Bard SummerScape opens this week; highlights include Meyerbeer’s grand opera Le prophète and 34th Bard Music Festival, “Berlioz and His World”

(June 2024, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY) — The curtain rises this week on Bard
SummerScape’s 21st season, presented by the Fisher Center at Bard in New York’s
bucolic Hudson Valley. Highlights of the eight-week annual arts festival include the first
new American production in almost five decades of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s grand opera Le
prophète, starring Robert Watson, Jennifer Feinstein, and Amina Edris in an original
staging by German director Christian Räth (July 26–August 4), and the 34th Bard Music
Festival, “Berlioz and His World”: eleven themed concerts – plus talks, commentary, and
panel discussions – offering an in-depth re-examination of definitive French Romantic
composer Hector Berlioz (August 9–11; August 15–18). Chartered coach transportation
from New York City is available for Le prophète (July 28 and August 4) and the final
program of the Bard Music Festival (August 18); more information is available here. In
addition, Le prophète and six concerts will stream live to home audiences worldwide on
Upstreaming, the Fisher Center’s virtual stage.

Also on SummerScape’s main stage are the world premieres of two new SummerScape
commissions. In Ulysses, New York-based theater ensemble Elevator Repair Service offers
an original, sometimes madcap staging of James Joyce’s modernist masterpiece (June
20–July 14). Urban Bush Women’s SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar
is a new dance-driven musical that tells the story of a family and a people during the Great
Migration; conceived, directed, and co-choreographed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, it will be
performed with a live band to an original jazz score by Craig Harris (June 28–30). Ulysses
will be accompanied by an opening night preshow event (June 22), a postperformance talk
(June 26), and a preperformance talk (July 14 at 1pm), while SCAT! will be accompanied by
a postperformance party to celebrate Urban Bush Women’s 40th anniversary (June 28) and
a preperformance talk (June 30 at 2pm). Round-trip transportation from New York City is
available for the June 30 performance of Ulysses and the July 14 performance of SCAT!; more
information is available here.

SummerScape’s one-of-a-kind Belgian Spiegeltent returns for sumptuous weekends of
dancing, drinks, and live performances curated by Caleb Hammons and hosted by longtime
Spiegeltent favorite Adrienne Truscott. Featured artists will include Monét X Change,
Susanne Bartsch, Sandra Bernhard, Justin Vivian Bond, Ari Shapiro, Nona Hendryx, Larry
Owens, Mali Obomsawin, Michela Marino Lerman’s Love Movement, and Sunny Jain (June
28–August 17).

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.

What critics are saying about Bard SummerScape…

“Seven weeks of cultural delight.” (International Herald Tribune)
“A track record of reliable transcendence.” (New York Times)
“One of the major upstate festivals.” (New Yorker)
“A highbrow hotbed of culture.” (Huffington Post)
“The smartest mix of events within driving distance of New York.” (Bloomberg News)
“Leon Botstein’s Bard SummerScape and Bard Music Festival always unearth piles of buried
treasure.” (New Yorker)
“One of the best lineups of the summer for fans of any arts discipline.” (New York Sun)
“One of the great artistic treasure chests of the tri-state area and the country.” (GALO
magazine)
“One of the New York area’s great seasonal escapes.” (American Record Guide)
“A haven for important operas.” (New York Times)
“A thinking listener’s festival.” (Boston Globe)
“An indispensable part of the summer operatic landscape.” (Musical America)
“Essential summertime fare for the serious American opera-goer” (Financial Times, UK)
“Botstein, and his annual opera production at Bard, seem more invaluable by the year.”
(New York Times)
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring
operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.” (Time Out New York)
“A spectacular venue for innovative fare.” (Travel and Leisure magazine)
“It’s hard not to find something to like, and it’s even harder to beat the setting.” (New York
Post)
“The experience of entering the Fisher Center and encountering something totally new is
unforgettable and enriching.” (Time Out New York)

…and about the Bard Music Festival

“The summer’s most stimulating music festival.” (Los Angeles Times)
“It has long been one of the most intellectually stimulating of all American summer festivals
and frequently is one of the most musically satisfying.” (Wall Street Journal)
“Part boot camp for the brain, part spa for the spirit.” (New York Times)
“A highlight of the musical year.” (Wall Street Journal)
“The most intellectually ambitious of America’s summer music festivals.” (Times Literary
Supplement, London)
“One of the ‘Ten Can’t-Miss Classical Music Festivals.’” (NPR Music)
“A two-weekend musicological intensive doubling as a sumptuous smorgasbord of
concerts.” (New York Times)
“An always intrepid New York event.” (Time Out New York)
“One of New York’s premier summer destinations for adventurous music lovers.” (New York
Times)

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SummerScape 2024: key dates

June 20–July 14
Theater: Ulysses by Elevator Repair Service
(world premiere of new SummerScape commission)

June 28–30
Dance: SCAT! The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar
(world premiere of new SummerScape commission)

June 28–August 17
Spiegeltent: live music and dancing

July 26–August 4
Opera: Meyerbeer’s Le prophète (new production)

August 9–11
Bard Music Festival: Berlioz and His World
Weekend One: Revolutionary Spectacle and Romantic Passion

August 15–18
Bard Music Festival: Berlioz and His World
Weekend Two: Music and the Literary Imagination

All programs subject to change

Lead commissioning support for the development and creation of SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot &
Al Zollar was provided by the Fisher Center at Bard through the Fisher Center’s Artistic Innovation Fund, with
lead support from Rebecca Gold and additional funding from The William and Lia G. Poorvu Family Foundation.
Lead commissioning support was also provided by Brown Arts Institute at Brown University.
Additional commissioning support is generously provided by: The Perelman Performing Arts Center, The
O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, and American Dance Festival with support from the Doris
Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Works.
SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar is made possible in part by The Acton Family Fund,
MAP Fund (supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Mellon Foundation), National
Endowment for the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Lead funding for the Fisher Center at Bard’s production of Ulysses was provided by the T. S. Eliot Foundation.
Major commissioning and development support was provided by Fisher Center LAB, which receives funding from
members of the Live Arts Bard Creative Council, the Lucille Lortel Foundation, and the Fisher Center’s Artistic
Innovation Fund, with lead support from Rebecca Gold and additional funding from The William and Lia G.
Poorvu Family Foundation.
This performance by Elevator Repair Service is made possible, in part, with public funds from the National
Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor
and the New York State Legislature, and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership
with the City Council. Ulysses was commissioned by and developed at Symphony Space. On June 16, 2022,
Symphony Space presented an early iteration of the piece for its annual one-night-only “Bloomsday on
Broadway” event.
Elevator Repair Service is also supported with funds from The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation, The Fan Fox and
Leslie R. Samuels Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Howard
Gilman Foundation, The J.M. Kaplan Fund, Jockey Hollow Foundation, Lucille Lortel Foundation, The O’Grady
Foundation, Scherman Foundation, Select Equity Group Foundation, and The Shubert Foundation.
Elevator Repair Service is a member of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York.

The Fisher Center is generously supported by Jeanne Donovan Fisher, the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Foundation,
Felicitas S. Thorne, the Advisory Boards of the Fisher Center at Bard and Bard Music Festival, Fisher Center and
Bard Music Festival members, the Educational Foundation of America, the Ettinger Foundation, the Herman
Goldman Foundation, the Smokler/Hebert Family Fund, the Thendara Foundation, and the New York State
Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

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© 21C Media Group, June 2024