Bard SummerScape 2018 Presents Rare New American Production of Anton Rubinstein's Demon (July 27-Aug 5)

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y., April 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Committed since its inception to reviving important but neglected operas, Bard SummerScape has long proven itself "an indispensable part of the summer operatic landscape" (Musical America). Offering a rare new American production of Demon by Anton Rubinstein as its operatic centerpiece, this year is no exception. With Olga Tolkmit and Efim Zavalny heading an all-Russian cast in an original staging by renowned American director Thaddeus Strassberger, with the support of the American Symphony Orchestra under the leadership of music director and festival co-artistic director Leon Botstein, Demon runs for five performances between July 27 and August 5, with an Opera Talk, free and open to the public, before the matinee on July 29. SummerScape 2018 also provides the chance to see Rimsky-Korsakov's seldom-staged operas Mozart and Salieri (August 18) and The Tsar's Bride (August 19) during the 29th annual Bard Music Festival. All three presentations take place on Bard's glorious Hudson Valley campus in the striking Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center. As Time Out New York notes, "Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore."

Anton Rubinstein's Demon (1871)

Composed in three acts to a libretto by Pavel Viskovatov, Demon was based on a narrative poem by Mikhail Lermontov that was initially banned as sacrilegious. Like the poem, Rubinstein's opera depicts a demon, or fallen angel, who meets Tamara, a mortal princess, and falls desperately in love, trying everything in his power to seduce her.

On the few occasions it has been heard in the West, Demon has received a warm welcome. After a concert performance by the Kirov Opera at the 2003 Lincoln Center Festival, the New York Times admired the composer's "sure lyrical gift and command of the orchestra," while a 2009 London presentation prompted Gramophone to admire "Rubinstein's colourful and lyrically expressive score."

For tickets and further information on all SummerScape events, call the Fisher Center box office at 845-758-7900 or visit fishercenter.bard.edu/summerscape.

SOURCE Bard College

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