Fenimore Quartet makes trip to West Kortright Centre worthwhile

Reviewed by Lee Shepherd

Take four fine musicians, put them in an 1850s church surrounded by farm fields frequented by horses and other critters, and ask the performers to play their favorite works, and you’ll get the marvelous concert performed last night (July 25) by the Fenimore Quartet at the West Kortright Music Centre.

Thought you’d like to know: Reviewers check out Brunhilde in buckskin

As BAMirror mentioned earlier, acclaimed Wagnerian soprano Deborah Voigt is returning to her first love — Broadway — this summer with performances as Annie Oakley in the Glimmerglass Festival production of “Annie Get Your Gun.” Here are links to an “Annie” review in The New York Times and the whole Cooperstown season at the Web site theperacritic.com. If you’ve seen “Annie” or any other Glimmerglass show this season, please join in the conversation.

Thought you’d like to know: Great White Way extends to Glimmerglass

Check out Daniel Wakin’s July 15 New York Times article about Wagnerian soprano Deborah Voigt’s Broadwayesque turn in Glimmerglass Festival’s production of “Annie Get Your Gun”: http://tinyurl.com/6jogaff. Also in the Cooperstown production: TCO favorite Jake Gardner as Buffalo Bill. And here’s a link to the Times’ review of the show: http://tinyurl.com/3fp4uj9.

Performances continue July 22, 24 and 30 and Aug. 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 20 and 21, in repertory with three other productions. Details: www.glimmerglass.org.

The following are links to Jane Dieckmann’s July 13 Ithaca Times reviews of “Medea” (http://tinyurl.com/3rlr7xk) and “Carmen” (http://tinyurl.com/6zr8ame) at the festival formerly known as Glimmerglass Opera. David Abrams of MusicalCriticism.com also reviewed “Carmen”: here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/435pfcp. Remember: BAMirror would love to hear about your visit(s) to Glimmerglass this summer.

‘NY Times’ blog reports Glimmerglass changes

Here’s an item of note for regional opera fans, posted Monday (June 14) on The New York Times‘ arts blog:

“Francesca Zambello, the new general and artistic director of the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y., has put an immediate stamp on it, changing its name to the Glimmerglass Festival and adding musical theater as a regular feature. Starting next summer the festival will also include lectures, symposiums, cabarets and concerts for the public. Such activities have already been offered on a limited scale to donors, a spokeswoman said.

“Ms. Zambello takes over on Sept. 1. Her first season, the summer of 2011, will include new productions of Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ and Cherubini’s ‘Medea.’ The festival will also present a double bill of new works: ‘A Blizzard in Marblehead Neck’ by the composer Jeanine Tesori and the playwright Tony Kushner and commissioned by Glimmerglass, and ‘Later the Same Evening’ by John Musto and Mark Campbell, based on five Edward Hopper paintings. The musical will be Irving Berlin’s ‘Annie Get Your Gun.’ While Glimmerglass put on ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ in 2008, musicals will now become a regular feature, to be performed with a full orchestra and without amplification.