2011 Week Four

Barbara Smith Conrad’s career has been tumultuous. She went from being forcibly expelled from a college opera role to performing on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in a span of a few years. Now, her story is coming to Chautauqua.

From writers to scientists, nothing new comes to life without first being imagined. For this week’s writer-in-residence Janice Eidus, there is something noble about this. Every new act of creation is a victory over the way things were.

In the late 1960s, Tommy James and the Shondells and Felix Cavaliere’s The Rascals, then known as The Young Rascals, could be found at the top of the charts in America. The latter scored big with their soulful hits “Good Lovin,’” “Groovin’” and “People Got to Be Free,” while the former rocked and rolled with “Hanky Panky,” “Mony Mony” and “Crimson and Clover.”

From now until July 31, Chautauqua Theater Company will be busy with the 2011 New Play Workshop Festival. In addition to the three new plays in this year’s NPW Festival, CTC, in conjunction with the Writers’ Center, is commissioning a play for the first time. The recipient of the Chautauqua Play Commission is playwright Kate Fodor. While Fodor is the first recipient of the Commission, this is not her first time in Chautauqua. Fodor already has brought two of her plays to CTC to be workshopped in NPW Festivals in the past.

A musician who also is a writer who also is a wood carver who also is a CEO — that’s Robert Lynch. Lynch is the president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, a national organization that promotes the arts in communities and education. In the last of Week Four’s lectures, Lynch will discuss the current state of the arts in America, the state of support for non-profit arts organizations and what direction the art world should go in the future.

It’s hard to imagine a 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux green in the face and shaking from nerves, but that’s what the Hall of Philosophy audience visualized when Bonnefoux transported them to his dance jury examination at the Paris Opera Ballet. At age 21, Bonnefoux held the title reserved for the most distinguished of dancers in France. Bonnefoux has served as artistic director of Chautauqua Dance since 1983. He is also the artistic director and president of the North Carolina Dance Theatre. He has choreographed more than 60 ballets.

“In our ideologically oriented world, every term has to be defined. When we say ‘common good,’ we don’t all have the same definition. We have to have room for individual freedom as well as social commitment to cooperation,” the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy said.

On a morning in May of 1803, Ludwig van Beethoven sat behind his piano on the stage of Augarten Theatre in Vienna and premiered his now-famous Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47. Reading the score over his shoulder was George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower, the up-and-coming, biracial, African-Polish prodigy. The sonata had just been finished the night before, and there was no time for a rehearsal. The violinist took a chance at improvising, mimicking a difficult piano run, and Beethoven beamed. “Once more, my dear fellow!” he jumped up and shouted, and the two played the movement again.

Violinist Joan Kwuon loves the thrill of performing for a live audience and having an active dialogue with an orchestra. “It never gets old,” she said. “That moment, being surrounded by the sound from the orchestra and contributing the solo line is really quite mesmerizing.” Kwuon will join guest conductor Christopher Seaman and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater for a concert featuring works by Richard Wagner, Sergei Prokofiev and Antonín Dvořák.

Opera is part of Jay Lesenger’s soul, but his soul has been burdened lately. At 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, Lesenger, the general and artistic director of the Chautauqua Opera, will explain the challenge the arts are facing right now. His lecture is titled “Opera as a Spiritual Journey: My Confession.” “I also will talk about the time that we’re in right now, which is a very difficult time,” Lesenger said. “Our souls are burdened now because of the economy and because of the lack of exposure to the arts in schools. So the focus will be on how we got there and the impact of what’s going on today.”

Growing up in the segregated south, Barbara Smith Conrad knew firsthand the pain racial discrimination brought. She also knew firsthand the healing power of music. “Music absolutely saved my life,” Conrad said. Conrad grew up in a very musical environment, and singing was her passion. She came to the forefront of national attention in 1957, when she was forcibly removed from the cast of an opera production at the University of Texas.

It was a cold Thursday morning in February. NPR’s Susan Stamberg waited anxiously in front of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. — not an uncommon locale for her, considering her regular art reporting. But this time was different.