Rarely performed in the US opera by Anton Rubinstein is part of the SummerScape 2018 program on July 27 – August 5 at Bard College
Bard SummerScape presents Anton Rubinstein’s Demon / Photo by Maria Baranova
Bard SummerScape is well known for its daring and adventurous streak offering to its audiences a delicious yet rarely performed music. Last year the program included A. Dvorak’s Dimitrij.This year it presents Anton Rubinstein’s opera Demon. Rubinstein’s work will complement the rest of the SummerScape program lineup celebrating the music of the The Mighty Five, the Russian composers of the late 19th century whose ambition was to write compositions rooted in Russian folk songs and traditional tonalities. The resulting trove of music literature enriched the sound palette and expanded the music language.
As for The Demon, with an all-Russian cast directed by Thaddeus Strassberger and accompanied by the American Symphony Orchestra with Mr. Botstein, current president of Bard College, conducting the opera will surely delight and amuse by its vibrant music and opulent choral arrangements. The performance are taking place at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.
Internationally acclaimed Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) with its artistic director Wynton Marsalis will appear in a special performance as part of its Summer Jazz Academy at Bard College. With education being at a core of the Jazz at Lincoln Center philosophy, the Academy program at Bard is marking its second year and is bringing the best high school jazz musicians for 2 week residential intensive in performance practice, aesthetics, culture and history of jazz among other subjects.
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and its 15 world-class musicians is billed as the most versatile ensemble with vast musical repertoire starting from rare historical compositions all the way to american jazz staples. The orchestra is known to tour extensively collaborating with the top artists in such diverse genres as dance, folk, classical musicians and various guest soloists.
Fischer Center; Photo: Peter Aaron ’68/Esto
The performance at Bard College is taking place at the time of Bard SummerScape with most events held at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Art located on a picturesque campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Bard College is well-known for its rigorous 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.
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-Riegrovawho 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.
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 Collegein 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.
