R.B. Schlather

Written by Dame Ethel Smyth, English composer and leader in the women’s suffrage movement, The Wreckers was first performed in Germany in 1906 and was mounted in the composer’s homeland in 1909. This powerful three-act opera about piracy, love, and betrayal in a community of religious fanatics received its U.S. premiere in 2015 at Bard SummerScape in a penetrating production directed by Thaddeus Strassberger, with the American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein.

L’Italiana in Londra was Domenico Cimarosa’s first international triumph, thrilling audiences all over Europe after its premiere in 1778. It later became eclipsed by the even bigger success of Il matrimonio segreto however, and has become a rarity on stage today. Set in a London hotel, this cheerful ‘Intermezzo in musica’ has cleverly crafted arias, duets and ensembles that drive the plot along, the story being one of thwarted love, quarrels and misunderstandings. L’Italiana in Londra has been summed up by director R.B. Schlather as ‘incredibly charming and sophisticated ... demanding, dark, dirty and very funny ... an impeccable rom-com.’

This take on the famously dark Brothers Grimm fairy tale tells of a Wicked Stepmother who murders her stepson and serves him up in a stew to his unsuspecting father. The boy’s sister buries her brother’s bones under a nearby Juniper Tree, and the child’s spirit returns as a singing bird who wreaks vengeance on the evil Stepmother before being restored to life in the bosom of his family.