10 July 7 - 13, 2009 The Examiner

“My daughter likes everything about Westchester

Community College,” says Rose Ragone. “From

the caring instructors to the diverse student

body and opportunities to socialize with new

friends, we agree it was a good choice,”

she says. Having earned a partial scholarship

(free books!), Beth plans to devote her savings

toward future tuition at a four-year school.

REGISTER NOW.Classes start September 8.

sunywcc.edu 914-606-6735

BUILDING MINDS, BUILDING FUTURESAT WESTCHESTER COMMUNITY COLLEGE

By Abby LubyNow in its seventh year, the Bard Sum-

merScape Festival offers a smorgasbord of entertainment appealing to cabaret enthusi-asts to opera aficionados.

The Bard College campus at Annandale-On-Hudson is the setting for seven weeks of opera, theater, dance and music as well as vaudeville, circus and magic shows. The magical Spiegeltent, a sprawling, well-lit pa-vilion, is a weekend hotspot for families fea-turing a lively assortment of cabaret song-sters, dancers, musicians, magicians, come-dians–and a Mecca for food and drink.

Spiegeltent programs include Amy G, perhaps the world’s only roller-skating, slap-stick cabaret act; the acclaimed chanteuse Justin Bond, known as Kiki of the 2007 Tony Award-nominated “Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway;” and Taylor Mac, a sequined, ukulele-playing performance artist. Return-ing Spiegeltent favorites include the sassy Wau Wau Sisters and the eccentric Bindles-tiff Family Cirkus replete with clowns, jug-glers and wild acrobatics.

More heady programming is inside the organic, undulating walls of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts--ma-jor architectural landmark in the Hudson Valley designed by the illustrious architect Frank Gehry. The season opens with Lucin-da Childs’s Dance, performed in front of a film by famed American artist Sol LeWitt

(1928-2007) with music by Philip Glass.Folded into SummerScape is the 20th an-

nual Bard Music Festival, this year the focus is “Wagner and His World.” Performances by the American Symphony Orchestra un-der the baton of Leon Botstein will include excerpts from Wagner’s 13 operas.

In full pageantry will be four performanc-es of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s grand opera, “Les Huguenots,” composed in 1836, “Or-esteia,” the dramatic trilogy of Aeschylus translated by the late Ted Hughes, Poet Lau-reate of England, and a special performance

of Mendelssohn’s biblical oratorio “St. Paul.” The film festival part of SummerScape will

feature a series of international films connect-ing to the season’s theme of “Politics, Theater and Wagner.” It will include showings of Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” Max Ophüls’s “Lola Montès” and Visconti’s “Ludwig.”

Flanking the arts center is “The Parlia-

ment of Reality,” a new, permanent sculptur-al environment by internationally renowned Danish artist Olafur Eliasson commissioned by Bard. A ring of trees surrounds a circu-lar pond with an island accessed by a stone bridge enclosed in tunnel-like latticework.

SummerScape runs through August 23. A complete schedule of SummerScape and Bard Music Festival events are posted at the festival Web site www.fishercenter.bard.edu where you can buy tickets and get updated information on all SummerScape events. The Fisher Center box office is at 845-758-7900.

Other useful web sites are: Bard Summer-Scape at fishercenter.bard.edu/summer-scape and

Bard Music Festival at fishercenter.bard.edu/bmf/2009

SummerScape 2009 Highlights

July 9-12SummerScape opens with Lucinda Childs’s

Dance, to philip GlassJuly 1

Gala Benefit before and after performance of Lucinda Childs’s Dance

July 15-August 2Seven complete performances of the

Aeschylus trilogy, oresteiaJuly 16-August 20

Film Festival “politics, Theater, and Wagner” (ten films)

July 31-August 7First of four performances of

Meyerbeer’s opera Les HuguenotsAugust 9

Special single performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio St. paul

August 14Annual Bard Music Festival Gala

in the SpiegeltentAugust 14-16

Bard Music Festival, Weekend one: “Wagner and His World”

August 21-23Bard Music Festival, Weekend Two:

“Wagner and His World”

Wacky to Intellectual: Bard SummerScape

Above, Kinko the Clown is one of the crowd pleasing features this summer at Bard SummerScape. Left, the sassy Wau Wau Sisters, and above right, the Spiegeltent is an attraction for guests that includes entertainment and food.