Features
July 27 – August 5
Emmanuel Chabrier's
The King in Spite of Himself
This tale of Henri de Valois, a 16th-century French noble elected by the people of Poland to be their king, despite his great reluctance to be away from France, has been much praised for the quality of its music—indeed, no less a master than Maurice Ravel claimed that Chabrier’s score changed the course of French harmony.
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July 6 – August 19
2012 SummerScape
Bard SummerScape 2012 presents seven weeks of opera, music, theater, dance, films, and cabaret. Season highlights include The King in Spite of Himself, an opéra-comique about a reluctant ruler by Saint-Saëns’s contemporary Emmanuel Chabrier, a French dance company that seamlessly blends the baroque and the contemporary, a production of Molière’s hilarious comedy The Imaginary Invalid, an unusual and provocative film festival, and the lively cabaret and eclectic musical acts of the Spiegeltent. More >
August 10–12 and 17–19
23rd Bard Music Festival
Saint-Saëns and His World
The career of Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) spanned the course of French music from Gounod to Ravel, and his prodigious and stylistically varied output helps to define our understanding of the classical, the romantic, and the modern in music. The 23rd Bard Music Festival will focus on the life and times of the French composer, whose remarkable career shaped not only the history of music, but also the ways in which that history was transmitted and communicated to the public. More >
