Meyerbeer's LE PROPHETE to Open At Bard SummerScape This Month

Starting next Friday, July 26, at the 2024 Bard Summerscape festival, the Fisher Center at Bard will present the first new American production in almost five decades of Giacomo Meyerbeer's Le prophète, an all-too-topical grand opera in which religion, politics, and power collide. Robert Watson, Jennifer Feinstein, and Amina Edris star in an original staging by Christian Räth, the director behind SummerScape's celebrated treatments of Das Wunder der Heliane and The Silent Woman, which confirmed the festival's reputation for “essential summertime fare for the serious American opera-goer” (Financial Times, UK). Featuring the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) and Bard Festival Chorale under the leadership of festival founder and co-artistic director Leon Botstein, Le prophète runs for five performances in the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center on Bard's bucolic Hudson Valley campus (July 26, 28, 31; August 2, 4). Chartered coach transportation from New York City will be available for two matinees (July 28 and August 4), and the third performance will stream live online (July 31) with an encore presentation three days later (August 3).
 
Rounding out Bard's operatic lineup this summer, Botstein, the ASO, and the Bard Festival Chorale also anchor La damnation de Faust by Hector Berlioz (August 18). Starring Joshua Blue, Sasha Cooke, and Alfred Walker, their concert performance forms the final program of the 2024 Bard Music Festival, which undertakes an in-depth reexamination of “Berlioz and His World.” Once again, chartered coach transportation from New York City will be available for the performance, which will stream live online.
 
These operatic offerings follow last season's SummerScape success with the first major American production of Saint-Saëns's Henri VIII. This was chosen as one of the “Best Classical Music Performances of 2023” by the New York Times, which observed: “There are ever fewer companies and presenters, even in a cultural center like New York, doing works like this, let alone in full, thoughtful stagings; Botstein, and his annual opera production at Bard, seem more invaluable by the year.”

Meyerbeer's Le prophète at SummerScape

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864) was the 19th century's most frequently performed composer of opera. Despite its long recent neglect, his third grand opera remains one of the most successful ever written. Through a fictionalized account of the Anabaptist uprising of the 1530s, when innkeeper John of Leiden (or Jean de Leyde) turned the city of Münster into a millenarian theocracy and proclaimed himself its king, Le prophète (1849) explores the dark world of false prophets and mass hysteria. Addressing the dangers of mixing religion with politics, the rise of demagoguery, and the challenges faced by members of minority groups, like the German Jewish composer himself, the opera raises issues that continue to resonate today.
 
SummerScape's original production is by German director Christian Räth, whose work has taken him from the Metropolitan Opera to La Scala and Covent Garden. At SummerScape, his 2022 treatment of The Silent Woman was a New York Times Critics' Pick and his 2019 U.S. premiere of Das Wunder der Heliane prompted Musical America to marvel: “Opera productions don't get much better than this.” In addition to working closely with Leon Botstein and the University of Southampton's Professor Mark Everist to create a performing edition of Le prophète, Räth has also brought together some of his most trusted creative partners for this production. Thus, sets are by the director and Daniel Unger, lighting by Tony Award winner Rick Fisher, costumes by European Opera Prize winner and SummerScape regular Mattie Ullrich, choreography by Catherine Galasso, and projections by Elaine McCarthy, whose honors include a Distinguished Achievement Award from the U.S. Institute for Theater Technology.
 
American tenor Robert Watson, who “commands a well-wrought tenor, with baritonal richness in the lower register and a fine blaze on top” (Dallas News), stars in the psychologically complex title role of Jean. Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Feinstein, whose “gorgeous mezzo was a triumph” (Musical America) in SummerScape's Heliane, sings the similarly nuanced role of Fidès, Jean's mother, and Egyptian-born soprano Amina Edris, who “reveals a burnished lyric soprano and splendid dramatic commitment” (Gramophone) on the acclaimed 2022 recording of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable, sings Jean's fiancé, Berthe. They are joined by Harold Wilson, who “commanded a sonorous bass” (New York Times) in the lead role of SummerScape's Silent Woman, and Grammy winners Wei Wu and Frederick Ballentine, as Le prophète's three sinister Anabaptists.

Berlioz's La damnation de Faust at Bard Music Festival, Program 11

Like Meyerbeer, Hector Berlioz (1803–69) wrote a grand-scale dramatic work whose protagonist allows himself to be corrupted by the forces of evil. Although poorly received at its premiere, La damnation de Faust (1846) went on to become one of the best-known and most highly respected musical settings of Goethe's Faust, from which so many Romantic composers drew inspiration. Expanding and enriching material from Huit scènes de Faust, Berlioz's own earlier treatment of the same story, La damnation (originally subtitled “Opéra de Concert”), is now a beloved repertory staple.
 
As the titular scholar, Bard's concert performance stars British-American tenor Joshua Blue, who “reached ecstatic heights” (Observer) at SummerScape in last season's Sir John in Love. He sings opposite the Marguerite of two-time Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, who brought “gleaming sound and a touch of self-destructive volatility” (New York Times) to SummerScape 2021's King Arthur. The two are joined by bass-baritone Alfred Walker – who combines “vocal heft and theatrical intensity” (Wall Street Journal) and who drew rave reviews for his SummerScape performances in Heliane and in the leading role of last season's Henri VIII – as Méphistophélès, the devil in disguise. Anchored by the American Symphony Orchestra under Botstein's leadership, their performance forms the 2024 Bard Music Festival's eleventh and final program, “Faust and the Spirit of the 19th Century” (August 18).

Round-trip bus transportation from New York City

Chartered coach transportation from New York City is available for the matinee performances on Sunday, July 28; Sunday, August 4; and Sunday, August 18. This may be ordered online or by calling the box office, and the meeting point for coach pick-up and drop-off is at Lincoln Center, Amsterdam Avenue, between 64th and 65th Streets. More information is available here.

SummerScape tickets

Tickets for mainstage events start at $25. For complete information regarding tickets, series discounts, and more, visit fishercenter.bard.edu. or call Bard's box office at (845) 758-7900.

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