At 8:30 pm on Saturday, June 17, listen live as Caramoor opens its summer season with a concert celebrating the 20th anniversary of Bel Canto at Caramoor. Artist-in-Residence soprano Angela Meade is featured in an evening of Italian opera, including popular overtures, classic arias, rousing choral numbers and heartbreaking duets.

WQXR's Elliott Forrest hosts this live broadcast from the beautiful open-air Venetian Theater. Listen at 105.9 FM, online at WQXR.org and on our free mobile app.

Program:

Angela Meade, soprano
Santiago Ballerini, tenor
Harold Wilson, bass
Bel Canto Young Artists
Will Crutchfield, conductor
Orchestra of St. Luke’s

Rossini: Rondo finale from the overture to Guillaume Tell
Verdi: “Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate” from Nabucco
Verdi: “Pace, pace mio dio” from La forza del distino
Bellini: “A te, o cara” from I puritani
Thomas: “Enfant cheri” from Le Caïd
Bellini: “Bagnato dalle lagrime” from Il pirata
Donizetti: “Chi mi frena in tal momento” from Lucia di Lammermoor
Wagner: “Mild und leise” from Tristan und Isolde
Mascagni: Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana
Mozart: “Der Hölle Rache” from Die Zauberflöte
Donizetti: “Pour mon âme quel destin” from La fille du régiment
Catalani: “Ebben, ne andrò lontana” from La Wally
Rossini: Final hymn from Guillaume Tell

Earlier this month, controversy erupted after a Fox News program reported on a certain New York City play. That “play” was Julius Caesar, written by William Shakespeare in 1599. In the play’s third act, a group of conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius (spoiler alert) assassinate the Roman dictator. Outrage over this recent production stems from the fact that the actor portraying Caesar is made to bear a resemblance to the current president of the United States. But this is hardly new, as productions of the famous play have long been updated to reflect a contemporary setting. A 2012 production featured a Caesar who resembled a certain president seeking re-election. In 2013, the action was set in a nondescript African location.  A 1937 adaptation by Orson Welles included a Mussolini-like figure in the title role. The point is, works for stage that have formed a sort of canon have been updated time and time again for modern audiences — and that got us thinking about updated versions of classic operas. Let’s take a look at some from recent memory, and how they were received.

Giulio Cesare (Handel, 1724)

Of course we would start with this one. Handel wrote the opera back in 1724. Set in Ancient Egypt, it deals with the pursuit of revenge following the death of Caesar's military rival Pompey. But in 2005, David McVicar moved the action hundreds of years into the future, to a 19th-century British-occupied Egypt. It was well received, and commentators noted thematic parallels with the Iraq War. Time-appropriate firearms, airships, and naval craft advanced the modern interpretation.

Der Ring des Nibelungen(Wagner, completed 1874)

The sprawling Ring Cycle is a deep exploration of ancient Norse mythology. Naturally, traditional productions come with all the trappings expected of a fantasy epic. But more imaginative productions have been around since 1976 — the year that  Patrice Chéreau staged a controversial Bayreuth production that sets the action during the industrial revolution. Warmly received by some and coldly rejected by others, the Los Angeles Times’ David Ng places it at front of a long line of many mold-shattering productions, including Kasper Bech Holten's 2006 interpretation, which he says “radically reinterpreted the story from a feminist point of view.”

Tristan Und Isolde (Wagner, 1865)

Another marathon of an opera, Wagner’s take on the medieval Celtic legend of the same name was given a stark update for the Metropolitan Opera’s 2016 season. Rickety wooden vessels gave way to modern battleships navigating wartime waters. While the music was praised, somecriticsdid not have an easy time making sense of the new setting.

Rigoletto(Verdi, 1851)

Verdi’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1832 play Le roi s’amuse took place in 16th-century Mantua. But in 2013, Michael Mayer shifted the location across the ocean and into the future — to 1940s Las Vegas. It may not be a hit with everyone, but it was liked well enough for the Met to bring back the Rat Pack-inspired production for several seasons. 

West Side Story (Based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 1597)

A musical rather than an opera, but still fun to include on this list. Shakespeare’s culturally ubiquitous teen drama was originally set in Verona, Italy. But in 1957, West Side Story opened on Broadway. Featuring music from Leonard Bernstein, the timeless tale focuses on the antagonistic relationship between two rival New York City gangs instead of aristocratic Italian families.

HBO’s acclaimed series The Leftovers came to a finish earlier this month. For those at a loss for what to do with their lives post Leftovers, here’s a suggestion: dive further into the music. Since its first season, the show has garnered discussion around the eclectic choices of the series’ music supervisor, Liza Richardson; and original score composer Max Richter.

Richardson’s choices have had some questioning whether or not we’ve entered into a new golden age of music supervision. The tracks featured on the show span from the saccharine melodies of Katy Perry and the horrific despair of the Gravediggaz to rousing opera familiars from Verdi and Donizetti and the songs of Schubert. Richardson has indicated that she will pursue any song as far as she can — even if the acquisition to its rights prove rather difficult. “We’re just big fans of opera,” she told Entertainment Weekly, explaining the labyrinthine process of securing excerpts from Nabucco for use. Each song has a purpose; there is no room for a musical filler. 

Max Richter, the show's composer, agrees. “There’s an awful lot of music spread very thinly throughout a lot of TV,” he said in an interview with The Atlantic. “I feel really that if the music is there, it should be doing something.” This isn’t Richter’s first soundtrack for film or television; previous credits include Waltz with Bashir and an episode of Black Mirror. Instead of writing for the show, Richter has explained that the great privilege of Leftovers was that the showrunners wanted him to “write what he normally writes.” The result is a soundtrack that doesn’t try too hard to match the onscreen action or drama; instead it could be considered a brilliantly composed album used to elevate the emotional impact of the show.

The Leftovers may be over, but there’s a whole world of its music left to discover. For starters, check out this YouTube playlist of songs featured in the series, for a sense of just how great a great music supervisor’s ear can be. And if you found yourself taken with Richter’s score, give a listen to his latest album, Three Worlds (which he talked about with WQXR earlier this year) and Sleep.

At 7 pm on Thursday, June 22, watch Metropolitan Opera countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo celebrate opera — and its secrets — in a whole new way at The Greene Space.

At our final Opera Party of the season — an official partner of NYC Pride Week — Costanzo is joined by co-host, performance artist, author and cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond for a searing romp with tenor and force-of-nature Anthony Dean Griffey, a surreal confection by cake-maker Elizabeth Hodes and enticing opportunities to show off just how much pride you feel.

The event is sold out, but you can watch a video livestream below.

Gig Alert: Julia Holter's Tragedy Opera at National Sawdust 
Tickets: $34-$42, General Admission. Shows at 7PM, 6/22 & 6/23

Singer and composer Julia Holter writes music that blurs the line between acoustic and electronic, and between pop music and the classical art song tradition. Her 2011 album Tragedy worked just fine as a collection of songs, but Holter had something bigger in mind. Inspired by a play by Euripides, she is rearranging those songs into "The Tragedy Opera," a multimedia work that will include both live and recorded sound and video. Holter's "Tragedy Opera" will be staged tonight and tomorrow at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.  

Here's "Celebration", from the album Tragedy by Julia Holter.

It seems to me that opera, on the stage, is more gay than ever but possibly the opera audience is less gay than ever. By this I mean that opera no longer serves as a discreet refuge for an oppressed minority as it once did.

As the LGBTQ community is finally gaining its hard-fought-for and richly-deserved equality in many aspects of civic life — although there is still progress to be made — its experiences are being depicted in operas now being written.

The New York City Opera just presented Angels in America, an opera by Péter Eötvös and Mari Mezei adapted from the monumental play by Tony Kushner. This is the first of what is intended as an annual presentation by NYCO of a work that addresses the lives and experiences of the LGBTQ community during NYC Pride each June. Among possible future titles are Brokeback Mountain by Charles Wuorinen and Champion by Terence Blanchard.

Cincinnati Opera produced the excellent Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce in 2016. This opera is about closeted gay men who worked in the Federal Government in the 1950s and were persecuted by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It was a successful new work because it focused on a compelling story rather than being didactic.

These are hardly the only recent operas that have LGBTQ themes. Others include 27, about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, by Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek; Two Boys by Nico Muhly; and Oscar (about Oscar Wilde) by Theodore Morrison.

It is important to note that these operas are no more about sex or romance than, say, Le Nozze di Figaro or La Bohème, but the context — that the love being described proudly dares to sing its name as never before — makes them new. The best of these works is, like all operas, about the complexity of the human experience.

In the not too distant past, any presence of same-sex attraction between opera characters was more implicit than explicit. For example, the friendship between Verdi’s Don Carlo and Posa has a strong intimacy to it. But their declarations of friendship are politically driven even if Posa may have some genuine romantic feelings for Carlo. Verdi did not focus on that. Similarly, there may be some intense feelings in the backstory of the title character of Donizetti’s  Roberto Devereux and the Duke of Nottingham, but their relationship does not play a crucial role in the plot of the opera.

In the mid-20th century a few opera characters came forth who were clearly written with same-sex inclinations. Foremost among these is the Countess Geschwitz in Alban Berg’s Lulu. There are also implicitly or explicitly gay protagonists in the operas of Benjamin Britten, who lived openly with his long-time partner, the tenor Peter Pears. Britten wrote roles for Pears, such as Captain Vere in Billy Budd and Gustav von Aschenbach in Death in Venice. These works spoke subtly to gay people in an era when it was not as easy for them to be open about their sexuality.

When I began working in opera in the 1970s, there were many older gay men and women who were passionate and knowledgeable devotees of the art form and were something of a brain trust of opera lore.

Planet Opera, to its great credit, has long been welcoming of gays and lesbians as audience members and workers. Not all of them were singers and musicians. Some were directors and designers while others worked in administrative jobs.

I came to know these wonderful people who regaled me with tales of hearing the greatest singers, almost all of whom were referred to by one name (and not always the surname): Caruso, Ponselle, Pinza; Licia, Zinka, Leontyne.

As one of these veteran operagoers told me, in the 1950s gay men went to the opera not only because they loved it but because they found community and fellowship in a setting where they were welcomed.

Many of these men and women were wonderful audience members, loudly cheering beloved artists and supporting them by faithfully attending their performances even when their best singing days were behind them. In return, the divas and prima donnas formed close bonds with their fans and made them feel accepted and loved.

This is hardly new. Willa Cather’s story, “Paul’s Case” gives a sense of the powerful feelings that opera aroused in what was likely a young gay man more than a century ago. Paul was moved by the music, by the performances and was the fan of a diva.

I have noticed that, as the current generation of LGBTQ people are able to more fully embrace who they are, they don’t necessarily seek out the same discreet places as the older guard. And nor should they — it is so much healthier that they have as much freedom and security as everyone else.

I don’t see as many young gay people at traditional opera as even twenty years ago and that is a shame. I feel they are missing out on something wonderful that their elders knew and experienced so deeply. I would love to see gay men and women in their 70s, 80s and older spend time with young people of all persuasions and pass on this knowledge and passion.

On June 25, artists and members of the NYCO will march in the NYC Pride parade and have invited audience members and opera fans to march with them. Perhaps this is the place where young and old can meet and share not only pride in themselves but in opera.

Tune in Saturday at 1 pm EST for Mozart’s immensely successful fantasy opera The Magic Flute. The two-act production begins as a romantic princess rescue mission, a common theme amongst works of its time. The narrative takes the audience on a magical and ethereal journey of fraternity and love.

The work was a major hit from its premiere, celebrating its 100th performance just over a year after its debut. Since then, the production has inspired generations of adaptations, films, novels and art pieces. To this day, it is still among the top 10 most frequently performed operas worldwide.  

Cast:

Conductor: Rory Macdonald

Tamino: Andrew Staples

Pamina: Christiane Karg

Queen of the Night: Kathryn Lewek

Papageno: Adam Plachetka

Sarastro: Christof Fischesser

Lisa Bielawa’s Vireo is meant for binge-watching. That’s not a phrase one typically associates with opera, but taken in the context of Bielawa’s work — her previous projects include a chamber-orchestra-meets-big-band“choose your own musical adventure” and a hundreds-strong orchestral work for performance on defunct airfields— her new opera is right at home on your TV.

Vireo’s great distinction comes from its format. Instead of being an opera that one would see live, the ambitious work was made for television. It’s episodic in nature, akin to a mini-series. And, with Los Angeles’ KCET releasing all 12 episodes at once, it has been realized as an artistic effort in keeping with this binge-crazed age.

Bielawa used the television format to her full advantage, leaping through time and space in a way that would have been challenging to evoke on stage. Rowen Sabala plays a brilliant young girl living in an asylum in 19th-century Austria. But she believes she is a 21st century girl from Sweden that is caught up in 16th-century France. Filming took place across the states, from the prison-island of Alcatraz to the idyllic environs of upstate New York.

More than 350 musicians were required to bring Bielawa’s music to life, and they also broke with opera-house tradition. Instead of being sequestered in an orchestra pit, the musicians — who include Jennifer Koh, Joshua Roman and the Kronos Quartet — appear on screen as a part of the action.

Vireo’s initial budget was estimated to be about $69,000, but the total cost soared to a $1 million. And while that might be a sore spot for some, it’s anything but for Bielawa. As she told the San Francisco Classical Voice, “I don’t know how we did it, but I have absolutely no regrets. None.”

New York City’s National Sawdust will host a special screening of Vireo on July 7. Below, watch the first episode, courtesy of KCET.

Vermont-born singer/fiddler/banjoist/guitarist Sam Amidon and composer, arranger, and co-founder of the artist-run Bedroom Community record label Nico Muhly join John Schaefer in the studio for this New Sounds.

Sam is an unconventional folk-singer of haunting, apocalyptic tunes - from murder ballads to shape-note songs. He has worked with artists from the Icelandic label Bedroom Community for years, having released two records through that collective. In fact, on his "I See The Sign" (2010) and "All Is Well," (2008), the orchestral arrangements were by composer Nico Muhly.

Muhly is a New York City-based composer and arranger who rides the classical and pop/rock divide. He has written operas "Two Boys," which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera, song cycles, concertos and electro-acoustic records of drones, among many other compositions. He is also one of the co-founders of Bedroom Community Records. His second album, "Mothertongue," (2008) for Bedroom Community, included "The Only Tune," a setting of the murder ballad, "Two Sisters," which featured Sam Amidon.

Both Sam and Nico perform some folk tunes like "Saro,"  "How Come that Blood," "Kedron," and more in our studios for this edition of New Sounds.

PROGRAM #3845, With Sam Amidon & Nico Muhly (First Aired 3-25-2016)         

ARTIST: Sam Amidon
WORK: Nico Muhly: The Only Tune Pt. 3 - The Only Tune [4:47]
RECORDING: Nico Muhly: Mothertongue
SOURCE: Brassland #018 / Bedroom Community HVALUR 5
INFO: brassland.org | bedroomcommunity.net | nicomuhly.com

ARTIST: Sam Amidon & Nico Muhly
WORK: Saro [2:43]
RECORDING: Live, WNYC, 3/22/16
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The tune appears on Amidon’s “All is Well” available via Bedroom Community HVALUR4CD/LP bedroomcommunity.net

ARTIST: Sam Amidon
WORK: Little Johnny Brown [4:28]
RECORDING: All Is Well 
SOURCE: Bedroom Community HVALUR4CD/LP
INFO: bedroomcommunity.net

ARTIST: Sam Amidon & Nico Muhly
WORK:  How Come That Blood [3:28]
RECORDING: Live, WNYC, 3/22/16
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: The tune appears on “I See the Sign.” Bedroom Community Records HVALUR9 
bedroomcommunity.net  OR samamidon.bandcamp.com

ARTIST: Word of Mouth Chorus
WORK: Weeping Mary (LP Version), excerpt [1:00]
RECORDING: Rivers of Delight
SOURCE: Nonesuch 71360
INFO: nonesuch.com

ARTIST: Sam Amidon & Nico Muhly
WORK:  Kedron [3:06]
RECORDING: Live, WNYC, 3/22/16
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: The tune appears on “I See the Sign.” Bedroom Community Records HVALUR9 
bedroomcommunity.net  OR samamidon.bandcamp.com

ARTIST: The Gregg Smith Singers, chorus; assisted by The Rooke Chapel Choir of Bucknell University
WORK: William Duckworth: Bozrah [2:03]
RECORDING: Southern Harmony
SOURCE: Lovely Music - #2033
INFO: lovely.com

ARTIST: Sam Amidon
WORK: Fall on My Knees [4:17]
RECORDING: All Is Well 
SOURCE: Bedroom Community HVALUR4CD/LP
INFO: bedroomcommunity.net

ARTIST: Sam Amidon
WORK: Nico Muhly: The Only Tune Pt. 1 - The Two Sisters, excerpt [1:00]
RECORDING: Nico Muhly: Mothertongue
SOURCE: Brassland #018 / Bedroom Community HVALUR 5
INFO: brassland.org | bedroomcommunity.net | nicomuhly.com

ARTIST: Sam Amidon & Nico Muhly, ft. John Schaefer, muting of piano strings
WORK:  Wedding Dress [3:27]
RECORDING: Live, WNYC, 3/22/16
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: The tune appears on Amidon’s “All is Well” available via Bedroom Community HVALUR4CD/LP bedroomcommunity.net OR samamidon.bandcamp.com

In the cultural and political hurlyburly that is the United States, we sometimes lose track of our friendly and excelling neighbors to the north.

Canadians will shortly celebrate, in their circumspect way, their sesquicentennial. In 1867 Queen Victoria signed the British North America Act. 

July 1 is known as Canada Day (until 1982 it was called Dominion Day). It is the 150th anniversary of the day when the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Québec and Ontario joined in a confederation of territories to become the Dominion of Canada. In the 19th century, these provinces were joined by British Columbia, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories and Yukon. Alberta and Saskatchewan came in 1905, with Newfoundland joining in 1949. Nunavut separated from the Northwest Territories in 1999 and became its own province.

We Americans sometimes forget how hospitable our northern neighbors are, especially when times are tough. Come from Away, the current Broadway musical, tells the story of how the citizens of Gander, Newfoundland, rose to the occasion on 9/11 to welcome thousands of stranded air passengers who could not land at American airports. I remember how, in 1979, the Canadian embassy in Teheran harbored and saved six Americans who escaped the occupied U.S. embassy in Iran.

Canadians are almost always friendly and welcoming. On my last trip to Toronto, an overnight to attend an opera, the immigration official at the airport charmingly remarked that most Americans she has encountered lately want to spend more than a day and a night when they come to Canada. “They seem very eager to stay.”

Canada is a vast nation populated by indigenous peoples, the descendants of British and French settlers and waves of immigrants from throughout the world. It is vast, diverse, tolerant and generally self-effacing when reminded that it routinely is ranked among the best places in the world to live.

This country has given a great deal to opera and, if they won’t boast about it, let me do it on their behalf.  There are many excellent opera companies in Canada. The biggest is the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, which modestly refers to itself as “the sixth largest opera company in North America.” Opera Atelier in Toronto specializes in Baroque opera. Others companies include Montréal, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Victoria.

Vancouver Opera had a golden age in the 1970s when it was run by Richard Bonynge and his wife Joan Sutherland was the house soprano. She sang her first Norma there in 1963. City Opera Vancouver is a chamber company doing intimate works such as Pauline, which has music by Canada’s Tobin Stokes and a libretto by Margaret Atwood, the nation’s foremost living writer.

Canada has been generous in giving the world many superb singers. Several of them are not only great musicians with beautiful voices but have a compelling intensity that they generously share. Had Canada only produced soprano Teresa Stratas and tenor Jon Vickers, Planet Opera would still have an eternal debt.

Few singers could equal the emotional impact of the singing and acting of Stratas. For many opera lovers, her interpretations of roles as diverse as Violetta, Mimì, Suor Angelica and Lulu are definitive. Watch her here in the closing scene of Salome: 

Other great Canadian sopranos include Pierrette Alarie, Pauline Donalda, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Erin Wall and Nancy Argenta, an outstanding performer of Baroque composers such as Handel, Vivaldi and Rameau.

I think soprano Adrianne Pieczonka is one of the finest singers in opera today. Sondra Radvanovsky grew up in the U.S. but now resides in Toronto with her Canadian husband.

Two legendary Canadian mezzos are Maureen Forrester and Judith Forst.

Canada has given opera many superb tenors. The singing and acting of Jon Vickers moved audiences as few singers of any era could match.

There are also Ben Heppner, Richard Margison, Joseph Kaiser, Michael Schade and Raoul Jobin. Léopold Simoneau, largely forgotten now, was a peerless Mozartean.

Roger Doucet (1919-1981) was a tenor most famous for singing the "O Canada!", the Canadian national anthem (and occasionally the American one), at important hockey games.

Edward Johnson (1878-1959) was not only an elegant tenor but served as General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera from 1935 to 1950. He successfully saw the Met through a very rough period from the depths of the Depression though World War Two when many foreign artists were not available. Under his administration, the Met began its weekly radio broadcasts in 1940 with the corporate sponsorship of Texaco. This brought opera to millions of people in North America and then around the world.

Among Canadian baritones and basses, Gerald Finley is one of the finest artists now before audiences. George London (1920-1985) was one of the real greats for his riveting singing and thrilling acting, especially when paired with an inspiring artist such as Leonie Rysanek in Der fliegende Holländer. The George London Foundation continues his legacy with financial prizes that help recognize and support talented young singers.

Other notable Canadian baritones and basses include Allan Monk, Louis Quilico, Gino Quilico, Joseph Rouleau, Russell Braun, Daniel Okulitch, and John Relyea.

On July 1, Canada Post will issue five opera-themed stamps, including vibrant portraits of Pieczonka and Finley.

I think Toronto’s Robert Carsen is one of the finest directors and producers in opera. He is perhaps the only one whose name on the program is enough inspiration for me to secure a ticket to a performance.

Wilfrid Pelletier (1896-1982) worked at the Met as an outstanding pianist, coach and conductor from 1917-1950, leaving along with Edward Johnson. He also played a crucial role in founding Canada’s most famous orchestra, the Montréal Symphony.

And then there is Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the next music director of the Metropolitan Opera.

Merci, Canada. Thank you!

Today, it’s a bit cliche to describe something as your “passion.” The word is everywhere on job postings, resumes, dating profiles and countless “about me” sections all over the Internet. But maybe the best way to categorize your passion is by the thing you’d like to die while doing. If that’s the criteria, then the passion of these conductors was unquestionable.

Felix Mottl

This Austrian conductor made a name for himself as a masterful interpreter of Richard Wagner. His pit presence was in high demand, and while he was primarily active at the Karlsruhe opera, he also conducted for a time at the Metropolitan Opera. And in 1911, Mottl moved on from life while doing what he did best: conducting. He was in music, leading the 100th performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. He suffered a heart attack in the second act and died in a hospital 11 days later. Oh, and he married his mistress on his deathbed. Make of that what you will.

Joseph Keilberth

Like Mottl, Joseph Keilberth was a conductor. That’s neither odd nor inspiring, as everyone on this list was a conductor, but just hear us out. When he was just 17, he became a vocal coach for the  Karlsruhe State Theater. 15 years later, his conducting career took off — first he was appointed chief conductor of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague, and later as the head of the Dresden State Opera. Like most conductors, Keilberth had a speciality: it was his performances of the Wagner repertoire that boosted his artistic credibility. And here’s where it gets weird. In 1968, Keilberth, like Mottl, was in Munich conducting Tristan. And also, just like Mottl, he died doing what he loved.

Giuseppe Patanè

Giuseppe was the son of Franco Patanè, another conductor who was a fixture of the New York City Opera. The passion was in the blood. The younger Patanè made a name for himself as a masterful interpreter of Italian opera. After his 1951 debut, conducting La Traviata, he held positions in opera houses in Naples, Austria and West Berlin. In 1989 he was conducting Il Barbiere di Siviglia when he suffered a heart attack. He may not have been conducting Tristan, but he was conducting in … Munich, becoming the third conductor to meet their end while conducting in that city.

Jean Baptiste Lully

We’ve remarked on the bizarre circumstances of the French baroque composer’s death before, but we’re doing it again because it is just that wild. In Lully’s day, conductors would keep time not with a baton, but with a pointed staff. And it was during the performance of his Te Deum that Lully, really feeling the groove and beating out time with unmatched enthusiasm, drove his staff into his foot. What with it being the 17th century and all, the wound became infected. Naturally, doctors decided the only thing they could do was amputate that portion of the leg. Lully wasn’t having any of that, because missing a leg also meant he was missing the ability to dance. So he refused medical service, and died. Danced right on to the grave.

Unfortunately, these aren't the only people who have departed this world while conducting. There's Eduard van Beinum, a former music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who died in rehearsal; and Metropolitan Opera fixture Fausto Cleva, who died in Greece while conducting the overture of Gluck's Orfeo et Euridice. Franco Capuana was conducting Rossini's Mosè in Egitto when he died in 1969. Fritz Lehmann didn't collapse on stage — he actually died during the intermission for Bach's St. Matthew Passion. More recent incidents of this unfortunate events include the 2001 death of Giuseppe Sinopoli as he conducted Aida; Richard Hickox, who fell ill during a Holst recording session and died shortly after; and Israel Yinon, a composer dedicated to reviving musical works that were suppressed by the Nazi state, who died in 2015 during a performance of Strauss' An Alpine Symphony.

That may seem like a frightful lot, but thankfully podium deaths are not common occurrences.

On Saturday at 1pm, you can listen in for Norma, Vincenzo Bellini’s veritable bel canto masterpiece. The story of love and betrayal in Roman Gaul was considered by the composer to be his finest work. It’s vocally challenging, even today; and, as H.C. Robbins Landon notes in his liner notes for a recording featuring Riccardo Muti, Bellini’s orchestration was remarkably ahead of its time. His keen instrumentation and techniques he demanded had a major influence on later composers. Wagner was particularly influenced by both Norma’s orchestral colors of as well as its themes.

After the immense success of La sonnambula, Bellini faced serious pressure to follow up with another masterpiece. Norma was the result. And despite a terribly disappointing opening night, public reception to the audience warmed up soon after — in its first season at La Scala the opera received 39 performances. Bellini died almost four years after Norma’s premiere, but at least he was able to witness the public’s growing appreciation for the opera before his death.

Cast:

Conductor: Riccardo Frizza

Norma: Sondra Radvanovsky

Adalgisa: Elizabeth DeShong

Pollione: Russell Thomas

Oroveso: Andrea Silvestrelli

As the opioid epidemic continues to increase, we take a look back at the Sixties when the War on Drugs, a federal effort to decrease illegal drug use, was beginning to take shape. It was a decade of intense change in America as political assassinations took place, the Black power movement rose, and the Vietnam War intensified. It was also a time that conservatives, scared about the future of their country, were beginning to fight back. No one understood this more than Richard M. Nixon during his second run for president in 1968. Nixon knew that many people, especially southern whites, were afraid of the social progress that the country was making at the time. He also knew that drug use and crime were going up and that tapping into the fears and anxieties, while tying them to race, may have been just the strategy he needed to win. “The wave of crime is not going to be the wave of the future in the United States of America,” Nixon said in 1968 as he accepted the Republican nomination, becoming the law and order candidate.

It worked, and when he was elected he decided to make good on his promise, focusing not only on crime, which is often a state issue, but drugs. Drugs were a federal issue that was gaining traction among the public and in the political realm, as heroin use spread among both Americans at home and US soldiers in Vietnam.

Christopher Johnson looks at the beginning of the War on Drugs in America, from it’s roots with the Southern Strategy, to the strange support for methadone treatment centers, to the so-calledRockefeller Drug Laws in New York. “America’s public enemy number 1 in the US is drug abuse,"declared Nixon in 1971 as he launched the War on Drugs. “In order to defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.” Though he didn’t utter the phrase, Nixon's "War On Drugs" was a costly offensive whose long-lasting impact on drug policy, law enforcement and American culture continues today.

Episode Contributors:

Kai Wright

Christopher Johnson

Karen Frillmann

Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.

SAN FRANCISCO — It seems that Mark Twain never said that the coldest winter he ever spent was summer in San Francisco. But it can be surprisingly chilly for people who are unprepared. Twain came here in the 1860s and may well have attended opera.

With the Gold Rush of 1849, people came from everywhere, as did opera singers. There were almost 5,000 opera performances in 26 theaters here between 1851 and the earthquake that destroyed most of the city on April 18, 1906. The Metropolitan Opera made an important visit in November 1900, bringing along fifteen productions (including a Ring Cycle), orchestra, chorus and soloists, all traveling by rail. It came back in 1901 with at least 18 productions and again in 1905 with nine productions and a concert program.

The Met returned in mid-April 1906 for a two-week stand and performed Goldmark’s Die Königin von Saba and Carmen (starring Olive Fremstad and Enrico Caruso) before the earthquake struck. These productions, along with La Bohème, Die Walküre, Don Pasquale, Faust, Hänsel und Gretel, Lohengrin, Martha, Le Nozze di Figaro, Siegfried, Tannhäuser and Tosca, were all destroyed during the quake. It was a financial disaster for the Metropolitan Opera. Caruso was an able caricaturist and made drawings of the devastated city.

The Met did not return and a significant void was created. In 1906, a young Neapolitan named Gaetano Merola arrived in the city with dreams of creating an opera company. Long story short, he did. The San Francisco Opera began performing in 1923 and the majestic War Memorial Opera House opened in 1932 opposite City Hall, much as one might see in a European capital.

Merola led the company until 1953, when he died while conducting a performance of Madama Butterfly just as Cio-Cio-San uttered the word morire. He was replaced by Kurt Herbert Adler, who arrived as chorus master in 1943 and retired in 1981. In the years since, the illustrious leaders of the company have been Terence McEwen, Lotfi Mansouri, Pamela Rosenberg, David Gockley and Matthew Shilvock, who became general director of the company in August 2016. It amazes me that I have met all but Merola and I am not even old enough to receive Social Security.

The company has presented many big stars and cultivated superb young artists. Adler established the Merola Program in 1957. Participants are affectionately called Merolini. It has trained hundreds of opera singers and coaches. Among the most notable are Leah Crocetto, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Bryan Hymel, Anna Netrebko, Patricia Racette, Ruth Ann Swenson, Carol Vaness, Deborah Voigt and Dolora Zajick. The cream of the crop are invited to become Adler Fellows, who receive more intensive training and performance opportunities. 

San Francisco Opera has also been a leader in commissioning new works. The next will be in November: Girls of the Golden West with music by John Adams and a libretto by Peter Sellars. It is set at the time of the Gold Rush and is drawn from original sources, including the writings of Mark Twain. This is one of five very appealing works in the three-month fall season.

I like visiting San Francisco in June because the air is fresh and cool while the cultural scene is hot.  There are major art exhibitions (SFMOMA has a show on the works of Edvard Munch) and a lot of good music. And the food is delicious.

The San Francisco Symphony programs big works to conclude its season. I planned my visit to hear Berlioz’s seldom-performed “dramatic symphony” Roméo et Juliette. Michael Tilson Thomas led the orchestra and wonderful Symphony Chorus along with three superb singers — mezzo Sasha Cooke, tenor Nicholas Phan and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni. It was a stupendous performance and I am glad that it was recorded for future release on CD.

The San Francisco Opera typically presents three operas each June that attract people from North America and elsewhere. In 2016 I heard Carmen, Don Carlo and Jenufa (the latter two were memorable) while in 2015 there was an outstanding Le Nozze di Figaro, Les Troyens and the world premiere of Marco Tutino’s La Ciociara starring Anna Caterina Antonacci.

This June the SFO embraced the 50th anniversary of San Francisco’s Summer of Love by presenting three masterpieces with operas—La Bohème, Don Giovanni and Rigoletto—that express, in their own ways, different aspects of love. These works were all revivals but were cast and performed with care. The wise decision was made to have an outstanding, charismatic singer in the title roles. Italians Erika Grimaldi (Mimì) and Ildebrando D’Arcangelo (Giovanni) were excellent.

American baritone Quinn Kelsey, an alumnus of the Merola Program, was nothing short of amazing as Rigoletto. I am sure I have seen a hundred performances of this opera and probably fifty interpreters of the title role, but Kelsey already joins the select few whom I will never forget. I want to hear him in every Verdi baritone role.

Rigoletto also featured the excellent Gilda of Nino Machaidze and a breakout performance from tenor Pene Pati as the Duke of Mantua. He and his tenor brother Amitai are both Adler Fellows from New Zealand. Pene Pati is a large, charismatic man with a beautiful voice that has colors in it that recall (dare I say it?) those of Luciano Pavarotti. He also has superlative diction in Italian—I understood every word.

I have already blocked a week in June 2018 to return to San Francisco. The Opera is presenting 3 cycles of Francesca Zambello’s production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, conducted by Donald Runnicles. I would go only for the Siegmund and Sieglinde of Brandon Jovanovich and Karita Mattila, but there will be exciting artists in all four operas, including Evelyn Herlitzius, Jamie Barton, Greer Grimsley and Falk Struckmann. With a cast this hot, I may not need to dress warmly for a San Francisco summer.

What would you do if you knew people wanted to go to the opera, but they couldn’t afford it? OperaCamion, a production of Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, thinks you should just bring the show to them.

Productions are staged outdoors on a truck, making OperaCamion a mobile opera set that can travel from town to town, delighting audiences that may not be able to make it to a traditional opera house. While the question of cost is certainly of concern, the production is also concerned with battling operas elitist image as a form of entertainment for an aging crowd. And to attract youth, the OperaCamion employed them — at Don Giovanni, the most recent show, singers skewed towards the younger side and the youth orchestra of Teatro dell’Opera di Roma provided the music.

Elisabetta Povoledo covered the Mozartian favorite for the New York Times, noting that it was most likely the first encounter many audience members had with opera. The relaxed atmosphere, she noted, allows the medium to return to its “popular roots” — a time when the music of the opera was the music that seemingly everyone knew, rich or poor.

A simple Twitter search provides a glimpse of the operatic fun. Seems like an unbeatable outdoor summer activity. 

#OperaCamion vi dà appuntamento sabato ad #Amatrice#DonGiovanni RegioneLazio pic.twitter.com/90JakrnBpi

— DanceSide (@dsDanceSide) July 5, 2017

#OperaCamion
Con #DonGiovanni l'opera torna gratis in piazza! Il primo appuntamento martedì 27 a San Basiliohttps://t.co/f4kOz3SlF1pic.twitter.com/hZLoDRspys

— Opera di Roma (@OperaRoma) June 24, 2017

Carmen is universally loved, and you can enjoy it once again on Saturday at 1 pm.

Well-known excerpts from the immensely popular opera have found their way into all of pop culture’s many rooms. However, some of you may be surprised to learn that it was a flop when it first premiered at Paris’ Opera-Comique in 1875. Georges Bizet, the composer, was deeply affected by the harsh reaction and he died just three months later. But his work was not in vain; Carmen has since become one of the most familiar and frequently performed operas in the world.

Cast:

Conductor: Harry Bicket

Carmen: Ekaterina Gubanova

Don José: Joseph Calleja

Micaela: Eleonora Buratto

Escamillo: Christian Van Horn

When I exited LoftOpera’s production of Rossini’s Otello last March, I asked a young woman what she thought of the performance. “It’s the bomb!” she said. I’ve heard this term, and its related “It’s da bomb!” and understood it to be an expression of great enthusiasm. It seems to date back to the mid-1990s. I have heard younger opera singers I teach say that someone’s audition aria was “the bomb.”

Well into the 1970s and even later, a performance that was a “bomb” was a massive failure. To bomb, in the theatrical sense, was to receive overwhelmingly negative reviews that killed ticket sales and forced a show to close on Saturday night (back in the time before Sunday matinees concluded an eight-performance week). 

Joseph Heller, author of the classic anti-war tragicomic novel Catch-22, wrote a play in 1967 called We Bombed in New Haven, referring to the Connecticut city where shows had pre-Broadway tryouts. The play was not about theatrical touring but a provocative if unwieldy exploration of anti-military ideas at a time when the Vietnam War was in full force and the U.S. was deeply divided over its value.

Clive Barnes, theater critic for The New York Times, wanted to like Heller’s play in its 1968 Broadway premiere, but could not bring himself to call it either a bomb or, as might be opined nowadays, the bomb. In fact, the play had 10 previews and 85 performances, not exactly a hit for a work by a world-famous writer that starred Jason Robards and Diana Sands.

In Joe Allen, the popular restaurant in New York’s Theater District frequented by actors, tech people, producers and Broadway fans, there is the so-called Bomb Wall adorned exclusively with posters from shows that were huge flops, often with big stars such as Bette Davis, Mary Tyler Moore and Teresa Stratas.

I straddle the generations in which the meaning of being “a bomb” went from negative to positive. In a way it is akin to those horrible discriminatory words used against oppressed minorities that were meant to cause humiliation. The modern descendants of some of these groups have co-opted these bad words and claimed to own them, using them proudly or recklessly. I think that anyone who uses language as it should be used must know the history of the usage of a word before deploying it in writing or conversation.

So I would hesitate before calling an opera performance a bomb or the bomb.

Of course, something special can be “the bomb” but, nowadays, there is THE BOMB that is a huge factor in world affairs and it has been in the news. On the Fourth of July, North Korea conducted its latest and most successful missile test. Later in the week, world leaders from 20 large nations met for a two-day summit in Hamburg in which, inevitably, nuclear weaponry was discussed.

Less noticed was that, on July 7, 122 of the 192 members of the United Nations completed — after seven decades — and approved a treaty that would destroy all nuclear weaponry.

It is doubtful that North Korea will sign such an agreement. Only one NATO nation, the Netherlands, took part in the negotiations and was the sole vote against it. The United States, France and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement  that they would not sign the accord.

In a world beset with fear and uncertainty, we turn to artistic expression for comprehension or just plain relief. Many people choose satire such as "Saturday Night Live." It should not surprise you that when people ask me how I grapple with daunting world affairs, I respond that I find insight and more complex understanding in operas. This art form, for those of us who love it, is a bottomless fount of exploration of the human condition.

The most famous end-of-world parable (but with hope held out for renewal and a better tomorrow) is in Götterdämmerung, the concluding opera of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

There is another marvelous opera, Doctor Atomic, with music by John Adams and libretto by Peter Sellars, that eloquently explores the 1945 development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico in what was known as the Manhattan Project. It premiered at San Francisco Opera in 2005 and has had important productions since, including one at the Metropolitan Opera in 2008 that marked the debuts of conductor Alan Gilbert in an excellent cast led by the outstanding performance by Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Santa Fe Opera just announced the company premiere of Doctor Atomic in 2018. Its proximity to the actual setting of where the bomb was created should provide an extra frisson (or should I say fission?) for those in attendance. I encourage you to get to Santa Fe next year if you are able.

The classic film, Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stopped Worrying and Love the Bomb, Stanley Kubrick’s all-too-real satire from 1964, unsettled a nation that had recently been through the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The movie made audiences think about this topic back when fewer nations had access to atomic bombs.

I think Dr. Strangelove would make a fantastic opera today in the hands of the right composer, librettist and designers. The wicked and sardonic humor, tinged with doomsday foreboding, would strike a huge and edgy chord in our day and time. The technological possibilities of lighting and projections in opera would enhance the narrative unless (and this is a big unless) the technology is allowed to overwhelm the words and, especially, the music which is the core element of storytelling in opera.

Just imagine this scene as opera:

In 1879, Tchaikovsky wrote an operatic adaptation Eugene Onegin, based on a novel by the revered Russian writer Alexander Pushkin. It’s this opera, with its meditations on love, loneliness and shifting desires, that has been selected for your 1 pm Saturday at the Opera Broadcast. It’s become one of — if not the most — recognizable of Tchaikovsky’s operas. Perhaps it's the emotional depth of the music. Or maybe because it deals with a scenario that isn’t too foreign to a whole lot of us on earth. Whatever the reason, it makes for a fantastic listen and gives you plenty to think about afterwards.

Cast:

Conductor: Alejo Perez

Onegin: Mariusz Kwiecień

Tatiana: Ana María Martínez

Lensky: Charles Castronovo

Gremin: Dmitry Belosselskiy

The recipients of the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors will soon be announced. This is one of the greatest recognitions our nation bestows on its performing artists, many of whom (though not all) were born in the United States. These will be the 40th awards. They have evolved from being rather august (the first honorees were Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers and Arthur Rubenstein) to include more popular art forms, especially rock, country and gospel music.

The honors have gone to musicians in many genres, actors, directors, playwrights, dancers, choreographers, producers and television hosts.

Most recipients have been highly deserving, yet some greats missed out because they died before the award came their way. I am thinking primarily of Ingrid Bergman, Lillian Hellman, Ethel Merman, Rudolf Nureyev and opera singer Shirley Verrett.

Gospel singer Albertina Walker (1929-2010) absolutely should have been honored. Aretha Franklin and many of the finest gospel singers sang at Walker’s unforgettable funeral.

The honors acknowledge excellence. While I don’t think there is an age limit, if I were doing the selection I might make the arbitrary minimum age of 60 unless a deserving person is known to be ill (as was the case with choreographer Alvin Ailey). By age 60, there is a full sense of accomplishment but also the potential for more. Audra McDonald, now 47, will surely be honored one day, but let’s wait.

It troubles me that certain very old artists aren’t honored because they are thought to be too frail to come to Washington for the ceremonies. Broadway legend Carol Channing should have been honored long ago, as well as Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland and writer-director-producer Carl Reiner. If any of them would be willing to make the trip, they should be chosen right away.

Eleven superb opera singers have received the honor: Marian Anderson (1978); Leontyne Price (1980); Beverly Sills (1985); Risë Stevens (1990); Marilyn Horne (1995); Jessye Norman (1997); Plácido Domingo (2000); Luciano Pavarotti (2001); Joan Sutherland (2004); Grace Bumbry (2009); and Martina Arroyo (2013).

Composers who wrote operas have been honored: Aaron Copland (1979); Leonard Bernstein (1980); Virgil Thomson (1983); Gian Carlo Menotti (1984); William Schuman (1989); and André Previn (1998). Pete Townsend and Roger Daltry (2008) of The Who might not meet everyone’s criteria, but I think Tommy is a fantastic modern opera.

Conductor honorees who have led opera or choral music are: Robert Shaw (1991); Mstislav Rostropovich (1992); Georg Solti (1993); James Levine (2002); Zubin Mehta (2006); and Seiji Ozawa (2015).

There are four opera singers older than 60 who are overdue for these honors, and there are two who I think should eventually be recognized. I will name the four in alphabetical order:

            — Sherrill Milnes, the exemplary Verdi baritone sang with the finest sopranos and tenors in the greatest theaters in the world. He gave more than 650 performances at the Metropolitan Opera between 1965 and 1997.

            — Samuel Ramey, the magnificent bass who starred in many productions at the New York City Opera, the Met, most American opera companies, La Scala, Salzburg and other top European theaters.

            — Renata Scotto was the reigning diva at the Met for a long time, opening many new productions and appearing in the first Live from the Met telecast in 1977 with Pavarotti in La Bohème. She appeared in more than 300 performances at the Met between 1965 and 1987 and has subsequently had a distinguished career as a stage director and master teacher. Here are Milnes and Scotto in part of Tosca at an outdoor concert, creating a huge sensation:

— Mezzo Frederica von Stade made more than 300 appearances at the Met between 1970 and 2010, in addition to appearing with most of the  world’s top opera companies. Her remarkable range of styles from Monteverdi through four centuries of opera to several new roles written specifically for her is almost without equal among American singers. Ramey and von Stade often appeared together. Here they are with Jerry Hadley:

After these four opera singers are honored (and let that be soon!), I would then name baritone Thomas Hampson. Not only has he had an outstanding career in opera in the U.S. and Europe, but he’s been a diligent and persuasive advocate for the art form, as well as vocal recitals. No artist has been more devoted to the rich song repertory of the United States. Hampson created a foundation in 2003 specifically to bring American music to schools and stages in all 50 states.

Following Hampson, I would honor Renée Fleming, whose singular career has encompassed music-making and bringing opera to people though many media and initiatives.

Two American composers, Philip Glass and John Adams, have created a remarkable body of work including many operas. While their modernity and penchant for strong themes might not suit all tastes, their compositions have earned their place in the firmament and will inspire new generations.

In other artistic pursuits, there are many people who merit consideration for a Kennedy Center Honor. These include actors Daniel Day-Lewis, Ian McKellen, Bill Murray and Denzel Washington. Actresses on the list are: Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters and Anna Deavere Smith. Directors: Woody Allen, Joel and Ethan Coen, Francis Ford Coppola, Oskar Eustis, Ang Lee, Spike Lee and George C. Wolfe. All-around entertainer Bette Midler. Playwrights: Tony Kushner, Terrence McNally and Tom Stoppard. Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels has launched generations of comedic talent and kept his show relevant. Choreographer/director Mark Morris. Ballerina Cynthia Gregory.

Given the other rock icons who have been honored, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are way overdue. Joan Baez and Judy Collins are highly deserving. So too are the wonderful soul singer Gladys Knight and gospel singer Shirley Caesar. Jazz musicians Wynton Marsalis, Cecil Taylor. And Charles Aznavour, Burt Bacharach, Little Richard. Also Garrison Keillor, whose contributions to literature and all of the arts have been remarkable.

Who would be my picks for the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors? Any of the four opera singers (Milnes, Ramey, Scotto, von Stade); plus Woody Allen; Joan Baez; Carol Channing; and Denzel Washington. If Channing (or de Havilland or Reiner) cannot attend, then this slot should go to Bette Midler.

Readers: please comment on whom you would pick for Kennedy Center Honors, especially in the fields of opera and classical music. Here is a list of previous recipients.

In a world where operatic sequels are all but unknown, Mussorgsky's 1874 Boris Godunov gruffly demands one.

The Macbeth-like Tsar Boris is toppled by madness and death, and his successor — who was thought to be murdered as a child — sends Polish armies to advance on Moscow, with many questions unanswered. Named Dmitrij, the successor is probably an impostor. But who, in this opera, believes what? And why?

Answers — well, some of them — arrive in Dvořák's Dmitrij. Originally premiered in 1882, but extensively revised and rewritten, Dmitrij comes to the U.S. for its first belated production July 28-August 6 at the BardSummerScape festival in Annandale-on-Hudson.

The music hails from Dvořák's middle period — the composer had not quite yet hit the stride of his 1892-95 visit to America, which inspired his famous Symphony No. 9, "New World," but he was still in a state of maturity that allowed him to sustain a three-hour-plus opera. The festival’s co-artistic director, Leon Botstein, who conducts the production and is the rescuer of many forgotten operas, particularly lauds "the fantastic choral writing" and the piece's overall ability to lodge itself in one's memory.  

The story alone is juicy. Starting with Dmitrij's three women: There’s his Polish wife-to-be Marina, who plots and manipulates imperiously. Then there's Boris' surviving daughter Xenia with whom Dmitrij develops an unlikely relationship. Marfa, the mother of the real tsar who was killed, endorses Dmitri for her own political safety. "That brings us to a larger story," said the production's stage director Anne Bogart, "about a group of Russians and Poles trying to find harmony in a state of disharmony."

The production — somewhat influenced by Bogart's reaction to last November's election —  has been updated to fit in the contemporary landscape, but with an intentional lack of specificity. "I don't want people trying to figure out which character is Gorbachev," Bogart said. Such an approach can't help but remind the world about the eternally cyclical nature of Russian history. The problems in Dmitrij's early 17th-century era have numerous modern parallels. One distinctive element of the Dmitrij narrative is the product of having a female librettist in Marie Cervinkova-Riegrova. She wrote the libretto for Dmitrij several years before Dvořák agreed to take on the project. As a result, women are unusually dimensional in this opera — even the seemingly monstrous fiancée Marina, who schemes to have Tsar Boris’ daughter Xenia killed.

"I love directing operatic chestnuts," said Bogart, "but this requires a different kind of creativity. It was hard to find a score to begin with. Then there was the question of which version. It was like putting together a mystery. Even now I'm reading off of a Xeroxed page that's hard to read."

Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov has one of the more complicated creation histories in opera — with the composer adding, subtracting and rewriting scenes over years — but the challenges of Dmitrij are even more steep. Dvořák wrote and revised the original version throughout  the 1880s to mixed reviews. And when he was  in America more than a decade later, he completely rewrote the opera, and then decided that he only made it worse and went back to some iteration of the original. Whether or not Dvořák was right to do that is hard to say.

According to Christopher Gibbs, the festival's co-artistic director, that is more Wagnerian (i.e. less choral writing) and scattered among various libraries. The existence of a reliable edition is thanks to what Gibbs calls the "heroic" efforts of musicologist Milan Pospisil, who assembled the original version with some revisions. That was the basis of the 1989 Supraphon-label recording. But Pospisil apparently kept working on the edition after the recording. Botstein used Pospisil’s most recent edition as a basis, and then  made some of his own changes, cutting some of the musical repetitions and replacing an expansive overture with a shorter prelude — as well as including music not on the 1989 recording.

Clearly this isn't an opera whose materials arrive ready-made for production and consumption in the typical operatic repertory houses. "After all the work that Pospisil did, [the edition] was not officially engraved and published, much to his understandable distress," said Gibbs in an email. "Musically, it is all there, it's just tricky for the musicians to read since a lot of the parts are handwritten."

Consider, too, the curse of operatic sequels. Few of them make their way into the repertory. There are reasons why opera lovers  would want to revisit Boris Godunov over and over rather than search for a continuation that might  not be as great. Middle-period Dvořák is uneven (ever slogged through the oratorio Saint Ludmila?) and naturally suffers in comparison to the peak brilliance of Mussorgsky, who had a strong theatrical sensibility which yielded opening choruses in Boris Godunov that are among the most stirring ever written. In contrast, Dmitrij is one of those works that, for all of its excellent choral music, doesn't really ignite until Act II.

One assumes that Dvořák's later opera from 1901, Rusalka, is his best stage work — partly because of its famous hit aria “Song to the Moon,” a longtime signature of Renee Fleming. But Dmitrij has its own meltingly lyrical soliloquies. And while Rusalka luxuriates in fairy-tale atmosphere (sometimes at length), Dmitrij wrestles with the fate of Mother Russia, and is more dramatically lean once it hits its stride. Still, there's a widely-held belief that Dvořák didn't have the theater gene and never quite acquired it — even though he played viola in an opera orchestra during his impressionable years. "I'm anxious about that criticism. It baffles me," said Botstein. "His music is deeply melodic and deeply vocal. He knows how to make a musical argument that's also dramatic."

Theatrical or not, the opera is still three beautiful hours of unheard Dvořák, one of the major personalities of his — or any other — time.

Performance are July 28, 30, August 2, 4 and 6 at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson. Tickets: $25-95. Information: 845-758-7900 orfishercenter.bard.edu.