“In the 19 seasons of ‘Bel Canto at Caramoor,’ the annual festival of concert performances at a sylvan country estate in Katonah, N.Y., the artistic mission has remained unchanged. It is rooted in Italian opera of the first half of the 19th century, in the vocally virtuosic bel canto style after which the event is named. And so the sudden and radical departure from that tradition this summer—a leap forward of more than a century to present the Francis Poulenc opera Dialogues des Carmélites—sounded ominous.” [New York Observer]