Erich Wolfgang Korngold — a Viennese prodigy who wrote several operas before fleeing the Nazis and moving to Hollywood, where his lush film scores provided the soundtracks for Errol Flynn’s finest swashbuckling — will be the focus of the musical offerings this summer at Bard College.
Some of the programs, announced this week, will be familiar to Korngold fans — including a semi-staged production of his most popular opera, “Die Tote Stadt,” and excerpts from his Oscar-winning score for “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”
Others concerts will feature rarer fare. There will be a performance of Korngold’s Concerto in C sharp for piano, left hand, which he wrote in 1923 for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost an arm in World War I. And Bard will present the American premiere of Korngold’s 1927 opera “The Miracle of Heliane” (“Das Wunder der Heliane”) in production by Christian Räth, with Leon Botstein, Bard’s president, conducting the American Symphony Orchestra (which he also leads) and the tenor Daniel Brenna.
The full Bard performance series, Bard SummerScape, will run from June 29 through Aug. 18 at the college’s campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., culminating during its final two weekends with “Korngold and His World,” the 30th season of the Bard Music Festival. In addition to its Korngold programs, Bard will present Michael Gordon’s B-movie-theme opera “Acquanetta”; and “Grace and Mercy,” by the choreographer Ronald K. Brown, with live music by Meshell Ndegeocello.
