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Beyond NY: Shakespeare Festival at Boscobel June 8 – September 4, 2017

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Beyond NY: Shakespeare Festival at Boscobel June 8 – September 4, 2017

2017 Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival at Boscobel Mansion in Garrison, NY

This year summer season at Boscobel brings in another round of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.  The festival is already in its 31st season and going strong. The performance will be held at Boscobel mansion in Garrison, NY. The mansion is a historical landmark restored from the Federal-era house and the Beaux-Arts gardens and grounds 60 miles north from New York City. The majestic surroundings opening to vast view of Hudson river and its highlands give a unique backdrop for time-period as well as plays set in the modern time.

2017 Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival at Boscobel in Garrison, NY

We’ve been hard at work putting a brand new system in place that will make your experience of buying HVSF tickets faster and easier. On Wednesday, March 15, you’ll get the chance to try it out when tickets go on sale to the public!

via It’s almost time for tickets! — Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival

This season lineup includes Twelfth Night and Love’s Labor’s Lost by W. Shakespeare, Pride and Prejudice adapted from Jane Austen, The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson and The General from America by Richard Nelson.

There is probably no reason to explain the fable behind the play by Shakespeare and an adaptation from Jane Austin. We are all familiar with the main points and are ready for new staging. The Book of Will was written by Laurie Gunderson who was named “the second most produced living playwright of 16-17 season” by the American Theater Magazine. The story is a historical drama set in Elizabethan London. Its full of people, noises and colors of that time.  The Globe theater is a setting for some of the scenes. In the interview published on the HVSF blog Gunderson shares her ideas about storytelling and on bringing women into play, something that wasn’t a customary thing at that time. This year performance of The Book will be its HVSF premiere.

The General from America by Richard Nelson is a return to HVSF scene. The first time it was performed here in 1996. Set at a time of the Revolutionary War, it has a lot of stuff going from meetings of congress to protests to the war itself.

Plan to arrive early to enjoy the gardens and the scenery of Hudson river and its Highlands.

Book your tickets here.

Venue: Boscobel House and Gardens, Garrison, NY                2017 HVSF Dates: June 8 – September 4, 2017

Beyond NY: Opera Dimitrij at Bard SummerScape in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

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Beyond NY: Opera Dimitrij at Bard SummerScape in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Antonin Dvorak’s Rarely Performed Masterwork 

Dvorak Opera Dimitrij at Bard SummerScape in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Scene from Dimitrij; photo by Todd Norwood

This year Bard SummerScape is dedicated to the Romanticism in music and is celebrating Chopin. Adding  Antonin Dvorak’s rarely staged operatic jewel Dimitrij  to the program makes a lot of sense as Dvorak is rightly considered to carry on Chopin’s Romantic tradition, and this complicated drama is well placed in the lineup celebrating Slavic roots and historic influences.

The opera brings back a murky history of Russian Tsars at the “time of troubles” at the beginning of 17th century. The story starts at exactly where Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” leaves off with the death of Tsar Boris and the dark times of uncertainty approaching. The plot of Dimitrij is centered around a young pretender to the throne who appears in Moscow surrounded by Polish nobles and claims to be Dimitrij. His quest to rule is validated when the widow of Ivan, The Terrible recognizes him as her long lost son attempting to avenge her own grievances with the rulers. But the secret is bound to be revealed with all the ambitions at play. The intrigues of the power struggle, society division in pledging loyalty to competing clans, conspiracy theories and treacherous deceptions are only amplified by gorgeous music and powerful choral renditions. Sounds too familiar? It might be because a drive for power is as universal as love and death. The director of this Dimitrij production Anne Bogart thinks that the subject is particularly relevant today.

In the words of the Boston Globe “Shakespeare could hardly have bettered” this tragic story. In fact the story was developed by a librettist Marie Cervikova-Riegrova who based it on an unfinished plot by F. Schiller’s Demetrius. It is also worth noting that apparently Dvorak, working on the opera in 1881-1882, was not familiar with Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” which was completed between 1868-1873 to A. Pushkin’s drama with the same title.

Beyond NY: Opera Dimitrij at Bard SummerScape in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Fischer Center; Photo: Peter Aaron ’68/Esto

Bard SummerScape opera performance takes place at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Art which is located on the campus of a picturesque Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Bard College is well known for its rigorous and diverse art education program and the best in class roster of summer performances in upstate NY. Only two hours away from hustle and bustle of New York City, the campus is sufficiently insulated for full concentration and study, yet affords a convenience of being accessible via train connection to the city.

The Richard B. Fisher Center is an architectural jewel in itself being designed by Frank Gehry and hosting a multitude of adventurous programs at the world class facilities.

Book the tickets for Dimitrij  here.

 

Venue: Richard B. Fisher Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Dates: July 28 & 30, August 2,4 & 6, 2017 

Places to eat around Bard College.

 

Beyond NYC: Jason Vieaux, Guitar with Julien Labro, Bandoneon and Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Caramoor at Katonah, NY

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Beyond NYC: Jason Vieaux, Guitar with Julien Labro, Bandoneon and Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Caramoor at Katonah, NY

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Piazzolla on July 16, 2017

Jason Vieaux, Guitar with Julien Labro, Bandoneon and Orchestra of St. Luke's at Caramoor at Katonah, NY
Jason Vieaux, photo by Tyler Boye; image source jasonvieaux.com

With a program of chamber music heavily influenced by the genius of Vivaldi, this concert on July Sunday afternoon is promising to be a meditation on the past with classical guitar, bandoneon, violin and a chamber orchestra serenading the summer.

Jason Vieaux, a winner of 2015 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo, is returning to Caramoor with Julien Labro on bandoneon and Krista Benin Fenney on violin. Vieaux’s impeccable technique and musicality “makes the guitar sing” in the words of Tom Huizenga, NPR host. From the beginning of Vieaux’s engagement with the NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series when he was young-artist-in-residence, his mastery have flourished adding on a diverse sound palette of West-African rhythms, Argentinian tangos and classical preludes. On his return to the Tiny Desk Concert studio as a renown international musician seven years later, his music had transformed the studio into “a quiet, jasmine-scented garden in Andalusia” as described by Huizenga.

Jason Vieaux, Guitar with Julien Labro, Bandoneon and Orchestra of St. Luke's at Caramoor at Katonah, NY
Julien Labro photo by Anna Webber / image source julienlabro.com

Julien Labro is a well-known accordionist whose music blends folk and classical melodies into an eclectic and rich mix. In the course of his career Labro’s main influence was the music of an Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla. According to Labro’s autobiography, Piazzolla was the reason for Labro to pick up a bandoneon. Sharing this affection, Vieaux and Labro had already recorded 7 albums on the music by Piazzolla with the most recent one Infusion by Azica produced in 2016.

The combination of top quality music performance and spectacular Caramoor gardens and grounds makes it an ideal place for a summer night out. At Caramoor the visitors can enjoy architecture, history, art, horticulture and music all in one place. Arrive early to have a chance to explore them all.

Click here to book your tickets.

Venue: Caramoor Center for Music and Arts, Katonah, NY                                       Date: July 16, 4pm

Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival: Don Giovanni by Budapest Festival Orchestra

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Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival: Don Giovanni by Budapest Festival Orchestra

Ivan Fischer, conductor and director 

Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival: Don Giovanni by Budapest Festival Orchestra
Don Giovanni by Max Slevogt, 1912

This year Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center brings back to New York a fascinating production of opera Don Giovanni. The performance will take place at the Rose Theater at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Frederick P. Rose Hall.

Mozart wrote this opera to a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte which was based on the legend about Don Juan, a philanderer and seducer. Premiered at the National Theater of Bohemia in Prague in 1787, it was billed by Mozart himself as opera buffa. However, this particular rendition of the story is much more a tragedy and a learning lesson than a comedy or a melodrama.

Ivan Fischer, co-founder and conductor of Budapest Festival Orchestra, was also directing the production. In an interview  by NPR in anticipation of the opening in 2011, Fischer points out that this dual role as conductor and director lets him offer “much more unified experience” for the actors. The resulting accents in the story are on bringing the villain to justice. The costume, stage design and casting of the students of Bucharest Acting Academy in the supporting ensemble are both innovative and highly appropriate. Instead of a singing statue, the actors costumes are designed to resemble the stones serving as both the silent elements of the design and the embodiment of the fate and consequence that gets a final say. The New York Times review of the performance back in 2011 highlights the “climactic moment staged to such haunting effect” under Fischer’s direction.

Venue: Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, 10 Columbus Circle, NY                               Dates: August 17, 19, 20

Beyond NY: “Brodsky/Baryshnikov” at Apollo Theater, London, UK

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Beyond NY: “Brodsky/Baryshnikov” at Apollo Theater, London, UK

Beyond NY: "Brodsky/Baryshnikov" at Apollo, London, UK
J.Brodsky, M.Baryshnikov / image source – londontheaterdirect.com

This 90 min one-man show, directed by Alvis Hermanis, is a delicate theatrical staging of complex poetry by Josef Brodsky. The selected poetry is moody and at times disturbing. And so is the acting by Mikhail Baryshnikov, an acclaimed dancer and actor, and a close friend of J. Brodsky. In the FT  “Poetry and Motion” article Baryshnikov refers to Brodsky as “his university”.

Baryshnikov opens his heart and soul in performing Brodsky’s in a rather subdued and melancholic setting. Hermanis’s production skillfully uses contrast between the simplicity of the stage set and the depth of the material to amplify the effect.  The verses, the graceful movements and sounds are full of inevitability of the passing time. The beauty of this performance is in its ability to tie together the convoluted world of Brodsky’s poetry with Baryshnikov’s elegant reading and acting. The show was performed in NYC at the BAC in March 2016 and reviewed in the New York Times.

 

For bookings go  here. 

 

Venue: Apollo Theater, London, UK                 Dates: May 3 – 5, 2017