July 5 - August 18, 2013

"Bard SummerScape and Bard Music Festival always unearth piles of buried treasure."
—The New Yorker

Bard SummerScape 2013 presents seven inspired weeks of opera, music, theater, dance, film, and cabaret. The hub of these offerings is the 24th annual Bard Music Festival, this year examining the life, work, and cultural milieu of the 20th-century Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. From ballet to chamber works, from sacred music to symphonies, the festival will explore Stravinsky’s long and illustrious career, along with many works by his contemporaries. Other highlights of the season include Sergey Taneyev’s Oresteia, an opera based on Aeschylus’ tragic Greek trilogy; a collaboration by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company celebrating Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring; a theatrical adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita; an adventurous film festival; and the return of cabaret at the Spiegeltent. It all adds up to a festival like no other—SummerScape 2013.

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The 2013 SummerScape season is made possible in part through the generous support of the Board of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, the Board of the Bard Music Festival, and the Friends of the Fisher Center, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Opera 

Oresteia
by Sergey Taneyev

U.S. Stage Premiere

American Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Leon Botstein, music director
Directed by Thaddeus Strassberger

Russian composer Sergey Taneyev’s extraordinary but neglected opera conveys the searing drama of Aeschylus’ powerful trilogy about the cursed House of Atreus, from Agamemnon’s fateful return from Troy to the trial of his son Orestes. Director Thaddeus Strassberger returns to SummerScape after his successes in previous seasons with Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, Schreker’s Der ferne Klang, and Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui. Sung in the original Russian with English supertitles.

Sosnoff Theater
July 26 and August 2 at 7 pm
July 28, 31, and August 4 at 3 pm
Tickets: $30, 60, 70, 90
Opera Talk, July 28 at 1 pm: free

Special support for this program is provided by Emily H. Fisher and John Alexander.

Dance/Theater

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company
A Rite

Choreographer Bill T. Jones (a resident artist at Bard)  and theater director Anne Bogart ’74 join forces to create a new work celebrating the centennial of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Two of America’s leading dance and theater companies unite to explore the impact of one of the 20th century’s most explosive artistic moments.

Sosnoff Theater
July 6 at 8 pm and July 7 at 3 pm
Tickets: $25, 40, 45, 55 

Theater

The Master and Margarita

World Premiere Adaptation

Adapted by János Szász and Gideon Lester
after the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov
Directed by János Szász

The devil arrives in Moscow with a retinue that includes a beautiful witch and a giant talking black cat, and plunges the city into pandemonium. Hungarian film and stage director János Szász applies his opulent theatrical vision to this adaptation of Bulgakov's beloved novel—at once a pungent political satire, a magical fantasy, and an unforgettable love story. Suitable for audiences 15 and older (contains nudity).

Theater Two
Previews
July 11 and 12 at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $30
Performances
July 13 and 18–20 at 7:30 pm
July 14, 17, 20, and 21 at 3 pm
Tickets: $45

These performances have been underwritten by the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Foundation.

Film Festival

Stravinsky's Legacy and Russian Émigré Cinema

The SummerScape 2013 film festival—Stravinsky’s Legacy and Russian Émigré Cinema—will be in two parts: a retrospective of Russian exile filmmaking in France (including rare works produced by the legendary Albatros studio), and a series of more contemporary films by such directors as Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol.

Bard Music Festival

Stravinsky and His World

The 2013 Bard Music Festival, scheduled to coincide with the centenary of the scandal at the premiere of The Rite of Spring, will explore the full range of Stravinsky’s elusive and enigmatic personality and career. Alongside familiar and rare pieces by Stravinsky, audiences will encounter works by his Russian and French contemporaries; fellow émigrés, including Schoenberg, Hindemith, Bartók, and Eisler; and Americans he influenced, including Copland, Piston, and Carter.

Cabaret and more

The Spiegeltent

Bard’s Belgian “Mirror Tent” is a lavish and otherworldly stage for cabaret, music, and theater. Spend a summer evening in the intimate company of world-class artists, or just relax with fine food, wine, and beer from the Hudson Valley.