July 25–August 3: Bard SummerScape Presents First Fully Staged American Production of Smetana’s Opera Dalibor

August 17: Julietta crowns 2025 Bard Music Festival, “Martinů and His World”

As a highlight of the 2025 Bard SummerScape festival, the Fisher Center at Bard presents the first fully staged American production of Bedřich Smetana’s Dalibor, “a work of great sweep and passion, interlaced with enchanting national melodies” (The New York Times) that is widely considered by fellow Czechs to be the composer’s most important opera. Ladislav Elgr, Izabela Matuła, and Alfred Walker star alongside the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), Bard Festival Chorale, and festival founder and co-artistic director Leon Botstein in an original treatment by Jean-Romain Vesperini, the director behind SummerScape’s celebrated staging of Saint-Saëns’s Henri VIII. This was named one of the “Best Classical Music Performances of 2023” by The New York Times, which observed: “Botstein, and his annual opera production at Bard, seem more invaluable by the year.” Dalibor runs for five performances in the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center on Bard’s idyllic Hudson Valley campus (July 25, 27, 30; August 1, 3). There will be an intermission toast on the opening night (July 25) and Botstein will give an opera talk before the first Sunday matinee (July 27). Chartered coach transportation from New York City will be available for two matinees (July 27 and August 3), and the third performance will stream live online (July 30) with an encore broadcast three days later (August 2).

Rounding out Bard’s operatic lineup this summer, Botstein, the ASO, and the Bard Festival Chorale also anchor Julietta by Bohuslav Martinů (August 17). Starring Erica Petrocelli and Aaron Blake, the semi-staged performance forms the final program of the 2025 Bard Music Festival, which undertakes an in-depth examination of “Martinů and His World.” Once again, chartered coach transportation from New York City will be available for the performance, which will stream live online.

These operatic offerings follow last season’s SummerScape success with the first new American production in almost five decades of Meyerbeer’s grand opera Le prophète. Pronouncing the staging “a revelation,” The Washington Post wrote:

“The Bard production, which featured a uniformly solid, committed and convincing cast of singers, a brilliant chorus and fine playing from the American Symphony Orchestra, proved that a sprawling, unapologetically melodramatic opera can still hold the stage.”

The Fisher Center at Bard, Botstein, and the American Symphony Orchestra have long been recognized for their ardent championship of important but neglected opera. Other past productions include works by two of Smetana’s compatriots: the first U.S. staging of Janáček’s Osud, hailed as “a blue-chip production” (The New York Times), and the first fully staged U.S. production of Dvořák’s Dimitrij, for which “Botstein …, the festival and this hard-working cast deserve thanks” (The New York Times). Providing “essential summertime fare for the serious American opera-goer” (Financial Times, UK), Bard SummerScape is now “an indispensable part of the summer operatic landscape” (Musical America).

Smetana’s Dalibor at SummerScape
Bedřich Smetana (1824–84) has long been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music, and his eight operas represent the bedrock of the Czech operatic repertory. Internationally he is best-known for the second of these, The Bartered Bride. However, in today’s Czech Republic, it is the third, Dalibor (1868), that is considered his most important.

Dalibor is the story of the eponymous 15th-century knight who avenged the death of his musician best friend by instigating an uprising and killing the local military governor. The governor’s sister, Milada, initially demands Dalibor’s execution, but finds herself so impressed by his nobility and courage that she not only pleads instead for clemency but actually falls in love with him. When Dalibor is sentenced to starve to death, Milada adopts a male disguise to infiltrate his dungeon and plot his escape. Dalibor soon reciprocates her love, and their romance evokes that of Fidelio. Ultimately, however, Milada’s plan is a failure and their story, unlike Beethoven’s, a tragic one.

Set to a Czech libretto by Ervin Špindler (translated from a German one by Josef Wenzig), Dalibor is loosely based on a historical episode of particular significance for Smetana and his compatriots. As a Czech knight who defied feudal power, Dalibor was a national hero to 19th-century Bohemians, whose homeland was still under Austrian Habsburg rule. Furthermore, the opera explicitly identifies music, one of its primary themes, with Czech patriotism. As Opera Today explains: “The message of Dalibor is loud and clear: Czechs love music, and with music they shall triumph over repression.”

The opera premiered in Prague under Smetana’s leadership. Marking the laying of the foundation stone of the city’s new National Theatre, its production was clearly intended as a statement of national pride. Ironically, however, Dalibor was denounced by critics as being overly indebted to German opera, especially that of Wagner. This came as a profound disappointment to Smetana, who would not live to witness the work’s success. Only posthumously did Dalibor win popularity through a string of European revivals, one of them led by Gustav Mahler, and to this day the opera has never been staged in America.

Such long neglect cannot be attributed to a lack of artistic merit. Combining the influence of Bohemian folksong with a Lisztian approach to thematic transformation, Dalibor is widely recognized as “a masterpiece” (BBC Music magazine). After its first New York concert performance in 1977, The New York Times declared: “Dalibor is a remarkable work, full of passion, full of great melody, full of yearning. Smetana never was to compose anything as powerful.” Similarly, a 2015 London concert performance impressed The Telegraph as “an evening of pure joy, … rich in sincere humanity and music of expressive warmth and fluent beauty.” As the review concluded, the opera’s concert performance “shows how much we have all been missing and makes a full staging of the work all the more urgent.”

To mount the opera’s long overdue first staged American production, the Fisher Center at Bard turned to French director Jean-Romain Vesperini, whose previous credits include original productions for Paris Opera, Opera Hong Kong, and Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, as well as for SummerScape 2023. New to Smetana’s work, Vesperini was immediately struck by something unusual. He explains:

“In Dalibor, the music is the dramaturgy. The poetry, the characters, and their relationships and stratagems all come to us most powerfully through the music itself. That was the first element of interest to me, as a director coming originally from the theater world.”

A second such element was provided by Dalibor’s feelings for his dead best friend, for whom the knight initially mistakes the disguised Milada. Vesperini says:

“I understand the medieval view of male brotherhood. All the same, the way the story is presented has modern resonances. It gives us the opportunity to explore different aspects of identity.”

The director drew on a range of influences to bring Smetana’s story to life. He says:

“This opera was created more than 150 years ago. My challenge is to make it feel relevant to contemporary audiences. It’s only by mixing different theatrical languages together that I feel able to do this. It creates a kind of melting pot from which I’m able to make something new – and the audience can take from it what they will.”

To realize this vision, Vesperini has assembled an outstanding creative team, comprising some of his most trusted collaborators, including three of those behind his “lovingly staged” treatment (The New York Times) of Henri VIII. Designed by Henri VIII’s Alain Blanchot, Dalibor’s costumes are rich in fabric and visual interest, taking cues from paintings of the Middle Ages. By contrast, for their spare, minimalist sets and lighting concept, Henri VIII’s Bruno de Lavenère and Christophe Chaupin draw inspiration from German Expressionism and silent film. The stage will be hung with chainmail curtains, adding depth and serving as a blank canvas for video projections. Inspired by early 20th-century Czech art, these will be designed by Etienne Guiol, whose work, like de Lavenère’s, was featured in the opening ceremony for last year’s Summer Olympics in Paris.

Their production showcases a strong SummerScape cast. Heading this cast in his title role debut is Czech tenor Ladislav Elgr, whose past credits include the Royal Opera House, Paris Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Glyndebourne, where “his dynamic vocal attack and healthy top register provid[ed] genuine excitement” (The Guardian) as the Prince in Dvořák’s Rusalka. He sings opposite Polish soprano Izabela Matuła, who reprises the portrayal of Milada with which she made “a brilliant impression, with a well-focused soprano voice that shines brightly in the dramatic top notes” (Klassiker Welt, Germany), at Oper Frankfurt. Both making role debuts, American soprano Erica Petrocelli, recently recognized with LA Opera’s Stern Artist Award, plays the part of the orphan girl Jitka, with American tenor Terrence Chin-Loy, a Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions semi-finalist, as Jitka’s husband, the mercenary Vítek. Also making role debuts are two Grammy winners: American baritone Eric Greene as Budivoj, commander of the castle guard, and Chinese bass Wei Wu, previously seen in SummerScape’s King Arthur and Le prophète, as the jailor Beneš. Rounding out the cast in his first appearance as Dalibor’s King Vladislav is bass-baritone Alfred Walker. A SummerScape favorite, Walker drew rave reviews in The Miracle of Heliane, in the title role of Henri VIII, and as Méphistophélès in last season’s semi-staged production of La damnation de Faust, when the Financial Times observed: “Walker is a staple at the festival, and it is easy to see why – he brought a resonant bass-baritone, clearly projected text and real charisma to the stage.” To master the subtleties of Dalibor’s Czech text, the cast and crew work in close collaboration with dramaturg and diction coach Véronique Firkusny, the daughter of pianist Rudolf Firkusny, one of Martinů’s dearest friends.

Martinů’s Julietta at Bard Music Festival, Program 11
Like Smetana, the underrated Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959) wrote a three-act opera about an improbable romance that many consider his finest work. Based on the French play Juliette, ou La clé des songes (Juliette, or The Key of Dreams) by Georges Neveux, Julietta (1937) is the eighth of Martinů’s 14 operas. A psychological drama exploring the surreal intersection between dreams and reality, it follows Michel, a Parisian bookseller, on the search for Julietta, a mysterious girl whose voice has haunted him for the past three years. After tracking her down in a seaside town whose inhabitants appear to live only in the present, with no memory of the past, Michel realizes that he must be caught in a dream world. Forced to choose between staying in the dream or returning to waking life, he decides to remain with the woman he loves.

Botstein regards Julietta as “an operatic masterpiece,” It was he who helmed its American concert premiere in 2019, when he led “a winning cast and the American Symphony Orchestra in a vibrant concert performance” of the work at Carnegie Hall that was selected as a “Critic’s Pick” by The New York Times. The review concluded: “I hope these dedicated singers get a chance to perform their roles again. Mr. Botstein has done his part by bringing a worthy and original opera to attention.” Now he and the ASO give a semi-staged performance of Julietta, featuring three members of that same cast. Tenor Aaron Blake reprises his performance as “an endearing and sweet-sounding Michel, sung with youthful fervor and stamina” (The New York Times), opposite Dalibor’s Erica Petrocelli, who lends her “searing intensity” (Los Angeles Times) to the title role. Metropolitan National Council Auditions-winning bass-baritone Philip Cokorinos and Dalibor’s Alfred Walker both also reprise their “excellent” portrayals (The New York Times) of multiple smaller roles, now joined by Grammy-nominated tenor Rodell Rosel; the “stentorian bass” (The New York Times) of Kevin Thompson, as previously heard at SummerScape in The Miracle of Heliane and Henri VIII; and three mezzo-sopranos: Megan Marino, hailed as “an animated, laser-voiced delight” (Opera Today); Krysty Swann, winner of the Giordani International Competition; and “vocal sensation” Taylor Raven (Washington Classical Review). Anchored by the ASO under Botstein’s leadership, their concert performance forms the 2025 Bard Music Festival’s eleventh and final program, “The Opera of Dreams: Martinů’s Julietta” (August 17).

Round-trip bus transportation from New York City
Chartered coach transportation from New York City is available for the matinee performances on Sunday, July 27; Sunday, August 3; and Sunday, August 17. This may be ordered online or by calling the box office, and the meeting point for coach pick-up and drop-off is at Lincoln Center, Amsterdam Avenue, between 64th and 65th Streets. More information is available here.

SummerScape tickets
Tickets for mainstage events start at $25. For complete information regarding tickets, series discounts, and more, visit fishercenter.bard.edu. or call Bard’s box office at (845) 758-7900.

Lead support for the Bard SummerScape production of Dalibor has been provided by Sarah Billinghurst Solomon. The Fisher Center is generously supported by Carolyn Marks Blackwood and Gregory H. Quinn, Jeanne Donovan Fisher, the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Foundation, Felicitas S. Thorne, Andrew E. Zobler, the Advisory Board of the Fisher Center, Fisher Center members and general fund donors, the Educational Foundation of America, the Smokler/Hebert Family Fund, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. The Bard Music Festival is generously supported by Helen and Roger Alcaly, Kathleen Vuillet Augustine, the Bettina Baruch Foundation, Jeanne Donovan Fisher, the Marstrand Foundation, the Naughton-Chesley Gift Trust, Denise Simon and Paulo Vieira da Cunha, Felicitas S. Thorne, the Wise Music Family Foundation, the Bard Music Festival Board, and Bard Music Festival members.

Post Date: 04-23-2025