Opera Returns to the Wheeler with Mozart’s Figaro
BY EMMA KIRBY
Mozart’s beloved opera The Marriage of Figaro is a timeless tale—an enduring story of love, heartbreak, repentance, and forgiveness that continues to pull at heartstrings and inspire laughter 250 years after its premiere.
“With only a little bit of hyperbole, I think The Marriage of Figaro is probably the greatest thing any human’s ever done ever,” says AMFS Vice President of Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain. For the first time since 2019, the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) presents a fully staged opera at the Wheeler Opera House in three performances on August 12, 15, and 17.
Figaro is “a wonderful, accessible story,” says director Sara Erde. Set in the Count and Countess Almaviva’s manor outside of Seville, Spain, the opera tells a humorous story of misunderstandings and mis-
directed love and lust. On servants Figaro and Susanna’s wedding day, things go awry when Figaro learns that the Count has attempted to seduce his wife-to-be. Determined for revenge, Figaro and Susanna plot to reveal the Count’s infidelity. As they carry out their plan, others in the manor are pulled into a complicated and comical web of unrequited love. Ultimately, the Count pleads for forgiveness from the Countess when his unfaithfulness is revealed, Figaro and Susanna marry, and all of the couples in the house seem to reach their happilyever-after.
“With
Wheeler, because it’s a piece that really draws you into the intimacy of the situations.” “It’s a full production in a gorgeous theater,” says Erde.
only a little bit of hyperbole, I think The
Marriage of Figaro is probably the greatest thing any human’s ever done, ever.”
Patrick Chamberlain AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration
Says conductor Matthew Aucoin, “Figaro is both heartbreaking and hilarious, both satirical and tender, open-hearted in its expression of a vast range of human emotions and yet limitlessly knowing and self-aware. I know of no other piece that is so capable of having things both ways.”
It was an easy and necessary decision to stage the opera in the Wheeler Opera House, as Figaro’s plot requires an intricate set. There’s a closet to hide in, a window to jump out of, and a garden outside the manor, just to name a few of the things that make the story truly come to life. Says Chamberlain, “it’s perfectly suited for the
Beyond the set needs, there is another special correlation to Figaro’s return to the Wheeler. The students performing in this year’s production— some of the most promising young opera talents of today— have the opportunity to study Figaro with the opera program’s co-artistic director, Renée Fleming. It was on this very stage where the superstar soprano first sang the role of the Countess as a student at the AMFS, a role that would become her debut at the Metropolitan Opera just a few years later. “It’s the ultimate Aspen story, everything coming full circle,” says Chamberlain.
Unique to this production, all three performances will be uncut—meaning Aspen audiences will have a chance to hear arias by Don Basilio and Marcellina that are rarely performed. It adds just seven minutes to the production time, but “makes the story more complete for each character. It’s wonderful,” says Erde.
Both Erde and Aucoin bring a breadth of operatic experience to the production,
See Figaro, Festival Focus page 3
ASPEN CHAMBER SYMPHONY: BEETHOVEN’S “EROICA” AND MORE
FRIDAY, AUGUST 16 5:30 PM
KLEIN MUSIC TENT
The Aspen Chamber Symphony closes its 2024 season with Beethoven’s mighty Third Symphony under the baton of Cristian Măcelaru, an alum of the AMFS who recently conducted the Orchestre National de France during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Paris.
Joining him is flutist Marina Piccinini to perform AMFS composer-in-residence Christopher Theofanidis’s The Universe in Ecstatic Motion, an AMFS co-commission that Piccinini premiered in 2022 to much acclaim. The Chicago Classical Review called her performance “poised, technically flawless, and even playful in her delivery her tone rich, pure, and pitch-perfect, impressively resonant even at the highest register of her instrument.”
A Monumental Conclusion to 75th Anniversary Season
BY DAVID HOYT
Programming hundreds of pieces of music, performed by hundreds of students and artist-faculty across a jampacked eight-week season, is a challenge each summer at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS). But the task of bringing that season to a fitting conclusion at the Aspen Festival Orchestra’s Final Sunday concert is the challenge that rises above the rest.
“How do you end a 75th Anniversary season? That’s been the question we’ve all been grappling with,” said AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain. “What’s big enough, monumental enough? What feels like a special event? I think we’ve done it.”
Audience members will have the chance to hear this monumental farewell to the summer at the Klein Music Tent at 4 p.m. on August 18. The program starts with an orchestral interlude from Berlioz’s masterpiece opera Les
Troyens, whetting the audience’s appetite for musical drama. Liszt’s transfixing Second Piano Concerto, performed by virtuoso Garrick Ohlsson, is a one-movement work of sweeping beauty that will show off Ohlsson’s mastery of the keyboard. In an interesting bit of musical history, the second half of the program was written by Liszt’s sonin-law: Act III of Wagner’s Die Walküre serves as a Tentshaking finale.
“There’s so much to love about this program,” Chamberlain added. “So much virtuosity, so much profundity, so much power all on one stage. We expect it to be something not to be missed.”
Berlioz’s Royal Hunt and Storm opens the concert with a calm and regal introduction, before quickly moving into dramatic thunder that sets the stage for the stormy Ride of the Valkyries after intermission. The roles of the Valkyries
See Final Sunday, Festival Focus page 3
Pianist Garrick Ohlsson performs Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto with the Aspen Festival Orchestra on August 18.
The AMFS’s operas return to the historic Wheeler Opera House in the final week of the Festival for Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, August 12, 15, and 17.
ELLE LOGAN
McDuffie Reminisces on a Decades-Long Aspen Dream
BY JESSICA MOORE
“I fell in love with music at Aspen,” says world-renowned violinist and beloved Aspen Music Festival and School alum Robert McDuffie. “It was so inspirational for me. It should be utopia. There’s a real world out there but I don’t think Aspen should be the real world. Aspen has a mission to reinforce one’s love for music if not introduce them to music in the first place.”
And so, when McDuffie performs a special anniversary Reminiscences Recital on Wednesday, August 14, at 7:30 pm in Harris Concert Hall, he brings with him a program of works that all hold memories of the Festival.
“I think [McDuffie] is one of those artists who is just so indelibly part of who we are. I look forward to seeing how
this program that he’s come up with plays out. I’m sure it’ll be full of laughs, fun, poignancy, and memories for everybody,” says AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain.
For starters, McDuffie chose to bookend his concert with two “Summers”—that of Vivaldi from the instantly recognizable The Four Seasons and then ending with one by fellow AMFS alumnus Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2, The American Four Seasons
The Vivaldi is a work that McDuffie recalls as “one of these life-changing experiences in Aspen.” As a student, he played in the ensemble when Itzhak Perlman performed as the soloist for The Four Seasons He says, “it reinforced not only my love for that piece, but also for violin.”
The Philip Glass was composed expressly for McDuffie who gave the American premiere of the work in Aspen. Although Glass did not assign seasons to the movements of his work, McDuffie says the movement he chose for this year’s Aspen program is the one he considers to be summer. “We disagreed on every season, but we laughed about it,” says McDuffie who explains that the two decided to leave the interpretation up to the audience although, he jokes, “I do have to say most people agree with me when they hear it.”
Sandwiched in between the two “Summers” are works that range from Prokofiev and Stravinsky to Bernstein and even Mike Mills of the rock band R.E.M., whose Concerto for Violin, Rock Band, and String Orchestra also received its American premiere in Aspen during the 2016 season. Connecting all these musical moments will be a text that
McDuffie developed with the help of long-time friend and former NPR producer Mark Mobley, turning the evening into a sort of documentary play.
The storytelling will revolve largely around McDuffie’s recollections of his years in Aspen, starting from his first time attending the AMFS in 1976. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just a wide-eyed kid wanting to study with Dorothy DeLay,” he remembers.
The combination of music and storytelling is a trip down memory lane that is personally meaningful for McDuffie but also one that he hopes “gets the message across as to why Aspen is so significant in our lives as musicians…I’m invested not only in Aspen itself, but the idea of Aspen. I’m all in.”
FINAL WEEK OF THE FESTIVAL! SEE YOU AT THE TENT!
Continued from Festival Focus page 1
McDuffie (right) with R.E.M. guitarist Mike Mills (left) performing with students in Harris Concert Hall in 2016.
ALEX IRVIN
AMFS alumnus Robert McDuffie (right) performing Aria from the late Peter Mennin’s Violin Concerto in 2023 as fellow alumnus Cristian Măcelaru (left) conducts the Aspen Chamber Symphony.
BLAKE NELSON
A Look Back at the 75th Anniversary Season in Photos
CELEBRATE THE AMFS’S 75TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON! ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL BOX OFFICE: 970 925 9042 OR ASPENMUSICFESTIVAL.COM Now–August 18: Daily, 12–4 PM MT, or concert time, or intermission, if applicable.
Final Sunday: Passing the Torch
Continued from Festival Focus page 1
will be undertaken by the young artists of the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program, joining AMFS alumna Tamara Wilson as Sieglinde. Two recent stars of the Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera, soprano Christine Goerke and bass-baritone Greer Grimsley, will sing Brünnhilde and Wotan.
Music Director Robert Spano will lead the program, and he is especially excited to see AMFS vocal students performing alongside established opera stars—a tableau that represents this 75th Anniversary season’s theme, Becoming Who You Are
“I think that’s one of the most beautiful aspects of what Aspen is, has been, and no doubt will be, is this passing of the torch that happens every summer,” Spano said. “It’s a very powerful way of passing along something that we love so much that we want to give it to the next generation.”
“You really have playing out in real time what makes Aspen so fabulous: students learning from the greats and becoming who they are.”
As Spano completes his thirteenth season as music director, he also reflected on how he has seen the AMFS change over the course of his tenure—calling out major upgrades to teaching and performing facilities that help students and artist-faculty reach their full potential—and noted that he is especially proud of the ongoing legacy of the Aspen Conducting Academy (ACA).
“To witness what the alumni of the ACA program are now doing, and the level of talent that it still attracts it’s just exciting to think about their future. All the alumni are conducting: one hundred percent. It’s not quite believable.”
Figaro: A Timeless Tale
Continued from Festival Focus
Patrick Chamberlain AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration
Chamberlain concurred: “I just love that there’s three generations of Wagnerian singing happening on the stage. . You really have playing out in real time what makes Aspen so fabulous: students learning from the greats and becoming who they are.”
The end of each AMFS season may seem to come far too soon for students, artist-faculty, staff members, and audiences alike. But anyone struggling with bittersweet feelings can take solace in the poignant words of Wotan as he says goodbye to his daughter, Brünnhilde, in the closing moments of Die Walküre: “Farewell, thou valiant, glorious child! Thou once the holiest pride of my heart! Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!”
and they have worked extensively on the Met ropolitan Opera’s pro duction of The Marriage of Figaro. Perhaps most importantly, Figaro is a treasured opera for both Erde and Aucoin, and their love for the opera truly shines through in the impeccably pro duced show. “No work of art in any genre has been as important for me, throughout my life,” says conductor Matthew Aucoin; “This is my favorite piece in all art. It has everything,” says director Sara Erde. “It’s a wonderful story of human desire.”
Saturday, August 17 only: Celebrate with us during intermission and indulge in a free dessert reception as we toast the monumental 40th Anniversary of the 1984 Grand Re-Opening of the Wheeler Opera House and 75th Anniversary of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Don’t miss this sweet celebration of two iconic milestones!
Renée Fleming in the role of Countess Almaviva as a student at the AMFS.
ABOVE LEFT: Alumni Joshua Bell violin, Steven Isserlis cello, and Jeremy Denk piano perform Beethoven’s “Triple” Concerto. ABOVE RIGHT: Conductor Nicholas McGegan in a moment of levity.
ABOVE: Students celebrate outside after one of the first concerts of the season. ABOVE RIGHT: Chris Thile narrates, in a tale set to music and “extroverted mandolin,” how actress Carrie Fisher once fed him a single cube of bread. BELOW: AMFS alumnus and renowned conductor Leonard Slatkin returned to conduct favorite works 60 years after his own student summers in Aspen.
LEFT: David Robertson, frequent guest conductor at the AMFS (and this season, parent of an AMFS student) enjoys the Karetsky Music Lawn with his dog, Oliver. ABOVE: All smiles in the double bass section. RIGHT: Soprano Lauren Carroll as Gretel.