Gabriel Weber & Liz Delillo
Staff Writers
Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves will grace the Amphitheater stage alongside the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra in a “gala-style night” featuring shorter works of music with “lots of variety,” said Music Director and Principal Symphonic Conductor Rossen Milanov.
Emmy and Grammy Award-winning artist Graves is not only renowned all over the world; she is also the founder of the Denyce Graves Foundation, with the credo “Educating is Activism,” and serves as Chautauqua Opera Conservatory Artistic Advisor. At 8:15 p.m. Saturday, Graves and the CSO, “inspired by American music,” will perform a concert highlighting her operatic excellence, according to Milanov.
Then, on Tuesday in the Amp, Graves will participate in the Chautauqua Lecture Series’ Week Three theme “Art in Action: Building Community Through the Arts.”
She has an “enormous capacity in her musicality, stage presence and experience,” Milanov said.
As a kind of continuation of the July 4th spirit, the Saturday night program features music highlighting “intimacy, patriotism and duty,” Milanov said. The pieces consist of Leonard Bernstein’s “Overture to Candide;” Aaron Copland’s “Four Dance Episodes from ‘Rodeo;’ ” Margaret Bonds’ “Hold On;” Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Bacchanale” from Samson et Dalila; Copland’s “Letter from Home;” John Conahan’s arrangement of “Deep River;” Georges Bizet’s Carmen Suite No. 1; and Gene Scheer’s “American Anthem.”
The “Four Dance Episodes from ‘Rodeo’ ” will likely be recognizable to the audience with its feel of “old cowboy movies and Westerns,” Milanov said. Also highlighting some of Graves’ most widely known roles as Carmen and Dalila, Bizet’s Carmen Suite No. 1 and Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Bacchanale” from Samson et Dalila are pieces with which she’s deeply familiar.
Milanov remembers seeing Graves at the Washington National Opera “a couple dozen years ago” and recalls that it was “amazing — she has a very large voice,” he said. Since Graves is now involved in the artistic life at Chautauqua, Milanov believed it to be a “very good idea” to feature her for an extension of the July 4th celebration.
Graves recalled her visit to Chautauqua last summer, noting that the grounds are “a great atmosphere” for artists across disciplines and different career stages “to learn and grow.” There are opportunities to see a myriad of artforms, as well as “the time and the space around you to really dedicate and devote to that refining,” she said.
Regarding the truly distinct nature of Chautauqua’s arts programming, Graves said Chautauqua provides the opportunity to engage with great art while also enjoying “quietude.” It allows artists to both learn about and appreciate art as well as refine their own craft.
“I tell my students all the time — encourage them — to go see all kinds of concerts of different genres (and) different instruments, because there’s always something that you can learn from everything,” she said. “To be in an environment where there’s just such great art being created at such a high level, for anybody, is a real haven to be in.”
