The Kingdom

Following on the success of our 2017 performance of The Apostles, the ASO opened its 58th season with Edward Elgar’s oratorio The Kingdom. Picking up where The Apostles left off, this massive choral work focuses on the apostle Peter and the beginnings of the Christian Church in Jerusalem. Leon Botstein shares the stories behind the…

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The Miracle of Heliane

Set in an unnamed totalitarian state, The Miracle of Heliane (Das Wunder der Heliane) features an intricate, erotic triangle between a ruthless despot, The Ruler; his beautiful and neglected wife, Heliane; and a young, messianic Stranger. An allegorical tale, about the destruction of a dictatorship by a woman, Heliane premiered to great acclaim in Hamburg in 1927, and remains…

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The Key of Dreams

Based on the French play Juliette, ou La clé des songes (Juliette, or The Key of Dreams) by Georges Neveux, Martinů’s operatic masterpiece Julietta, one of the greatest 20th-century works for the stage, explores the intersection of dreams and reality. Set in a seaside town, this psychological drama follows Michel, a traveling salesman, who finds…

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Sounds of the American Century

Robert Mann Photo by Charles AbbottNew York City composers of the mid-20th century sought to define a new American sensibility in orchestral music. The abstract works of Robert Mann, the legendary founder of the Juilliard Quartet, and Jacob Druckman explored the possibilities of orchestral color and sound. Vivian Fine and William Schuman brought their compositional…

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A Walt Whitman Sampler

Walt Whitman, the defining 19th-century poetic voice of America, inspired several generations of European composers. In the 20th century, Whitman’s poetry was beautifully adapted during World War I by Othmar Schoeck. The catastrophe of World War II inspired Kurt Weill to turn to Whitman’s writings. Franz Schreker and Ralph Vaughan Williams were drawn to Whitman’s…

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Demon

SummerScape’s production of Anton Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece Demon first premiered to great acclaim in 1871. Although performed frequently in Russia, the work remains something of a rarity in the West today. Conducted by Leon Botstein and directed by the renowned American director Thaddeus Strassberge. Based on the renowned fantasy poem by Mikhail Lermontov, Demon boasts…

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Dimitrij

A great nation in turmoil after the abrupt end to a ruling dynasty leaving no clear path forward. This was Russia in the Time of Troubles, the seventeenth-century period in which Antonín Dvořák set his 1882 opera Dimitrij. A stellar cast along with the Bard Festival Chorale animate this powerful production by Anne Bogart for…

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Intolerance

In post-Fascist Italy, Luigi Nono attempted to reverse the darkness of Mussolini and rescue art from being the handmaiden of the state. His one-act opera Intolleranza 1960 speaks out against dictatorship. It follows a migrant worker travelling home as he gets caught up in a political protest, is tortured in prison, and escapes to fight…

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Hollow Victory: Jews in Soviet Russia after the World War

Despite the brutal suppression of Jewish culture in the late 1940s under Stalin, Jewish composers sustained a vibrant and active musical culture, as these grippingly beautiful works reveal. Explore the tenacity of Jewish culture through one of its most embattled phases. Expression cannot be silenced, especially when friends like Shostakovich have the courage to help.…

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Triumph of Art

Each of these composers was influenced by confrontation with authoritarian regimes, both fascist and communist. This concert reveals the compositional response to resistance, inner emigration, and exile by three leading twentieth-century composers from Russia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Leon Botstein shares the stories behind the music in a lively 30-minute Conductor’s Notes Q&A at 7 PM…

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