Event Details
Karol Szymanowski: Opera Double Bill at the Sosnoff Theater
All dates for this event have expired. (find current Classical events) |
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Members Who Went Said:
Great music and sets, but the choreography was pretty weak, and the whole thing would have been better without the ridiculous supertitles. At times the translations were laughable, and the synopsis in the program would have sufficed. |
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More Details About This Event: Harnasie
Music by Karol Szymanowski Scenario by Karol Szymanowski and Jerzy Rytard King Roger (The Shepherd) (Król Roger) Music by Karol Szymanowski Libretto by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director Wroclaw Opera Chorus Directed and designed by Lech Majewski Considered by many the father of modern Polish classical music, Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937)—a friend and contemporary of Prokofiev—set philosophical issues to a glorious score in King Roger (The Shepherd), a 1926 opera of volcanic emotional and spiritual intensity. The titular character, an enlightened 12th-century Sicilian monarch, finds his authority challenged by a mysterious shepherd who preaches a gospel of erotic abandon. Seeing his queen and court seduced by this revolutionary credo, Roger angrily confronts the shepherd, only to experience a rapturous revelation that fuses his rational and sensual beings. Preceding King Roger will be another rarely performed masterpiece—the 1931 pastoral dance Harnasie. Like his countryman, Frédéric Chopin, Szymanowski was inspired by Polish folk music—the Goral of the highlands. Harnasie tells the story of a reluctant peasant bride who falls in love with Harnas, an outlaw who leads a band of lusty mountain bandits. The transcendent score includes a massive choir and a tenor soloist, and is considered the crowning achievement of Szymanowski’s theatrical output. About Sosnoff Theater-Richard B Fisher Center for the Performing Arts: The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College offers an architecturally bold and dynamic environment for innovative artistic presentation in the Hudson Valley. The Frank Gehry-designed center provides audiences with a world-class complex that inspires risk-taking performances and provocative programs in orchestral, chamber, and jazz music and theater, dance, and opera by American and international artists.Designed by internationally acclaimed architect Frank Gehry, the 110,000-square-foot Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College houses two theaters; four rehearsal studios for dance, theater, and music; and professional support facilities. The Sosnoff Theater, an intimate, 900-seat theater with an orchestra, parterre, and two balcony sections, features an orchestra pit for opera and an acoustic shell designed by Yasuhisa Toyota that turns the theater into a first-class concert hall for performances of chamber and symphonic music. The infinitely flexible Theater Two houses Bard's Theater and Dance Programs during the academic year. The Fisher Center is also the home of the Bard Music Festival, entering its 18th season in August 2007, and will play host to companies from the United States and abroad during Bard SummerScape, a festival of opera, theater, and dance. |
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