We’ll be transported to the Yorkshire Moors for this week’s Sunday Opera (5/13 3:00 p.m.) through Bernard Hermann’s 1951 treatment of Emily Bronte’s brooding novel “Wuthering Heights.” The opera was begun in 1943 while Hermann was writing the film score for the adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre,” but it would never be produced during his life time. Focusing on the first half of Bronte’s novel, “Wuthering Heights” looks at the tragic love of the headstrong Cathy and the tormented Heathcliff played out against the beautifully bleak moorland.
The cast includes Morag Beaton, Donald Bell, John Kitchiner, Pamela Bowden, Joseph Ward, and Michael Rippon who are joined by the Elizabethan Singers and the Pro Arte Orchestra in a recording paid for and conducted by the composer. There will be more music of Hermann after the opera as host Michael Kownacky has Hermann’s string quartet “Echoes” planned as well as the strangely fascinating aria from a fictitious opera entitled “Salammbo” which was written for Orson Welles’ masterpiece “Citizen Kane.”
