Smetana's Dalibor

[DK]

This is the main opera being presented fully staged as part of the SummerScape festival at the Fisher Center, Bard College, and will be live streamed on Wednesday 30 July at 2 pm Eastern, with a repeat stream on Saturday 2 August at 5 pm Eastern.
Details here:  https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/dalibor/

There will also be a single performance of Martinu's Julietta, which will be live streamed on Sunday 17 August at 3 pm Eastern.  I think this is probably a concert performance.  https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/bmf25-p11/

I've booked for both, as I have not heard/seen either opera performed live.  It is likely that at least Dalibor will be added eventually to the on-demand operas that are available on the Fisher Center's YouTube channel.

[Finn_McCool]

The Bard festival always does such a good job with these operas. Did anybody go see the premiere?  I have also booked both livestreams since I can't make it up there this year.  DK is probably right that the performance will eventually end up on the YouTube page, but it is kind of fun to see it in real time.  It seems like I am always trying to sneak a peek at the livestreams during family vacations, which invariably coincide with the Bard festival opera!

[scottevan]

>Did anybody go see the premiere?

Not the premiere, but I was at the performance yesterday. I've been to nearly all of the Bard Festival opera rediscoveries since Schumann's "Genoveva" and though this isn't my favorite of all the works *musically* I feel it was probably their most successful opera production yet. Riveting is the best word I can think of. The lead singers, staging, the Festival chorus, the orchestra -- all in top form.

When I first heard about it, I thought, why that one? Why not "Libuse" or even "Brandenburgers in Bohemia"? (my two favorite Smetana operas.) But this production helped to elevate a work I once recalled as "good" into the ranks of "great." 

If anyone's near upstate New York, the final production is Sunday, August 3rd.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks for this review. Must have been a great occasion.

[eschiss1]

To be picky, no more really "upstate" than I am - they're an hour from Albany (and 3 hours southeast of me) Sounds it!

[scottevan]

The performance under discussion is now available to watch at the Bard Summerscape Opera site on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIaaBjpSiOQ&list=PLfzbP01j_SLj4B4A46l-jLPjzWdSxt_wS&index=4

[John Boyer]

I've been to nearly all of the Bard Festival opera rediscoveries since Schumann's "Genoveva" and though this isn't my favorite of all the works *musically* I feel it was probably their most successful opera production yet.

Did you do the entire Bard experience -- lectures, symposia, panel discussions, etc. -- or just the opera?  I have only been once, to see the 2010 production of "Der Ferne Klang", but attended nothing else.  I was always attracted to the festival because I imagined it would be great fun to immerse myself in a classical music experience that went beyond just performance, but at the time I was somewhat married to the Glimmerglass Festival (which I think Eric will agree qualifies just a bit more as "upstate" than Bard).  Budgets, time commitments, and work all conspired to force me to choose one or the other.  I think the fact that you could squeeze all of Glimmerglass into a single long weekend while Bard had to be split over two argued in favor of the former.  (As it turned out, 2010 was my last year not only at Glimmerglass but with all the performing arts.  Concerts, operas, plays -- I just stopped attending.) 

Thank heaven for Botstein, but I worry that Bard and the ASO might be too much of a one man show.  I remember when the Newport Music Festival was a Mecca for unsung Romantic chamber music, but with the death of Mark Malkovich III all the unsung music, which was once the focus, disappeared.  It became just another summer music series.  Once Botstein goes, I suspect the same will happen at Bard.

[scottevan]

>Did you do the entire Bard experience -- lectures, symposia, panel discussions, etc. -- or just the opera? 

Aside from "Dalibor" I did attend a few more concerts, mostly devoted to Martinu, the subject of this year's festival. I tend to not go to the lectures, etc.; I'm there for the music. Also, the festival program each year has enough information about each of the works presented.

> I have only been once, to see the 2010 production of "Der Ferne Klang"...

A stunning production, I thought. But then, just about every opera produced at Bard has interesting visual ideas, alongside their ever-reliable chorus, the festival orchestra, and top-quality, if not always top tier, soloists. All good reasons to attend...

>Thank heaven for Botstein, but I worry that Bard and the ASO might be too much of a one man show... Once Botstein goes, I suspect the same will happen at Bard.

Unfortunately, I tend to agree. He has committed musical academics and high level performers involved (Piers Lane and the late Rudolf Firkusny, to name two) but he literally does orchestrate the whole event.