When the Bard Music Festival calls itself “[insert composer’s name here] and His World,” it does so with the aim of providing a diverse, expansive, and at times even exhausting exploration of the subject’s contemporaries, his influences, those he influenced, and his wider legacy. And by suggesting that it can wear you out, I am in no way implying that I don’t love it. If Bard can bring it, I can take it, and with gratitude.
As you undoubtedly know by now, if you’ve been following my posts, this year’s focus is Berlioz. However, even with such a heavy helping of Hector as on the concert presented on Saturday night, featuring not only the composer’s titanic “Te Deum,” but also selections from his grand opera “Les Troyens” (“The Trojans”) and a mammoth setting of “La Marseillaise” that REALLY would have flabbergasted Major Strasser, there was also the inclusion of Gluck’s overture to “Iphigénie en Aulide” (Gluck, a composer who influenced Berlioz), in an arrangement by Wagner (a composer Berlioz in turn influenced) – ingenious programming, actually, but hardly surprising – AND the overture to Auber’s “Fra Diavolo” (Auber, a figure who undoubtedly influenced Berlioz, but about whom Berlioz could be rather ambivalent, feeling he pandered a little too much to what he perceived as shallow Parisian tastes).
And you know what? For as popular as Auber’s overtures remain – for decades, staples of afternoon drive time on any classical music radio station – this may actually have been the first time I ever actually heard one in concert. How can that possibly be? Any one of them would make for a sparkling opener to an enjoyable evening of music-making. (Sorry, Berlioz!) As it is, he is yet another composer whose music I encountered live for the first time at Bard.
So often with Berlioz, who at the far end of his large-scale works can be such a frankly draining composer, I am convinced he willed himself to greatness. What a genius he must have been to take the rudimentary tools he had at his disposal and create such monuments in sound. Unquestionably, he knew his way around an orchestra. And he was well-drilled by his teachers at the Paris Conservatory. Yet he was perhaps not so naturally inclined to the minute workings-out of formal musical procedures in the manner of a Haydn or a Mozart. If so, he was all the better for it, as there is only one Hector Berlioz. No one thought in orchestral terms quite like him. But at the other end of the scale, he was also a born composer of song.
Earlier in the day, a Saturday morning panel discussion examined different aspects of the composer and his world through engaging and often fascinating talks and exchanges about revolution, the historical evolution of Paris in the 19th century, and even how Berlioz was received and interpreted by the droll caricaturists of his time.
As is so often the case with Bard, the most shattering moments may have come during in the evening concerts, when the full forces of symphony orchestra and chorus were massed at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts; but most of the quieter, more revelatory moments occurred in the more intimate space of Bard’s Olin Hall, at which song and chamber music prevailed.
At the Fisher Center, Joshua Blue’s pleasing tenor voice lent considerably to the opening night rehabilitation of Berlioz’s “Lélio” (at least in terms of the work’s musical content). He returned on Saturday night not only as soloist in the “Te Deum,” but to share a love duet from “Les Troyens” with mezzo-soprano Megan Moore. He might have been the weekend’s greatest vocal discovery, if not for soprano Jana McIntyre. (Even so, those attending Bard this Sunday will have no complaints, as Blue will sing Berlioz’s Faust!)
McIntyre, with her captivating voice, magnetic presence, and superhuman endurance, appeared frequently throughout the weekend and emerged as the most enchanting performer at Olin. Always radiant and communicative, she was in her element in French art song during her frequent afternoon appearances on the chamber concerts. But on Saturday night, she also demonstrated her ability to command a concert hall, even in Berlioz’s gargantuan arrangement of “La Marseillaise,” with its massed brass, winds, percussion, and chorus. She stood her ground – “the very embodiment of liberty,” as a fellow concertgoer memorably put it – dominating center stage in a brilliant red gown with her chin held high. Yes, coupled with the “Te Deum” AND selections from “Les Troyens,” AND the aforementioned overtures, by Gluck (arr. Wagner) and Auber, it proved to be a high-caloric evening!
I can’t believe she had any voice at all left over for Sunday morning, yet there she was at 11 a.m., participating extensively in Byron Adams’ matinée musicale, where she continued to shine and, quite frankly, glow. What a talent! She easily stood out as the star of the festival’s first weekend, and she receives a respectful tip of the hat from Classic Ross Amico.
As for the music itself, discoveries I will carry with me include the “Introduction and Variations on Bellini’s Opera ‘Norma’” by Elias Parish Alvars (known in his day as “the Liszt of the harp”), mesmerizingly played by Noël Wan, a String Quartet in C minor by Anton Reicha (who taught Berlioz counterpoint at the Paris Conservatory, previously known to me mostly from his woodwind music), affectionately performed by the Balourdet Quartet, and a languid, intoxicating song, “Adieux de l’hôtesse arabe,” by Georges Bizet (of “Carmen” fame), again sung by McIntyre, as part of Byron Adams’ exquisitely-curated program of French chansons, romances et mélodies on Sunday.
Baritone Tyler Duncan, a Bard veteran, as always was a singer of commanding presence, but also expert at conveying the wry tone of a song like Saint-Saëns’ witty throwback to the manners of the ancien regime, “Marquise, vous souvenez-vous?” Also returning was mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle Kamarei. For as fine as she was in the afternoons, she was outstanding on Sunday evening in a virtuosic performance of an aria by Rossini from “L’italiana in Algeri.”
I would be remiss not to credit the contributions of pianists Kayo Iwama and Erika Switzer, both with their own distinctive musical personalities, who not only accompanied but were sensitive collaborators with the aforementioned singers.
I want to treat Sunday night’s treasurable presentation of Pauline Viardot’s fairy tale opera “Le dernier sorcier” (“The Last Sorcerer”), which concluded the opening weekend, in a separate post. So watch for it!
The Bard Music Festival resumes today with a supplementary, already sold-out concert at Church of the Messiah in Rhinebeck, NY (with a second concert to be held there tomorrow afternoon), but Weekend Two really commences in earnest with a concert tomorrow night at the Fisher Center on Bard campus, featuring violist Luosha Fang and pianist Piers Lane in Franz Liszt’s transcription of Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy.” The program on Saturday night will include Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3 and Joachim Raff’s Symphony No. 10 “Autumn.” Sunday will conclude with a complete performance of Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust.”
“Berlioz and His World” continues, largely at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, through Sunday, August 18. For more information, visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/whats-on/programs/bard-music-festival/
Fisher Center at Bard
Jana McIntyre sings Aminta in Richard Strauss’ rarely-heard “Die schweigsame Frau” (“The Silent Woman”) at Bard in 2022, at the link:
