Committed since its inception to reviving important but neglected operas, Bard SummerScape offers a rare new American production of Demon by Anton Rubinstein as its operatic centerpiece this summer. Olga Tolkmit and Efim Zavalny head an all-Russian cast in an original staging by renowned American director Thaddeus Strassberger, with the support of the American Symphony Orchestra under the leadership of music director and festival co-artistic director Leon Botstein. Demon runs for five performances between July 27 and August 5 in the striking Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center on Bard’s glorious Hudson Valley campus.
Rubinstein, whose students included Tchaikovsky, was a prolific composer with no fewer than 20 operas to his name. The most popular of these was Demon (1871), one of the two operas mounted most often in 19th-century Russia, and the country’s first to be produced in Britain. Yet despite its rich choruses and fiery libretto, today Rubinstein’s masterpiece has fallen into neglect and is almost never staged in the English-speaking world. After a rare presentation in London in 2009, The Independent declared: “You can see why it did, and still does, carry the wow factor in Russia.” Bard’s full staging represents an all-too-rare opportunity to see Rubinstein’s opera mounted outside the composer’s homeland.
Anton Rubinstein’s Demon
Dates & times:
July 27* at 8 pm; July 29* at 2pm; August 1, 3* & 5* at 2 pm
Venue:
Richard B. Fisher Center (Sosnoff Theater), Annandale-on-Hudson (accessible by regular Amtrak trains)
Artists & creative team:
American Symphony Orchestra; Leon Botstein, conductor
Thaddeus Strassberger, director; Bard Festival Chorale, conducted by James Bagwell
Demon: Efim Zavalny, baritone; Tamara: Olga Tolkmit, soprano;
Angel: Nadezhda Babintseva, mezzo-soprano; Prince Gudal: Andrei Valentii, bass; Prince Sinodal: Alexander Nesterenko, tenor; Nanny: Ekaterina Egorova, mezzo-soprano
Tickets: $20 – $105; available from Fisher Center box office at (845) 758-7900 or visitfishercenter.bard.edu/summerscape
July 29 at 12 pm: free pre-concert talk with Leon Botstein
* Round-trip bus service from Manhattan is provided exclusively to ticket-holders for the performances marked with asterisks above. A reservation is required, and may be made by calling the box office at 845-758-7900 or by selecting this option when purchasing tickets. The round-trip fare is $40, and the coach departs from behind Lincoln Center, on Amsterdam Avenue between 64th and 65th Streets. Find additional details at: fishercenter.bard.edu/visit/transportation.
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