For Immediate Release
Contact: Cohn Dutcher Associates
 Lois Cohn, 917.339.7187, lcohn@cohndutcher.com
Dan Dutcher, 917.339.7157, ddutcher@cohndutcher.com
Christina Jensen, 917.339.7188, cjensen@cohndutcher.com

2007 CARAMOOR INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL

BEL CANTO AT CARAMOOR
CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY

Ewa Podles returns to sing Azucena in Il Trovatore

Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix and Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle complete Bel Canto program

Verdi's Il Trovatore July 14 and July 20
Julianna Di Giacomo, Ewa Podles, Francisco Casanova,
Daniel Sutin, Daniel Mobbs

Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix July 21
Sarah Coburn, Laura Vlasak Nolen, Barry Banks,
Marco Nistico, Ricardo Herrera, Eric Jordan

With The Orchestra of St. Luke's led by Will Crutchfield

Petite Messe Solennelle July 8
Julianna Di Giacomo; Laura Vlasak Nolen; Barry Banks; Daniel Mobbs;
Caramoor Bel Canto Young Artists; Will Crutchfield, conductor

New York - Under the leadership of Director of Opera Will Crutchfield, Caramoor's renowned Bel Canto at Caramoor will celebrate 10 years of outstanding opera programming during the 2007 Caramoor International Music Festival.  The anniversary program will feature two operas, Verdi's Il Trovatore on July 14 and 20 and Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix on July 21, the latter in the world premiere of the new Ricordi critical edition.  On July 8, Bel Canto at Caramoor will present a concert featuring Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle in Rossini's original scoring for an ensemble of solo voices and three keyboard instruments.

Internationally-renowned contralto Ewa Podles, who made a spectacular Caramoor debut to critical acclaim last summer in Rossini's Tancredi, will return in the two performances of Il Trovatore.  Linda di Chamounix will star soprano Sarah Coburn in her Caramoor debut and returning tenor Barry Banks.  Francisco Casanova, whose interpretations of Verdi's tenor heroes have been praised worldwide, makes his Festival debut as Manrico.  Will Crutchfield will conduct the Orchestra of St. Luke's in both operas. 

Other performers include returning artists Laura Vlasak Nolen, mezzo-soprano; and Daniel Mobbs, bass-baritone, both of whom are currently appearing alongside Barry Banks in New York City Opera's Donna del Lago.  Soprano Julianna Di Giacomo, who recently scored a success at the same house as Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, and Daniel Sutin, whose Count di Luna was highly praised at the Canadian Opera last year, will make their Festival debuts in Il Trovatore.  Baritone Marco Nistico and bass Eric Jordan, who collaborated last year as members of Caramoor's Young Artists program and were recently reunited in Gotham Chamber Opera's highly-praised production of Il Signor Bruschino, appear together again in Linda, where they will sing one of Italian opera's greatest baritone-bass duets.  Completing the Linda cast is bass-baritone Ricardo Herrera, recently heard as a sparkling Taddeo in San Francisco Opera's Italiana in Algeri.

"Linda is a real jewel," said Crutchfield in announcing the season.  "Delicious melodies, pathos and originality in the treatment of the characters, and wonderful opportunities for a large cast.  It's easy to see why it stayed popular for so long.  The music is as spirited and fresh as anything Donizetti wrote, and there are wonderful surprises in the orchestra.  Donizetti had the ability to be a chameleon while always remaining himself, and here he was writing for Vienna, for a public that knew its Schubert and Mendelssohn."

"Meanwhile," Crutchfield added, "a great Trovatore is notoriously hard to find and unforgettable when it happens. I think we have the ingredients.  Enough said, and fingers crossed."  

About the Operas

Ewa Podles  as Azucena in Il Trovatore - July 14 and 20

The renowned Polish contralto Ewa Podles, whose Tancredi at Caramoor last summer was uniformly hailed as one of the major operatic events of the year, will make her return in one of the greatest roles of the contralto repertory:  Azucena, the old gypsy in Verdi's Il Trovatore.   Having seen her own mother burned at the stake as a witch, she lives for vengeance, but carries the terrible secret of having accidentally killed her own son.  In his place she raises the son of her enemy, only to deliver him to his death in a final act of revenge. 
 
The composer himself called this the most important role in the opera, and at one point planned to name it "Azucena" before later deciding to retain the name of the Spanish play (El Trovador) on which it is based.  "If I were a prima donna - and a fine thing that would be - I would always play the role of the gypsy," he later wrote to a colleague.  The music he conceived for the half-crazed woman was the most forward-looking and psychologically intense he had yet written.  Ever since, Azucena has been one of the key roles by which a great dramatic mezzo-soprano or contralto is judged.  Louise Homer, Giulietta Simionato, Fedora Barbieri and more recently Dolora Zajick have given unforgettably gripping portrayals of the part in New York.  Bel Canto at Caramoor is proud to add Ewa Podles to that legendary list.

Debuts and returning artists in Il Trovatore

As the Troubador himself, Caramoor presents the sensational tenor Francisco Casanova, who made his Metropolitan Opera stage debut as Manrico in 2001.  A native of the Dominican Republic, he has subsequently taken his Verdi roles to most of the world's great opera houses, including La Scala (I Due Foscari with Riccardo Muti in 2003) and most recently the Vienna State Opera (I Vespri Siciliani in October 2006, winning universal praise in the Austrian press).  The cast also introduces a brilliant new Verdi soprano, Julianna Di Giacomo, as Leonora.  Ms. Di Giacomo has recently been engaged by both the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera, where her Fiordiligi took top honors in the recent revival of Cosi fan tutte under Julius Rudel.  Il Trovatore at Caramoor will mark her first New York area appearance in a major Italian-repertory role.  The Count di Luna is sung by Daniel Sutin, another Metropolitan Opera artist, who scored a triumph stepping into that role on short notice last season with the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto.  Ferrando will be Caramoor's star bass-baritone Daniel Mobbs, singing his eighth role for Bel Canto at Caramoor.

Linda di Chamounix - July 21

Caramoor's performance of Linda di Chamounix is the world premiere of the definitive critical edition by Gabriele Dotto, joint General Editor of Ricordi's Donizetti Edition.  Mr. Dotto has restored some superb music not heard since the opera's premiere and will be on hand to give the pre-opera lecture on July 21.  The cast is headed by soprano Sarah Coburn, fresh from a triumph as another Donizetti heroine (Lucia) at the Glimmerglass Opera, and tenor Barry Banks, returning after a triumph in the fiendishly difficult role of Arturo in I Puritani opposite Sumi Jo at Caramoor last year ("his singing was stunning," reported Opera News succinctly).  Joining them are mezzo-soprano Laura Vlasak Nolen, baritone Marco Nistico, bass-baritone Ricardo Herrera and bass Eric Jordan.

Donizetti achieved the summit of operatic ambition early in the 1840's with an appointment as Kapellmeister in Vienna, and Linda was his calling-card opera there.  Its all-star cast at the 1841 premiere included singers who spent the rest of the decade creating roles in Verdi's operas - between them, they were represented in the premieres of Nabucco, Un Giorno di Regno, Macbeth, Alzira, La Traviata and Rigoletto.  The roles Donizetti wrote for them in this opera kept Linda wildly popular for several generations, surviving into the era of Amelita Galli-Curci and Lily Pons.  Today it is best remembered for the lilting soprano aria "O luce di quest'anima," but the whole score is on a high level of inspiration, and Donizetti paid tribute to the city of Schubert and Beethoven with a full-scale symphonic overture of rare beauty. 


About Petite Messe Solennelle

Petite Messe Solennelle - July 8

On July 8, as a curtain-raiser to the Bel Canto season, Caramoor will present Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle, with soloists Julianna Di Giacomo, Laura Vlasak Nolen, Barry Banks, Daniel Mobbs, and the Caramoor Bel Canto Young Artists. 

Rossini mystified the operatic world by retiring from the theater at the height of his fame in 1829, even though he had over three decades yet to live.  But whatever his reasons, it was not because he had run out of musical inspiration:  Decades later, living the high life of an eminence grise in Paris, he again took up his pen and composed his final masterpiece in 1864, an astonishing 35 years after his last opera.  Petite Messe Solennelle is a Mass of haunting beauty and intense expressiveness.  Scored for a small ensemble of solo voices and three keyboard instruments, it blends operatic fervor with an unsuspected mastery of counterpoint and deep spirituality. 


Special Pre-Opera Events for ticket-holders

During the afternoon and evening of each Saturday opera performance, ticket-holders can also enjoy a varied menu of lectures and recitals along with the chance to picnic in Caramoor's famous gardens.  A pre-opera lecture will be held prior to the Friday evening performance of Il Trovatore.

Verdi's Il Trovatore - Saturday, July 14

3:30 p.m. Come è scritto?

Did Verdi want his scores performed exactly as they are written, or did he assume a certain flexibility would be applied to them?  All the controversial topics - cuts, transpositions, high notes - along with others less often examined, will be debated by a panel of experts including Philip Gossett (General Editor of the Works of Giuseppe Verdi), David Lawton (Editor of the Critical Edition of Il Trovatore), and Will Crutchfield.

4:30 p.m. Verdi's Roots

The Caramoor Bel Canto Young Artists and pianist Rachelle Jonck will perform a program of the music that influenced Italy's greatest maestro.  Works by Donizetti, Ricci, Bellini, Meyerbeer, along with excerpts from Verdi's early operas.

5:30 p.m.  Dinner Break

7:00 p.m.  Pre-Opera Discussion - Philip Gossett introduces Il Trovatore 

Philip Gossett is the world's pre-eminent scholar of Italian opera.  He is the General Editor of the critical editions of both Rossini and Verdi; the author of the recent Divas and Scholars, which has quickly been recognized as the definitive work on the Bel Canto revival; and the recipient of innumerable awards and prizes, including the Italian government's highest civilian honor, Cavaliere di Gran Croce.

Verdi's Il Trovatore -  Friday, July 20

7:00 p.m.  Pre-Opera Lecture - Lecturer TBA 

Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix -  Saturday, July 21

3:30 p.m. Taking it apart, putting it together

Linda di Chamounix editor Gabriele Dotto, Toronto Star critic William Littler, and Caramoor Opera Director Will Crutchfield in a conversation about the process of composing - and recomposing - opera in the 19th century.  Why are there so many "versions" of so many operas?  How do we choose what to sing and play today?

4:30 p.m. Donizetti in Vienna

Recital by the Caramoor Bel Canto Young Artists with Rachelle Jonck, piano.  Near the end of his unimaginably productive life, Donizetti won the most coveted post in Europe:  Kapellmeister in Vienna.  The busy composer set about writing a series of works for a public that knew its Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn.

5:30 p.m. Dinner Break

7:00 p.m.  Pre-Opera Lecture - Gabriele Dotto introduces Linda di Chamounix 

The renowned Italian musicologist Gabriele Dotto is the joint General Editor of Ricordi's critical edition of Donizetti's operas, and the volume editor for Linda di Chamounix.

Ten Years of Bel Canto

The Bel Canto at Caramoor program began in 1997 with Rossini's La Donna del Lago, starring Vivica Genaux, Marguerite Krull, Bruce Fowler and Matthew Chellis.  At its inception, diva Marilyn Horne predicted success:  "These singers are very lucky to have Will Crutchfield," she told the press before summer festival.  The New York Times quickly agreed, praising "a palpable conviction that Rossini's serious operas are not static vehicles for elaborate vocal display, but elegant and humane musical dramas" in its review of the opening.  The Wall Street Journal reported in 1997, "Mr. Crutchfield brought his sure sense of bel canto style to bear upon Lucrezia Borgia, and the semi-staged concert version at Caramoor's Venetian Theater was both delightful and thought-provoking...its dark (yes, Verdian) intensity is certainly a revelation."  The Financial Times added its praise following 1999's La Gazza Ladra, lauding the virtuosic young cast and hailing Crutchfield's style as "a fine balance of bravado, intensity, sensitivity and scholarly savoir-faire."

Ever since, growing ranks of critics from the national and international press have maintained that consensus, and capacity audiences have filled Caramoor's 1700-seat Venetian Theatre.  The flagship summer productions have included three operas each by Bellini and Rossini, two each by Donizetti and Verdi, and individual works by Handel, Gluck, Francesco Conti and Pauline Viardot, along with a wide range of concerts. 

Meanwhile a broad repertory has been performed with young artists in the intimate Music Room, ranging from a cycle of the Mozart Da Ponte operas to Verdi's early comedy Un Giorno di Regno.  The prominent young singers tapped early by Caramoor and Crutchfield are too numerous to name, but a few of them include - besides the artists already mentioned - Maria Zifchak, Indra Thomas, Frank Porretta, Kate Aldrich, Daniel Mobbs, Kenneth Tarver, Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Krisztina Szabo, Yeghishe Manucharyan, John Osborn and Alexandra Deshorties.  Established artists like Ewa Podles, June Anderson and Sumi Jo have been added to the mix after Crutchfield worked with them in other theaters, and a young artists program added in 1999 has since grown into the Caramoor Bel Canto Young Artists, a prestigious full-scale training program that has touched the lives of dozens of singers.  The New York Times has called the series "essential," and ten years of achievement show why:  Caramoor is now recognized as a major international center for the interpretation of this important repertory and the development of the singers it requires.

About Caramoor

Caramoor is the legacy of Walter and Lucie Rosen, who built the great house and filled it with their treasures. Walter Rosen was the master planner for the Caramoor estate, bringing to reality his dream of creating a place to entertain friends from around the world. Their musical evenings were the seeds of the International Music Festival today. Realizing the pleasure their friends took in the beauty of Caramoor - the house with its art collection; the gardens; and the musical programs on summer evenings - the Rosens established a Foundation to open Caramoor to the public in perpetuity.

Lucie Rosen survived her husband by seventeen years. During those years, she expanded the Music Festival: the Spanish Courtyard was used as a setting for musical events, as it is today. Under her direction, the great stage of the Venetian Theater was built.

Caramoor is a Garden of Great Music. "We invite people to come early, explore our beautiful grounds, take a tour of the House Museum, visit our gift shop, enjoy a pre-concert picnic, and discover beautiful music in a relaxed setting," advises Paul Rosenblum, Caramoor's Managing Director. With its unique heritage, Caramoor remains a place where magical summer days and nights are shared and enjoyed by thousands. "Caramoor is the loveliest Festival of them all." - The New York Times

Art and Gardens
Concerts take place in two outdoor theaters - the large, acoustically superb Venetian Theater, and the more intimate, romantic Spanish Courtyard.  Caramoor is more than just music - there is beauty at every turn.  The House Museum, the former summer home of Caramoor's founders, Lucie and Walter Rosen, contains a vast collection of Renaissance, 18th-century and Eastern art objects - furniture, tapestries, sculpture, paintings, textiles, porcelain and jade. There are entire rooms that were imported from European palaces and villas.  In fact, Caramoor is one of just five mansions in the country that incorporate entire rooms into its collection, twenty of which are open to the public.  On Thursdays and Fridays, Afternoon Tea is served in the Summer Dining Room, overlooking the charming Spanish Courtyard.

Caramoor's gardens are also well worth the visit. Nine unique perennial gardens - including a Sense Circle for the visually handicapped, a Butterfly Garden, a Medieval Mount, and two whose special characteristics are enjoyed primarily at night - may be seen on a guided tour or on one's own.

House Museum
Guided tours of the House Museum are provided from Wednesday through Sunday, 1-4 p.m., with the last tour at 3 p.m. On Saturdays, during the Festival, tours are given from 1-5 p.m., with the last tour at 4 p.m. Tickets are $10 (children 16 and under free).

Credits

Wachovia Wealth Management is a generous sponsor of the July 14 performance of Il Trovatore, in celebration of Bel Canto at Caramoor's 10th anniversary.

Getting to Caramoor

Caramoor is easy to get to by car, mass transportation, or the Caramoor Caravan.

From Manhattan, take the Caramoor Caravan and ride comfortably in a luxurious, air-conditioned coach.  Round trip service is $21 and is available for all Saturday and Sunday performances during the Festival, as well as the July 20 performance of Il Trovatore. The Caravan departs from the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Upper West Side and East Side locations. Call the Box Office (914-232-1252) for further information and reservations.

By train, take the Harlem Division of the Metro-North Railroad to Katonah, New York. Taxi service from the station to Caramoor (5 minutes away) is available.

By car from the West Side of Manhattan and New Jersey, take the Saw Mill River Parkway north to Katonah.  Exit at Route 35/Cross River.  Turn right, and at the first traffic light make a right turn onto Route 22 south. Travel 1.9 miles to the junction of Girdle Ridge Road. Follow the signs to Caramoor.  (For detailed directions call 914.232.5035 and press 2, or online at www.caramoor.org).

Tickets

Tickets may be ordered by calling the Box Office at 914.232.1252 or online at www.caramoor.org.

Caramoor is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah, New York.

# # # # #

Press Tickets:
Katie Barna
917.339.7189
kbarna@cohndutcher.com

Bel Canto at Caramoor

The July 14 performance is made possible, in part, through generous support from
Wachovia Wealth Management in celebration of Bel Canto at Caramoor?s 10th anniversary.

# # #

Press Tickets:
Katie Barna
917.339.7189
kbarna@cohndutcher.com