Bard SummerScape returns this year with eight weeks of live music, opera, dance, and theater. Highlights include the 32nd Bard Music Festival “Rachmaninoff and His World;” a new production of Strauss’s The Silent Woman, directed by Christian Räth; a World Premiere commission from Pam Tanowitz and David Lang; a new adaptation of Molière’s Dom Juan, directed by Ashley Tata; and more. Gideon Lester is Artistic Director of the Fisher Center at Bard and Senior Curator at the Open Society University Network’s Center for the Arts and Human Rights. A festival director, creative producer, and dramaturg, he has collaborated with and commissioned a broad range of American and international artists across disciplines.
The Bard Music Festival returns for its 32nd season this August, with an intensive two-week exploration of “Rachmaninoff and His World.” In twelve themed concert programs, Bard examines Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943), perhaps the last great exponent of Russian Romanticism, who nevertheless embodied many contradictions.