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Completed in 1893, Richard Strauss’s first opera to receive a premiere is rarely performed today. The ASO’s presentation marks its first performance in New York City in this century. A riveting story of love, guilt and renunciation, Guntram reveals a young Strauss positioning himself as the successor to Wagner. In his very first opera, Strauss’s mastery of orchestral writing combines with the ethereal melodic arcs that anticipate his later, famous operas, from Salome and Elektra to Der Rosenkavalier. Following a 2023 presentation of Strauss’s Daphne, the ASO brings another operatic rarity by Richard Strauss to center stage.

Experience the gripping drama of Bedřich Smetana’s Dalibor, a powerful Czech opera that weaves themes of revenge, love, and fate. Set against a backdrop of medieval intrigue, Dalibor follows its titular tragic hero as he faces a desperate struggle for redemption. With sweeping orchestral music and unforgettable arias, Dalibor captivates with its emotional depth and stirring melodies. Director Jean-Romain Vesperini (Henri VIII) returns to Bard SummerScape to helm this first fully staged American production of a rarely heard masterpiece.

This program comprises choral and orchestral music by Martinů and perhaps his finest student, Moravia’s Jan Novák. Set to his own Latin text, Novák’s moving cantata Ignis pro Ioanne Palach commemorates a desperate young activist who immolated himself to protest the end of the Prague Spring. As a former professional violinist, Martinů wrote for the instrument with intimate understanding, and his Second Violin Concerto stands among his mature masterpieces. It was commissioned by the great Mischa Elman, who premiered the work with Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony, before performing it for many years, as did Isaac Stern and Josef Suk. Completing the program are an aria from Martinů’s one-act opera Ariane, a surrealist take on the Theseus myth that was inspired by Maria Callas, and The Epic of Gilgamesh, the composer’s only large-scale oratorio. Scored for narrator, soloists, choir, and orchestra, this takes its text from an English translation of the Mesopotamian saga, and is notable for some of Martinů’s most inspired choral writing.

Many consider Martinů’s eighth opera to be his finest work. Based, like Ariane, on a French play by Georges Neveux, Julietta is a surreal psychological drama that explores the intersection of dreams and reality. In 2019, Leon Botstein helmed the opera’s overdue American premiere at Carnegie Hall, where he led “a winning cast and the American Symphony Orchestra in a vibrant concert performance” that was selected as a “Critic’s Pick” by The New York Times. Now, the Festival presents the conductor and ASO in a semi-staged revival of the opera, featuring three members of that same winning cast: tenor Aaron Blake and bass-baritones Philip Cokorinos and Alfred Walker, who also appears in this year’s mainstage SummerScape opera. So too does soprano Erica Petrocelli, who headlines Julietta, lending her “searing intensity” (Los Angeles Times) to the opera’s title role. Anchored by Botstein and the ASO, their performance draws the Bard Music Festival—and all seven weeks of Bard SummerScape—to a gripping close.