Concerts

“Richly costumed and dramatically effective…Botstein, leading the American Symphony Orchestra, an impressive cast and the excellent Bard Festival Chorale, made a compelling case for the piece.”—New York Times, August 2021 “This opera is a masterwork.” OperaWire, August 2021 Premiered in 1903, this richly lyrical opera by French composer Ernest Chausson was widely considered one of the…

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra performs under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein with a brilliant cast of singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka…

Henri VIII is French grand opera at its most magnificent. In this love triangle for the ages, an infamous Tudor king is determined to divorce Catherine of Aragon in favor of the ambitious, beautiful Anne Boleyn. Saint-Saëns’s exquisite vocal passages and rich orchestration bring this rarely performed masterpiece to vivid life in this captivating new production.…

Considered Strauss’s only true comic opera, this rarely performed work is by turns elegiac and incisively witty. The brilliantly written libretto by Stefan Zweig (loosely based on the Renaissance play by Ben Jonson) features a madcap cast of characters in a variety of guises. The imaginative and colorful production by Christian Räth (Das Wunder der…

“A riveting and rousing piece. [Director] Christian Räth’s astute production…[makes] a case for 19th-century French grand opera.” —Wall Street Journal “Leon Botstein has a penchant for reappraisal. He mounted a persuasive argument for Le prophète.” —The New York Times “Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra gave the audience unadulterated beauty.” —OperaWire Religion, power, ego, and manipulation…

Performed live at Bryant Park on September 6, 2024, Beyond the Hall highlights music sourced from dance salons, opera houses, cabaret, and the silver screen. A full livestream of the concert is available to watch on-demand on ASO Online through October 21, 2024.  For our third consecutive year debuting our season at Bryant Park, the…

A short film about the American Symphony Orchestra’s massive undertaking of Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder. The film takes a behind-the-scenes look at the rehearsal process leading up to the highly anticipated March 22, 2024 performance at Carnegie Hall with context provided by music director Leon Botstein and chorus director James Bagwell. The film will be released…