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“With Heliane, Korngold was sharpening the talents he would use later in the United States,” says Times critic Seth Walls. Even though his most enduring legacy may be in film, “his take on 1920s Viennese opera is well worth a trip to take in.” Through August 4.
 

Set in an unnamed totalitarian state, The Miracle of Heliane (Das Wunder der Heliane) features an intricate, erotic triangle between a ruthless despot, The Ruler; his beautiful and neglected wife, Heliane; and a young, messianic Stranger. An allegorical tale about the destruction of a dictatorship by a woman, Heliane premiered to great acclaim in Hamburg in 1927, and remains extraordinarily relevant today. This new production is directed by Christian Räth, with sets and costumes by Esther Bialas, both making their SummerScape debuts. The consistently excellent cast includes the stunning Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte in an all-too-rare U.S. appearance alongside rising star tenor Daniel Brenna, and the heralded bass-baritone Alfred Walker. Opening Friday, July 26, at the Fisher Center.

On Sunday, July 28, at 6 pm, the Spiegeltent at Bard’s Fisher Center will host a showcase of Bard alumni/ae making their mark on the music scene. Bardians near and far come together for a celebration led by Bard alumni/ae musicians, with performances by: Odetta Hartman ’11; Bree and the Reeds, featuring Brianna Reed ’12; Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez '16; and a new musical project by Dan Vernam ’13, Wyatt Bertz ’13, and Joe Tisdall ’13; with Alex Friedman ’12, Jesse Featherstone ’14, Luke McCrosson ’16, Zach Berns, and more.

Erich Korngold almost single-handedly created the concept of the Hollywood soundtrack, so why isn’t his music better known? A child prodigy born in Austria in 1897, Korngold was in the public eye from a young age. He moved his family to the United States to escape the Nazis and began composing for American movies. His opera The Miracle of Heliane will have its U.S. premiere at Bard’s Fisher Center this weekend. His life and work will be the focus of the Bard Music Festival next month.
 

The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) is pleased to announce that distinguished scholar, curator, and educator Nana Adusei-Poku will join CCS Bard as senior academic adviser and Luma Foundation Fellow. In this role, Adusei-Poku will collaborate with the staff and faculty to develop and advise on the curriculum, which centers around the study of contemporary art, the institutions and practices of exhibition-making, and the theory and criticism of the visual arts. She will also work with Executive Director Tom Eccles, Chief Curator and Graduate Program Director Lauren Cornell, and faculty to develop the curatorial and publishing program at CCS Bard, including symposia, conferences, performance, and exhibitions at the Center for Curatorial Studies and in collaboration with partners, including departments across Bard College and contemporary art institutions.

“Nana Adusei-Poku is an exceptional scholar, curator, and teacher. Her intellectual rigor and commitment to original research will be invaluable to our program and to future classes of CCS Bard graduate students,” said Cornell. Previously, Adusei-Poku served as visiting professor at The Cooper Union, and as a guest lecturer in the Department of Art and Media at the University of the Arts, Zurich. She was research professor for visual cultures (2015–17) and for cultural diversity (2013–14) at the Hogeschool Rotterdam with affiliation to the Piet Zwart Institute and Willem de Kooning Academy. She received her PhD from Humboldt University Berlin following degrees in African and gender studies, and in media and communications at Goldsmiths College London. She has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Ghana, Legon, London School of Economics, and Columbia University, New York.

She is the curator of the program Longing on a Large Scale in conjunction with Todd Gray's exhibition Eucledian Gris Gris at Pomona College Museum of Art, which starts in September 2019 and will run until May 2020. In 2018, Adusei-Poku curated the immersive event performance of No-thingness at the Academy of Arts Berlin and, in 2015, she co-curated the exhibition NO HUMANS INVOLVED at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art Rotterdam. She has published in artist monographs about Leslie Hewitt, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, and Todd Gray, among others, and in publications such as e-flux, multitudes, Le Journal des Laboratoires, Kunstforum International, as well as peer-reviewed journals such as Nka Journal for Contemporary African Art, Feministische Studien, and Dark Matter.

Adusei-Poku replaces Jeannine Tang, who joins Eugene Lang College at The New School as assistant professor in modern and contemporary art history, after nearly a decade at CCS Bard. In 2018, Tang co-curated The Conditions of Being Art: Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts. Co, (1983–2004) at the Hessel Museum of Art, a project that exemplified her commitment to building groundbreaking scholarship in contemporary art and curatorial history.
 

General information on the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College can be found at:

Daniel Fish's production of Acquanetta is “great fun and highly unnerving … a must-see for fans of his revival of Oklahoma! currently on Broadway.” Bard alumnus David Bloom ’13, GCP ’15 conducts.
 

The Bard Graduate Center (BGC) and U’mista Cultural Centre have launched an exhibition website that explores the hidden histories and multiple legacies of Franz Boas’s The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians. It is part of an international project to create a new critical edition of the volume. BGC also hosted an exhibition of The Story Box at its New York City gallery this year.
 

Painter Leidy Churchman's first museum survey is taking place at Bard’s Hessel Museum. Crocodile is full of intriguing patterns and radical juxtapositions ... and a 32-foot-long painting on the floor.

The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College (Bard MFA) presents Say Ever Moves, the class of 2020 thesis presentation, which brings together works by MFA candidates in the disciplines film/video, music/sound, painting, photography, sculpture, and writing. The exhibition will be on view from July 21 through July 28 at the Bard College Exhibition Center / UBS Gallery, 29 O’Callaghan Lane, Red Hook, New York.

An opening reception takes place on Saturday, July 20, 1–4 p.m. Evening presentations of time-based works, including performances, readings, and screenings, will be held at several locations on the Bard College campus during the week of July 22. All presentations are free and open to the public.

The Bard MFA thesis presentations feature works by Luis Arnias, Georgian Badal, Jobi Bicos, Lauren Burrow, Gwenan Davies, Omari Douglin, Carolina Fandiño Salcedo, Carolyn Ferrucci, Marco Gomez, Colleen Hargaden, Evie K. Horton, Christiane Huber, Rachel James, Jamie Krasner, Nawahineokala'i Lanzilotti, Dani Leder, Isabel Mallet, Carla Jean Mayer, Lee Nachum, Brandon Ndife, Diane Severin Nguyen, Miko Revereza, Alicia Salvadeo, Robert Sandler, Jaxyn Randall, Estelle Srivijittakar, Jordan Strafer, Daniel Sullivan, Christopher van Ginhoven Rey, Jessica Wilson, and Alex Zandi. The exhibition is coordinated by Marisa Espe ’20, a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard).

The Bard College Exhibition Center will be open Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., and Saturday/Sunday, 1–5 p.m. For the opening reception, a return shuttle service will be offered from Rhinecliff Amtrak station. Schedules, accessibility information, and more are available below. Parking is available in the Saint Christopher’s Church lot at 7411 South Broadway or on Garden Road.

“Found photographs are memories that have gone feral,” writes Professor Sante, “the living trace of a human who may otherwise survive only as a census entry, or not even that.”

This year Bard SummerScape is presenting a modern, multimedia style opera, Acquanetta, written by Catskill resident, librettist Deborah Artman. The opera’s music is by Michael Gordon and the production runs from July 11 through July 21. Nunally Kersh is the producer for Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s The Miracle of Heliane, a new production and a U.S. premiere, running July 26 through August 4.

by Rachel Rizzuto

As director of Bard's dance program, Maria Simpson has made partnerships a hallmark of the curriculum—first by teaming up with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, then the Trisha Brown Dance Company, and, now, with the American Dance Festival. But this partnership, which began last year, is less about learning from a specific company and more about turning the higher education curriculum model completely on its head.

With ADF dean Leah Cox (who doubles as an associate professor at Bard), Simpson is giving equal weight to African diaspora dance, arguing that it's had as much influence on modern dance as its more-frequently-lauded counterpart, Western European dance.

"Dance is not Eurocentric," Cox explains. "We only teach it as so. The entire academy is Eurocentric. It was originally created for white men. When women got there, it was very 'What are you doing here?' And for people of color, it was 'What are you doing here?'"

Bard SummerScape is honoring the choreographer's 20-year-old Grace with live music—and a new collaboration with the musician Meshell Ndegeocello.

Oklahoma!, directed by Daniel Fish and starring Patrick Vaill ’07 as Jud, earned eight Tony nominations, and won best musical revival and best featured actress. Its Broadway run has been extended through January 19, 2020 and national tour will begin in Fall 2020.

by Jennifer Wai-Lan-Huang and James Rodewald ’82 in the Bardian, Summer 2019

Twelve years ago, JoAnne Akalaitis, director of the Theater Program, invited Daniel Fish to direct a student production. Patrick Vaill ’07 recalls Akalaitis telling Fish he could choose any play he wanted. “Over time it was revealed that the show would be Oklahoma!” says Vaill. “There was a lot of excitement. People were surprised.”

The surprising choice, in Fish’s hands, meshed perfectly with the ethos of the Theater Program under Akalaitis. “She fostered an incredibly vibrant, hardworking, interested group of students who just loved doing this work together,” says Vaill. “It was thrilling to be a part of.” Fish reimagined the patriotic, upbeat 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein original as a morality tale for our time. Three-quarters of a century ago, America was at war, and it responded to the musical’s celebration of pastoralism, the charm of country folk, and the idea that “Everythin’s goin’ my way.” Since then, our tribes have become less homogeneous, the tension between the haves and the have nots continues to increase, and guns are less icons of the frontier than instruments of violence and terror. The realism, the immersion, and the sensitivity of the acting in Fish’s Oklahoma! give modern audiences—who hear the very same words and tunes—a very different experience than theatergoers of the ’40s had.

Auditions for the student production were held just before winter intersession. Vaill had hoped for the part of the handsome cowboy, Curly, who gets his sweetheart, Laurey. He was cast instead as Jud Fry, the brooding farmhand, whose own desires for Laurey are violently thwarted. “The idea was that we were all—the audience, the actors—in a room together to hear and to tell this story,” says Vaill. “When we performed it in Theater Two [now LUMA Theater] at the Fisher Center in 2007, with an all-student cast, it was clear to me and to those who saw it that we were involved in something very special.”

Vaill was raised in Manhattan, and his parents often took him and his sister to the theater. “I fell in love with it as a child and harbored a secret desire to pursue acting,” he says. “It was a magic trick that was completely amazing to me, breathing the same oxygen as the people doing that.” He had a similar instant connection with Bard. On his first visit to the campus, Vaill felt a deep kinship with the College. He applied Early Action, was accepted, and never considered another option. “I felt this was the place I had to be. I am very pleased to say I was correct. I flourished.”

Vaill’s decision to major in theater was a less straightforward process. “Moderation loomed over me. I couldn’t be cavalier about my major. I tried on many different possibilities—religion, Victorian studies, literature, art history—until I finally realized that theater was the only major I was passionate about. It was during Parent’s Weekend, after Vaill took his parents to Akalaitis’s production of the Euripides drama Orestes at the Fisher Center, that he told them about his decision. “There’s something very personal about telling someone that you want to be an artist, so I was very nervous about it. They said they absolutely understood my decision after seeing the play we’d just seen.”

After graduation, Vaill went on to act in several off-Broadway shows in New York City and with the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., working on stage professionally for three years before pursuing his MFA in acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. The first role Vaill landed after graduate school was on the Lincoln Center stage in Shakespeare’s Macbeth directed by Jack O’Brien and starring Ethan Hawke as the Scottish king. “It was an incredible experience. I played Graymalkin, one of the witches’ familiars. I leaned very heavily into the supernatural and played those scenes as a demonic being.” Vaill then played Ernst Ludwig in the Roundabout Theatre’s national tour of the Broadway revival of Cabaret directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes. Then, eight years after performing it as an undergraduate, Vaill learned that Gideon Lester, Fisher Center artistic director for theater and dance and director of Bard’s Theater and Performance Program, had commissioned a professional production of Fish’s Oklahoma! for the Fisher Center’s 2015 Bard SummerScape season.

“I sent Daniel an email about how exciting it was and that I would love to audition to play Jud again if they were holding auditions,” says Vaill. “He wrote back that day saying he had already given my name to the casting director as someone whom he wanted to see.” Vaill auditioned and was cast as Jud. “As a senior at Bard, I was largely going on impulse. There was something about the character that I absolutely understood instinctively. Over the years, with more training and experience, I have found the tools to express it.” The production, Vaill believes, developed in a similar way. “I think it had distilled in Daniel’s mind. His understanding of the material and what he wanted to do with it is more purposeful, more fully realized. The student production was the kernel of what came later.”

In his review of the 2015 SummerScape production, New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley described Vaill’s Fry as “a paranoid but oddly understandable stalker.” Most earlier portrayals presented the character as muscular, brutish, and simple; a caricature of the marginalized working stiff. Vaill played him, in Brantley’s words, as a “pale, weedy man with the kind of grudge that lands sociopaths on the front page and in prison.” The complexity Vaill brings to the role, and the empathy he evokes, are crucial to the success of the reimagined musical.

The immersive, groundbreaking production garnered rave reviews, and Fisher Center executive director Bob Bursey and his staff began working to bring it to New York City. In fall 2018, the Fisher Center production transferred to St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, where it had a sold-out six-week run, and it opened on Broadway at Circle in the Square Theatre in April. “We knew that something special was happening again,” says Vaill.

A hallmark of Fish’s production is the absence of any preconceived notions about Oklahoma!—seeing the play for what it is, and revealing the script’s deeper meanings. “Jud is often played as a very scary, mean brute of a man,” says Vaill. “What Daniel and I have tried to do is look at the words on the page with fresh eyes to see who this person really is. Not to judge him before he speaks. If you look at Jud’s song ‘Lonely Room,’ it is about dreams. He has dreams, wishes for things. Beautiful words and images come out of him. It’s not what you’d expect to come out of the mouth of a ‘dirty farmhand.’ He expresses this desire to be seen, this desire to be loved, and this desire to be held that is incredibly human. When you strip him bare, what you’re left with is someone who just wants love so badly. And who hasn’t experienced that?”

The Maria Callas award is presented each year in recognition of an outstanding company debut. Blythe received the award for her portrayal of Mistress Quickly in the Dallas Opera production of Verdi’s Falstaff.

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory “is deftly and confidently written, full of experimental fun,” writes the Post.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad across the United States. The US-China Music Institute at the Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Stanford Center for East Asian Studies have collaborated with the Chinese Railroad Workers’ Project to commission a musical work, Men of Iron and the Golden Spike, to give voice to the thousands of Chinese workers who labored to build the railroad.

Evidence, A Dance Company and its founder, choreographer Ronald K. Brown, make their Bard SummerScape debut with the world premiere of Grace and Mercy. Commissioned for SummerScape 2019, the two-part program opens with Grace, created in 1999 for Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and performed here for the first time to live music, and concludes with the premiere of Mercy, a companion piece set to a score written and performed live by Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello.

For its summer 2019 season, CCS Bard will present the first U.S. solo museum exhibitions of work by Leidy Churchman and Nil Yalter, along with Acting Out, a group show featuring artists in the Marieluise Hessel Collection, including Larry Clark, Lyle Ashton Harris, Nan Goldin, Boris Mikhailov, Lorraine O'Grady, Cindy Sherman, and Jo Spence. The shows will open to the public on June 22, 2019 and will run through the fall. 

The Times interviews artist Tschabalala Self, whose textile works are on view at MoMA PS1 through September 8.