Bard SummerScape Seven-Week Festival Opens on July 8, Exploring Life and Times of Alban Berg Through Music, Opera, Theater, Dance, Film, and the Spiegeltent

“Seven weeks of cultural delight.” – International Herald Tribune

 “One of the most intellectually stimulating of all American summer festivals.”

 – Wall Street Journal

 Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. – Modernism and its roots in Vienna’s dazzling turn-of-the-20th-century culture will be explored at the eighth annual Bard SummerScape festival, which once again features a rich tapestry of music, opera, theater, dance, film, and cabaret, keyed to the theme of the 21st annual Bard Music Festival. Presented in the acoustically superb Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and other venues on Bard College’s stunning Hudson River campus, the seven-week festival opens on July 8 with the first of four performances by the Trisha Brown Dance Company, and closes on August 22 with a party in Bard’s beloved Spiegeltent, which returns for the full seven weeks. This year’s Bard Music Festival explores “Berg and His World”, and some of the Austrian composer’s most gifted and thought-provoking contemporaries provide other SummerScape highlights, which include: North America’s first fully-staged production of Franz Schreker’s 1910 opera The Distant Sound (Der ferne Klang); Oscar Straus’s operetta The Chocolate Soldier; Judgment Day, by playwright Ödön von Horváth; and “The Best of G. W. Pabst,” a film festival juxtaposing German expressionism with American film noir. For tickets and more information go to fishercenter.bard.edu/summerscape.

 The “uniquely stimulating” (Los Angeles Times) Bard Music Festival provides the creative inspiration for SummerScape, presenting “Berg and His World”: a far-reaching and illuminating program of orchestral, choral, and chamber concerts, as well as preconcert talks, a panel discussion, a symposium, and special events, all devoted to examining the life and times of Alban Berg (1885-1935). Berg’s deeply expressive music builds on the rich Viennese tradition beginning with Mozart, extending through Schubert to Mahler, and to his own teacher, Schoenberg. By taking in the full spectrum of musical innovation in the first decades of the 20th century, not merely considering Berg’s music within the narrower confines of the Second Viennese School, this year’s Bard Music Festival brings to life one of music’s – and European culture’s – richest and most exciting and periods. The two weekends of the Bard Music Festival will take place on August 13—15 and August 20—22 (see further details below).

 The American Symphony Orchestra, under its music director, Leon Botstein, is in residence at Bard throughout SummerScape, performing opera, concerts, and a special oratorio presentation. Bard’s annual opera will be the first fully-staged U.S. production of The Distant Sound (Der ferne Klang, 1910), by Berg’s compatriot Franz Schreker. Returning to helm the opera’s four performances (July 30, August 1, 4, & 6) is visionary director Thaddeus Strassberger, who also directed last season’s resounding success, Meyerbeer’s grand opera Les Huguenots. This summer, Bard also presents Oscar Straus’s operetta The Chocolate Soldier (1908). This charming chamber opera’s nine performances (August 5—15) are directed by Will Pomerantz and conducted by James Bagwell.

In theater, Bard will present Judgment Day, a gripping 1937 drama by Austro-Hungarian Ödön von Horváth, one of the most talented playwrights of his generation. A runaway hit of last fall’s theater season in London, Judgment Day will be presented in ten performances between July 14 and 25, directed by Caitriona McLaughlin.

A significant dance performance has opened SummerScape each year since 2005. This year, the Trisha Brown Dance Company will launch the festival on July 8 with two of Ms. Brown’s famous Robert Rauschenberg collaborations, one of her latest dances, and a duet from her 1996 piece, Twelve Ton Rose, which is set to music by Berg’s colleague Anton Webern (four performances, July 8—11).

SummerScape’s annual offerings also include a film festival, a series of international films tapping into the season’s theme. This year’s festival, “The Best of G. W. Pabst”, presents examples both of the great German expressionist director’s work and of the American film noir classics he influenced. Screenings are on Thursdays and Sundays, and tickets are only $8 (July 15—August 19).

Imported from Europe for its fifth SummerScape season, Bard’s authentic and sensationally popular Spiegeltent is a handmade pavilion decorated with mirrors, centered on a theater-in-the-round that doubles as a dance floor. Offering food, beverages, and entertainment on Thursdays through Sundays throughout SummerScape, the mirrored tent is the festival’s center for fun and refreshments. During weekend days the glittering “tent of dreams” hosts family programs, and in the evening there’s a lineup of cutting-edge cabaret and musical performances, with post-show dancing and drinks (July 9—August 22).  

Bard SummerScape 2009 – Highlights by Genre

Music

The numerous offerings that make up the comprehensive 21st annual Bard Music Festival, “Berg and His World”, take place during SummerScape’s two final weekends: August 13—15 and August 20—22. Through the prism of Berg’s life and career, this year’s festival will explore the origins, varieties, and fate of modernism in music. Listeners will encounter music ranging from the familiar Viennese waltzes of Berg’s youth to the most avant-garde experiments of the 1920s and ’30s, by way of serialism, the conservative reaction against it, neo-Romanticism, and jazz. Usually hailed as a pioneer of the modernist movement along with his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg, and fellow student Anton Webern, here Berg will be considered in a richer and more nuanced context as a contemporary of Mahler, Zemlinsky, Pfitzner, Reger, Busoni, and Karl Weigl, and as one who engaged the new music of Bartók, Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, Gershwin, Casella, and Szymanowski.  

Berg’s genius rested in his capacity to integrate into modernism – with its rigorous insistence on aesthetic integrity – the emotional intensity associated with late Romanticism, the expressionist will to break with the past, and an abiding affection for the Classical tradition. Its disciplined and complex modernity notwithstanding, Berg’s music, from the start, evoked an intense truthfulness, communicating, as one of his contemporaries put it, “summer, the depth of the night, loneliness, pain and happiness.” He lived only half a century, yet no other modernist composer of the time has had such a lasting impact on the hearts and minds of audiences after 1945.

The twelve musical programs, built thematically and spaced over the two weekends, range from “Alban Berg: The Path of Expressive Intensity” to “Composers Select: New Music in the 1920s”. Besides music by his contemporaries, a broad sampling of Berg’s own compositions will be presented, from canonical works like the Violin Concerto and Lyric Suite to such comparative rarities as the selected early piano works and songs. Two programs will be accompanied by commentaries from experts in the field and two panel discussions, and a symposium will be supplemented by informative discussions before each performance, which illuminate the concert’s themes and are free to ticket holders.

Weekend One, August 13—15: Berg and Vienna

Commonly seen as the birthplace of modernism, fin-de-siècle Vienna was a crucible of contemporary culture. Many of the most important influences on 20th-century thought and art were active there, including Freud, Wittgenstein, Herzl, Schenker, and Klimt. Mahler and Zemlinsky rubbed shoulders with Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, whose work offers a compelling synthesis of the various and apparently contradictory sides of the Viennese musical tradition. The first weekend of this season’s Bard Music Festival features a foray into the role of psychology and literature in fin-de-siècle Vienna and a reminder that Berg had famous students, like Theodor Adorno, as well as a famous teacher. The intricacies, secrets, and consequences of Berg’s private life will be explored, as will the legacy of Gustav Mahler.

Weekend Two, August 20—22: Berg the European

By the mid-1920s, Berg had become world famous through the success of Wozzeck. Schoenberg envied his pupil’s achievement, but that did not prevent Berg’s continued allegiance to his mentor, as shown in his work for a new organization: a Viennese society created by Schoenberg and Berg, designed to create a proper context for new music based on principles that included ample rehearsal and the absence of critics. But Berg also became active in international organizations for new music in the 1920s. Such post–World War I modernist experiments had their detractors. Franz Schmidt’s magnificent oratorio The Book of the Seven Seals, which will receive a special performance on August 21, reveals that the reaction against modernism itself inspired great music.

Since the founding of the Bard Music Festival, each season Princeton University Press has published a companion volume of new scholarship and interpretation, with essays, translations, and correspondence relating to the featured composer and his world. Dr. Christopher Hailey, editor of The Berg-Schoenberg Correspondence: Selected Letters, is editor of the 2010 volume, Alban Berg and His World.

Reviewing a previous season of the Bard Music Festival, a critic for the New York Times declared, “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.”

Opera and operetta 

This year’s opera presentation is Franz Schreker’s The Distant Sound (Der ferne Klang, 1910), which, though familiar in Europe, has never yet been fully staged in North America. Hailed early in his career as the most significant musical dramatist after Wagner, Schreker (1878-1934) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher, and a contemporary of Berg’s. His extraordinary works draw on an aesthetic that is a mixture of Romanticism, naturalism, expressionism, and Neue Sachlichkeit. It was Botstein who gave The Distant Sound its long-overdue U.S. premiere in concert form, during the American Symphony Orchestra’s 2006-07 season, prompting veteran Musical America critic Peter G. Davis to write: “Botstein’s sympathy for the score was apparent everywhere… . The spirit and sweep of the music could scarcely have been more fully captured.” Anthony Tommasini called the work “[an] arresting masterpiece,” noting in his New York Times review, “Below its melodramatic surface the opera teems with sensuality. Mr. Botstein brought sure dramatic pacing and fiery commitment to his account of this thick and complex score. "

According to Dr. Christopher Hailey of the Franz Schreker Foundation, “The premise of Der ferne Klang is simply told. A composer forsakes a woman’s love for a chimeric sound that is but the distant echo of her presence. It is a tidy plot for an opera, a love story of tragic deferral and a paradoxical meditation upon the vanities of ‘l’art pour l’art’.” Schreker’s masterful melding of disparate dramatic devices and psychological and cultural forces, along with the remarkable degree of his musical creativity, combine to make The Distant Sound one of the seminal works of 20th-century opera. Thaddeus Strassberger, director of last season’s lavishly praised Huguenots production and winner of the 2005 European Opera Directing Prize, will direct this production, with Narelle Sissons (set designer) and Mattie Ullrich (costume designer). Its four performances (July 30, August 1, 4, & 6) will be conducted by music director Leon Botsein, who will give an Opera Talk, free and open to the public, before the performance on August 1. 

Since the opening of the Fisher Center at Bard, Botstein and the ASO have been responsible for championing and restoring to the stage a growing number of important but long-neglected operas. All of these presentations and their remarkable stagings have been warmly received by audiences, not least 2009’s production of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s grand opera Les Huguenots. Producing this supposedly unstageable opera was clearly a risk; despite once having been enormously popular, Les Huguenots went on to drop like a stone into obscurity, last being performed at the Met in 1915. And yet, as the Wall Street Journal reported, “Bard’s gamble paid off… . The production was…a triumph for conductor Leon Botstein, …[who] balanced the grandeur and the intimacy of the score and fused its varied musical styles into a grand, architectural sweep.”

Other critics agreed. A five-star review in the Financial Times reported, “Les Huguenots in Bard’s staging is a thriller from beginning to end. ... Leon Botstein made the right preliminary decision by settling on an ample performing text ... and, leading the American Symphony Orchestra and an excellent chorus, holds it all together with complete assurance.” According to the New York Post, “The large cast of young American singers, although lacking superstar vocal glamour, rose to the virtuoso vocal moments. ... Les Huguenots may not be a masterpiece, but Botstein conducts it with the fire and precision befitting one.” Musical America noted, “Let’s not forget Meyerbeer’s imaginative and colorful orchestration, which Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra showed to full advantage in their wholly persuasive performance.” Praising the “sweep, style, and energy” of the performance,” the New York Times concluded, “This production was a chance to enter into the cultural mind-set of a rich era in opera history. The time may be right for a Met revival. Until then, Mr. Botstein once again deserves credit for an overdue rescue job.

This season, in addition to a full-length opera, Bard SummerScape presents Oscar Straus’s operetta The Chocolate Soldier. This charming 1908 chamber opera is an amalgam of Viennese operetta and British wit, being based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man. When Shaw gave librettist Leopold Jacobson the rights to adapt the play, it was on three conditions: none of Shaw’s original dialogue nor the characters’ original names could be used; it would have to be advertised clearly as a parody of his play; and he would not accept monetary compensation. He lived to regret this last condition, as the operetta became an international success: the first English-language version of The Chocolate Soldier premiered in New York in 1909, and was the hit of the Broadway season, while its London premiere the following year ran for 500 performances. In any case, despite the playwright’s embargoes, the adaptation retains Shaw’s original comic plot and the play’s central message – that military rank is no guarantee of heroism – with the welcome addition of Straus’s sumptuous music.

Directed by award-winning director and choreographer Will Pomerantz and conducted by the Bard Music Festival’s Director of Choruses, James Bagwell, the new production opens on August 5, for the first of nine performances (August 5—15).

Theater

An Austro-Hungarian who identified himself as German, Ödön von Horváth was an anti-fascist writer. Instead of emigrating in the 1930s like so many of his colleagues, he initially remained in Berlin to study National Socialism at first hand. The result was a body of work bearing invaluable witness to the callous and petty nature of everyday life under fascism. Pointing out the dangers inherent in the political situation of the day, the playwright was forced to flee Berlin for Vienna after Hitler’s rise to power. When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, von Horváth left for Paris, only to be killed that same year (when he was only 36) by a falling tree branch. 

A runaway hit of the fall 2009 season in London, von Horváth’s Judgment Day is, according to the city’s Independent newspaper, “a fascinating drama about guilt and the compulsion towards conformism in small communities.” The Guardian likewise pronounced the play a “gripping moral fable,” and praised von Horváth’s ability “to find historical resonance in a local tragedy,” while the Daily Telegraph confessed, “One leaves the theatre impatient to see more of Horváth’s morally complex and highly atmospheric work.”

Boasting topical themes and a compelling plot and characters, Judgment Day is the story of an unhappily married stationmaster in a small town who causes a fatal train crash when he allows a flirtatious young woman to distract him from his duties. The girl perjures herself to defend him, and support for her lie poisons the town, drawing everyone deeper into a moral abyss. The play chillingly captures the story of what has been called “the petty prejudices and rancorous suspicions of an era of epic mean-mindedness.” Although it was written in 1937, two years after Berg’s death, the play nonetheless evokes echoes of the composer in its marriage of expressionist and realist elements.

Opening on July 14, the production is directed by acclaimed young Irish director Caitriona McLaughlin, for ten performances in all (July 14—25).

Dance

For the past five seasons, dance has been a vital component of SummerScape, which has opened with celebrated dance performances each summer since 2005. This year, opening SummerScape on July 8, is the “invariably sensuous,… uncommonly interesting” (New York Times) Trisha Brown Dance Company. Beginning with her work as part of the Judson Dance Theater movement in the 1960s, the pioneering and iconic choreographer Trisha Brown has never failed to shatter perceptions of what dance can be. Her work with artists in other genres – including visual artist Robert Rauschenberg, who designed costumes and sets and wrote music for her pieces – has resulted in some of the most interesting performances of the postmodern era. Her recent credits include acclaimed opera productions in Brussels, London, Paris, Aix-en-Provence, and New York City.

This summer Trisha Brown brings to SummerScape one of her newest dances – L’Amour au theater (2009) – along with two of her legendary Rauschenberg collaborations – Foray Forêt (1990) and You can see us (1995) – and a duet from her 1996 piece, Twelve Ton Rose. This last features the spare and yet unsparing chamber music of Anton Webern, who was, like Berg, a member of Schoenberg’s circle. The program will be presented in four performances (July 8—11).

Film

Bard SummerScape’s 2010 film series explores “The Best of G. W. Pabst” and, except where noted, all titles are directed by the influential German expressionist. The impressive roster includes Pandora’s Box, which stars Louise Brooks and, like Berg’s seminal opera Lulu, was based on Frank Wedekind’s Lulu plays; Secrets of a Soul, which was scripted with the assistance of members of Freud’s inner circle, becoming the first film seriously to explore psychoanalysis; The Threepenny Opera, an adaptation of the Brecht-Weill classic, starring Brecht’s wife, Lotte Lenya; and two perfectly realized American films noirs, Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past and Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night, which show in their striking chiaroscuro cinematography and brooding fatalistic atmosphere the important influence of 1920s German expressionist film on Hollywood.

The complete list is as follows: Secrets of a Soul (1926); The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927); Pandora’s Box (1929); Diary of a Lost Girl (1929); Opus I–IV (1921-25), directed by Walter Ruttmann; Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927), directed by Ruttmann; Westfront 1918 (1930); Kameradschaft (1931); The Threepenny Opera (1931); The Merry Widow (1934), directed by Ernst Lubitsch; Out of the Past (1947), directed by Jacques Tourneur; and They Live by Night (1949), directed by Nicholas Ray.

As in previous seasons, all titles will be presented on 35mm film whenever possible, and the silent films will all have live piano accompaniment. With screenings on Thursdays and Sundays at 7 pm in the Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center, “The Best of G. W. Pabst” offers a single-ticket price of $8 for each film (July 15 —August 19).

Spiegeltent

Back for a fifth magnificent summer, the authentic, one-of-a-kind Belgian Spiegeltent has been sensationally popular since its introduction at Bard in 2006, the first time one of these fabulous structures appeared in America. Offering food, beverages, and entertainment on Thursdays through Sundays throughout SummerScape, the Spiegeltent is the festival’s center for fun and refreshments. During weekend days there are family programs, and in the evening there’s a lineup of cutting-edge cabaret and musical performances – almost all of which sold out last summer – with post-show dancing and drinks.

The Spiegeltent is a handmade pavilion decorated with mirrors, centered on a theater-in-the-round that doubles as a dance floor. Its ballooning velvet canopies, ornate bar, and intimate booths make Bard’s Spiegeltent the perfect place to enjoy a dazzling array of entertainment throughout the festival, and provide a meeting place for drink, food, and celebration before and after weekend shows. Food is casual summer fare, à la carte – burgers from the grill, fresh salads, gourmet ice cream, microbrewed beer, local wine and more, sourced locally whenever possible. 

As always, Family Fare shows feature entertainment of every stripe for audiences of all ages by singers, dancers, puppeteers, magicians, and combinations thereof. This summer’s exciting array of Spiegeltent cabaret includes such returning favorites as the award-winning John Kelly, with his “worshipful and lovingly devastating” (New York Times) homage to Joni Mitchell; the seductive slapstick of the “irreverent, sacrilegious, lascivious” (New York Times) Wau Wau Sisters; crowd darlings Bindlestiff Family Cirkus; and, back by popular demand, sparkling Irish émigré Nik Quaife, returning for his fourth summer as SpiegelMaestro.

Once a week Nik Quaife and WKZE Radio Archaeology DJ Raissa St. Pierre host Thursday Night Live, featuring live acts selected from a roster of talented Hudson Valley and New York City-area bands, singers, musicians, and dancers. On Friday and Saturday evenings, while the night is still young, following the regularly scheduled performances of SummerScape, the SpiegelClub is the region’s most exhilarating summer gathering place, offering $5 admission (free to SummerScape ticket holders) after 10 pm and 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.

SummerScape 2010: key performance dates by genre

MUSIC

Bard Music Festival, Weekend One: “Berg and His World: Berg and Vienna” (August 13—15)

Bard Music Festival, Weekend Two: “Berg and His World: Berg the European” (August 20—22)

Complete program details follow.

OPERA
Franz Schreker: The Distant Sound (Der ferne Klang)
Sosnoff Theater
July 30 and August 6 at 7 pm
August 1+ and 4 at 3 pm
Tickets: $25, $55, $75 

CHAMBER OPERA
Oscar Straus: The Chocolate Soldier
LUMA Theater
August 5—7 and 12—14 at 8 pm
August 8, 11+, and 15 at 3 pm
Tickets: $45

THEATER
Ödön von Horváth: Judgment Day
LUMA Theater
July 14+, 18, 21, and 25 at 3 pm
July 15—17 and July 22—24 at 8 pm
Tickets: $45

DANCE
Trisha Brown Dance Company
July 8+, 9, and 10 at 8 pm
July 11 at 3 pm
Sosnoff Theater
Tickets: $25, $40, $55

FILM FESTIVAL
“The Best of G. W. Pabst”
Thursdays and Sundays, July 15—August 19 at 7 pm
Ottaway Film Center
Tickets: $8

SPIEGELTENT
Cabaret, Family Fare, and SpiegelClub
Cabaret $25; Family Fare $15 ($5 for child under 18); SpiegelClub $5

Venues:
SummerScape opera, theater, and dance performances and most Bard Music Festival programs are held in the Sosnoff Theater or LUMA Theater in Bard’s 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. Some chamber programs and other BMF events are in Olin Hall. The Spiegeltent has its own schedule of events, in addition to serving as a restaurant, café, and bar before and after performances. The Film Festival screenings are at the Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center in the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Center.

Special Coach Transportation:
To make a reservation on the round-trip coach provided exclusively to ticket holders for specific performances indicated by + in the calendar of events that follows, call the box office at 845-758-7900. The fare is $20 round-trip, and reservations are required. The coach departs from Columbus Circle four hours before scheduled curtain time to allow for dining in the Spiegeltent or a pre-performance visit to Bard’s Hessel Museum.

Critical Acclaim:
London’s Times Literary Supplement lauded SummerScape as “[t]he most intellectually ambitious of America’s summer music festivals.” The New Yorker called it “one of the major upstate festivals”; Travel and Leisure reported, “[At] Bard SummerScape … Gehry’s acclaimed concert hall provides a spectacular venue for innovative fare”; Newsday called SummerScape “brave and brainy”; and the New York Sun observed, “Bard’s [SummerScape] … offers one of the best lineups of the summer for fans of any arts discipline.”

Full Schedule:
A complete schedule of SummerScape and Bard Music Festival events (subject to change) follows. Updates are posted at the festival web site fishercenter.bard.edu/summerscape/2010. Tickets for all SummerScape events go on sale to the public on February 16, 2010, but those who register early as “e-Members” will have the early-bird’s choice of the best seats and also receive regular news and updates.

Chronological list of SummerScape 2010 highlights

July 8–11   SummerScape opens with Trisha Brown Dance Company

July 10   Gala benefit before performance by Trisha Brown Dance Company

July 14–25   Ten performances of Ödön von Horváth’s drama Judgment Day

July 15–Aug 19   Film Festival “The Best of G. W. Pabst” (15 films)

July 30–Aug 6   Four performances of Schreker’s opera The Distant Sound (Der Ferne Klang)

August 5–15   Nine performances of Oscar Straus’s operetta The Chocolate Soldier

August 13   Annual Bard Music Festival opening-night dinner in the Spiegeltent

August 13–15   Bard Music Festival, Weekend One: “Berg and His World: Berg and Vienna”

August 20–22   Bard Music Festival, Weekend Two: “Berg and His World: Berg the European”

Program details of Bard Music Festival, “Berg and His World”

Weekend One, August 13—15: Berg and Vienna
Friday, August 13

PROGRAM ONE

Alban Berg: The Path of Expressive Intensity

Sosnoff Theater

7:30 pm  

Pre-concert talk: Leon Botstein

8:00 pm  

Performance

In memory of George Perle

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   Seven Early Songs (1905–08)

   Piano Sonata, Op. 1 (1907–08)

   Four Pieces, for clarinet and piano (1913)

   Lyric Suite (1925–26)

Johann Strauss II (1825–99)

   Wein, Weib, und Gesang, Op. 333 (1869, arr. Berg, 1921)

Tickets $20/35/45

Saturday, August 14

Panel

Berg: His Life and Career

Olin Hall

10:00 am – 12 noon

Christopher Gibbs, moderator

Free and open to the public

PROGRAM TWO

The Vienna of Berg’s Youth

Olin Hall

1:00 pm  

Pre-concert talk: Mark DeVoto

1:30 pm  

Performance

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   Selections from early piano works and songs

Alexander Zemlinsky (1871–1942)

   Fantasies on Poems by Richard Dehmel, Op. 9 (1898)

   Five Songs (Dehmel) (1907)

Karl Weigl (1881–1949)

   String Quartet No. 3 in A major (1909)

Anton Webern (1883–1945)

   Piano Quintet (1907)

Tickets: $35

PROGRAM THREE

Mahler and Beyond

Sosnoff Theater

7:00 pm            Pre-concert talk: Christopher H. Gibbs

8:00 pm            Performance: American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   Fünf Orchesterlieder nach Ansichtskartentexten von Peter Altenberg, Op. 4 (1912)

   Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6 (1914–15)

   Violin Concerto (1935)

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)

   Adagio, from Symphony No. 10 (1910)

Hans Pfitzner (1869–1949)

   “Abend” and “Nacht,” from Von deutscher Seele, Op. 28 (1921)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957)

   Prelude and Carnival Music, from Violanta, Op. 8 (1914)

Tickets: $25/40/55

Sunday, August 15

PROGRAM FOUR

Eros and Thanatos

Olin Hall

10:00 am  

Performance  

Works by Alban Berg (1885–1935), Johann Strauss II (1825–99), Richard Strauss (1864–1949), Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951), Franz Schreker (1878–1934), Alma Mahler (1879–1964), Friedrich Hollaender (1896–1976), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957)

Tickets: $30

PROGRAM FIVE

Teachers and Apostles

Olin Hall

1:00 pm  

Pre-concert talk: Sherry D. Lee

1:30 pm

Performance

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   String Quartet, Op. 3 (1910)

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)

   Six Piano Pieces, Op. 19 (1911)

Anton Webern (1883–1945)

   Four Pieces, for violin and piano, Op. 7 (1910)

Egon Wellesz (1885–1974)

   Three Piano Pieces, Op. 9 (1911)

Sandór Jemnitz (1890–1963)

   Trio, for guitar, violin, and viola, Op. 33 (1932)

Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944)

   Variations and Double-Fugue on a Piano Work by A. Schönberg, Op. 19, No. 4 (1929)

Hans Erich Apostel (1901–72)

   Variations from Lulu (1935)

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–69)

   Six Bagatelles, Op. 6 (1923–42)

Tickets: $35

PROGRAM SIX

The Orchestra Reimagined

Sosnoff Theater

5:00 pm  

Pre-concert talk: Antony Beaumont

5:30 pm            Performance: members of the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   Kammerkonzert (1923–25)

Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924)

   Berceuse élégiaque, Op. 42 (1909; arr. Stein, 1920)

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)

   Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 (1905–06)

Paul Hindemith (1895–1963)

   Kammermusik No. 1, Op. 24/1 (1921)

Tickets: $20/35/45

Weekend Two, August 20—22: Berg the European

Friday, August 20

SYMPOSIUM

Rethinking the Modern

Multipurpose room, Bertelsmann Campus Center

10:00 am—12 noon

1:30 pm— 3:30 pm

Gary Hagberg, moderator

Free and open to the public

PROGRAM SEVEN

“No Critics Allowed”: The Society for Private Performances

Sosnoff Theater

7:30 pm  

Pre-concert talk: Tamara Levitz

8:00 pm  

Performance

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   Four Songs, Op. 2 (1909–10)

Claude Debussy (1862–1918)  

   Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1891–94; arr. Sachs, 1921)

Max Reger (1873–1916)

   Serenade, for flute, violin, and viola, in G major, Op. 141a (1915)

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

   La valse (1919–20, arr. 2 pianos)

Béla Bartók (1881–1945)

   14 Bagatelles, Op. 6 (1908)

Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937)

   Romance, for violin and piano, Op. 23 (1910)

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)

   Piano-Rag Music (1919)

   Berceuses du chat (1915)

Josef Matthias Hauer (1883–1959)

   Nomos, Op. 2 (1913)

Tickets: $20/35/45

Saturday, August 21

PROGRAM EIGHT

Viennese Popular Music and Operetta

Olin Hall

10:00 am  

Performance

Works by Alban Berg (1885–1935), Franz Schreker (1878–1934), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957), and others

Tickets: $30

PROGRAM NINE

Composers Select: New Music in the 1920s

Olin Hall

1:00 pm  

Pre-concert talk: Marilyn McCoy

1:30 pm            

Performance

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   Adagio, from Kammerkonzert, arr. for piano trio (1923–25; arr. 1935)

Manuel De Falla (1876–1946)

   Concerto, for harpsichord, flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, and cello (1923–26)

Alfredo Casella (1883–1947)

   Sinfonia, for piano, cello, clarinet, and trumpet, Op. 53 (1932)

Ernst Toch (1887–1964)

   Quartet for Strings No. 11, Op. 34 (1924)

Darius Milhaud (1892–1974)

   L’enlèvement d’Europe, Op. 94 (1927)

Alois Hába (1893–1973)

   Quartet for Strings No. 2, in the quarter-tone system, Op. 7 (1920)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957)

   Four Little Caricatures for Children, Op. 19 (1926)

Hanns Eisler (1898–1962)

   Tagebuch des Hanns Eisler, Op. 9 (1926)

George Gershwin (1898–1937)

   Three Preludes for Piano (1926–26)

Tickets: $35

PROGRAM TEN

Modernism and Its Discontent

Sosnoff Theater

7:00 pm   

Pre-concert talk: Christopher Hailey

8:00 pm   

Performance: Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   Der Wein (1929)            

Franz Schmidt (1874–1939)

   Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (1935–37)

Tickets: $25/40/55

Sunday, August 22

PANEL TWO

Music and Morality

Olin Hall

10 am – 12 noon

Christopher Hailey, moderator; Leon Botstein; Klara Moricz

Free and open to the public

PROGRAM ELEVEN

Between Accommodation and Inner Emigration: The Composer’s Predicament

Olin Hall

1:00 pm   

Pre-concert talk: Richard Wilson

1:30 pm   

Performance

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   Schliesse mir die Augen beide (1925)         

Othmar Schoeck (1886–1957)

   Notturno, Op. 47 (1931–33)

Ernst Krenek (1900–91)

   Durch die Nacht, song cycle, Op. 67a (1930–31)

Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905–63)

   Quartet for Strings No. 1, “Carillon” (1933)           

PROGRAM TWELVE

Crimes and Passions

Sosnoff Theater

4:30 pm   

Pre-concert talk: Bryan Gilliam

5:30 pm          

Performance: Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

   Three Fragments from Wozzeck (1924)                                   

   Lulu Suite (1934)                                                                       

 Paul Hindemith (1895–1963)

   Sancta Susanna, Op. 21 (1921)                                                           

 Kurt Weill (1900–50)

   Royal Palace, Op. 17 (1925–26)

 Tickets: $25/40/55

Bard SummerScape 2010 calendar: events in chronological order

July 8 (Thursday)

+8:00 pm     Trisha Brown (Sosnoff) +

July 9 (Friday)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm   Trisha Brown (Sosnoff)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 10 (Saturday)

5:30 pm   Gala dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm   Trisha Brown (Sosnoff)

9:00 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

July 11 (Sunday)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

3:00 pm   Trisha Brown (Sosnoff)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

July 14 (Wednesday)

+3:00 pm     Judgment Day (LUMA Theater) +

July 15 (Thursday)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

8:00 pm   Judgment Day (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Thursday Night Live (Spiegeltent)

July 16 (Friday)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm   Judgment Day (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 17 (Saturday)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

3:30 pm   Family Fare (Spiegeltent)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm   Judgment Day (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 18 (Sunday)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

3:00 pm   Judgment Day (LUMA Theater)

3:30 pm   Family Fare (Spiegeltent)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

July 21 (Wednesday)

3:00 pm   Judgment Day (LUMA Theater)

July 22 (Thursday)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

8:00 pm   Judgment Day (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm    Thursday Night Live (Spiegeltent)

July 23 (Friday)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm   Judgment Day (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 24 (Saturday)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

3:30 pm   Family Fare (Spiegeltent)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm   Judgment Day (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 25 (Sunday)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

3:00 pm   Judgment Day (LUMA Theater)

3:30 pm   Family Fare (Spiegeltent)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

July 29 (Thursday)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

8:30 pm   Thursday Night Live (Spiegeltent)

July 30 (Friday)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm   The Distant Sound (Sosnoff)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

July 31 (Saturday)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

3:30 pm   Family Fare (Spiegeltent)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

August 1 (Sunday)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

+3:00 pm     The Distant Sound (Sosnoff) +

3:30 pm   Family Fare (Spiegeltent)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

August 4 (Wednesday)

3:00 pm   The Distant Sound (Sosnoff)

August 5 (Thursday)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

8:00 pm   The Chocolate Soldier (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Thursday Night Live (Spiegeltent)

August 6 (Friday)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm   The Distant Sound (Sosnoff)

8:00 pm   The Chocolate Soldier (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

August 7 (Saturday)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

3:30 pm   Family Fare (Spiegeltent)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:00 pm   The Chocolate Soldier (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

August 8 (Sunday)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

3:00 pm   The Chocolate Soldier (LUMA Theater)

3:30 pm   Family Fare (Spiegeltent)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

August 11 (Wednesday)

+3:00 pm     The Chocolate Soldier (LUMA Theater) +

August 12 (Thursday)

5:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

8:00 pm   The Chocolate Soldier (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Thursday Night Live (Spiegeltent)

August 13 (Friday)

5:30 pm   BMF opening-night dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:30 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Sosnoff)

8:00 pm   BMF Program One (Sosnoff)

8:00 pm   The Chocolate Soldier (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

August 14 (Saturday)

10:00 am–12 pm   BMF panel (Olin)

1:00 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Olin)

1:30 pm   BMF Program Two (Olin)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Sosnoff)

8:00 pm   BMF Program Three (Sosnoff)

8:00 pm   The Chocolate Soldier (LUMA Theater)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

August 15 (Sunday)

10:00 am   BMF Program Four (Olin)

1:00 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Olin)

1:30 pm   BMF Program Five (Olin)

1:00–3:00 pm   Lunch (Spiegeltent)

3:00 pm   The Chocolate Soldier (LUMA Theater)

5:00 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Sosnoff)

5:30 pm   BMF Program Six (Sosnoff)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

August 19 (Thursday)

7:00 pm   Film (Ottaway)

8:30 pm   Thursday Night Live (Spiegeltent)

August 20 (Friday)

10:00 am–12 pm   BMF symposium (Multipurpose Room, Bertelsmann Campus Center)

1:30– 3:30 pm   BMF symposium (Multipurpose Room, Bertelsmann Campus Center)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:30 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Sosnoff)

8:00 pm   BMF Program Seven (Sosnoff)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

August 21 (Saturday)

10:00 am   BMF Program Eight (Olin)

1:00 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Olin)

1:30 pm   BMF Program Nine (Olin)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

7:00 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Sosnoff)

8:00 pm   BMF Program Ten (Sosnoff)

8:30 pm   Evening cabaret (Spiegeltent)

10:00 pm   SpiegelClub (Spiegeltent)

August 22 (Sunday)

10:00 am-12 pm   BMF Panel Two (Olin)

1:00 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Olin)

1:30 pm   BMF Program Eleven (Olin)

4:30 pm   BMF pre-concert talk (Sosnoff)

5:30 pm   BMF Program Twelve (Sosnoff)

5:30–8:00 pm   Dinner (Spiegeltent)

8:30 pm   Closing party (Spiegeltent)

Bard SummerScape Ticket Information

The Bard SummerScape Festival is made possible through the generous support of the Advisory Boards of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and the Bard Music Festival, and the Friends of the Fisher Center.

Tickets for all Bard SummerScape events go on sale to the public on February 16.

For tickets and further information on all SummerScape events, call the Fisher Center box office at 845-758-7900 or visit www.fishercenter.bard.edu.

Bard SummerScape: fishercenter.bard.edu/summerscape

Bard Music Festival: fishercenter.bard.edu/bmf/2010/

Tickets: [email protected]; or by phone at 845-758-7900

Updates: Bard’s “e-members” get all the news in regular updates. Click here to sign up.

All program information is subject to change.

# # #

February 2010

This event was last updated on 06-01-2010

Back to Top