When you hear the name Bernard Herrmann, most likely you will immediately think of screeching strings and Janet Leigh being stabbed to death in a shower by Anthony Perkins in drag in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.  While Herrmann is remembered primarily for the seven films on which he collaborated with Hitchcock, he also scored some 70 other films and television shows—from Citizen Kane (1941) to Taxi Driver (1976)—and composed one opera: Wuthering Heights, written between 1943 and 1951.  

The opera was never produced during Herrmann’s lifetime, although he did oversee a recording of it in the 1960s.  A deal with Julius Rudel to stage it at New York City Opera fell through due to changes demanded by Rudel, including an upbeat ending.  Other performances, by the San Francisco Opera, Theater Heidelberg, and the Hallé Orchestra, failed to materialize, a main reason being the vast length of the score—prologue, four acts, and epilogue—and Herrmann’s refusal to allow any cuts or alterations.

The work has been reassessed lately and has been performed from Montpellier (the source of today’s upload, starring Israeli bass-baritone Boaz Daniel and adventuresome American soprano Laura Aikin as Emily Brontë‘s doomed lovers Heathcliff and Cathy) to Minnesota to Braunschweig.  Don’t be surprised if some of it sounds familiar: Herrmann borrowed some music composed from, among others, Citizen Kane and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and later recycled bits of it into Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Marnie.

Bernard Herrmann: Wuthering Heights

Opéra national de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon
Alain Altinoglu, conductor
Opera Berlioz, Montpellier
14 July 2010

Heathcliff – Boaz Daniel
Catherine Earnshaw – Laura Aikin
Hindley Earnshaw – Vincent Le Texier
Nelly Dean – Hanna Schaer
Edgar Linton – Yves Saelens
Isabelle Linton – Marianne Crebassa
Joseph – Jerome Varnier
Mr Lockwood – Nicolas Cavallier
Hareton Earnshaw – Gaspard Ferret