore rather than to imitate someone who was one-of-a-generation.”

THE OPERA

In the opera, the story of Jacqueline falls into four movements—a nod to the structure of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, the work most closely associated with du Pré’s passionate performances and recordings. Within each movement, we are catapulted across time and travel between the public-facing Jacqueline, travelling the world at the height of her powers, and her inner struggle to understand and come to terms with the multiple sclerosis that began to ravage her body at the age of 26.

The cellist and his instrument embody her voice, her most genuine sense of self and her constant companion. Thus, Breckenridge and Haimovitz play core and initially fused aspects of Jacqueline, but her increasing illness tests their relationship. Mori concludes, “It is beautiful in a way, Marnie without Matt could not play Jacqueline, Matt without Marnie could not play Jacqueline, yet together they combine to realize something of her essence, life, and struggle and in separating her tragedy.”

Luna Pearl Woolf on Jacqueline 

What a joy it has been to bring the opera Jacqueline to life in collaboration with the incredible artistry and creative inspiration of librettist Royce Vavrek, soprano Marnie Breckenridge, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and director Michael Hidetoshi Mori.

I envisioned an experience of dramatic and emotionally powerful operatic theatre with only two performers on stage. Could I create such a work? And what if one of the performers never says or sings a word? This was the summer of 2016, and I had just heard Marnie and Matt, two of my long-term collaborators, perform together. Their expressive chemistry and profound, captivating musicianship stirred these thoughts, and the opera’s subject immediately leapt into my mind. Marnie’s deep sense of joy in music-making and her exuberant beauty reminded me of Jacqueline du Pré’s, and I knew that Matt’s experience playing for and spending time with Jackie before her death had left an indelible mark on him as a very young virtuoso. Through Marnie’s introduction, Royce joined us, and soon, we began working in earnest with Michael as dramaturge and director.

Our journey of discovery and imagination drew from Jackie’s own words and music in videos and recordings. We spent a sunny winter afternoon reminiscing and learning from Jackie’s close friend; Matt’s own unfolding memories continued to inform both the broad strokes and the minute details of the work. We read a wide range of first-person accounts from her former teachers, colleagues, and friends as captured in a host of essays and books, each attempting to document and capture something of her magic.

We structured the piece in flashes—in the opera, we come to know Jacqueline in the instant she fell in love with the cello, at the height of her fame, at the moment she received her diagnosis, and many others. The cello, her constant companion, is embodied not only in the music but by the cellist himself so that the betrayal of their bond by her relentless disease is as visceral and heartbreaking as it might have felt to her. Altogether, our path led us deeper into Jackie’s rapturous soul and heart-wrenching struggle than we could ever have imagined.

Jacqueline’s premiere at Tapestry Opera in late February 2020 feels like a pandemic ago. In the current moment, the opera’s themes of inexplicable, debilitating illness and the jarring loss of a defining personal or collective identity feel all the more universal.
–Luna Pearl Woolf

Michael Hidetoshi Mori on Jacqueline 

“Playing lifts you out of yourself into a delirious place.”
–Jacqueline du Pré

Jacqueline is invested in a real-life, truly operatic struggle between world-famous virtuoso cellist Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987) and the multiple sclerosis that ravaged her body, mind, and talent, robbing her of her identity, her breathtaking musical gift, and ultimately her life, striking at the height of her meteoric rise to the best concert halls of the world.

It was incredibly appropriate and fascinating to work with two contemporary virtuosi in telling this story: celebrated soprano Marnie Breckenridge as Jacqueline and renowned cellist (and former protégé of Jacqueline du Pré) Matt Haimovitz playing du Pré’s only constant companion, her cello, in his dramatic debut.

Luna and Royce’s creation composition is partly inspired by the structure and emotional landscape of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, one of Jacqueline du Pré’s most famous repertoire, using the concerto’s four-movement structure to navigate her passionate, if all too short, life in music. Jacqueline also references Haimovitz’s personal recollections of du Pré herself, having spent time as a young prodigy under her wing.

The fragmented nature of the poetic libretto and score inspired this production to frame everything we see from the point of view of Jacqueline in her final days. Her mind was keen long after her body had begun to fail, and these scattered scenes become a fantasy of her obsessing about her youth, music-making, love and stardom. In the first two movements, the set design of the concert hall is the perfect backdrop for her life, as is the partial destruction of it, the perfect backdrop for her later reality. In the third and fourth movements, we see the nature of her trapped obsessions and losses revealed.

I began working on Jacqueline when I was around the same age as her, when she was 10 years into her illness, and now I have just passed how old she was when she died. Talking to those who had the privilege to know her and see her perform, she was a truly exceptional performer and human combined, one-of-a-kind with reverberations still influencing musicians and listeners 60 years later, despite having been an active professional for only 10 years or so. She was incredibly human, lonely, curious, devoted, heartbroken … invested in the music, not the stardom. In the end, what we have to be inspired by is her music, which is alive with the joy and natural talent of her brief time playing the cello.
–Michael Hidetoshi Mori

Reviews of Jacqueline

“A unique, startlingly inventive 90-minute chamber opera spotlighting the meteoric rise and heartbreaking descent of acclaimed world cellist Jacqueline du Pré … Vibrant and shimmering as ever, probing deep into the intensity of experience and emotion that was du Pré’s life. Stunningly composed …  theatrically towering.” –Opera To Go

“It’s impossible to overstate the privilege to witness the performances from Breckenridge and Haimovitz … emotionally rich and fascinating.” –Opera Canada

“An operatic fantasia … Luna Pearl Woolf’s music and Royce Vavrek’s libretto take the full measure of an artist’s fierce humanity. … Breckenridge’s voice is a gilded thread, gleaming from top to bottom.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“I was in the audience five years ago and was completely blown away by its emotional power and overwhelming poignancy. … Kudos to soprano Marnie Breckenridge for a phenomenal performance … cellist Matt Haimovitz was his brilliant self, playing exquisitely.” –Ludwig Van Toronto

“Emotional power and bravura performance … To my ears, new music tends to appeal to the intellect rather than to the heart. I am happy to say this is decidedly not the case here. Luna Pearl Woolf’s score is almost entirely tonal, lyrical, and most of all accessible.”  –Ludwig Van Toronto

“One should truly see this production twice: once to solely focus on Breckenridge and the story, and another to purely watch Haimovitz and his moving cello.” –A View from the Box

“Jacqueline is the thrilling result of real simplicity…stripping away the inessential to reveal a moving story free from ego … an extraordinary piece, one that deserves an unquestioned place in the 21st-century canon.” –The Globe and Mail

“In this monodrama about the life and death of cellist Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987), soprano Marnie Breckenridge gave one of the most vivid, fearlessly committed performances of the year. Partnered with cellist Matt Haimovitz, the singer brought lacerating intensity and a voice by turns ravishing and raw to composer Luna Pearl Woolf and librettist Royce Vavrek’s work.” –San Francisco Classical Voice

“Marnie Breckenridge and Matt Haimovitz (who is called upon to move and fully play his role as Jacqueline/Marnie’s vital partner) achieve a veritable 90-minute artistic tour de force in which the dramatic and psychological intensity required are almost unbearable.” –PAM 360