Knowlton's Festival Bel Canto: From Dream to Reality

The fifth and final report from Festival Bel Canto 2008 in Knowlton by Paul E. Robinson

In a mere matter of months, three gifted idealists – Swiss-Quebec businessman Marco Genoni, OSM (Montreal Symphony Orchestra) music director Kent Nagano and Santa Cecilia National Academy director Bruno Cagli – created a new music festival with international scope in one of the most unlikely of places – Knowlton, Quebec – and carried it off with huge success!

Now that the applause has died away, the performers have gone home and the chapiteau (tent) has been folded and put away, it is time to take stock of what was accomplished and to consider what the future might hold.

Festival's Major Events Drew Larger than Expected Audiences
The day after the festival, I sat down for a chat over a cup of cappuccino with festival founder Marco Genoni. While he was obviously still basking in the glow of success, Genoni was already hard at work analyzing what took place and planning next year's festival. He could look back with pride on the fact that all the major events were virtually sold out, that the artistic standard met or surpassed expectations and, not least of all, that there was no significant rainfall during the festival. Although advance publicity advertised a tent seating 600, for some events there were as many as 817 people in attendance.

Time and Talent of Local Volunteers Much Appreciated
On the negative side there were rumblings that local residents were dismayed by the high prices, couldn’t get tickets or couldn’t relate to the unfamiliar musical fare. As a reaction to some of the criticism, Genoni announced during the festival that as a way of “giving something back to the community” the OSM would give a free concert in Lion’s Park in Knowlton on Labour Day weekend. Unfortunately, it turned out that this free concert would not take place after all. The problem was that the concert would have been in direct conflict with the annual Brome Fair, a major local event. In addition, the local volunteers who worked so hard and so well for Festival Bel Canto could not handle another major event so soon. As Genoni put it, “it was a mistake made with goodwill in mind.”

Bel Canto and the Santa Cecilia Connection
As Genoni, Nagano and Cagli look to the future they must try to clarify the mission of the festival. Given the origin of this year’s festival as a collaboration between the OSM and the Santa Cecilia National Academy in Rome, the bel canto feature is important. Or perhaps it is less bel canto than Italian singing that is important. Most music-lovers can surely relate to a celebration of Italian singing and vocal music in the broader sense, but even that repertoire can be very limiting. I suspect the festival would have greater appeal if it could include symphonic repertoire and instrumental concertos.

Clearly, Genoni and his colleagues realize on the one hand that a concert featuring pop singer Gino Vanelli hardly fits any meaningful definition of bel canto; on the other hand, any festival devoted solely to bel canto will probably appeal largely to connoisseurs.

The Santa Cecilia connection is a good one and provides an interesting training component. Each year the festival will feature international singers but also some newcomers who can benefit from working with the stars. Knowlton will also have the opportunity to see some outstanding young singers before they become well-known.

I like the concept of a festival with a bel canto focus. Nagano and the OSM will enjoy their annual immersion in this repertoire, and I believe they will attract an audience for it. At the same time it may not be wise to limit the festival to a single theme.

Even Mozart’s huge repertoire has been found too limiting by some international festival organizers to carry an annual festival on its own. The founders of Festival Bel Canto may find that they too need to broaden their concept beyond bel canto style. Broadening it enough to include pop singer Gino Vannelli may, however, be going too far.

I would suggest rather broadening the musical scope to include non-vocal fare. After all, the OSM, one of the stars of this festival, is a world-class orchestra and most of the bel canto repertoire for orchestra is very limiting. It is interesting for them to work on the style but there are no great bel canto symphonies or concertos. Bel canto describes a certain period in the history of Italian opera and it was a period in which the orchestra was largely limited to an accompanying role.

If the facility in Knowlton is to be limited to less than 1,000 seats, the size of the orchestra may have to be limited too as it was this year, to something around 50 players. This means the OSM cannot do Berlioz, Mahler or Tchaikovsky but they can do Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. I am sure Nagano can come up with plenty of interesting programmes with this broader repertoire base.

The challenge then, is to market the festival in future as featuring bel canto but definitely not limited to it. The bel canto “plus” programming should attract not only fans of bel canto who will soon discover what wonderful work Nagano and Cagli are doing in Knowlton, but also customers with a more general love of classical music.

Addressing the Question of Acoustics
Another question mark is the performing facility itself. The tent used this year was expensive and not well-suited to classical music. The acoustics were only fair at best. According to Genoni, festival organizers would like to keep the size of the facility to less than 1,000 seats to simulate the experience of a small Italian opera house. Next year, he said, in addition to the refinements planned for the tent, the OSM will bring to Knowlton the portable shell which has served it well in its regular concerts in the parks in and around Montreal.

Where Have all the Critics Gone?
Overall marketing of this new festival’s debut was certainly not what it should have been. As far as I know, there were no critics from New York, London or Toronto and even coverage in Montreal was far less than the festival deserved. I suspect that this was one of those organizational aspects that failed to get enough attention due to the festival’s somewhat impetuous launch.

Festival Bel Canto Richly Supported by Knowlton Community
Finally, how does one answer those critics who say that Quebec or Canada already has enough festivals and that the money is spread too thin already? While very little taxpayer money went directly to the festival this year, festival organizers will soon be drawing up their grant applications for future years. If they can enrich the community, attract audiences and do a better job than competing organizations then they can claim legitimacy. It is early yet, after only one festival, to make firm pronouncements, but Genoni, Nagano, Cagli and their colleagues have at least earned the right to continue the realization of their dream.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Conductor as Superstar, and Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music. For more on Paul E. Robinson please visit his website at http://www.theartoftheconductor.com/.

Bellini's Norma Triumphant Finale for Festival Bel Canto

This is the fourth in a series of reports from Festival Bel Canto 2008 in Knowlton, Quebec, by Paul E. Robinson

The organizers of Festival Bel Canto 2008 programmed a lot of music by the great bel canto composers – Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini – but only one full-length opera. And they chose well in the inaugural season; Bellini's Norma is generally regarded as perhaps the greatest of the genre. But Norma has always been problematic too in that it requires an exceptional artist to conquer the challenges of the title role. Callas, Sutherland and Gruberova have done it, but very few others in recent memory. Micaela Carosi accepted the challenge in Knowlton this past Sunday, in the closing performance of the festival, and acquitted herself admirably, as did the rest of the cast, conductor Kent Nagano and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM).

Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) is one of those composers – Mozart and Schubert are the prime examples – who died well before his time and accomplished extraordinary things during a short life. Bellini wrote very little instrumental music, preferring to compose operas. He is sometimes dismissed as "superficial." Musicians point to the simple harmonies and accompanying figures as evidence that he had nothing new or profound to say, but one could argue that Bellini's "simplicity" is often like Mozart's: with simple means both composers could portray great depth of feeling. The character Norma, for example, is one of the most complex personages in opera; she is a Druid leader dedicated to throwing off the yoke of the hated Romans and yet she has had two children by the Roman leader Pollione. When she discovers that Pollione has been having an affair with her fellow priestess Adalgisa, her sorrow and rage lead her to thoughts of kill ing her children, Pollione and Adalgisa. In the end she decides to sacrifice her own life.

Wagner might have depicted all of Norma's varied emotions with distinct musical ideas, but like Mozart, Bellini proceeds with more subtlety. He never forgets that his medium is primarily vocal music and that vocal music can never be less than beautiful.

Bellini's vocal lines are often florid and highly ornamented, thereby conveying extremes of emotion from the heights of joy to the depths of sadness. It is the measure of a bel canto performer how well he or she uses this ornamentation to convey emotion. For many singers the goal seems to be accuracy; this approach reduces Bellini's art to empty display. Yesterday afternoon Micaela Carosi treated the bel canto festival audience not only to a mastery of the notes but also to a clear understing of how the notes can be used to enhance expression. She has a large and beautiful voice and gave a convincing portrayal. Her performance of the famous "Casta diva" was both accurate and moving.

As good as Carosi was, I felt others in the cast provided a greater range of emotion. Mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich as Aldalgisa has an even more beautiful voice than Carosi and brought her character to life with much more intensity. Aldrich conveyed a great deal through facial expression and careful attention to rhythmic detail.

Tenor Francisco Casanova was also in command of the technical requirements of Bellini's score and in the final scenes he captured the pain and agony of the situation with remarkable power. And he did it without resorting to the Italian tenor's usual tricks of holding high notes for effect or adding crude sobbing. With strong singing and a few well-chosen gestures he helped to make these scenes intensely poignant.

Canadian bass-baritone John Relyea played the chief druid Oroveso, also Norma's father, and showed why he has rapidly risen to become a star at many of the world's great opera houses including the Met. While hardly old enough to be credible as Norma's father, he sang with strength and an uncommonly beautiful sound.

Special credit must be given to Kent Nagano who masterminded the entire production. He set the tempi, adjusted the delicate balances between singers and orchestra and within the orchestra, and gave clear guidelines as to the style of singing and playing. In conversation onstage with the CBC's Kelly Rice before the performance Nagano commented on how much the orchestra had learned about bel canto style from being immersed in it for the past few weeks. Nagano pointed out how a recent Mendelssohn performance by the OSM sounded quite different, and appropriately so, from this concentrated work on the music of one period.

But Nagano is that kind of conductor - very serious about his work and always curious about learning something new and better. Montreal is lucky to have his inquiring mind, not to mention his enormous conducting skill. Norma is full of recitatives which many conductors find either boring or impossible to sort out. Nagano gave clear and strong directions for every recitative passage; it may not mean much to the audience but I am sure the singers and the members of the OSM were very appreciative. The orchestra played superbly throughout the performance and the OSM Chorus was excellent too.

Incidentally, there was a huge gong which sat on the left front of the stage throughout the performance but it was never used. In Act 2 Scene 7 Norma strikes a sacred gong three times to indicate that it is time to go to war against the Romans. In the Jürgen Rose production of Norma given in Munich in 2006 and issued recently on DVD, Norma (Edita Gruberova) is seen to strike a remarkably similar gong. What happened in Knowlton? We heard the three strokes on the gong but the strokes were delivered by the percussion section of the OSM. Why have the gong on stage if it is never going to be used? It reminded me of Chekhov's old maxim about a gun; if a pistol is seen on the wall in the first act one expects it to be fired later in the play or it shouldn't be there.

Breaking News From Knowlton:

At the Norma performance on Sunday, Honorary Chairman of the festival Marco Genoni announced that at next year's festival the featured opera will be Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment, sung in French.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar and Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music, both available at www.amazon.com. For more about Paul E. Robinson please visit his website at www.theartoftheconductor.com.

Bel Canto Diva Sumi Jo Wows Festival Audience!

The third in a series of reports from Festival Bel Canto 2008 in Knowlton, Quebec, by Paul E. Robinson.

Korean-born Sumi Jo is well-known as an international artist specializing in the coloratura soprano repertoire. She was an excellent choice for the first Festival Bel Canto with her success in a wide range of roles in operas by Bellini and Donizetti. In addition, Sumi Jo studied at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome, one of the artistic collaborators on the festival with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM). Sumi Jo gave us a taste of this repertoire last night but she also dazzled the audience with superb performances of Mozart's Exultate, jubilate and, as a much deserved encore, with a highly theatrical excerpt from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman.

Once again Le Chapiteau on Tibbits Hill overlooking Lac Brome was filled to capacity as Festival Bel Canto 2008 entered its second and last weekend. And in this summer of near legendary rainfall in the Eastern Townships the sun was shining and the temperature was, well, as it should be in the middle of summer – warm. Kent Nagano and the OSM opened the evening with Haydn's Symphony No. 101, nicknamed "the Clock" for its tick-tock effect in the second movement. How this piece fits into a bel canto festival is a mystery to me, and Dieter Rexroth's essay on bel canto in the festival's programme book sheds no light on the matter. More likely than not, we were treated to the Haydn simply because the OSM presented this entire Tibbits Hill programme in Montreal just a few days ago minus the bel canto focus.

In any case, Nagano gave us a welcome taste of his current approach to music of the classical period. To my ears, it shows the influence of Nikolaus Harnoncourt. This means a preference for quick tempi, particularly in slow movements and minuets, very little vibrato, lots of expressive variety in bowing, strong accents, and forceful trumpets and timpani. Whether one agrees with all of the interpretative decisions or not, Nagano's Haydn is fresh and thoughtful and on this occasion the OSM gave him everything he asked for.

Even before she sang a note Sumi Jo's first appearance in a tight low-cut blue green evening gown was greeted with oohs and aahs and even cheers. The same thing happened again in the second half when she reappeared in an even more dazzling gold gown. Sumi Jo is a beautiful woman and her sparkling form-fitting gowns were designed to show her off to the max. After only a few bars of Mozart's Exultate, jubilate it was clear to all in the hall that she is not only a great beauty, but also a great artist. Her bel canto runs and trills were delivered with effortless clarity and the top note in the final Alleluia rang out with confidence and fullness. Nagano and the OSM were with her every step of the way.

After intermission Nagano warmed up the band again with Rossini's La scala di seta overture. Wonderful playing especially from the oboe soloist. It is a challenge to keep track of who is playing on any given night at the festival since the OSM has split the 100-piece orchestra into two sections, and sends only one section for each concert. I can't be sure but I believe it was associate principal Margaret Morse who played so many notes so quickly and so well in the oboe solos. Later, Nagano led a performance of the overture to Bellini's Norma, perhaps for those unable to get a ticket for the full opera in its two performances at the festival.

Ultimately, the night belonged to Sumi Jo who was featured in excerpts from Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, Bellini's I Capuletti e I Montecchi, and Bellini's I Puritani. All were performed with total involvement and mastery of the numerous technical challenges. It should be emphasized that Sumi Jo chose arias of substance rather than those with crowd-pleasing virtuosity, just as June Anderson had done in her concert in the festival last weekend. My favourite in Sumi Jo's bel canto group was Giulietta's romance from I Capuletti e I Montecchi, not least of all because of the hauntingly beautiful French horn obbligato.

Sumi Jo has recently enjoyed great success in performances of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann and on the basis of what she showed us last night one can see why. Offenbach is not one of the "official" bel canto composers but much of this opera draws heavily on stylistic features of the vocal writing of Bellini and Donizetti. With Kent Nagano alternately wielding a baton and a key, Sumi Jo sang the great aria for Olympia the mechanical doll. Music and movement were presented with almost uncanny skill in this immensely entertaining aria. The audience demanded more and Sumi Jo sent them home even happier with "O mio babbino" from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi.

I'll be at Bellini's Norma today, the festival's final offering in this inaugural season. I'll post a report on that and then offer an overview of the festival's achievements and shortcomings based on my own thoughts and observations and a conversation with the festival's founding spirit and honorary chairman, Marco Genoni.

> 2nd report

> 1st report

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Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar and Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music, both available at www.amazon.com. For more about Paul E. Robinson please visit his website at www.theartoftheconductor.com.

Bel Canto "Greatest Hits" Program Thrills Audiences

The second in a series of reports from Festival Bel Canto 2008 by Paul E. Robinson

Although Festival Bel Canto had its official inaugural concert in Knowlton, Quebec on Friday, August 15 with a recital by Jennifer Larmore, one could argue that the real opening came the next night with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM) making its first appearance and with a program that amounted to a virtual bel canto –“Greatest Hits.”

American soprano June Anderson provided star power and was joined by members of the Opera Studio of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in operatic excerpts from works by Donizetti and Rossini. There were copious excerpts from the Barber of Seville by Rossini, and shorter arias, ensembles and overtures from various Donizetti operas including L’elisir d’amore and Lucia di Lammermoor. The best-known piece on the programme was undoubtedly Rossini’s overplayed warhorse, the William Tell overture.

If the idea was to send the audience members away with a smile on their faces and a desire to hear more bel canto then the festival organizers certainly achieved that goal; all the performances were at least competent and some were even memorable. To my taste June Anderson provided the musical highlights beginning with an exquisite ‘Piangete voi…Al dolce guidami’ from Donizetti’s Anna Bolena. The duet with English horn was especially beautiful. Later came an aria from Rossini’s Otello. Verdi’s Otello is, of course the finest opera ever written based on this Shakespeare play but Anderson and Nagano reminded us that parts of Rossini’s Otello are also well worth hearing from time to time. Members of the OSM matched Anderson’s finely-controlled expressiveness with notable obbligato contributions.

Santa Cecilia Academy’s Maestro Carlo Rizzari Shares Podium With Nagano

Kent Nagano, the OSM’s music director, shared the podium with the young Italian conductor Carlo Rizzari. This was another example of the festival’s collaboration between the OSM and the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome. Rizzari is the assistant conductor of the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, a distinguished and wholly professional ensemble connected with the Academy. Rizzari proved to be highly competent if a little flamboyant in his gestures especially as compared to the austere Nagano. But then Nagano is a special case. Like the legendary Fritz Reiner, Nagano is a minimalist who gets maximum results. More on that subject in a later blog.

The young singers from Italy acquitted themselves well, although I doubt that we were seeing any stars in the making. Although Italy prides itself on being the country that gave birth to bel canto and often suggests that it produces the finest current practitioners, one might justifiably question that claim; Jennifer Larmore and June Anderson are both Americans. That too is a subject for a later blog.

Making Music in a Tent an Acoustical Conundrum

I have now heard two concerts in the Chapiteau Tibbits Hill, the tent especially constructed for Festival Bel Canto 2008, and I can offer at least a preliminary assessment of its acoustics. As one might expect, a canvas tent seating 600 with nothing like a proper shell to reflect sound on the stage is not going to sound like Symphony Hall in Boston or the Musikverein in Vienna. It will not even sound like Place des Arts in Montreal. It is, after all, a small tent. Classical music needs space and it needs reflecting surfaces. For symphony orchestras a big shoebox design usually gets the best results. The size of the tent also forced Nagano to reduce the size of his orchestra to about 50 players. Fortunately, that is about the optimum size for an orchestra specializing in bel canto repertoire.

With all of this in mind Nagano and the festival organizers prepared themselves to improve on nature by bringing along a sound system. All the instruments are miked and a sound engineer at the back of the tent tries to mix the sound as best he can to produce a pleasing effect. At the Friday afternoon dress rehearsal for “Norma”, the result was far from pleasing. In fact, it was harsh and unmusical. But that is why orchestras (and sound engineers) have rehearsals. Last night the sound quality was much improved.

In quiet passages the winds sounded focused and clean. I was reminded of the classic RCA recordings from the 1950s in which wind solos were always prominent and not recessed somewhere at the back of the orchestra. Solo cellos sounded fine too in the beginning of the “William Tell” Overture. When the music got loud, however, the strings virtually disappeared and we were often left with a brass band effect. Unfortunately, this is a criticism often made of the orchestral writing of Bellini and Donizetti at the best of times. The last thing a conductor wants to do is emphasize this quality.

Kent Nagano is a very perceptive musician and no doubt he was very much aware of the problems of making music in a tent. Between the “Norma” rehearsal on Friday and the bel canto highlights concert last night he had obviously had a heart-to-heart with his brass players; they were now playing nearly everything at about half the normal dynamics. Another factor that should be mentioned is that in taking bel canto as his theme for the festival Nagano was interested not only in celebrating the glories of the human voice, but also in learning as much as he could about bel canto orchestral playing. With this in mind he hired violinist Riccardo Minasi, a specialist in early nineteenth-century performance practice, to work with the OSM string players. Minasi was particularly involved in the Norma rehearsals but his approach is probably going to be reflected in every Nagano-conducted performance of music from this period.

Nagano’s new approach undoubtedly means less vibrato and a more sustained and inflected melodic line, analogous to bel canto singing. It also means trying to achieve a much lighter, less Germanic style of orchestral playing.

Lighter, More Authentic Approach Makes a Virtue of Necessity

The best example of what Nagano has achieved so far was on display last night in his conducting of Rossini’s William Tell overture. With modern instruments and the size of today’s orchestras this piece is invariably done today in a “hell for leather” fashion for maximum noise and excitement. But in the early nineteenth century orchestras were much smaller and orchestral instruments capable of producing much more limited volume. The trombones we hear blazing away today in the “Storm” section of the overture had much smaller bores in Rossini’s day and produced a far lighter and more blended sound. Cynics might say that Nagano made a virtue out of necessity by going for a lighter approach last night but in fact his search for a lighter, more authentic bel canto orchestral sound is real. More on this subject after I attend the Norma performance next Sunday.

Incidentally, those attending one of the Norma performances in Knowlton should look in the OSM brass section for another example of Nagano’s search for authenticity. Instead of the usual tuba, you will see a large and strange-looking trombone called a cimbasso; apparently, Bellini called for it in Norma and Verdi was also very fond of it.

Breaking News From Knowlton

At last night’s concert, Marco Genoni, Honorary Chairman of Festival Bel Canto 2008, announced from the stage that the OSM will be performing a free concert in the park in Knowlton on Saturday, August 30. As Mr. Genoni put it, the orchestra “wishes to give something back to the community” in return for its generosity and cooperation in hosting this new festival. Perhaps this was another way of saying that the festival organizers were responding to criticism that most tickets for their concerts were sold out far in advance and few “local” music-lovers had a chance to attend any of the major offerings. If so, credit is due to festival organizers for being sensitive to host community concerns and for acting quickly.

> First Report

Report from Bel Canto, New Music Festival in Quebec

The first in a series of reports from Festival Bel Canto 2008 by Paul E. Robinson

In a feature article last week, Christopher Huss of Le Devoir chose the heading “Knowlton, le Glyndebourne du Nouveau Monde?” (Knowlton, Glyndebourne of the New World?). Even with the question mark attached, this was heady stuff. Knowlton is a charming but tiny town (population: 5,000) in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, with scarcely a single memorable concert to its name let alone a world-class festival. What is going on here?

Festival Bel Canto was created almost overnight by the combined talents and energy of two men: Kent Nagano, music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal (OSM), and Marco Genoni, a Swiss businessman who has a home in Knowlton (Lac Brome). Late last year Nagano came to Knowlton as Genoni’s guest and before the visit was over they had inspired each other to launch a new festival. The initial inspiration had a lot to do with the natural, unspoiled splendour of the area – “One of the most beautiful places in the world” Nagano enthused at his Press Conference at the festival site held just hours before opening night – and its proximity to Montreal.

But reality usually sets in a few days later when the visionaries float back to earth and face the problem of finding the money. In most cases, that is the end of it, especially when the dream involves an orchestra and major artists. But Nagano and Genoni are not most cases. Genoni formed an advisory group of Knowlton residents and among them and their friends they found the money. The game was on!

For Nagano and Genoni it was not enough to create a festival with Nagano and his orchestra as the prime focus. They had bigger dreams. One idea led to another and before long they were in touch with Bruno Cagli, director of the famed Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome. Cagli is one of the greatest living authorities on Italian opera, and particularly that period – 1820-1840 – in which Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini produced their greatest works. This is often called the Age of Bel Canto although the term is also used to describe virtually the whole history of singing in Italy.

For Nagano and Cagli the term will be used primarily in its narrower sense at their new festival. Thus, the major event at the inaugural festival will be Bellini’s opera “Norma”, and music by Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini figures in almost every concert. The festival runs from August 15 to August 24 and features some of the biggest stars in opera, and all of them have excelled in this repertoire. Not only will they be heard singing this music but they will take time to give master classes too. The vision of Genoni, Nagano and Cagli is not only to create a major festival but to include in its activities an important teaching component.

Opening night at Festival Bel Canto was filled with excitement and anticipation. Patrons and donors rubbed shoulders with local folk and there were even two former prime ministers in attendance (Jean Chretien and Paul Martin). The site itself is in a field overlooking Lac Brome. Patrons leave their cars at the famous Canards du Lac Brome (Brome Lake Duck Farm) and are taken by bus to the site, about a five-minute ride. The performance space is a white tent seating about 600. The shuttle system worked remarkably well on opening night and avoided the problem of where to park nearly 300 cars, especially if it rains and cars are stuck in fields turned into muddy swamps. The tent is not an ideal acoustic for classical music but on opening night it worked well enough. A sophisticated sound system is in place to enhance the sound coming off the stage but Nagano said that this was put in mainly to guard against disaster. For this first festival they had no idea what the sound would be like and wanted to have other options.

As expected on such occasions, there were speeches and more speeches and finally we got to the music. And there was something else. Master of Ceremonies Kelly Rice, a CBC Radio Music producer, asked all the participants in the festival to come on stage together so that when Knowlton residents saw them in town going to the grocery store or sitting in a pub they would recognize them and say hello. This was a fine gesture and an important one if Knowlton is going to embrace this strange encroachment on their idyllic community.

Still another inspired Nagano gesture. This evening was advertised as a recital featuring American mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore but before she came on Nagano conducted two short pieces with a small ensemble of recent prizewinners in OSM competitions. The idea was to 1) give pride of place to the musicians of the future who will inherit the festival, and 2) underscore the pedagogical aspect of the festival. For this purpose Nagano chose two short pieces in keeping with the festival’s theme: Boccherini’s very familiar Menuet and Rossini’s little-known “Serenata per piccolo complesso.” Both were played with skill and style by Nagano and his young players.

Jennifer Larmore opened her program with Rossini’s delightful “La Regata Veneziana.” Larmore never loses sight of the fact that she is an entertainer - a point she also emphasized at her master class the next day. She exudes joy and enthusiasm when she takes the stage and she uses her face and body with great skill to tell us about the characters she is portraying and the stories in the music. She is so good at this aspect of her art she could easily have a career as a mime if she ever decides to stop singing.

“La Regata Veneziana” is delightful and funny and Larmore did everything she could to bring it alive for us, but she would have been even more successful had she explained the piece beforehand or had the texts been included in the program. Another option might have the use of the surtitle equipment being used for the festival’s “Norma” performances. Surtitles would be equally effective for vocal recitals.

But make no mistake. While Larmore is a superlative actress, she is also possessed of an extraordinarily beautiful voice. What is more to the point at this new festival is that she knows how to create the beautiful line and toss off the virtuoso requirements demanded by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. She gave us excerpts from operas by all three bel canto masters and threw in some Mozart for good measure.

Larmore was in equally fine form the next afternoon as she led a master class devoted to bel canto at Chapelle Saint-Édouard. Some talented young singers presented excerpts from operas by Bellini and Donizetti and Larmore worked with them with obvious love and commitment.

On Saturday morning in the same venue singers from l’Atelier lyrique de l’Opera de Montréal offered their takes on excerpts from more operas by Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and Verdi. For each of the events in the chapel there were about 70 people and they seemed to enjoy what they heard. Both events were free.

In my next blog I’ll be able to report on the first concert at the festival involving the OSM. On the basis of what I have heard so far, anyone with the slightest interest in Italian opera should be in their cars and headed for Knowlton. Kent Nagano, his colleagues and friends are in the process of creating something very special.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar and Sir Georg Solti: his Life and Music, both available at www.amazon.com. For more about Paul E. Robinson please visit his website at www.theartoftheconductor.com.