Opening next Friday, July 26 at Bard SummerScape: first new U.S. production in 47 years of Meyerbeer’s grand opera Le prophète

(July 2024, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY) — Starting next Friday, July 26, at the 2024 Bard
SummerScape festival, the Fisher Center at Bard presents 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.

To download high-resolution photos, click here.

Fishercenter.bard.edu/summerscape
Facebook.com/fishercenterbard
Instagram.com/fishercenterbard
Twitter.com/fisherctrbard
Youtube.com/fishercenterbard
Spotify.com/bardfisher

Opera at Bard SummerScape 2024

Le prophète (1849)
Composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer
Libretto by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps

Sosnoff Theater, Fisher Center
Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Friday, July 26 at 6:30pm (Premiere Party at 5pm; Opening Night Intermission Toast)
Sunday, July 28 at 2pm (Pre-Performance Opera Talk with Leon Botstein at 12pm)
Wed, July 31 at 2pm
Friday, August 2 at 4pm (Post-Performance Maestro Dinner at 8:30pm)
Sunday, August 4 at 2pm

The July 31 performance will stream live online at 2pm EDT, with an encore presentation at
5pm EDT on August 3.

Round-trip transportation from New York City is available on July 28 and August 4.

American Symphony Orchestra
Bard Festival Chorale
Conducted by Leon Botstein
Directed by Christian Räth
Set design: Christian Räth and Daniel Unger
Costume design: Mattie Ullrich
Choreography: Catherine Galasso
Lighting Design: Rick Fisher
Projection: Elaine McCarthy

Jean de Leyde: Robert Watson, tenor
Fidès: Jennifer Feinstein, mezzo-soprano
Berthe: Amina Edris, soprano
Zacharie (Anabaptist 1): Harold Wilson, bass
Mathisen (Anabaptist 2): Wei Wu, bass
Jonas (Anabaptist 3): Frederick Ballentine, tenor
Oberthal: Zachary Altman, bass-baritone

Sung in French with English supertitles

“Dramatic legend” at 2024 Bard Music Festival, “Berlioz and His World”

La damnation de Faust (1846)
Composed by Hector Berlioz

Program Eleven: “Faust and the Spirit of the 19th Century”
Sunday, August 18
Sosnoff Theater
2pm: pre-concert talk
3pm: performance

American Symphony Orchestra
Bard Festival Chorale
Conducted by Leon Botstein

Faust: Joshua Blue, tenor
Marguerite: Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano
Méphistophélès : Alfred Walker, bass-baritone
Brander: Stefan Egerstrom, bass

This performance will stream live online on August 18 at 3pm EDT.

Round-trip transportation from New York City is available for this performance.

All programs subject to change
SummerScape 2024: other remaining performance dates by genre

Until August 17
Spiegeltent: live music and dancing

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

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.

#         #          #

© 21C Media Group, July 2024