Opera Review: Tsarface

The Time of Troubles comes to Bard College with Dimitrij.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Family snapshot: the false tsar Dimitrij (Clay Hilley, center)
flanked by Marfa (Nora Sourouzian) and Marina, his wife (Melissa Citro).
Photo courtesy Bard College and Bard SummerScape.

The operas of Antonín Dvorak are central to the repertory in that composer’s native land, but apart from Rusalka, remain neglected here in the United States. That may change after this weekend, when Bard SummerScape offered the first fully staged U.S. Performances of Dimitrij. Planned to be Dvorak's breakthrough international success, this opera is his most ambitious stage work: an absorbing, turbulent drama chronicling the start of the Time of Troubles, the most turbulent period in Russian history,

Opera Preview: Dimitrij

Superconductor delves into "The Time of Troubles" and Dvořák's opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The incident that started it all: Ivan the Terrible (top) holds his dying son Ivanovich.
Painting by Vadim Repin. 

The biggest opera premiere of the summer is this Friday evening, when Bard SummerScape unveils the rarely performed Dmitrij by Antonín Dvořák. Dmitrij is a Czech opera that delves into a bloody and to historians, fascinating period: the Time of Troubles. With the premiere scheduled for Friday night, I thought it would be a good idea to delve into the history of Dmitrij, and its more famous "prequel": Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov.

Opera Review: Her Daddy Said: "A Whore"

Bard SummerScape plucks Mascagni's rare Iris.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pimp daddy: Kyoto (Douglas Williams) menaces Iris (Talise Trevigne) in Mascagni's opera.
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2016 Bard SummerScape.

Composer Pietro Mascagni once famously said that of all his operas he regretted writing Cavalleria Rusticana first. This month, his Iris is the centerpiece of the annual Bard SummerScape festival,  held at the shiny Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center (on the verdant grounds of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson New York.) At Sunday's matinee performance, conductor, artistic director and Bard president Leon Botstein made a forceful case for Iris as a lost Mascagni masterwork.

Opera Review: Love on the Rocks

Ethyl Smyth's The Wreckers rises from the vasty deep.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
(This article is presented in collaboration with our friends at OperaPulse.)

Wrecking crew: (L-r) Katharine Goeldner, Sky Ingram, Michael Mayes, Neal Cooper and Kendra Broom 
in rehearsal for Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers.
Photo by Stephanie Berger © 2015 Bard SummerScape.

Each summer, it is the business of the Bard SummerScape Festival to present an opera that for whatever reason has fallen far from the fringes of the standard repertory. On Friday night, artistic director and Bard College president) Leon Botstein led the first fully staged performance of The Wreckers the 1907 opera by Dame Ethyl Smyth. (The work was first performed in the U.S. by the American Symphony Orchestra under Dr. Botstein at Carnegie Hall in 2007.) This was the first of five scheduled performances this month at the Fisher Center, the Frank Gehry-designed concert hall on the Bard campus that is SummerScape's headquarters.

Opera Review: La Plaisanterie Polonaise

Le roi malgré-lui at Bard SummerScape.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Motel hobbies: The Act III set for Le roi maigre-lui at Bard SummerScape.
Photo by Corey Weaver © 2012 Bard SummerScape/Bard Music Festival

The Fisher Center sits on the Bard College campus in the quiet college town of Annendale-on-Hudson. This Frank Gehry-designed theater is home to Bard SummerScape, where New York's opera lovers travel to hear works from deep in the repertory that are way off the beaten path of Verdi, Puccini and even Wagner. This year, the festival made its first comic offering: Emmanuel Chabrier's Le Roi malgré-lui ("The King in Spite of Himself") a comic confection that had just three performances at its 1887 debut--before the theater burned down.

The case for reviving Le roi malgré-lui is a difficult one. Although the opera contains some entertaining melodies, the weak libretto undermines the composer's efforts. The plot is a cross between the (failed) 1840 Verdi comedy Un Giorno di Regno and the composer's later Un Ballo in Maschera--with a reluctant ruler running afoul of an assassination conspiracy--and eventually joining it.

Here's the story: King Henri, a callow French nobleman is newly elected to take the throne of Poland. He hates his job. He abdicates, switches identities with his best friend Nangis, and joins a conspiracy against himself. Finally, he (reluctantly) takes back the reins of power and wins the girl, who happens to be married to one of his courtiers. The story contains a series of comic gyrations that can leave even the most jaded opera-goers scratching their heads.

Opera Preview: Le Roi malgré lui

Leon Botstein unearths a rare gem by Emmanuel Chabrier.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
"I would rather have written Le Roi malgré lui than the Ring of the Nibelungen."--Maurice Ravel

Costume design for the Cossacks in Le Roi malgré lui.
Costume design sketch by Mattie Ulrich © Bard Festival 2012.

This year's Bard Festival is devoted to the music and culture of 19th century France. As a result, the July opera offering at the Fisher Center (located on the picturesque campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson) isLe Roi malgré lui, ("The King in Spite of Himself") a rarely performed comedy by French composer Emmauel Chabrier.

Chabrier is best remembered by opera lovers for writing L'Etoile, a surreal comedy of kingship and succession that has been mounted occasionally at Glimmerglass and at the New York City Opera. Le Roi deals with some similar themes.

It is the story of a ne'er-do-well French nobleman, Henri, who somehow finds himself in line to take the throne of Poland. The opera's plot mainly consists of the reluctant king's increasingly convoluted efforts to escape the country and the pressures of his job.