He plays the violin
This Bard production, led by Leon Botstein, makes the strongest possible case musically, dramatically and visually for Smetana’s opera Dalibor.
bard summerscape
Come on, baby, and rescue me
In Smetana‘s Dalibor, a rescue opera and a nationalistic fable collide at this year’s SummerScape Festival
A vision almost like a prophecy
Folks who have never attended a full-length, uncut Giacomo Meyerbeer grand opera have been known to pout and ponder: Why did the most popular opera composer of the mid-nineteenth century all but vanish from the stages of the world after a hundred years?
The king of queens
In the case of this summer’s resuscitation project at the Bard Summerscape Festival, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Henri VIII , it was quite evident that this is a dramatically sound work with consistently well-crafted, theatrically vital and attractive music that provides at least three roles for gifted singing actors.
Silent treatment
It is perhaps a misperception to suggest that Die Schweigsame Frau is stronger in the uncut version.
Round Table discussion
Like many composers of his generation, Ernest Chausson was enthralled by Wagner and he too turned to legend for his only opera, one that would consume him for final decade of his brief life.
Sweet dreams
Bard SummerScape’s concert staging of Die Tote Stadt emerged triumphant thanks to Clay Hilley and Sara Jakubiak.
Trial by Korngold
What is the best metaphor for this year’s Bard Music Festival?
Strangers when we meet
The aphorisms projected before each act of Das Wunder der Heliane suggested the work concerns the transformative power of love—but does it really?
I’m no angel
Bard cultish Summerscape series continues to test our esoteric limits with Demon, Anton Rubinstein’s little-known opera about a demon who hankers for a Georgian princess.
The kiss we never dared we’ll dare in dreaming
If you’ve ever wondered what the Lost Boys’ abode might look like lined with mermaids, shopping carts, and unpeeled potatoes, look no further than Christopher Alden’s new production of Peter Pan.
And the villain still pursued her
Bard College presented a semi-staged concert of Halka on Saturday evening as part of its impressively wide-ranging two-week “Chopin and his World” festival.
Catch a falling tsar
You’d think by now I’d know better than to make snap judgments about an opera or a singer—but apparently not.
Unbridled enthusiasm
“You see, Elaine, Dimitrij was a simple country boy, you might say a cockeyed optimist…”
When the sun comes out
This year as part of Bard’s “Puccini and His World” festival audiences may witness the resurrection of Mascagni’s distinctly odd Iris.
Tomb raider
Despite the continued popularity of Der Freischütz in German-speaking countries, are the magical mature operas of Carl Maria von Weber otherwise really so problematic, their libretti so unwieldy to explain their continued absence from the world’s stages?
It’s not easy being Greek
Sergey Taneyev, pupil of Tchaikovsky and teacher of Scriabin and Rachmaninov, composed just one opera, Oresteia, premiered in 1895 when he was 39.
L’infelice Aragonese
Camille Saint-Saëns was such a brilliant, facile musician that pals like Wagner and Liszt felt a distinct schadenfreude when he suffered composer’s block.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
