Summer Festival Preview: Caramoor

The stately festival in Katonah prepares for changes.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The big tent at Caramoor and at one end, the Venetian Theater.

Doings are a-transpiring at the Rosen Estate, the stately faux-Italian Renaissance manor house in Katonah, NY that is the home of the Caramoor Festival. Caramoor is the summer home of the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and is reknowned for its series of chamber music, orchestral concerts and opera performances.

Opera Review: Figaro's Bigger Brother

Caramoor exhumes Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Will Crutchfield (left) conducting the chorus at Caramoor.
The maestro led the Orchestra of St. Luke's in Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira on Saturday.
Photo by Gabe Palacios © 2016 Caramoor Festival for the Performing Arts.

Giachino Rossini was one of the most prolific and pragmatic opera composers of the nineteenth century. A master of melodious arias and rousing choral crescendoes, he composed opera naturally and easily, tossing off a string of thirty-eight operas before retiring from the stage at that same age. Aureliano in Palmira was written for La Scala, and was an ambitious work in the opera seria mode. However, it tanked on opening night and sunk into the mists of opera history.

Superconductor 2016 Summer Festival Preview II: Caramoor

The elegant estate in Katonah, NY has a full slate planned.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Baton out of nowhere: Gil Shaham in concert at Caramoor. The violinist will
close out the 2016 festival season Aug. 7. Photo © Caramoor Music Festival.

The Superconductor survey of the upcoming summer festival schedule moves just north of the city to Caramoor, an elegant, sprawling estate with shady, graveled walks, rolling grassy lawns and its own hedge maze. Caramoor also boasts a strong schedule of classical concerts, and the annual Bel Canto at Caramoor concert performances in the Venetian Theater are a magnet for Gotham opera-goers.

Opera Review: The Bride Wore Yellow

Bel Canto at Caramoor mounts La Favorite.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
(This review is presented in collaboration with our friends at OperaPulse.)

Clémentine Margaine (center) and Santiago Ballerini in La Favorite.
Photo by Gabe Palacio for the Caramoor Festival.

Sometimes it takes an exceptional revival to bring an opera back from the grave. That's what happened Saturday night when the annual Bel Canto at Caramoor series turned its attention to Donizetti's La Favorite, a show that held the stage in Paris from its premiere in 1840 until 1894. This performance, held on July 11 featured the Orchestra of St. Luke's under the baton of Will Crutchfield. For the performance of this difficult work, Mr. Crutchfield assembled  a slew of strong young singers execute the original French version of this opera with style and flair.

Opera Review: No Shakespeare Allowed

Bel Canto at Caramoor presents I Capuleti e i Montecchi.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi retells the story of Romeo and Juliet
--but it's not based on the Shakespeare play.

Saturday evening at Caramoor afforded New York area opera lovers the chance to hear the Vincenzo Bellini rarity I Capuleti e i Montecchi ("The Capulets and the Montagues") in a concert performance featuring the Orchestra of St. Luke's. This version of the story of two star-cross'd lovers was a tremendous early success from Bellini but like many bel canto works, fell out of fashion.

Closer examination of this non-Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet reveals that it contains some of Bellini's most compelling music, although much of the score was cannibalized from his earlier flop Zaira. I Capuleti brims with strong choral passages for the feuding houses and chromatic writing that anticipates Tristan and the most romantic passages of Die Walküre. (Richard Wagner, never above borrowing a melodic idea from a quality source, conducted this opera on many occasions in his early career.)

The libretto ignores the Shakespeare play based on this story, using as its source Matteo Bandello's version of a story by Luigi di Porto--which also inspired the British playwright. In this version, the two noble houses are on opposite sides of the Renaissance conflict between the Guelphs and the Ghibilines. Romeo woos Giulietta by pretending to be an ambassador from the Montecchi (Montagues.) Familiar figures like Old Montague, the Nurse, and Mercutio are not present.

Opera Review: Hollywood Babilonia

Caramoor presents Rossini's Ciro in Babilonia.
by Paul Pelkonen

Ewa Podles (left) and Jessica Pratt sing a love duet against a digital starfield in Act II of Ciro in Babilonia.
Digital projections by Paolo Cuppo. Photo by Gabe Palacio © 2012 the Caramoor Festival

It is a testament to the industry of Giaochino Rossini that opera companies and festivals are still finding fresh works by the composer to perform. One of the rarest is the Biblical drama Ciro in Babilonia (Cyrus in Babylon) which received its U.S. premiere on Saturday night as part of Bel Canto at Caramoor, the Katonah, NY arts festival's yearly exploration of 19th century Italian repertory.

Ciro retells the story of the conquest of Babylon by the Persian emperor Cyrus II. This is the familiar story taken from the Book of Daniel, with Belshazzar's Feast, the "writing on the wall" and the subsequent downfall of Chaldea and the end of the Babylonian Captivity. Rossini chose the libretto (by Francesco Aventi) as an opera that could be performed during the Lenten season of 1812.

This Old Testament epic was soon eclipsed by the success of Rossini's later works. But that didn't stop the composer from recycling some of the best bits of Ciro into the scores of L'Italiana in Algeri and most noticeably The Barber of Seville. The autograph score is lost, but it proved possible to reconstruct Ciro from a piano rehearsal score. The opera has been recorded twice, and is occasionally revived.