The Glimmerglass Festival Spring Gala in New York City

With Francesca Zambello, Artistic and General Director of the Glimmerglass Festival.
I grew up in upstate New York and am a big fan of the Glimmerglass Festival (previously known as the Glimmerglass Opera) in Cooperstown, New York.  Readers may remember that TD and I have had a couple of visits there. I still love the Glimmerglass pie story.

Glimmerglass recently hosted their spring festival gala here in NYC and kindly invited us. The gala was held at the Metropolitan Club on Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, a private social club which was founded by J.P. Morgan in 1893 and is housed in one of New York City's most beautiful buildings which was designed by Stanford White during the Gilded Age.
A view of the cocktail reception at the gala –

At the cocktail reception we chatted with Francesca Zambello, Artistic and General Director of the Glimmerglass Festival, a real dynamo who has also directed at the Metropolitan Opera and is the Artistic Advisor at the Washington National Opera. Francesca noted how important the evening was since it supports the Festival's acclaimed Young Artists and Summer Internship Programs, which trains and supports young musical artists, production professionals and arts administrators.  Then she said, "Do you know Peter Duchin?" and gestured toward the legendary band leader who was standing next to her.

After the cocktail reception, guests streamed into the ballroom to hear a few performances by young artists. With its carved and painted ceiling, the room reminded me of the Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library.
A view inside the ballroom before the performances began –

Francesca took to the stage to welcome guests and introduce the Master of Ceremonies, the renowned American operatic bass-baritone Eric Owens. Francesca noted that the upcoming summer season at Glimmerglass will celebrate 100 years of music, with productions by Puccini, Strauss, and Rogers and Hammerstein. Stressing the importance of the young artists' program, she said, "It is incumbent upon us to support the arts so that we have a civilized society." Here, here.
Then we got to enjoy some lovely music including performances by Glimmerglass Young Artist Jacqueline Echols –

(these photos are by Karli Cadel)
Glimmerglass Young Artist Beth Lytwynec –

Soprano Yunah Lee, who sings the role of Cio-Cio-San at Glimmerglass this summer –

and Glimmerglass Young Artist Patrick O’Halloran –

What a treat it was to hear these wonderful performers and more in that grand room. Check out the upcoming season at Glimmerglass and get your summer tickets!

A Little Night Music

Bernadette Peters and Alexander Hanson play lovers with bad timing.

Last week TD and I went with our friend Mark to see A Little Night Music on Broadway, the luminous show set in Sweden at the the turn of the last century, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler. You probably know that Catherine Zeta-Jones, who won a Tony in the role, and the great Angela Lansbury were recently replaced by Broadway legends Elaine Stritch and Bernadette Peters.


Bernadette Peters plays Desiree Armfeldt, an actress on the European stage with a unsuccessful love life, and Elaine Stritch plays her mother, Madame Armfeldt, who has regrets of her own. Stephen Sondheim music, nineteenth century costumes, and Elaine Stritch and Bernadette Peters – what's not to love? TD and I also saw the New York City Opera version in 2003 starring Jeremy Irons who cut a very elegant line indeed as Frederik Egerman.

You won't believe this but I worked backstage on a production of A Little Night Music in high school. In Utica, New York, the Munson Williams Proctor Institute art museum held a summer arts festival and mounted musicals under a big tent on Genesee Street. I volunteered on A little Night Music, and loved the complexity and sophistication of the show. However, on the two nights it was presented, rain poured down and pounded on the tent; I don't think the audience heard one single word.

The music in the show is wonderful, and it's one pleasure after another, including "You Must Meet My Wife," "Liasons," "Every Day a Little Death," and "A Weekend in the Country." In the second act, Desiree sings the show's renowned song, "Send in the Clowns." This is what The New York Times said recently: "For theater lovers there can be no greater pleasure than to witness Bernadette Peters perform the show's signature number with an emotional transparency and musical delicacy that turns this song into an occasion of transporting artistry...[it's] an indelible moment in the history of musical theater."

That's a lot of pressure, with a build up like that! Everyone in the audience was waiting for that moment. I'm happy to say that with tears in her eyes she does indeed really pull it off; I had never before her performance fully understood the heartbreaking situation that this character is in. The audience applauded deeply with approval, almost before the song ended, like at the opera.

I adore Elaine Stritch who is now 84 years old, and her one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, at the Public Theater was one of the best nights ever in the theater. No one is funnier on stage, but to me the character of Madame Armfeldt is enigmatic and inscrutable, a mysterious link to ancient Europe shrouded in veils with her memories of "the castle of the king of the Belgians."

Madame does tell a poignant story at the end of the show though about rejecting a suitor in her youth because he gave her a wooden ring. "He could have been the love of my life," she says with longing.
I also have to remark that the set was extremely simple, nonexistent really. TD said that in the 1973 Broadway original, the Tony-nominated sets were ornate and they actually rolled an antique car on stage. Those were the days. Now Broadway tickets get more expensive and the sets get simpler. TD also noticed that it was a not a full orchestra but a pared down one.
But these are economic issues. I think it's safe to say that A Little Night Music is an American masterpiece. The supporting cast was excellent, especially Leigh Ann Larkin as the lusty maid Petra who sings a showstopping "The Miller's Son," and Erin Davie as the dryly sardonic Countess Malcolm. The production is a joy of music and romance and waltzing twists and turns. When the cast takes their bows in their creamy summer Edwardian linens, it's an elegant celebration of American artistry

and two great ladies of the theater.

It's a Broadway kiss.

Blog bonus: I found this video on Playbill.com, which offers some moments from the show.

A Trip to Rochester

The Erie Canal

We're celebrating Aunts and Cousins week here at Bart Boehlert's Beautiful Things. You may remember that the weekend before last, we attended the graduation party of my aunt Ellen, age 73. Last weekend TD and I went up to Rochester, New York, for my aunt Molly Boehlert, born Molly Gilroy from Utica, New York.

Molly married my father's brother Bob who was a widower with one child. Together the couple had four children. My uncle Bob sadly passed away twenty years ago. When we attended a Boehlert family reunion on Oneida Lake two years ago, I wrote about my aunt Molly so I won't repeat it here except to say that when I was growing up, I spent many summer and winter vacations with my cousin Peter, born the same year as I. Molly was always taking us off on some adventure – to a neighbor's swimming pool or to the beach at Lake Ontario or to a picnic in the park. Now Molly is seriously ill. To mark her eightieth birthday an invitation arrived in our mailbox for "a celebration of life." How could we resist?

We had the good fortune to stay with my cousin Peter and his wife Lorie in their great home in the charming village of Pittsford, founded outside of Rochester in 1789. Pittsford is well known for its historic district and beautiful houses.

The town has a lot of nineteenth century brick buildings which I love. This is the Phoenix Hotel, which was built in about 1812 to serve the Erie Canal and carriage trade. It was restored in 1967 and now houses local businesses.


Here is the town hall, built in 1890.

A picturesque brick house is now the Canal Lamp Inn bed and breakfast.

Gardens and flower boxes were in full bloom.

We took a walk along the Erie Canal, which was completed in 1825. This phenomenal feat of engineering and human toil was built to link the great Lake Erie with the Hudson River so that goods could flow from the Atlantic Ocean to the Midwest; it helped make New York City the chief U.S. port. The Erie Canal links the upstate cities of Albany, Utica (my hometown) and Rochester so it was always a presence in my childhood.

Peaceful, tranquil, and flat, the Eric Canal takes us back in time.

I'd like to take a boat ride on the Eric Canal.

This residential dock perched over the canal looked like a relaxing spot.

Lunch along the Erie Canal.

Later in the afternoon, we visited Artisan Works, a non-profit organization housed in a huge warehouse which supports local artists. There was miles of art everywhere, on the walls, on the ceilings, and on the roof.

We stopped at Molly's house which has been the family home for fifty years where I visited as a kid. Then we stopped at cousin Brian's who has just bought a big new house. That night we had a delicious dinner with Peter and Lorie and their adult daughters Maggie and Dottie and her fiance Bryce at Richardson's Canal House, the oldest original inn on the edge of the Eric Canal. The inn was first a farmhouse, built in 1818, and then a tavern which was popular with the rollicking canal builders. The building was restored in 1979 and placed on the National Register of Historic Buildings. We ate outside under a tent and when it started to pour rain we remained dry. An illuminated guide boat sped by on the dark canal.

The next day we went to visit a couple who are friends of Peter and Lorie's and own and live in the historic Strong mansion, which I read on the internet, "was perhaps the most lavish ever built in Monroe County except for the Eastman House," the home of George Eastman, a founder of Eastman Kodak. The beautiful Strong mansion had seven, I think, bedrooms on the second floor which reminded me of Winterthur, the DuPont house museum in Delaware. On the second floor Peter's friend built a two-storey library filled with rare books. On the ground floor was a full-size indoor swimming pool. On the way home we stopped at Wegman's, Rochester's rather stupendous grocery store chain. It really was impressive. If you're in Rochester, don't miss a trip to Wegman's; Cher doesn't.

On Sunday we were off to the main event at a nearby restaurant, Molly's party! It was great to be with her and all of my cousins and their children. One of the joys of these family parties is to see my cousins' children who are growing so fast that they are almost unrecognizable. Molly received a serious diagnosis but she is a very strong person and has rallied incredibly, defying expectations. She was trained as a nurse and I bet she was a resolute nurse, determined to make patients get well just as she was determined to entertain us when we were children.
A very happy birthday to my aunt Molly.