Bard SummerScape 2009

Grand, Mythic, and Fully Modern

Fast becoming known as the most exciting multiarts festival in the Northeast, Bard SummerScape—now in its seventh season—offers a tapestry of interwoven events in the disciplines of music, dance, drama, opera, film, and cabaret, all of them keyed to the theme of the annual Bard Music Festival. The events are presented in the acoustically superb Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry, and other venues on Bard College’s Hudson River campus.

This year, the 20th annual Bard Music Festival takes stock of “Wagner and His World,” with concerts, panels, and other programs exploring the life and times of Richard Wagner. Leon Botstein leads the American Symphony Orchestra and a stellar assemblage of domestic and international musicians in Wagner’s piano, chamber, orchestral, and operatic works, as well as works by Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Bruckner, and lesser-known figures such as Max Bruch and Heinrich Herzogenberg who interested or were influenced by Wagner.

A recurrent theme of this year’s SummerScape is the ability of ancient myths and centuries-old historical events to reverberate in the present day. The Oresteia of Aeschylus, the tragic trilogy that narrates the fall of the House of Atreus, packs an existential punch that is as powerful today as it was in 458 B.C. In this production, directed by Gregory Thompson, festivalgoers will have several opportunities to see the entire trilogy at a reduced price. The grand opera Les Huguenots, by Giacomo Meyerbeer, and the oratorio Saint Paul, by Felix Mendelssohn—the former dramatically treating the subject of religious intolerance; the latter, religious conversion—both serve as an introduction to the world of Richard Wagner, who was influenced by and later attacked their composers.

Other highlights are a dance performance choreographed by Lucinda Childs, a leading luminary of postmodern dance, and a festival of films that explore Wagnerian and political themes.

And for sheer revelry, don’t forget the Spiegeltent, which offers drinks, dinner, pre-matinee lunch, afternoon family programs, cabaret, and late-night entertainment in its mirrored pavilion.