Soprano Meagan Miller Leads Bard SummerScape's Die Liebe der Danae

Reviving an important but rarely performed opera is one of the ways the Bard SummerScape festival paints a nuanced portrait of the past, and this year's exploration of "Sibelius and His World" continues that tradition. This year, Bard presents the first fully-staged New York production of Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae, 1940), by Sibelius's contemporary Richard Strauss. The production, starring soprano Meagan Miller, a grand finals winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, will be directed by dynamic young opera and theater director Kevin Newbury, and both are making their SummerScape debuts; world-renowned architect Rafael Viñoly has designed the sets, returning to Bard for the first time since his acclaimed creations for SummerScape's 2004 production of Shostakovich's The Nose. The opera's five performances (July 29 & 31; August 3, 5, & 7) feature the festival's resident American Symphony Orchestra and music director Leon Botstein, whose 2001 Telarc recording of the work won high praise.

Born in Delaware and now living in New Jersey, Meagan Miller recently scored another triumph in Vienna (a town she now fondly thinks of as a second home), this time with her role debut as Nyssia, in Zemlinsky's Der König Kandaules at the Volksoper. Der Standard observed, "Meagan Miller offered vocal luxury in golden profusion," while the Neue Merker noted, "[She was] fantastic as the so-beautiful-coveted-by-two-men Nyssia... [Miller] can add to her Ariadne success another 'crown jewel'. The jugendlich-dramatik role also requires the golden cantilena of the high-Strauss sopranos and Meagan Miller can really show this off." This fall, Miller achieves another important milestone in her burgeoning international career when she makes her house debut at the Vienna State Opera as Richard Strauss's Daphne (Dec 10 - 19).

Opera and operetta at SummerScape 2011

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae, 1940)
Libretto: Joseph Gregor
American Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Leon Botstein, music director
Directed by Kevin Newbury
Set design by Rafael Viñoly
Cast:
Danae: Meagan Miller
Jupiter: Carsten Wittmoser
Merkur: Jud Perry
Pollux: Dennis Petersen
Xanthe: Sarah Jane McMahon
Midas: Roger Honeywell
Semele: Aurora Perry
Europa: Camille Zamora
Alkmene: Jamie Van Eyck
Leda: TBA
Sosnoff Theater
July 29 and August 5 at 7 pm
July 31, and August 3 and 7 at 3 pm
Tickets: $30, $60, $70, $90

Opera Talk with Leon Botstein
July 31 at 1 pm
Free and open to the public

Noël Coward (1899-1973)
Bitter Sweet (1929)
Libretto: Noël Coward
Conducted by James Bagwell
Directed by Michael Gieleta
Arranged by Jack Parton
Theater Two
August 4, 6, and 11 at 8 pm
August 7 at 7 pm
August 5, 10, 12, 13, and 14 at 3 pm
Tickets: $55

Opera Talk with James Bagwell
August 7 at 5 pm
Free and open to the public

Bard SummerScape ticket information

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