Bard Music Festival
Program One • Staging the Musical Imagination
August 9
Program One launches the festival with the rare opportunity to hear Berlioz’s most famous work as he intended: paired with its little-known sequel. Written just three years after Beethoven’s death, the Symphonie fantastique revolutionized the symphonic form for the Romantic age. Through its detailed, semi-autobiographical program note; its unifying and mutating principal theme, or idée fixe; and vast forces that include instruments previously confined to the opera house, Berlioz took the genre to a newly theatrical realm to chronicle the unrequited love that drove him to visions of suicide, murder, and gothic horror.
Pathbreaking, of seminal importance, and enduringly popular, the symphony nonetheless finds its “conclusion and complement” in Lélio, ou Le retour à la vie, its seldom-programmed sequel. Featuring spoken monologues, vocal soloists, mixed chorus, and a conclusion inspired by The Tempest, this boldly experimental, genre-defying work revisits the story and idée fixe of Berlioz’s symphony, recounting the artist’s “return to life” through his love of literature and music.
Program
7 pm • Performance with commentary by Leon Botstein, with Joshua Blue, tenor; Alfred Walker, baritone; Bard Festival Chorale and James Bagwell, choral director; and The Orchestra Now, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director
Hector Berlioz (1803–69)
Symphonie fantastique: Episode de la vie d’un artiste, Op. 14 (1830)
Lélio, ou Le retour à la vie, monodrame lyrique, Op. 14b (1831–32, rev. 1855)
Plan Your Visit
Eat & Stay
Nearby villages and towns in the Hudson Valley boast a large selection of restaurants, as well as a variety of hotels, motels, inns, and bed & breakfasts.
Eat & StayDirections
Bard College’s main campus is located in Annandale-on-Hudson (a hamlet of Red Hook), New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City and 220 miles southwest of Boston. The Taconic State Parkway and the New York State Thruway provide the most direct routes to our campus. Click the Google map below, or get directions by entering the following address into your GPS: 60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, NY 12571.
From the East
If you are traveling from east of the Hudson River in New York State, take the Taconic State Parkway to the Red Hook / Route 199 exit, drive west on Route 199 through the village of Red Hook to Route 9G, turn right onto Route 9G, drive north 1.9 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
From the West
If you are traveling from west of the Hudson River, take the New York State Thruway (I-87) to exit 19 (Kingston), take Route 209 (changes to Route 199 at the Hudson River) over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge to Route 9G, turn left onto Route 9G, drive north 3.5 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
About the Venue
Sosnoff Theater
Accessible Seating
Wheelchair-accessible seating is available in all seating areas for patrons in wheelchairs and their companions. There is an elevator to all levels of the Sosnoff Theater and a wheelchair lift is used to access front-row wheelchair seating.
Wheelchair-Accessible Restrooms
Restrooms at all locations are wheelchair accessible. Single-use restrooms are available at most locations.
All-Gender Restrooms
Bard College and the Fisher Center support guests of any gender identity/expression in using the restroom of their choice. Additionally, all-gender restrooms are available at all venues.
More Info
Our driving principle is to operate with a duty of care for all our community—artists, audiences, and staff alike.
In order to share performances with as many audience members as possible, we ask that you read our Health and Safety Protocols on the FAQs page and commit to participating in our community of care.
Read the FAQs and Safety Protocols
