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Washington Post
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Pared-down ‘Vanessa,' in a strip mall, demands a trip to the Berkshires
NORTH ADAMS, MASS. — Deep in the Berkshires, just off the Mohawk Trail, in an abandoned strip mall anchored by an erstwhile Price Chopper, awaits a sleek, smart production of Samuel Barber's 'Vanessa' that's worth well more than the tank of gas it may require to get there. Heartbeat Opera's streamlined vision of Barber's resurgent 1958 nail-biter — a bizarre love quadrangle with sharp psychological corners — arrives as the first opera ever presented as part of Williamstown Theatre Festival. And even among the unpredictable mixed bouquet of this 71st season — helmed by a collective led by playwright Jeremy O. Harris ('Slave Play') and featuring plays, dance, experimental musical theater, readings and an ice show at a local hockey rink — the bright white bloom of this 'Vanessa' still stands out. R.B. Schlather, whose recent productions of 'Giulio Cesare' and 'Rodelinda' have inspired a recurring migration of opera lovers upstream to Hudson, New York — directs this adaptation by Heartbeat artistic director Jacob Ashworth. It's an elegant paring of the opera's four acts (more often presented in three) down to an uninterrupted 100-minute sequence — an urgent plunge into darkness that would have delighted Strauss. Schlather made clever use of 'the Annex,' a flexible performance venue swiftly constructed for the festival in a defunct retail space. (Alas, my suggestion of 'the Rent-A-Center for the Performing Arts' came too late.) Set against a long white screen that, these days, all but assures overuse of eye-popping projections, Schlather's vision cannily opts for stark shadow play, looming silhouettes and a hard-edged monochromaticism, compellingly undone by creeping carpets of mist and washes of uneasy daylight. It's a 'Vanessa' that feels like a memory of a dream of the opera, highly concentrated but twice removed, its nuances rendered in high, haunting contrast that lingers when you close your eyes. A treatment this resolutely minimal could easily have veered into absurdist territory — remember those Calvin Klein fragrance ads from the '90s? Instead, Schlather's alchemy of intense focus and dreamlike freedom honors the cyclic spell of Barber's opera with reverence and verve. At the core of this production's compressed force is a lean new arrangement of Barber's score by Dan Schlosberg — doing double-duty in Williamstown as composer and music director for a revival of Tennessee Williams's 'Camino Real.' Barber's score, which won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize (along with the libretto by partner and collaborator Gian Carlo Menotti), is here meticulously distilled for a seven-piece ensemble of clarinet, trombone, trumpet, piano, harp, cello and violin. Listeners who experienced Gianandrea Noseda lead the National Symphony Orchestra in a concert performance of 'Vanessa' this past January will marvel at Schlosberg's maintenance of Barber's intensity and depth. Meanwhile, the ensemble's nimbleness felt perfectly equipped for the busy weather of the music. Like the production itself, the graceful restraint of the arrangement served only to sharpen its details. Every note felt like a precipice. It also left room for some powerful singing by the ensemble, which Ashworth's adaptation keeps to five singers. Soprano Inna Dukach was an instantly arresting Vanessa — heels in hand, pining erratically for the arrival of her long-delayed lover, Anatol. Tenor Roy Hage, as the son of the same name who shows up instead, imbued his Anatol with humanity enough to make you forget what an opportunistic jerk he is. My favorite singer of the evening was mezzo-soprano Ori Marcu, who effortlessly embodied Vanessa's woebegone niece Erika, the fleeting hopeful flight of her signature aria ('Must the Winter Come So Soon?') a highlight of the evening. Baritone Joshua Jeremiah's compassionate approach to the Doctor opened some show-stealing moments, especially his aria in the second half. And mezzo-soprano Mary Phillips made a memorable Baroness, her silences as weighty as the burnished tones of her voice were light. The balance of Barber's largesse and Ashworth's economy was most beautifully realized in the climactic quintet ('To leave, to break, to find, to keep …') deftly woven by the five singers and entrancingly tangled in thick lines of cello and clarinet. There are worries all around about the future of opera, its viability in a cultural landscape defined by its sudden, seismic shifts. But this 'Vanessa' was, among other things, a master class in resourceful thinking: how to make a lot from a little. How to make something new from something old. And how to give opera a more accessible place in our lives — even if that means a strip mall. 'Vanessa' runs as part of Williamstown Theatre Festival through Aug. 3.
Vogue
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
How to Navigate Upstate Art Weekend, According to Six Hudson Valley Insiders
The highlight of Pham's last Upstate Art Weekend was visiting the open studios at Foreland, the three-building, 85,000-square-foot campus that Halmos founded. There are galleries, studios, and co-working spaces as well as commercial tenants, including a hair salon, a boxing gym, and a popular cafe. 'The spirit was very convivial and communal, and the crowd epitomized 'upstate,'' Pham says of her visit to the complex. Plus, she adds, it's an excuse to visit the town of Catskill. 'If Hudson is Beyoncé, Catskill is Solange. It's a little lesser known, but just as beautiful,' says Pham. 'It's the more interesting sibling that's always on the verge of revitalization and never quite hits the mainstream.' R. B. Schlather, opera director, Hudson resident: The Campus, Claverack, NY Schlather's production of the emotionally charged, Pulitzer-Prize-winning, mid-century American opera Vanessa will be the first opera in 71 years at the legendary Williamstown Theater Festival, which is partly curated by playwright Jeremy O. Harris this summer. Schlather urges art lovers to visit The Campus, the abandoned midcentury school that a cluster of gallerists recently turned into an art megaplex. 'It's so cool to see that space in its new iteration,' Schlather says. 'Growing up in Cooperstown, NY, I went to a school like that and I love how they kept a lot of details, like the chalkboards and the locker rooms and the science labs.' Presley Oldham, jewelry designer, Hudson resident: Mary MacGill, Germantown, NY Oldham, whose gender-neutral pearl-and-wire creations sell at Bergdorf Goodman and who was a finalist for the 2024 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, sings the praises of fellow jewelry designer Mary MacGill, whose pieces are both serene and striking. 'It's fun to see a jeweler on the list this year,' Oldham says. MacGill's work toes the line between fine art and jewelry, and she will be showing new sculptural pieces that take inspiration from modernists like Alexander Calder and Catherine Noll. 'We have mutual friends, and I met her when we did the Stissing House Craft Feast together last year,' Oldham notes. 'She uses lots of wire wrapping, as do I, but she interprets things differently than I do. I can't wait to see what she's come up with.' Sari Botton, writer, editor, Substacker, Kingston resident: Noisemakers Dance Party at Assembly, Kingston, NY Botton, who has called Kingston home for 11 years, was thrilled when a former Catholic girls' school was converted into Assembly, a local events and co-working space that hosts concerts and offers pilates and ecstatic dance classes. Botton plans to attend the July 18 Upstate Art Weekend party, which doubles as an abortion-rights benefit. 'It's a lovely setting, and the acoustics are primo,' Botton says. 'Normally it's a little sleepy around here, but Assembly has been helping to change that.'
New York Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: English Concert Brings Handel's ‘Cesare' to Carnegie
Less than 48 hours after a new production of 'Giulio Cesare in Egitto' ended its run in the Hudson Valley, another 'Cesare' took up the throne in New York City. The timing was purely coincidental but not that surprising. Handel composed over 70 music dramas, yet only a handful are still performed regularly, and 'Cesare' remains his most popular. Each recent 'Cesare,' though, had something distinct to offer its audiences. R.B. Schlather's staging upstate was fashionably modern, with a liberal approach to the music. The concert performance in New York, presented by the English Concert at Carnegie Hall on Sunday, was made for faithful Baroque-ophiles: no risks, no frills, no excess. Almost every season since 2013, the English Concert, led by its artistic director, Harry Bicket, has brought Handel's operas and oratorios to New York. This ensemble sets a standard for Handel performance in the 21st century, in large part because of Bicket's musicality and attention to detail. Like a good wine, this music is savored, not gulped. No interlude is rushed, no aria taken for granted.
