Opera, Music, Theater, Dance, Film, the 19th Annual Bard Music Festival, and the Spiegeltent in New York’s Hudson Valley

BARD SUMMERSCAPE 2008, A SEVEN-WEEK FESTIVAL EXPLORING THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PROKOFIEV, OPENS JULY 4 WITH WORLD PREMIERE OF PROKOFIEV’S ROMEO & JULIET, ON MOTIFS OF SHAKESPEARE, A NEW PRODUCTION CHOREOGRAPHED BY MARK MORRIS AND COMMISSIONED BY BARD COLLEGE

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE AN OPERA DOUBLE BILL FEATURING NEW PRODUCTIONS OF KAROL SZYMANOWSKI’S KING ROGER AND THE U.S. PREMIERE OF HARNASIE; CHEKHOV’S UNCLE VANYA, STARRING PETER DINKLAGE; GEORGE AND IRA GERSHWIN’S 1931 POLITICAL SATIRE OF THEE I SING; THE 19TH ANNUAL BARD MUSIC FESTIVAL, “PROKOFIEV AND HIS WORLD,” AND A MINI-FESTIVAL OF 1930s FILMS FROM UNITED STATES, RUSSIA, AND FRANCE

BARD’S BELOVED SPIEGELTENT IS BACK, ALL SUMMER LONG!

“Part boot camp for the brain, part spa for the spirit.”— The New York Times

Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.— The sixth annual Bard SummerScape festival celebrates “Prokofiev and His World” through seven weeks of dance, opera, drama, music, film, cabaret, and other events, from July 4 - August 17th on Bard’s stunning Hudson River Valley campus. The festival opens with the world premiere of Romeo & Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare, a fully restored version of Sergey Prokofiev’s original ballet Romeo & Juliet (1935), commissioned by Bard and choreographed by Mark Morris, to be performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group with the American Symphony Orchestra, with music director Leon Botstein conducting.

 

“The opportunity to present the premiere of one of the greatest full-length works for dance in its original form - the one completed by the composer without regard to the pressures of Stalinist censorship - is thrilling,” said Botstein. “This is one of the few, genuinely significant moments of discovery. And if that were not enough, the opportunity to collaborate with Mark Morris, a choreographer uniquely attuned to music, promises to make the occasion memorable and historic.” Quoted in a recent New York Times article on the discovery, Mark Morris said of this original version, “I like it way better, or I wouldn’t be doing it. It’s not the gospel according to Shakespeare. I think that’s fascinating and interesting and wonderful.”

The core of Bard’s sixth annual SummerScape is the 19th annual Bard Music Festival, a far-reaching and illuminating program of orchestral, chamber, and choral concerts, lectures, and symposia devoted to “Prokofiev and His World,” held during the final two weekends of SummerScape, August 8–10 and 15–17, with a third weekend slated for October 24–25.

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953) is best remembered for a few popular scores, including Peter and the Wolf and Romeo & Juliet. His various works for the violin, piano, flute, and cello became standard in the repertoire of the 20th century. But much of his music is not well known, and the twists and turns in his career and style demand close inspection and reconsideration. Likewise, his views on art, politics, and the spiritual challenges of modern life require an understanding of the several worlds in which he worked: the St. Petersburg of his youth, Paris in the interwar period, and the United States, where he lived for two years and where he composed his first great operatic success, The Love for Three Oranges. His career taken as a whole allows us to rethink the nature of modernism and the connection of music to 20th-century politics and culture in Russia, Europe, and America.

Throughout SummerScape the American Symphony Orchestra will be in residence, performing ballet, operas, and concerts under its music director, Leon Botstein. Of major importance is a double bill of operas by Prokofiev’s Polish contemporary Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937), King Roger and Harnasie (U.S. premiere), in new productions directed and designed by Lech Majewski. Among SummerScape’s other highlights for 2008 will be a new production of George and Ira Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing, directed by Will Pomerantz, with James Bagwell conducting a resident ensemble.

On the dramatic side, Bard will present Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Ványa, featuring Peter Dinklage in the title role. Dinklage is known to film audiences for his breakthrough performance in The Station Agent in 2003, and for his 2004 New York Public Theater portrayal of Shakespeare’s most evil monarch, Richard III, among many other achievements. Uncle Ványa will be directed by Erica Schmidt, who returns to Bard for the third season, after previous successes directing Gilbert and Sullivan’s second collaborative triumph, The Sorcerer, in 2007 and Aaron Copland’s opera The Tender Land in 2005.

Another of SummerScape’s regular offerings is a festival of period films that relate in various ways to the season’s theme. Prokofiev’s internationality and creative output of serious and comic works inspired the selection of 13 classic 1930s films from Russia, France, and the United States. These range from the horror and majesty of Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky to such American comedies as Gold Diggers of 1933 and Theodora Goes Wild, arguably the first screwball comedy. Included are such French classics as Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game and A Day in the Country. In the present era of DVD and the hegemony of Hollywood blockbusters, Bard provides a rare opportunity for cinephiles to see such creations on a full-sized screen with superb visual and sound quality.

And for a third triumphal summer the fabulous Spiegeltent returns to SummerScape, a movable feast of exotic delights offering eats, drinks, and entertainment most days and evenings throughout SummerScape. During weekend days there are family programs, and in the evening there’s an atmosphere of clever cabaret, musical performances, with post-show dancing and drinks.

Venues:

Apart from the Spiegeltent, which has its own schedule of events in addition to dining before and after performances, the majority of SummerScape performances take place in the two theaters of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry and celebrated since its opening as a major architectural landmark in the region. All films are screened at the new Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center in the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Center. Operas and most Bard Music Festival programs are held in the Sosnoff Theater of the Fisher Center, with some chamber programs in Olin Hall.

Special Coach Transportation:

For information or to make a reservation on the round-trip coach being provided for specific performances (July 5, 2:00 p.m. matinee of Romeo & Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare; August 2, 8:00 p.m. double bill of King Roger/Harnasie; and August 15, 8:00 p.m. performance of the Bard Music Festival: Program 6), call the Box Office at 845-758-7900. The fare is $10 round-trip. Reservations are required. The coach will leave from Columbus Circle four hours prior to the scheduled curtain time to allow for dining in the Spiegeltent or a visit to Bard’s Hessel Museum prior to the performance. Offered only to ticket holders.

Critical Acclaim:

Described by the New Yorker as “one of the major upstate festivals,” SummerScape has been widely acclaimed for its rich, innovative, and thought-provoking programming. Travel and Leisure reported, “[At] Bard Summerscape . . . Gehry’s acclaimed concert hall provides a spectacular venue for innovative fare,” while the New York Sun observed, “Bard’s [SummerScape festival] . . . offers one of the best lineups of the summer for fans of any arts discipline.” Newsday called SummerScape “brave and brainy,” while London’s Times Literary Supplement lauded it as “[t]he most intellectually ambitious of America’s summer music festivals.”

Reviewing the final weekend of the 2006 Bard Music Festival, the New York Times reported, “As impressive as many of the festival performances were, they were matched by the audience’s engagement: strangers met and conversed, analyzing the music they’d heard with sophistication, and a Sunday-morning panel discussion of gender issues in 19th-century culture drew a nearly full house. All told, it was a model for an enlightened society.”

A full schedule of SummerScape and Bard Music Festival events is listed below, and is subject to change. Updates are posted at the festival website, www.fishercenter.bard.edu. Tickets for all SummerScape events go on sale to the public on February 24.

Highlights of Bard SummerScape 2008:

• 19th annual Bard Music Festival explores “Prokofiev and His World”


• Karol Szymanowski’s romantic opera King Roger and the U.S Premiere of Harnasie


• Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet choreographed by Mark Morris in its never-before-heard original form



• Erica Schmidt directs Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, starring Peter Dinklage


• George and Ira Gershwin’s 1931 political satire Of Thee I Sing with book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind


• Cinéma Transcontinentale, a classic film series that explores American, Russian, and French cinema of Prokofiev’s time



• The Spiegeltent’s daytime family programming includes an updated Peter and the Wolf and shows for adults in the evenings

BARD SUMMERSCAPE 2008 – HIGHLIGHTS BY GENRE

Opera and Musical Theater

Under its music director, Leon Botstein, the American Symphony Orchestra will be in residence during the seven-week SummerScape festival and Bard Music Festival. Each summer since the opening of the Fisher Center at Bard, beginning with performances of Janácek’s Osud and continuing with Shostakovich’s comedy The Nose, Blitzstein’s Regina, Schumann’s Genoveva, and Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy and The Dwarf, Mr. Botstein and the ASO have rediscovered and reinterpreted operas by significant composers. To date, all have been enthusiastically received by audiences and critics in their unique stagings. This summer Bard SummerScape presents Karol Szymanowski’s (1882–1937) sensual, romantic opera King Roger (The Shepherd) and his pastoral dance Harnasie.

In addition to writing four symphonies and two violin concertos, Szymanowski, considered by many the father of modern Polish classical music, composed two string quartets, two ballets, and two operas. Written between 1918 and 1924, the three-act King Roger (Król Roger) reveals musical influences of such composers as Scriabin, Richard Strauss, and Ravel. The story, based on that of King Roger II, an enlightened 12th-century Sicilian monarch, has clearly homoerotic themes. A 1982 New York Times review declares that King Roger

“is best understood as a Nietzschean depiction of the balance between Dionysian sensualism and Apollonian rationalism within the human psyche, and, by extension, as a commentary on the tension between rational order and Romantic libertinism in Western culture and sexual mores in the early 20th century.”

Preceding the opera, Szymanowski’s “ballet-pantomime” Harnasie  will be performed. Debuting in Prague in 1935, Harnasie gave Szymanowski the pleasure of his greatest public success when it was performed in Paris in 1936. The transcendent score includes a massive choir and a tenor soloist, and is considered the crowning achievement of Szymanowski’s theatrical output.

The Szymanowski double bill opens on July 25, with additional performances on July 27 and 31, and August 2 and 3. The performance on Sunday, July 27 will be preceded by an Opera Talk, one of SummerScape’s popular ancillary offerings that illuminate its productions each year. Adding Polish authenticity, the design and direction will be by Lech Majewski, and the Wroclaw Opera Chorus will perform.

Among SummerScape’s other musical highlights for 2008 is the great 1931 musical Of Thee I Sing, a collaborative triumph of George and Ira Gershwin with George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. Directed and choreographed by Will Pomerantz and conducted by James Bagwell, Of Thee I Sing is sure to delight audiences during this election year, as it skewers all aspects of politics in a delirious lampoon of campaign shenanigans. Its setting in the White House and its sendup of presidential practices will tickle funnybones, as will characters like President Wintergreen and Vice President Throttlebottom. Of Thee I Sing won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932, the first musical to do so. It was the most musically sophisticated of the Gershwin shows up to that point, and used recitative to move the plot along, advancing the storyline in a way not tried even in Show Boat, and in a way that would not be seen again until the heyday of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The production, in LUMA Theater, features set design by Louisa Thompson, costume design by Carol Bailey, and lighting design by Justin Townsend.  Opening night is August 1 at 8:00 pm with subsequent performances on August 6 and 7 at 8:00 pm, August 2, 9, and 10 at 3:00 pm, August 3 at 7:00 pm, August 6 at 2:00 pm, and August 8 at 5:00 pm.

Of Thee I Sing is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI).  All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. 421 West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019. Phone: 212-541-4684 Fax: 212-397-4684. www.MTIShows.com.

Dance

For the past three seasons, dance has been a supremely important component of SummerScape, which has opened to great acclaim with dance performances each summer since 2005. On Independence Day 2008 SummerScape presents Romeo & Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare, for which Mark Morris applies his sensitivity and experience to a commission by Bard’s Richard B. Fisher Center for the

Performing Arts.

This is Prokofiev’s original Romeo & Juliet, as never before performed—an effort made possible thanks to research by Princeton University musicologist Simon Morrison in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art. Alex Ross, in his acclaimed 2006 book The Rest Is Noise, writes:

 “Prokofiev’s first ‘official’ Soviet work, the dance epic Romeo and Juliet [1935–36], showed him at his optimistic peak. . . . It had the makings of an instant classic, yet inexplicable obstacles appeared in the way of the first performance. Members of the Bolshoi Ballet declared the music undanceable. Soviet officials, reversing their usual stance on the inadvisability of tragic endings, said that Prokofiev had betrayed Shakespeare by letting the lovers live happily ever after. Even with a new ending of ardent heartbreak, Romeo did not reach a Russian stage until 1940. What Prokofiev could never understand was that these difficulties had nothing to do with the notes he put on paper; they were the ritual of humiliation that every composer had to undergo.”

SummerScape audiences will hear the restored score in all its glory and witness the world premiere of Mark Morris’s new dance performed by his acclaimed company, the Mark Morris Dance Group, with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein, in six performances in the Sosnoff Theater. The production will feature scenic design by Allen Moyer, costume design by Martin Pakledinaz, and lighting design by James F. Ingalls, all of whom are longtime collaborators of Mark Morris. An international consortium of co-commissioners will have the exclusive license to present the ballet following its premiere at Bard. Opening night, July 4, is a gala benefit for SummerScape; five additional performances are on July 5, 6, 8 and 9.

Sergey Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare, Op. 64, restored by Simon Morrison, is performed with exclusive permission of the Prokofiev Estate and G. Schirmer Inc., the bearers of the rights to the music. Source materials used in this production are provided by the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art.

A Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College/Mark Morris Dance Group production in association with barbicanbite08, London; Cal Performances, Berkeley; Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Millennium Park, Chicago; Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; and Virginia Arts Festival.

Drama

“It is not about failure but about stamina,” critic Richard Gilman insisted in a 1973 essay on Chekhov’s tragicomedy Uncle Ványa, subtitled “Scenes from a Country Life in Four Acts.” Indeed, most Western attempts at the Russian master wrestle with issues of tone, trying to balance melancholia and humor, despair, and hope, searching for a way to faithfully render the heartsick, elusive gossamer of Chekhov’s all-too-human world. The aging Ványa, supporting the slovenly retired Professor Serebriakóv, lusts after the professor’s young wife, and slithers into self-loathing. Director Erica Schmidt, who has graced previous SummerScapes with her keen, rigorous productions, stages the indelible tale of squandered dreams and tenacious survival in a modern-dress version translated by Paul Schmidt. The title role will be played by acclaimed film and stage actor Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent, Richard III at the Public Theater). The production, in LUMA Theater, features set design by Mark Wendland, costume design by Michelle R. Phillips, and lighting design by David Weiner. Opening night, July 11, will be preceded by two preview performances (July 9 and 10) and followed by five evening performances on July 12, 16, 17, 18 and 19, two 3:00 p.m. Sunday matinees on July 13 and 20, as well as three 2:00 p.m. matinees on July 12, 16, and 19. Schmidt and members of the cast will give a post-performance talk on Sunday, July 13.

This translation of UNCLE VANYA was originally commissioned by the American Conservatory Theater – San Francisco, California. Presented by special arrangement with Helen Merrill LLC

Music

The 11 programs making up the 19th annual Bard Music Festival, “Prokofiev and His World,” take place during SummerScape’s last two weekends—August 8–10 and August 15–17, with a final weekend on October 24–25. Composers contemporary to Prokofiev, or who influenced him, are included in the programs. They range from Russia’s Glière, Glazunov, Kabalevsky, Khachaturian, Myaskovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Shcherbachyov, and Shebalin to Honegger, Poulenc, and Satie in France. Concert programs will explore themes such as “White Russians Abroad,” featuring works by expatriates who sought to reconnect with their cultural heritage through liturgical music; “The Cult of the Child” which includes Peter and the Wolf and Poulenc’s Babar the Elephant, or the links between Russian popular music and America’s Tin Pan Alley in “From Broadway to Gorky Street.”

With its lavish menu of thematically organized concerts, lectures, panels, and discussions, the Bard Music Festival is internationally renowned. Each season, the Festival’s unrivaled, in-depth exploration of the life and works of a single composer and his contemporaries offers, in the words of Steve Smith, New York Times critic, “part boot camp for the brain, part spa for the spirit.”

A major addition to each year’s Bard Music Festival is the publication of a volume of new scholarship and interpretation relating to the featured composer and his world by Princeton University Press. Simon Morrison, scholar in residence for the 2008  festival, is editor of Prokofiev and His World, the 19th in the award-winning series.

Film

Bard SummerScape’s 2008 Film Series, “Cinéma Transcontinentale: America, Russia, and France in the 1930s,” presents 13 films of the 1930s, including France’s classic comedy Boudu Saved from Drowning (which inspired Down and Out in Hollywood), Autumn Mists, Rules of the Game, and Ménilmontant; Hollywood’s first “screwball comedy,” Theodora Goes Wild, and other comedies; and Mervyn LeRoy’s sardonic tragedy They Won’t Forget; and Russia’s iconic Sergei Eisenstein films: Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II, and Alexander Nevsky, with its famous battle on the ice. All film tickets cost a mere $8.00!

Bard’s Popular Spiegeltent

In 2008, Bard will bring back the authentic, one-of-a-kind Belgian Spiegeltent that was such a sensation when it was introduced in 2006—the first time one of these fabled Old World structures appeared in America. The Spiegeltent is a hand-hewn pavilion lined with mirrors, built around a theater in the round. With its ballooning velvet canopies, ornate bars, teak dance floors, and intimate booths, Bard’s Spiegeltent will play host to a dazzling array of entertainment throughout the festival, as well as providing a meeting place for drink, food, and celebration.

Scheduled Spiegeltent performers include Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, back for the third straight summer. The lovable and eye-popping Wau Wau Sisters also return, as well as Slavic Soul Party!, who celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday with a romp through Balkan folk music. Prokofiev himself wrote music for a work titled Trapèze, which will be performed in the Spiegeltent with choreography by Christopher Williams. Harold Farberman’s Mind on Trial, with lyrics by Lawrence Luckenbill, is also on the schedule. Gerry Leonard: Spooky Ghost on August 14 is a Spiegeltent newcomer at the end of the season. While the night is still young, following the regularly scheduled performances of SummerScape, the SpiegelClub is the region’s most exhilarating summer gathering place, with free admission after 10 pm, offering a late-night bar with music and dancing, where audiences and artists can meet over a drink or a casual bite and enjoy SummerScape evenings at Bard.

08/08 New Albion at SummerScape

A Festival within a Festival: August 1–10

Named for a beer that was itself named after the original term for California, the record company New Albion has been, since its founding a quarter-century ago, the voice of West Coast new music. Directed by Foster Reed, it is so well respected for its innovative curating that many fans will buy every new release as it comes out, whether they’ve heard of the artist or not. Although its offerings feature composers as diverse as thorny modernist titan Elliott Carter and the neglected 15th-century master Johannes Ciconia, New Albion has created its own American aesthetic devoted to beauty, thoughtfulness, intensity of feeling, and wide open spaces. New Albion’s programs run daily, sometimes two a day.

A new addition to Spiegeltent’s offerings for the younger set and their parents this year is a new version of Prokofiev’s beloved Peter and the Wolf, with illustrations by U2’s pop star Bono. With inviting ticket prices for selected matinees of these shows—$15 for adults and $5 for children aged 12 and under—Bard’s offerings will make the Spiegeltent a popular destination for audiences of all ages.

2008 PROGRAM DETAILS FOR 19th ANNUAL BARD MUSIC FESTIVAL

“PROKOFIEV AND HIS WORLD”

WEEKEND ONE AUGUST 8–10: From East to West

According to those who knew him best, Prokofiev led an impulsive, impetuous life in the moment. Smitten with the technological advances of the modern age, he took full advantage of high-speed communication and intercontinental travel. In 1918, after completing the rigorous program of studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he departed Revolutionary Russia for the United States. After a two-year stay, he left for France, where, like most émigré artists of the period, he made Paris his home. During these hectic years, he composed three ballets and three operas, fulfilled recording contracts, and played recitals of tempestuous music. Scores were stored in suitcases, scenarios and librettos drafted on hotel letterhead. The transience tired him, but he prided himself as an optimistic, progressive person of action. In 1936, Prokofiev left France, an often nettlesome haven for foreigners, to take up permanent residence in Russia, an altogether transformed nation.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8

Program One

From Russia and Back: The Career of Sergey Prokofiev

Sosnoff Theater

7:30 pm Preconcert Talk: Leon Botstein

8 pm Performance: Chiara String Quartet; Jeremy Denk, piano; Soovin Kim, violin; Irina Mishura, mezzo-soprano; members of the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director; and others

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   Suggestion diabolique, from Four Pieces, Op. 4 (1910–12)

   Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25, “Classical” (1916–17)

   Five Poems by Anna Akhmatova, Op. 27 (1916)

   March, from The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33ter (1922)

   Five Melodies, Op. 35bis (1925)

   String Quartet No. 1 in B Minor, Op. 50 (1930)

   Two Songs, from Lieutenant Kijé, Op. 60bis (1934)

   Overture on Hebrew Themes, Op. 34bis (1919; orch. 1934)

   Sonata No. 7, in B-flat Major, for piano, Op. 83 (1939–42)

Tickets: $20, 35, 45

Please note that the Spiegeltent will be closed to dining on Friday, August 8, to accommodate the Bard Music Festival Gala Benefit.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 9

Panel One

Prokofiev: The Man and His Music

Olin Hall

10 am–noon

Caryl Emerson, moderator; Harlow Robinson; and others

Free and open to the public

Program Two

Before Emigration: Teachers and Influences

Olin Hall

1 pm Preconcert Talk: TBA

1:30 pm Performance: Chiara String Quartet; Jeremy Denk, piano; Dina Kuznetsova, soprano; Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano; Sophie Shao, cello; Bard Festival Chamber Players

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   Visions fugitive, Op. 22 (1915–17)

   Two Poems, Op. 9 (1910–11)

Reinhold Glière (1875–1956)

   Ballad, Op. 4 (1902)

Aleksandr Glazunov (1865–1936)

   String Quartet in A Major, Op. 39 (1891)

Nicolai Tcherepnin (1873–1945)

   Six Quartets for Four French Horns (1920)

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)

   Three Movements from Petroushka, for piano (1921)

   Piano works by Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915) and Nicolas Medtner (1880–1951)

Tickets: $35

Program Three

The Silver Age: Mystic Symbols

Sosnoff Theater

7 pm Preconcert Talk: Simon Morrison

8 pm Performance: Blair McMillen, piano; Scott Williamson, tenor; Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major, Op. 10 (1911–12)

   They Are Seven, cantata after Bal’mont, Op. 30 (1917–18; rev. 1933)

   Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 44 (1928)

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908)

   Sadko, tone poem, Op. 5 (1891–92)

Anatoly Lyadov (1855–1914),

   The Enchanted Lake, Op. 62 (1909)

Alexsandr Scriabin (1871–1915),

   Le poème de l’exstase, Op. 54 (1905–08)

Joseph Achron (1886–1943)

   Epitaph, in Memory of Aleksandr Scriabin (1915) (world premiere)

Tickets: $25, 40, 55

RELATED FILMS

Alexander Nevsky, August 7 at 7 pm; August 9 at 5 pm

Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II, August 10 and 14 at 7 pm

All films are screened at the Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center in the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Center.

Tickets: $8

SUNDAY, AUGUST 10

Panel Two

Prokofiev and Composing for Film

Olin Hall

10 am–noon

Simon Morrison, moderator; Kevin Bartig; Caryl Emerson; Joan Neuberger

Free and open to the public

Program Four

The Paris Years

Olin Hall

1 pm Preconcert Talk: Byron Adams

1:30 pm Performance: Bard Festival Chamber Players; Amy Burton, soprano; Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano; Robert Martin, cello; Anna Polonsky, piano

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   Quintet in G Minor, Op. 39 (1924) (Trapèze)

Erik Satie (1866–1925)

   From Sports et divertissements (1914)

Arthur Honegger (1892–1955)

   From Le cahier romand (1921–23)

Francis Poulenc (1899–1963),

   Trio, Op. 43 (1926)

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937),

   Chansons madécasses (1926)

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)

   Octet (1922–23)

Darius Milhaud (1892–1974)

   From Le train bleu, Op. 84 (1924; arr. Milhaud)

Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983)

   Chansons françaises (1930)

George Auric (1899–1983)

   Trio in D Major (1938)

Tickets: $35

Program Five

The Cult of the Child

Sosnoff Theater

5 pm Preconcert Talk: Mary E. Davis

5:30 pm Performance: Alessio Bax, piano; Lucille Chung, piano; The Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, Eckart Preu, conductor

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67 (1936)

   The Chatterbox, from Three Songs for Children, Op. 68 (1936)

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

   Ma mere l’oye (1908–10)

Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)

   Histoire de Babar, le petit élephant, Op. 129 (1940–45)

John Alden Carpenter (1876–1951)

   Krazy Kat (1921; rev. 1940)

Erik Satie (1866–1925)

   Gymnopèdies (1888; orch. ?1896, Debussy)

Tickets: $20, 35, 45

WEEKEND TWO AUGUST 15–17: The Faustian Pact

After his return to Russia, Prokofiev soon found himself trapped, unable after 1939 to travel abroad and unable to compose in the manner he desired. Though valued by the Stalinist regime and supported by its institutions, he suffered correction and censorship, the result being a gradual sapping of his creative energies. Prokofiev revised and re-revised his late ballets and operas in order to appease cultural officials but, more often than not, his labors went to waste. Following his official denunciation in 1948, jittery concert and theater managers pulled his works from the repertoire. Physical illness cast a pall on Prokofiev’s last years. Housebound, he turned inward, fulfilling modest commissions, many of them works on the theme of youth.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15

Symposium

Stalin and Stalinists

Multipurpose room, Bertelsmann Campus Center

10 am–noon

1:30 pm – 3:30 pm

Jonathan Brent, moderator; and others. Free and open to the public.

Program Six+

White Russians Abroad

Sosnoff Theater

7:30 pm Preconcert Talk: Rebecca Stanton

8 pm Performance: Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; members of the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   From Ivan the Terrible, Op. 116 (1942–44)

Serge Rachmaninoff (1873–1943)

   From All-night Vigil, Op. 37 (1915)

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)

   Symphony of Psalms (1930)

Works by Aleksandr Grechaninoff (1864–1956) and Nikolay Obuhkov (1892-1954)

Tickets: $20, 35, 45

+ Round-trip transportation by coach from Columbus Circle to the Fisher Center will be provided for this performance. For information, please call 845-758-7900. Reservations required.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 16

Program Seven

From Broadway to Gorky Street

Olin Hall

10 am Performance with Commentary by Mitchell Morris, with Jonathan Hays, baritone; Tonna Miller, soprano, and others

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953),

   Songs of Our Days, Op. 76 (1937)

Songs by Vernon Duke (1909–69); George Gershwin (1898–1937); Jerome Kern (1885–1945); Cole Porter (1891–1964); Isaak Dunayevsky (1900–55); Dmitrii Shostakovich (1906–75); and others

Tickets: $30

Program Eight

The Return to the U.S.S.R.

Olin Hall

1 pm Preconcert Talk: Laurel Fay

1:30 pm Performance: Bard Festival String Quartet; Frederic Chiu, piano; Randolph Bowman, flute; Benjamin Hochman, piano, Arnaud Sussman, violin

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92 (1941)

   Sonata in D Major, Op. 94, for flute and piano (1943)

Samuil Feinberg (1890–1962)

   Piano Sonata No. 8, Op. 21a (1933–34)

Aram Khachaturian (1903–78)

   Song-Poem, “In Honor of an Ashugh” (1929)

Dmitrii Shostakovich (1906–75)

   String Quartet, No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73 (1946)

Tickets: $35

Program Nine

Manufacturing a Soviet Sound

Sosnoff Theater

7 pm Preconcert Talk: Richard Taruskin

8 pm Performance: Gavriel Lipkind, cello; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   Summer Night, Op. 123 (1950)

   Symphony-Concerto in E Minor, Op. 125 (1950–51, rev. 1952)

Nikolay Myaskovsky (1881–1950)

   Symphony No. 13 in B-flat Minor, Op. 36 (1933)

Vissarion Shebalin (1902–68)

   Variations on the Russian Folksong “Oh My Field,” Op. 30 (1940)

Tickets: $25, 40, 55

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17

Panel Three

Religion, Spirituality, and Music

Olin Hall

10 am–noon

Christopher H. Gibbs, moderator; Leon Botstein; Simon Morrison; Maya Pritsker

Free and open to the public

Program Ten

Formalism: Challenge and Response

Olin Hall

1 pm Preconcert Talk: Richard Wilson

1:30 pm Performance: Frederic Chiu, piano; Benjamin Hochman, piano; Sophie Shao, cello; Bard Festival Chamber Players; and others

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   Piano Sonata No. 9 in C Major, Op. 103 (1947)

   Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello, Op. 134 (unpbl.)

   Arias from Semyon Kotko, Op, 81 (1939) and

   The Story of a Real Man, Op. 117 (1947–48)

Dmitrii Shostakovich (1906–75)

   From 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 (1950–51)

Dmitrii Kabalevsky (1904–87)

   Seven Merry Songs, Op. 41 (1945)

Vladimir Shcherbachyov (1887–1952)

   Peter I, suite for string quartet (1943)

Tickets: $35

Program Eleven

20th-Century Russia: Nostalgia and Reality

Sosnoff Theater

4:30 pm Preconcert Talk: Christopher H. Gibbs

5:30 pm Performance: Dina Kuznetsova, soprano; Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   Egyptian Nights (1934)

   Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, Op. 74 (1936–37)

Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke) (1909–69)

   Epitaph (1932)

Serge Rachmaninoff (1873–1943)

   Three Russian Songs, Op. 41 (1926)

Tickets: $25, 40, 55

WEEKEND THREE – OCTOBER 24–25

Prokofiev in America and Russia

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, AND SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25

Program One

Sosnoff Theater

7 pm Preconcert Talk: Christopher H. Gibbs

8 pm Performance: Mira Wang, violin; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)

   Waltz Suite, Op. 110 (1947)

   March and Scherzo, from The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33 (1921)

   Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, Op. 100 (1944)

John Alden Carpenter (1876–1951)

   Violin Concerto (1936)

Tickets: $25, 40, 55

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25

Panel

Art and Dictatorship

Olin Hall

10 am–noon

Leon Botstein; Simon Morrison; and others

Free and open to the public

Program Two

Olin Hall

2:30 pm Preconcert Talk

3 pm Performance: Faculty and students of The Bard College Conservatory of Music

Works by Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953) and Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)

Tickets: $25

SOME KEY DATES FOR SUMMERSCAPE 2008

July 4                       SummerScape opens with Mark Morris’s Romeo & Juliet

July 5                       First of five performances of Peter and the Wolf for kids

July 9                       First of thirteen performances of Uncle Ványa (first of two previews)

July 25                     First of five performances of Szymanowski double-bill

August 1                  First of nine performances of Of Thee I Sing

Aug 8-10                 Bard Music Festival Weekend One

Aug 15-17               Bard Music Festival Weekend Two

Oct 24-25                Bard Music Festival Weekend Three

BARD SUMMERSCAPE 2008 EVENTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

July 4 (Friday)

5:00 pm                    Private Gala Benefit (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm                    Romeo & Juliet (Sosnoff)

11:30 pm                  Opening Night Gala (Spiegeltent)

July 5 (Saturday)

2:00 pm                    Romeo & Juliet (Sosnoff) – bus service from NYC

5:30–7:30 pm            Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm                    Romeo & Juliet (Sosnoff)

8:30 pm                    Peter and the Wolf (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm                  SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 6 (Sunday)

3:00 pm                    Romeo & Juliet (Sosnoff)

3:30 pm                    Peter and the Wolf (Spiegeltent)

5:30–7:30 pm            Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm                    Film Triple Bill (Ottaway Film Center)

8:30 pm                    Peter and the Wolf (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm                  SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 8 (Tuesday)

8:00 pm                    Romeo & Juliet (Sosnoff)

July 9 (Wednesday)

8:00 pm                    Romeo & Juliet (Sosnoff)

8:00 pm                    Uncle Ványa preview (LUMA Theater)

July 10 (Thursday)

5:30–7:30 pm            Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm                    Boudu Saved from Drowning (Ottaway)

8:00 pm                    Uncle Ványa preview (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm                    Peter and the Wolf (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm                  SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 11 (Friday)

5:30–7:30 pm            Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm                    Uncle Ványa (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm                    Peter and the Wolf (Spiegeltent)

10 pm                       SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 12 (Saturday)

2:00 pm                    Uncle Ványa (LUMA Theater)

3:30 pm                    Peter and the Wolf (Spiegeltent)

5:30 – 7:30 pm          Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm