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Whether she is exploring the memories of a family member or forgotten history alongside a river bank, artist Tia-Simone Gardner uses geography to tell a story.

“My interests are in geography and time,” she said. “So, I’m trying to think about how gender and geography, … with the economy, can end up moving people around.”

Gardner is an interdisciplinary artist and black feminist scholar, as well as a core faculty member at the School of Art this season. She will be speaking at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 16 in the Hultquist Center, as part of the Visual Arts Lecture Series.

In her talk, Gardner will discuss two of her recent projects: “Reading the River: Yemaya and Oshun” and a currently untitled project.

Both deal with aspects of her identity as a black woman who grew up near Birmingham, Alabama.

In “Reading the River,” Gardner examines the geography and history of the Mississippi River. She was inspired after moving to the Midwest to earn her doctorate at the University of Minnesota.

“I started to think about the relationship between the Midwest and the South, and this river that is like a crack in the country,” she said. “It also marks time and American history in a certain way.”

This project also explores indigenous relationships with the river; Yemaya and Oshun are the names of salt and freshwater deities in Ifá and other Yoruba religious traditions. For this project, Gardner has focused on port cities like St. Paul, Minnesota, and New Orleans, utilizing archives and recording herself walking alongside the Mississippi River with a body camera.

Her untitled project is extremely personal to Gardner’s family; she is working with her mother to document the various homes of her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother as they moved around Mississippi and Alabama.

“My mother’s side of the family didn’t migrate South to North like a lot of black families did,” Gardner said. “They migrated within the South.”

Gardner and her mother have used aerial photographs, drones and drawings of memories to locate the homes or whatever remains of them.

Gardner has enjoyed collaborating with her mother, who she said is a creative person despite never having the resources to pursue art herself.

“It’s nice to work with her, because there’s so many things that she’s seen and some of it’s really traumatic,” she said. “Talking about something that seems as mundane as a house has been a nice point of entry.”

During her time at Chautauqua, Gardner will lead the students and emerging artists at the School of Art in archival and research-based practices. She emphasized the importance of seeking out more sensory, “ephemeral archives.”

“Practices like walking can illuminate how we understand a place,” she said.

Gardner has never been to Chautauqua, and is excited to explore the unique environmental and cultural landscape and learn about indigenous cultures native to the region.

“I’m curious to meet this place and (to) meet the students,” she said.

The celebrated Venice Baroque Orchestra is touring the United States, and Chautauqua Institution is one of its stops — thanks in part to one Chautauquan and one extraordinary instrument.

The touring group will perform influential pieces from the 17th and 18th centuries at 4 p.m. Monday, July 15 in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. The program includes several pieces from Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi and three of his contemporaries. One of the instruments onstage will be a Chautauqua resident’s antique harpsichord.

Deborah Sunya Moore, vice president of performing and visual arts, said she is excited to have the renowned group play at the Institution.

“They are one of the most recognized baroque ensembles,” Moore said. “It is actually quite a coup for Chautauqua to have them here.”

VBO has toured in the United States and internationally. In fact, the group has performed in more American cities than any other Baroque orchestra in history. Moore said that a stroke of good luck placed VBO at Chautauqua as part of the group’s current tour.

“The reason why we are able to (host Venice Baroque Orchestra) is that they are on a tour of this region,” Moore said. “They do not always tour in this country or in this neck of the woods, so I was really thrilled when they called me to see if we might be interested in being part of the tour.”

Baroque music comes from a period of Western music following the Renaissance. Baroque pieces often emphasize improvisation and elaborate flourishes, and the period saw a great deal of influential pieces.

VBO is dedicated to putting the masterpieces of this era back into the spotlight. In recent years, the group has played in venues from New York City’s Carnegie Hall to Brussels’ Palais des Beaux-Arts. Their performances have been broadcast worldwide in several television specials and documentary videos.

Moore said the VBO concert is among this season’s most anticipated events.

“This is the largest group that’s coming on the Chamber Music Guest Artist Series,” Moore said. “They are a group that we could easily put in the Amphitheater because of their size, their recognition and their artistic excellence. But that’s what Chautauqua is — we have all these gems that appear in our smaller halls.”

But to perform at Chautauqua, Moore said, the group needed one thing: a harpsichord. The large keyboard instrument is visually similar to a piano, but it uses a plucking mechanism to produce a unique sound.

“One of the most challenging things about this tour is that we have to provide the harpsichord,” Moore said. “Harpsichords are not easily accessible on short notice, but we actually have a Chautauquan who is loaning us her harpsichord.”

Chautauqua resident Anna Antemann and her family lent a William Dowd French Double Harpsichord belonging to Antemann’s late husband, Richard Antemann.

“That, by itself, is very special,” Moore said.

William Dowd, who built Antemann’s harpsichord and hundreds more, was an American harpsichord maker and a major voice in the 20th century movement to popularize the centuries-old instrument. Dowd was celebrated for his craftsmanship, and his instruments are praised for their quality.

Antemann said her husband, a musician and chamber music enthusiast, would be happy to see his harpsichord still in use.

“It’s being used, and I think my husband would be very pleased,” Antemann said. “He was an amateur pianist and harpsichordist, and he played around town in Johnstown, Pennsylvania — I was in charge of hauling the harpsichord. But he loved chamber music.”

Due to high anticipated attendance, interested Chautauquans must obtain a complimentary ticket starting at 7 a.m. Monday, July 15 at the Welcome Center Ticket Office.

It’s Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM’s, opinion that in life’s beginning, people need structure — they need continuity, predictability and impulse control before they can develop their own internal values.

“We are a ‘first-half-of-life culture,’ largely concerned about surviving successfully,” wrote Rohr, an author and Franciscan friar, in his 2011 book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. 

It’s the first half of life that Rohr’s interfaith lecture will provide guidance for.

At 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, Rohr will speak on “The First Half of Life,” part of his Week Four interfaith journey “Falling Upward: A Week with Richard Rohr, OFM.”

All week, Rohr will be lecturing and preaching on how best to navigate life’s obstacles, with the interfaith lectures “The Transition” on Tuesday, “The Resistance” on Wednesday and “The Second Half of Life” on Thursday.

“When I entitled the book, ‘Falling Upward,’ I actually thought it would not be accepted by the publisher, because I presumed there had been many other books already that would have thought of that title,” Rohr said in a speech at Texas Lutheran University in 2011.

Rohr said the “mystery and the paradox of the wording “falling upward” isn’t an easy thing for people to discuss.

“But as a Christian, I’m convinced it’s at the very heart of what we call the ‘death and resurrection mystery of Christ,’ ” he said in 2011.

Still, Rohr was quick to admit he didn’t have all the answers to life’s questions.

“I quote Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist, in the front of the book: ‘The greatest and most important problems in life are fundamentally unsolvable. They can never be solved, but only outgrown,’ ” he said. “I had to live to 68 to absolutely believe that’s true.”

Life’s enigmas exist to teach lessons, according to Rohr, and the same goes for life’s failures.

“Life, if we are honest about it, is made up of many failings and fallings, amidst all of our hopeful growing and achieving,” Rohr wrote. “Those failings and fallings must be there for a purpose, a purpose that neither culture nor church has fully understood. Most of us find all failure bewildering, but it does not have to be.”

In fact, according to Rohr, simply identifying the curve of life’s arc can resolve a whole host of potential problems.

“Most people are trying to build the platform of their lives all by themselves, while working all the new levers at the same time,” Rohr wrote. “I think of CEOs, business leaders, soldiers or parents who have no principled or ethical sense of themselves and end up with some kind of ‘pick and choose’ morality in the pressured moment.”

And that’s what Rohr’s book markets itself as — a defense against the danger of the “pressured moment.”

“Perhaps (this book) is like a medical brochure that describes the possible symptoms of a future heart attack,” he wrote. “Reading it when you’re well might feel like a waste of time, but it could make the difference between life and death if a heart attack actually happens.”

A central component to Rohr’s philosophy is that human beings need “containers,” or a clear sense of self-identity, in the first half of life.

Rohr wrote that “without law in some form, and also without butting up against that law, we cannot move forward easily and naturally.”

“We are not always helping our children by preventing them from what might be necessary falling, because you learn how to recover from falling by falling,” he wrote. “Law and tradition seem to be necessary in any spiritual system both to reveal and to limit our basic egocentricity, and to make some community, family, and marriage possible.”

According to Rohr, the students and workforce of America have been largely deprived of “necessary falling.”

“If you want the opposite (of a job done well), hire someone who has been coddled, been given ‘I Am Special’ buttons for doing nothing special, and had all his or her bills paid by others, and whose basic egocentricity has never been challenged or undercut,” Rohr wrote. “To be honest, this seems to describe much of the workforce and the student body of America.”

In a fanfare of Charlotte flair, Charlotte Ballet will close its Chautauqua season with “Made in Charlotte,” a collection of bespoke commissions, at 8:15 p.m. Monday, July 15 in the Amphitheater.

“This series highlights the versatility of the company and illuminates new voices,” said Charlotte Ballet Artistic Director Hope Muir.

Of the four-piece bill, three pieces — “Essence of Numbers,” “Sonnet 116” and “A Road to Pieces” — were produced and showcased in Charlotte Ballet’s Choreographic Lab, an informal performance with new and emerging hyperlocal choreographers. The lab has been ongoing for two seasons, and will return for Charlotte Ballet’s 2019-20 season.

“Essence of Numbers” by 11-season veteran Sarah Hayes Harkins is set to music by Jared Oaks, music director for Ballet West in Salt Lake City. It’s an eight-person ensemble, en pointe but contemporary and loosely rooted in a proverb from Pythagorean philosopher Arignote: “The eternal essence of number is the most providential cause of the whole Heaven, Earth and the region in between.”

Seasoned Charlotte Ballet dancer Chelsea Dumas’ “Sonnet 116” is danced to a reading of the namesake Shakespearian sonnet, as well as music by film composers Thomas Wander and Harald Kloser. “A Road to Pieces” by Charlotte ballerino Juwan Alston is an en pointe pas de deux and premiered in May on Charlotte’s Harkins and David Preciado.

The bill will close with Chicago-based choreographer Stephanie Martinez’s “Unsex Me Here,” a collaboration with The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, presented during Charlotte Ballet’s “Innovative Works” series in January.

Martinez — who made her Charlotte Ballet debut with “Unsex Me Here” — collaborated with UNCC Department of Theatre chair and dance historian Lynne Conner to translate Lady Macbeth’s request to be made a man into movement. The piece explores gender roles, gender fluidity and societal expectations for men and women through intricate partnering.

“In my ballets, women can’t lose their power,” Martinez said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer. “They’re not victims, and they’re not subservient. They see themselves differently from the way men in the plays see them. We’re depicting what they might want their lives to be.”

This is Charlotte Ballet’s second iteration of “Made in Charlotte,” first performed at Chautauqua in 2018, according to Deborah Sunya Moore, vice president of performing and visual arts.

“(Muir) has a real focus on new choreographers … so I think we’re going to continue to see growth in the company,” Moore said. 

The Chautauqua Dance Circle, Muir and “A Road to Pieces” choreographer Alston, will hold a dance preview at 7 p.m. Monday, July 15 in Smith Wilkes Hall prior to Charlotte Ballet’s performance.

Life expectancy has met an all-time high — but how can culture accommodate it? Laura Carstensen has some ideas.

Carstensen, Stanford University professor and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, leads the “New Map of Life” project, a study of the new directions people can take as they age. She will open Week Four with a lecture at 10:45 a.m. Monday, July 15 in the Amphitheater.

“What most excited us about the collaboration is Stanford Center on Longevity’s comprehensive approach to longevity, with a ‘New Map of Life’ project that challenges our assumptions and identifies interdisciplinary collaboration and public engagement as key to having the greatest impact and finding solutions to the problems — and opportunities — that longer lives present us with,” said Matt Ewalt, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education. “In other words, the work of the Chautauqua community this week, and beyond, will inform and provide some direction for the ‘New Map of Life’ project.”

The National Institute on Aging has supported Carstensen’s work for over 25 years. She has received prestigious awards for her work and has published several academic articles.

In a Chicago Ideas Week talk, Carstensen said the new landscape of aging has received lots of attention.

“People are living longer, and societies are getting greyer. … You read about it in newspapers, we see it on television,” Carstensen said in her Ideas Week talk. “Sometimes I worry that we hear about aging so much, so often, that we’ve come to accept it with a kind of complacency.”

Humanity has new odds at survival, Carstensen said. Better nutrition, public health, education and medical care in many countries has led to a huge, sudden growth in human life expectancy. In the 20th century, human life expectancy grew more in years than it had in all past millennia combined. Carstensen said today’s lifespans are unprecedented.

“In historical terms, in a blink of an eye, we nearly doubled the length of the lives that we’re living,” Carstensen said in her talk.

In the early days of humanity, Carstensen said, life expectancy was estimated at 18 to 20 years. That grew to about 35 in the mid-19th century in the United States, to 79 years in the present day. And it is still growing.

On the other side of the coin, Carstensen said, fertility rates have dropped. Over the course of the 20th century, fertility rates fell by half.

“So we have people growing older, and fewer children being born,” Carstensen said in her talk. “Those two phenomena together lead to an aging society.”

This aging society comes with new demographics. By 2030, Carstensen said, approximately 20% of Americans will be over 65. Proportions abroad are also changing; in that same year, approximately 28% of Japanese citizens will be over 65.

Carstensen said these new demographics mean a new society — one where multiple generations can live together.

“We are at a point in human history where four, five, and conceivably six generations will be alive at the same time,” Carstensen said in her talk. “(This is) a stunning accomplishment of culture.”

But not everyone is celebrating this new era.

“We’ve got more time to spend with the people we love and to realize our goals and to pursue our dreams,” Carstensen said in her talk. “But that’s not the response that we’re hearing today. Instead, individuals are worried. They’re worried about their own aging, their own futures, their bodies, their minds, their financial security. Policymakers are worried about the sustainability of social programs.”

Carstensen attributed these anxieties to humans’ reliance on cultural norms — many of which are changing in the new demographics.

“We look to culture to tell us when to get an education, when to marry, when to start families, when to work, and when to retire,” Carstensen said in her talk. “And life expectancy increased so fast that culture hasn’t caught up.”

This culture, Carstensen said, is designed by and for young people: flights of stairs, miles-wide airports, medical research that focuses on acute diseases and injuries rather than the chronic ones associated with age.

Carstensen’s research focuses on the cultural changes associated with an aging culture: medical research, social support systems, accessible infrastructure. A society that supports older people, Carstensen said, will lead to an unprecedented social resource: experience.

“We need to do this because, if we build a culture that supports long life, top-heavy with experienced older citizens, we will have a resource never before available in human history,” she said in her talk. “We will have millions of older citizens with deep knowledge about practical matters of life, interested in younger generations and motivated to make a difference.”

Week Three saw the CHQ Olympics — a series of fun, silly competitions much less serious than those in ancient Greece.

Throughout the week, Chautauquans of all ages were invited to participate or compete in over 25 different events all over Institution grounds. Everyone — from those at Children’s School and Boys’ and Girls’ Club, to their parents and grandparents — were able to get involved.

Starting the Olympics on Sunday, Chautauquans were welcomed by a kick-off carnival, complete with a bounce house, a tie-dye station and carnival games right on Bestor Plaza for everyone who passed by to enjoy.

However, this was just the tip of the iceberg. As the week continued, events ranged from poetry and healthy living competitions to Chautauqua-wide scavenger hunts, and from kayaking down at Sports Club to putt-putt competitions at the Chautauqua Golf Club.

Aquatics had a large influence on some of the Olympic programming this year. Sports Club Director Deb Lyons said her staff was happy with event turnout and was pleased with the weather cooperating — to an extent — throughout the week.

Despite possible thunderstorms looming on the horizon, the weather held, and water events like kayaking, paddle boarding and the giant inflatable swan race went on.

Even Thursday, when the morning gave way to on-and-off rain, it wasn’t enough to stop Chautauquans from coming out for the new annual tradition of the Beach-to-Beach Color Sprint.

Up until the race’s start, people signed up for one of the most memorable events of the season. One young Chautauquan even arrived minutes before the start of the race, asking his mother if the colors would ruin the cast on his arm. His mother said the cast would be OK, so he entered the run and ended up winning it all — cast covered in bright neon paints.

The Chautauqua Boys’ and Girls’ Club held its annual Water Olympics competition Friday at Club’s waterfront. After being postponed due to possible thunderstorms, children came out with twice as much energy, ready to compete and win for the Red or Blue teams, especially after last summer’s Red victory in a tiebreaker cheer-off competition. Whoops and cheers could be heard along the waterfront from counselors and children as young as first grade, rallying to stay ahead to take home the title of Water Olympics champions.

As the teams worked through games like free throw shooting, kayak races and Tug-a-Melon, other groups were playing Inner Tube Pull and beach volleyball. While scores fluctuated throughout the day, the Red team eventually pulled ahead to take the win once more, edging out the Blue team 225-184. As the competition ended, friends shared ice pops between teams and laughed about the day.

The CHQ Olympics has come to a close, and the week is rolling into the next. While inflatable swans and obstacle courses have been deflated and paint-stained shirts will go into the laundry, they’ll be ready for a spirited return next summer.

After nearly three weeks of intensive training and rehearsals, aspiring ballerinas and ballerinos will sauté and chaîné across the Amphitheater stage — some for the first time — throwing their passion into calculated, concise movements. 

The performance at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the Amp is the first of two School of Dance Student Galas, featuring Festival and Workshop dancers.

“Dancing with the feet is one thing; dancing with the heart is hard,” said Glenda Lucena, ballet mistress. “You really have to love what you’re doing in order to project, to feel the audience, to connect with the audience. So that’s what we’re expecting (the students) to show to the audience.”

The performance features new works by School of Dance Faculty Mark Diamond, Michael Vernon and Artistic Director Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, as well as classic George Balanchine pieces. 

Vernon’s new work — titled “Sunday Morning” — will open the bill. “Sunday Morning,” he said, abstractly and subtly references “Downton Abbey” in its costuming and patterns. Coincidentally, the piece is set to British composer Lord Berners’ score and is a neoclassical visualization of the music, which has rarely been choreographed.

“It is a wonderful collaboration when (students) can work with choreographers,” said Patricia McBride, director of ballet studies and master teacher. “They see how you move and they have a strong idea of what they’re doing, but the dancers also have an influence. (The piece) is made on them.”

Additionally, Workshop students will present excerpts from Sleeping Beauty, choreographed by Bonnefoux and which will be performed the previous evening — at 8:15 p.m. Saturday in the Amp — with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in its abridged version of the ballet.

The Workshop students arrived last Sunday, and had a week to prepare for the gala and PBT’s Sleeping Beauty, according to Lucena. Lucena, who staged the work, said that while the dancers seemed startled and aghast at first, they quickly adjusted to tackle the piece — and the tight time frame.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s exciting,” she said.

Closing out the bill, McBride — Balanchine’s contemporary and Kennedy Center honoree — will stage “Walpurgisnacht” from the opera Faust, choreographed by Balanchine in 1975 for the Paris Opera Ballet; it premiered on New York City Ballet in 1980. McBribe last staged the ballet for the School of Dance over 20 years ago.

“Walpurgisnacht” features demanding solos and corps de ballet work, according to McBribe, and requires the dancers to remain free, energetic and fresh, yet striking with Balanchine’s signature musicality.

“I just want them to get the essence and the spirit of what Mr. Balanchine wanted — for me, that’s really important,” McBride said.

Sunday’s afternoon gala is a preview for the collaborative School of Dance and Music School Festival Orchestra concert on Monday, July 22. The School of Dance’s second — and final — gala will be during Week Eight on Sunday, Aug. 11.

Story by Val Lick and Maggie Prosser-

Preparing for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s Chautauqua performance was a considerable feat, as it involved coordinating artistic powerhouses in two cities. But the result, said PBT Artistic Director Terrence Orr, emanates the PBT’s, School of Dance’s and Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra’s shared “love for dance.”

Returning to Chautauqua Institution for the first time since its debut in 2017, PBT will present two beloved ballets — George Balanchine’s “Rubies,” and an abridged Sleeping Beauty — at 8:15 p.m. Saturday, July 13 in the Amphitheater.

“This is a Sleeping Beauty … of a different sort,” said Orr, who announced he will retire in June 2020. “I’m not really telling the story; I’m just going through and doing the divertissement, the different dances that go on.”

Orr’s Sleeping Beauty, accompanied by the CSO, will open with the christening of Princess Aurora and six fairy variations. Act I will include, in Orr’s words, the ballet’s “key scene” — the Rose Adagio, a pas de deux between Aurora and four suitors.

Act II will feature 24 students from the School of Dance in the garland dance, and Act III, the wedding, will feature six couples from the School of Dance, the usual line of characters — Bluebird, Puss and Boots, the White Cat — and PBT’s traditional ending to the ballet, Orr said.

In total, Aurora will be played by three PBT dancers and Aurora’s love interest, Prince Desire, will be played by two dancers.

The CSO’s rendition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s musical score, under the direction of CSO Music Director and Conductor Rossen Milanov, will be the second of three performances in its inaugural “Russian Festival.”

“Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty is one of the three big ballets, alongside Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, that really made him one of the most important composers in the ballet world,” Milanov said.

Milanov said Sleeping Beauty focuses on the visual and auditory aspects of the performance, rather than dramatic elements.

“Sleeping Beauty is a little more decorative in nature; it’s more about the ballet itself than having some big, dramatic, controversial, romantic story like Swan Lake,” Milanov said. “This one is mostly for the eyes, and of course the ears; Tchaikovsky was one of the most colorful orchestrators and masters of the short formats. … He had the gift to find the perfect music to match the dance variations that occur throughout the ballet.”

Prefacing Sleeping Beauty will be “Rubies,” set to Igor Stravinsky’s “Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra.” “Rubies” — the electric second movement of George Balanchine’s three-act Jewels — will feature renowned pianist William Wolfram.

“This particular piece belongs to the period (of Stravinsky’s work) in which we could hear very strong influences of Russian folk music,” Milanov said. “It’s not as abstract as some of his later works, but it has this incredible ingenuity — the way he works with musical material and combines them together. There is always a fascination of how these collages of sound could function together.”

This will be PBT’s second performance with the CSO, its second performance on the Amp stage, and its first collaboration with the School of Dance. Prior to the performance, the Chautauqua Dance Circle will host a dance preview with PBT at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 13 in Smith Wilkes Hall.

“This is going to be great fun,” Orr said. “It’s an honor to be part of such an incredible institution.”

It was Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM’s, idea to double up during his week at Chautauqua — to be the chaplain for Week Four and to speak at all of the interfaith lectures.

Rohr will preach at the 10:45 a.m. Sunday Ecumenical Service of Worship and Sermon in the Amphitheater. His sermon title will be “Something Larger than Jesus.” He will share his faith journey at the 5 p.m. Sunday Vespers in the Hall of Philosophy, and will preach at the 9:15 a.m. Ecumenical Worship weekdays in the Amp. His sermon titles will include “Everything Belongs,” “A Chinese Doll,” “Incorporating the Negative,” “Resolved from the Beginning,” and “Christ Is Not Jesus’ Last Name.” He will speak at 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday in the Hall of Philosophy.

“I had been inviting him for years, but his schedule would not permit,” said Maureen Rovegno, director of religion.

Rovegno said Rohr’s staff contacted the Institution last year and said Rohr was available this summer.

“I wanted him for the 2 p.m. interfaith lectures but he wanted to do both,” Rovegno said. “We have never done this before, because it is a lot of work. But his staff said that this is what he does all year long, and he wants to do it. Who am I to argue with him?”

Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition.

The Perennial Tradition encompasses the recurring themes in all of the world’s religions and philosophies that continue to say: “There is a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things, there is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity and longing for this Divine Reality, and the final goal of existence is union with this Divine Reality.”

Rohr is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy — practices of contemplation and self-emptying, expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized.

“We couldn’t cheat Chautauquans of this absolutely amazing opportunity,” Rovegno said. “No one is more uniquely (suited) to do this than Fr. Richard Rohr. It is a delight and a blessing.”

The author of numerous books, including Falling Upward, Everything Belongs, Adam’s Return, The Naked Now, Breathing Under Water, Immortal Diamond, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, and, with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. His most recent book, which he also expects to be his last, is The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe.

In The Universal Christ is a simple concept: that Jesus Christ loves everyone and is in everything.

“This is not heresy, universalism, or a cheap version of Unitarianism,” Rohr wrote in The Universal Christ. “This is the Cosmic Christ, who always was, who became incarnate in time, and who is still being revealed.”

Rohr is academic dean of the Living School for Action and Contemplation. Its mission is to produce compassionate and powerfully learned individuals who will work for positive change in the world based on awareness of common union with God and all beings.

Welcome to the fourth week of our 146th Assembly.

From last week’s exhilarating experiences in partnership with National Geographic Society, we now turn to a different kind of exploration, namely what our world and society might look like if the average human life span continues to increase. Week Four brings us into an exciting conversation with a first-time programmatic partner, the Stanford Center on Longevity, as we explore “The New Map of Life: How Longer Lives are Changing the World.” In this week, we look at some very heady questions: Do we really want to live forever? While being “forever young” may still be the stuff of dreams, longer lifespans are a reality of modern life. Living to 110 years old — at least — means new challenges for both individuals and society; how we meet those challenges will have lasting ramifications. What issues do longer lifespans present? We examine the political, the financial, the biological, the emotional. Where the scientific meets the ethical, we ask: We can live longer, but should we? Will longer lives exacerbate existing inequities? This isn’t a question for future generations — this is a question for us, right now. How are you going to adapt in this changing reality?

In our companion Interfaith Lecture Series, we welcome someone dear to my own heart, Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM. As many of you know — because I plug my alma mater every chance I get — I attended a Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University, and Fr. Richard is a celebrated Franciscan throughout the world. During a week focused on the increasing lifespan of human beings, Fr. Richard will be our guide to what he calls the “further journey,” a voyage into the mystery and beauty of healthy spiritual maturity. Revisiting thoughts from his book, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Fr. Richard helps us to understand the tasks of the two halves of life and teaches us what looks like “falling down” can largely be experienced as “falling upward.” 

There are so many other programs to be excited about this week. Chautauqua Theater Company travels outside our gates to share a new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with our regional neighbors at Jamestown’s Riverwalk on Saturday, and at Southern Tier Brewing Company on Wednesday. On Sunday, the Chautauqua School of Dance will present a gala afternoon of performances, and the ever-brilliant Steven Osgood, general and artistic director of the Chautauqua Opera Company, brings us ¡Figaro! (90210), Vid Guerrerio’s contemporary multicultural adaptation of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. While there are so many other arts offerings, one of my favorites every year is our annual major inter-arts collaboration, this year also centered on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, on Tuesday evening in the Amphitheater. If you’ve never seen our resident companies and schools join forces, there is simply nothing like it, and it’s not to be missed.

There are two last highlights to share (among so many wonderful offerings). Aja Gabel’s book The Ensemble is the first Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle selection I read this year. Her characters are complex, thoughtful, funny and soulful, and she masterfully brings you inside the delicate, delightful and intimate relationship that forms among people who make music together. Her talk about the book is this week, and while I’ll be presenting an update on our strategic plan at the same time, I’ll understand completely if you go see her speak about this wonderful piece.

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid — you can see how well that plan went — and I was obsessed with “Star Wars.” If you notice a guy who looks like Chautauqua’s president in the Amphitheater geeking out this week, it’s because the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra will provide the wonderful score while we all get to watch “Star Wars: A New Hope” in concert on Friday evening. I can’t wait. Oh, and we just happen to have a real astronaut on our lecture platform this week: Scott Kelly, also on Friday. 

Whether this is your first week at Chautauqua or the continuation of a journey with us this summer, may you find your own ways to explore our galaxy. It’s full of incredible treasures for you to behold, and I’m grateful I get to go on the journey with you.

Happy Week Four!

Michael E. Hill

On Friday morning, Heather Koldewey shared with her audience a photo she described as fragile, extraordinary and strangely beautiful.

It was a seahorse clutching a cotton swab with its tail — an image that’s remarkable, but also “very, very wrong.”

@HeatherKoldewey begins by speaking on her work with seahorses. #CHQ2019 pic.twitter.com/1xZva6BepV

— The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 12, 2019

Koldewey, the Zoological Society of London’s senior technical adviser and National Geographic Fellow, and Lillygol Sedaghat, multimedia journalist and National Geographic Explorer, spoke at 10:45 a.m. Friday in the Amphitheater, closing Week Three, “A Planet in Balance: A Week in Partnership with National Geographic Society.”

Koldewey has studied seahorses for more than 20 years and said the species is “on the frontlines” of a planet in balance because millions of seahorses, like many other species, are captured for trade, aquariums and modern medicine every year.

“As fishing increases and the fish decrease, the amount of nets people are using to catch those fish also increases,” Koldewey said. “We are seeing a real spiral of declining fish for people to eat and increasing nets, which are essentially plastic.”

All over the world, 640,000 metric tons of fishing nets are discarded into the ocean annually. The nets are made of plastic and take at least 650 years to break down.

Koldewey has studied the impact of fishing nets in the Philippines, a center of biodiversity where the human population, living in extreme poverty, is entirely dependent on the ocean to survive.

But it’s not just nets that are a problem. The Philippine islands also lack a waste management system.

There is hope. There is a way to recycle those nets, and reuse them for nylon projects like carpets and clothes. pic.twitter.com/oE8zOOiWAJ

— The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 12, 2019

“There is no garbage truck that turns up to take the waste away,” she said. “So, what I have been seeing in my 20-plus years working there, are these becoming, slowly but surely, islands of waste.”

Seeing the accumulating waste in person gave life to a daunting statistic: By 2025, there is projected to be 1 ton of plastic for every 3 tons of fish.

However, because one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, Koldewey said there is hope on the horizon. Through her award-winning program, Net-Works, the plastic fish netting is being recycled into nylon yarn that can be used for carpet tiles and clothing.

“We see the visual change,” she said. “Because we are science-based, we’ve been monitoring the beaches, the environment and seeing a dramatic transition as the waste nets now have somewhere to go. They now no longer get left anywhere because there’s value in the system and a supply chain to ship them.”

Since starting the Net-Works project in 2016, more than 224 metric tons of netting have been recycled, enough to go around the world five times.

The interconnectedness of oceans makes it hard to consider the improvement in the Philippines a dent in the plastic epidemic. Koldewey visited British-Indian territory made up of 55 uninhabited islands. Even though no one lived there, she picked up 334 single-use plastic water bottles in 20 minutes.

“This really summarized, to me, the fact that there is no ‘away’ for our waste,” she said. “What we do, what we choose to buy and how we choose to dispose of it has a huge impact on our planet, and particularly, on our ocean.”

Koldewey looked to London, where on average, every adult uses 175 single-use plastic water bottles a year. To understand the system that makes that possible, she studied human behavior, business, infrastructure, design, policy framework and how to normalize “green” behavior.

As a result of her research, water bottle refill centers were placed around the city. She also worked with sports centers, schools and businesses to reduce plastic waste.

Her children’s school is now plastic free and a refillable water bottle is part of their school uniform.

“We are looking at change happening across our community,” Koldewey said. “The future can look different.”

Through all of Koldewey’s case studies, Sedaghat said she noticed one similarity: “Change starts with ourselves.”

“The most powerful way to change something, to believe in an idea that you, in your own life, are willing to make a difference that inspires others, comes from a place of love,” Sedaghat said.

Sedaghat’s journey with plastic started with her Taiwanese milk tea obsession. Growing up, she always went to the same California tea shop, ordering drinks in single-use plastic cups, until she realized the consequences of her decisions.

“I realized that every single time I drink the drink that I love, I’m harming the environment that I love,” she said.

To better understand the plastic supply chain, Sedaghat went on a National Geographic trip to Taiwan, one of the world’s “geniuses in waste disposal” due to 148 circular economy initiatives and a 55% recycling rate.

In Taiwan, people separate their waste into recyclables, compost and trash. To dispose of trash, citizens are required to buy government-mandated trash bags and pay by weight, whereas composting and recycling are free.

The entire system was created by a group of housewives in 1987, when Taiwan transitioned into a democracy. At the same time, Taiwan had created a strong petrochemical plastics industry, but the byproduct of their economic growth was waste.

“That love for their family, for their community, that created nature as an extension of their whole family model, moved on to creating and piloting the first composting program,” Sedaghat said. “They completely banned Styrofoam from the food and beverage industry in Taiwan, … and then they also banned single-use disposable plastics from public offices and from schools. This group of women. Mothers. Love.”

@LillygolS speaks on the Homemakers United Foundation started in Taiwan. #CHQ2019 pic.twitter.com/NGjUXoFHNj

— The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 12, 2019

In June 2018, National Geographic released an “iconic” issue: “Planet or Plastic?” Koldewey contributed to the magazine and the initiative with her study of plastic in rivers around the world.

“Rivers around the world are basically transporting waste through communities, through towns, through cities and ending up delivering plastic into the ocean,” Koldewey said.

Two months ago, Koldewey, along with an all-female team, went to the Ganges River in Bangladesh to design rapid assessment methodology to understand the source, flow and amount of plastic entering rivers. The team took samples from water and sediment; studied wildlife and how plastic affects the fish sold in markets; documented waste in communities; and hired a drone pilot to map the river bank and locate plastic entry points.

“But data is no good if you can’t use it, if you can’t take it and apply it to make change,” Koldewey said.

Sedaghat agreed, noting that impact only happens when data can be “humanized.”

Sedaghat went on an expedition to a basin located near the Ganges River and the Bay of Bengal, a region with the third-largest water disposal and the second-largest sediment load of all of the rivers in the world. She explored the region on a small wooden boat that gave her the proximity to understand the river’s role in the communities it flowed through.

“Being on a boat and understanding intimately, physically, what the river does to people — what it means to be entirely dependent and reliant on a source out of your control — helped us understand the plastics issue in the riverways with the communities and the livelihoods of the people there,” she said.

Along the river, Sedaghat met a community of people whose homes and land had washed away from river flooding in the monsoon season. Through that experience, she came to understand how the river is both loved and hated.

“It was appreciated and became an economic lifeline for thousands of people who relied on it for fishing, but it was also something that took — so intimately — directly from people’s lives,” she said. “At the same time, those people are just like us. They adapt to resources that are around them because what is most important is the love that they have for their children and for their families.”

It was during that trip that Sedaghat realized her choices and consumerist behavior in the United States affected millions of people, thousands of miles away. As she changed her habits, she came to understand the difference between having the capacity to change, and having the willpower to change.

@HeatherKoldewey shares ways in how London is improving the future. #CHQ2019 pic.twitter.com/2bPAlKmdVp

— The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 12, 2019

“People had reached a certain socioeconomic level, a certain threshold of living where they no longer had to think about reusing, remaking, repairing certain materials,” she said. “You could just buy something new. That was a luxury that had come with coming into this next socioeconomic status and level.”

To conclude the lecture, Sedaghat offered localized solutions for communities that want to reduce waste.

First, one needs to understand the waste management system in their community.

“In your neighborhood, your school, your place of work — where does your trash go?” she asked. “What can and can’t be recycled? Who operates that system? Most of us put blind faith into a recycling bin without realizing how to recycle properly.”

Second, one must understand that recycling is a market, and they need to wash materials before recycling.

“The products that we put into that recycling bin have to compete with virgin materials in the market,” she said. “If they are contaminated by food waste, their quality is lower.”

Third, changing day-to-day decisions gives one the capacity to make a difference.

“That means, perhaps, bringing your own water bottle, bringing your own bamboo utensils, bringing your own straw, or a towel or a little bowl to carry with you,” she said. “Similar to the way that you would leave your home with your keys and your ID, why not make this a part of your day-to-day habits as well? Little choices make a huge impact.”

Fourth, think differently.

“We live and operate in a linear, industrial model where we take things from the Earth, we make them into something, we use them for one thing and then we throw them away,” Sedaghat said. “But what we need to really have a planet in balance is a circular way of thinking. We need to ask ourselves, ‘Where do these materials come from? Where do they go? Can I reuse them in any sort of way?’ ”

Although change starts with one person, worldwide change will come from a collective effort, Sedaghat said.

“Realizing that we are connected in our decisions here in the United States, with children thousands of miles away in Bangladesh, makes us feel that we are a part of something and that we can do something — starting today,” she said.

@LillygolS closes with this speech. #CHQ2019 pic.twitter.com/lRDGvc9MBK

— The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 12, 2019

Town of Ellery, only entity to decline signing MOA, has herbicide permit denied by NYSDEC

After several years of disagreement over herbicide use in Chautauqua Lake, more than a dozen entities with vested interests in the lake signed a Memorandum of Agreement in May designed to foster collaboration, communication and a coordinated, science-based approach to lake conservation.

Just one municipality — the Town of Ellery, with 12 miles of shoreline, the longest of any municipality on the lake — declined to sign the agreement.

Spearheaded by Chautauqua County Executive George Borrello and issued May 1, 2019, with Chautauqua Institution as the first signatory, the agreement established a Weed Management Consensus Strategy for the body of water that hosts much of the recreation and economic activity in the region.

“In the last few years, Chautauqua Lake has certainly been plagued with a lot of issues, like harmful algal blooms and invasive weeds,” Borrello said. “But most recently, it’s also been plagued with a lot of conflict and consternation and certainly a lot of infighting within the organizations.”

Last week, Ellery submitted an application to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for a permit to apply herbicides in parts of Bemus Bay. On Wednesday, NYSDEC notified the town that its permit application was denied because there were not enough invasive plants in those zones to justify herbicide application.

The application requested herbicides Aquathol K and Navigate to control invasive species Eurasian watermilfoil and curly-leaf pondweed in parts of Bemus Bay. NYSDEC made a site visit to survey the plants in Bemus Bay on July 1.

A total of 15 nonprofit lake organizations, municipalities and other entities around Chautauqua Lake signed the agreement, which was designed to foster collaboration around lake conservation and management. Signatories hail the document as a step in the right direction, but some say it lacks specificity and involvement from all key lake players.

John Jablonski, executive director of the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy, said he thinks the MOA falls short in resolving disagreements about how much and where herbicides should be used, since Ellery, which has been instrumental in leading the reinvigoration of herbicide use on the lake in 2017, didn’t sign on.

“Sadly, it’s disappointing that the primary lead agency for the herbicide program decided to go their own way,” Jablonski said.

Ellery Supervisor Arden Johnson said the town decided not to sign the MOA because they did not agree with the wording, especially the provision that prevents herbicide usage north of Long Point. The town’s shoreline extends both above and below Long Point.

“It doesn’t allow herbicide usage in areas above Long Point, which includes Warners Bay, Sunset Bay and further north, which are very weedy and need it,” Johnson said.

Many of the cosigners said the MOA is a good step toward cooperation, but has language that should be clarified moving forward.

“I think it’s a positive, constructive step forward, but it needs to be followed with a lot more specificity to do the job it was intended to do,” said J. Regis Thompson, executive director of the Chautauqua Fishing Alliance. “It was a great first start.”

Jablonski said the MOA does not describe the difference between the native plants — that are crucial to the lake’s ability to serve as a home to fish and other wildlife — and the invasive species that can grow out of control.

“We have concern that the herbicide program that is underway does not differentiate between good plants and weeds. It kills them both,” he said. “We hope in the future, the MOA serves as a basis for the differentiations to be made, so the plant community that is beneficial to the lake can be protected for all the animals and food web that depend on the plants.”

Despite the MOA, the usage of herbicides remains a contentious issue.

Already this year, about 400 acres have been treated with herbicides off the shores of Ellery, Ellicott, Lakewood and North Harmony, compared to about 80 acres last year. Some, like the Chautauqua Lake Partnership, hail this as a victory. Others see it as cause for concern.

“Herbicides, in our opinion, should be limited, if used at all, to very small targeted problems that need to be solved pretty quickly,” said John Shedd, vice president of campus planning and operations at Chautauqua Institution. “We don’t believe they should be a broad solution for large parts of the lake.”

When there are fewer plants in the lake, areas for fish habitat decrease, Thompson said. Fewer plants means fewer roots to hold in the lake sediments and protect it from wave-induced turbulence, making it more likely the water will become cloudy. And when not as many plants are there to take up nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, those nutrients become available for algae to feed on, increasing the probability of algal blooms.

Jim Cirbus, president of the CLP, which advocates for the use of herbicides, said he hopes future revisions of the MOA will consider amending the document’s directive that herbicides not be applied north of Long Point.

Cirbus said signing the agreement was a difficult decision for the CLP because of the Long Point provision, which restricts where herbicides can be applied. A number of board members and senior leadership resigned over the issue.

“It was a leap of faith,” Cirbus said. “You’re signing a document that had a lot of loose ends.”

The MOA follows a February conservation statement signed by some interested parties that established a commitment to improving the health of the lake through a scientific approach and both short- and long-term solutions.

Over the winter, Borrello met with Chautauqua Lake stakeholders to begin the drafting process for the agreement, with the ultimate goal of facilitating conservation on the lake, which serves as an economic, social and cultural hub of the region. Though lakefront property only accounts for 1% of the total land area of the county, it brings in 25% of the county’s property tax, Borrello said.

“Everyone’s concern was the same — we wanted to have a safe, usable lake,” he said. “We wanted good water quality. Everybody had the same mission. It was just that the methods differed as to how they were going to accomplish that mission.”

The county then hired Lancaster, New York-based environmental consulting group Ecology and Environment Inc. to conduct more formal interviews with the 16 groups involved. Later, the firm reached out to the groups to check their understanding of each organization’s concerns.

Taking all stakeholders’ priorities into account, the MOA includes 24 tenets, known as the Chautauqua Lake Weed Management Consensus Strategy.

The MOA is valid until April 30, 2021, and will be updated annually.

It states that treatment options will be considered based on plant surveys and science “carried out in a responsible manner.”

Herbicides will be evaluated by a third party to determine their effectiveness and potential impacts to non-target plants and animals. Herbicides are to be applied at a time and place that won’t interfere with fish spawning.

In addition, herbicide usage will be limited to 567 acres of the 13,000-acre lake and can only be applied below Long Point.

By signing the agreement, the parties promised not to sue any of the other violators of the agreement. Signatories who violate the document could lose county funding.

On July 30, 2018, Chautauqua Institution filed legal action against the NYSDEC and the Town of Ellery over the use of herbicides, saying that an environmental impact statement from the NYSDEC did not properly address the safety of herbicides with respect to people and animals.

The suit was dismissed in the state Supreme Court in Erie County in December because it was filed “too late and moot with respect to the 2018 administrative process for herbicide permits and too early for any yet to be filed permit applications for 2019,” the ruling read.

Chautauqua Institution was the first party to sign the MOA this spring.

“I think what it did, was it had us stop what had become a screaming match about what the right thing to do was,” said Institution President Michael E. Hill. “It gave us some rules of the road for the next two years of our collective work together, and it’s made a huge difference. Now we can collectively focus on finding research and solutions for the long-term.”

In another step toward collaboration, the Institution, the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance, the Chautauqua Lake Association, CLP, CWC, and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute came together to host a Chautauqua Lake Conference at the Institution on June 15.

At the day-long event, more than 150 community members gathered to learn more about weeds, algae and the watershed.

While signatories are hopeful for the future of the lake and collaboration among groups, the largest disagreements have yet to be resolved.

“The MOA is a social-political document,” said Doug Conroe, executive director of the CLA. “It was meant to be a general guidance, general consensus and in many respects it is. In terms of an active document that is directive and does things, that’s not what it is.”

Effects of the MOA, which has been in place for just over two months, have yet to be seen.

“Will the county actually have a collaborative, science-based approach that relies on people who have a familiarity and understanding of the science of the lake?” Jablonski asked.

Shedd said that while no two lakes are the same, much can be learned from other science-based, community  conservation efforts.

“The MOA is an important and effective first step toward prioritizing independently developed scientific data to inform lake management decisions,” he said. “If it achieves nothing else, that’s a monumental accomplishment.”

Some concerts might feel like they take all night long — but “All-Night Vigil,” an entire night of church music composed by Russian pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff, actually does last all night long.

While he’s viewed as a secular composer who stayed away from religious dedications, Rachmaninoff also set music to the Eastern Orthodox all-night vigil.

Rachmaninoff’s musical setting of the ceremony took him just two weeks to write, and was especially significant because he’d stopped attending church services at the time.

“His piece is an aural window into the beyond, into the divine,” said Jared Jacobsen, Chautauqua’s organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music. “And you don’t have to explain it, you don’t have to write it down — it’s like a half-remembered dream.”

At 8 p.m. Sunday, July 14 in the Amphitheater, Jacobsen will feature a piece from Rachmaninoff’s “All-Night Vigil” and other secular music in the Sacred Song Service, “There Is Something Holy Here.”

This service will, according to Jacobsen, “look at six different ways that I thought would expand our thinking past the glue on the flap of the envelope.”

“There’s something more out there than just our Christian forms of worship,” Jacobsen said. “I was really interested in doing a service that explodes the boundaries of what we think is reasonable and proper.”

As part of preparing this service, Jacobsen said he realized that some traditions are “richer in imagery and storytelling than maybe Christian traditions are.”

Along those lines, Jacobsen included the song “Dear Sarah” by American composer James Syler in the program, a song which uses historic text from a Union Army soldier’s letter to his wife.

“Sullivan Ballou was a major in the Union Army about to go into battle when he wrote this letter to his wife,” Jacobsen said. “It was the First Battle of Bull Run, which was a massacre. The Union Army was creamed.”

According to Jacobsen, Syler excerpted a portion of Ballou’s letter as the lyrics to his choral piece.

“(Syler) uses a line from the end of the piece, ‘if the dead can come back to the Earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you,’ ” Jacobsen said. “I don’t understand how that might work, but I believe from my personal faith that yes, there is something beyond death.”

Another song to be highlighted in the service is the German-American composer Herman Berlinski’s “The Burning Bush.”

“This is the composer’s attempt to tell the story of this argument between God and Moses,” Jacobsen said. “It starts with this almost inaudible swirling, like you’re walking and all of a sudden something is not quite right. And then something catches your attention, and it begins to swirl and the flames begin to climb. It’s like watching a bonfire.”

Jacobsen said that, in the Biblical story of Moses and the burning bush, it’s possible that “God probably could have sat Moses down in a Starbucks and had that same conversation — but that’s just not the way they roll in the Old Testament.”

It’s stories from a variety of faiths that Jacobsen said can make the music “richer in imagery and storytelling than maybe Christian traditions are.”

Review by David Shengold-

Chautauqua Opera Company has been a key cultural feature of the Institution since 1929 — ranking it among the very oldest companies in North America. From the start, young singers performing here — both in leading roles and as Young Artists at various levels — have gone on to significant careers at the Metropolitan Opera House, in concert life and even in Hollywood. The lovely mezzo-soprano Gladys Swarthout, who took a featured role in 1929’s Faust, did all three. Plus, Chautauqua attendees, both new to opera and fans of it, have had ample chances to enjoy a varied banquet of the hybrid form’s great works.

¡Figaro! (90210), at Norton Hall, may challenge traditional opera-goers, but it may delight or at the very least intrigue them; it certainly would provide a lively introduction to the operatic universe for millennials and Generation Xers. Based on Mozart’s staggeringly lively and tuneful The Marriage of Figaro — by many estimates the most perfect comic opera ever written, this show conceived and adapted by Vid Guerrerio’s opened to acclaim in Los Angeles in 2015. Using cell phones, a framework of exploitation of Mexican immigrants and a salty mix of Spanglish, street language and contemporary references, the adapted libretto — in places brilliantly reimagined, in places rhythmically apt doggerel — addresses major questions about nationalism and identity. Remarkably, this adapted work was developed before the Donald Trump candidacy and administration’s all-out assault on Mexican immigration. Yet the issues portrayed — though treated with an admixture of humor befitting the source — could scarcely be more timely.

Chautauqua’s general and artistic director since the 2016 season, conductor Steven Osgood, has made some substantive changes in the program. The Norton Hall shows have longer runs — ¡Figaro! (90210) plays five times, with additional performances at 7 p.m. Sunday, and at 4 p.m. Friday, July 26. Also, seasons now have a conceptual unity. This summer’s operas are all associated with French author and polymath Pierre Beaumarchais, specifically his trilogy of “Figaro” plays, set in then-contemporary Spain and centering around a figure like the author himself: a sub-aristocratic (his surname’s “de” came to be added later, through considerable conniving), clever operator forced to rely on his own wits to contend with — and sometimes outwit — his social superiors. The trilogy includes The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro and The Guilty Mother.

When the second Beaumarchais play was still proscribed in France for its revolutionary sentiments, it obtained Viennese performance in Mozart’s version in 1786. This was largely due to the connections and libretto of the Veneto-born Lorenzo da Ponte, whose career outdid even Beaumarchais in variety and ingenuity: priest (despite his Jewish origins), teacher, diplomat, Viennese court poet, librettist, grocer (in Philadelphia), founder of Columbia University’s Italian Department and one of New York’s first operatic impresarios. An opera about da Ponte’s varied activity has appeared: Tarik O’Regan’s The Phoenix, unveiled this past season at Houston Grand Opera. Meanwhile, Beaumarchais himself plays a key role in John Corigliano’s 1991 The Ghosts of Versailles, which riffs on The Guilty Mother and comes to Chautauqua Saturday, July 27, in the Amphitheater.

Whether dealing with Beverly Hills or the original Andalusia, director Eric Einhorn has much experience with the Figaro characters, having directed for New York City’s On Site Opera many works inspired by the Beaumarchais trilogy, including Giovanni Paisiello’s initially popular Il Barbiere di Siviglia (later eclipsed by Rossini’s “Looney Toons”-cited classic, also in this summer’s repertory locally) and Darius Milhaud’s thorny La Mère Coupable. Einhorn certainly got his cast to explore the ambiguities and complexities of their identities and interrelations, even when Guerrerio’s update gets raunchy. (The “good guys,” the persecuted immigrants, themselves unleash racist epithets like “dragon lady” in relation to Marcellina, here “Ms. Soon Yi-Nam,” an exploitative trafficker and sweatshop boss). The spare design elements are all apt, with B.G. FitzGerald’s costumes particularly well observed. I regretted only Einhorn’s having the four conspirators against Susana and Figaro’s marriage indulge in the hoary provincial trope of “funny steps” in the brief dance rhythm section of Act II’s sublime final sextet.

The adaptation deploys a chamber group: the excellent pianist Emily Jarrell Urbanek and five accomplished string players (though perhaps due to humidity, the key violins sometimes veered a little sharp). Conductor Jorge Parodi led with verve and maintained good coordination with the stage — which was not always the case with the projected titles, a difficult task in this particular production.

As the undocumented — thus, at-risk — Susana, Laura León showed the sunny lyric soprano flow and ingratiating feisty persistence for the character. The occasional top note splayed slightly, but her performance — verbally keen in both Spanish and English — gave considerable pleasure. Jesús Vicente Murillo’s Figaro worked hard to please but seemed too affable; maybe his professions of being “street” and “dangerous” are meant to be self-deceptive? His bass didn’t always carry into the hall and got rather shouty on exposed top phrases. Matthew Cossack showed excellent diction, good legato and a smooth baritone as the lustful tycoon Paul Conti (also known as Count Almaviva). Guerrerio’s text smartly shows the character’s hypocritical sense of himself as a liberal, yielding easily to nativism (“Why can’t they speak English?”) when crossed.

The put-upon Countess is “Roxanne Conti,” an actress stalled in her career. Despite grotesque plastic surgery jokes (“Christ, I look like the Bride of the Mummy”) that contradict the spirit of Mozart’s music, the rich-toned Lauren Yokabaskas managed the famously testing entrance aria with dignity. Roxanne’s worries about being washed up at 40 seemed puzzling when the very handsome soprano looks to be at most 27, but perhaps one can ascribe that to the Los Angeles ethos that pervades Guerrerio’s revised text (lunch in Brentwood substituted for hunting). Be warned: “Dove sono” loses its recitative, repeat section and final trilled cadenza, and Susana and Roxanne’s beautiful “Letter Duet” — very wittily restyled as having the latter sext her own husband on the former’s cell phone — also drops its repeat. But the unconventional use made of Susana’s sublime final aria (no spoiler here) proved highly thematically relevant and moving.

The Count’s randy aristocratic page Cherubino, a female role traditionally, is here the 17-year-old wanna-be rapper Li’l B Man (also known as “Bernard”), a protégé of Conti’s who is getting on his nerves. If you know Cherubino’s two arias, it just grates to hear them in the tenor compass — not the fault of the show’s engaging performer, Sidney Ragland, who has an earnest, nimble music-theater style instrument, but the registration is just wrong. Scholars have sometimes posited that a third Cherubino aria may have been lost, so this edition reprises his love song (“Voi che sapete” in the original) to the teenage “Barbara,” here the Contis’ daughter than their gardener’s child. What initially is a typically misogynist rap becomes a sincere profession of admiration, a smart character arc for Li’l B Man — whom Barbara pegs as being “more bougie” even than her privileged self. Natalie Trumm acts the adolescent angst winningly, her nice dark lyric instrument sounding like a future Susana: exactly right. Another standout was dashing, sonorous bass Edwin Joseph as the sinister gangster Babayan (Dr. Bartolo), who proves to be Figaro’s father; Joseph seemed a good candidate for singing Figaro himself.

¡Figaro! (90210) will surely provoke discussions among those familiar with The Marriage of Figaro, and maybe desire among newbies to explore the original. Perhaps it’s important to recall that the “traditional” original has a wide history of being adapted and presented in different historical contexts. Former bad-boy director Peter Sellars Mozart’s trio of da Ponte-scripted works (the other two being Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte), all deal in some measure with class relations and their erotic complications. Sellars’ vision of a sleazy Manhattan millionaire abusing his servants was hailed as “the Trump Tower Figaro” years before Trump rose to national attention as the (putative) business wiz of “The Apprentice.” That version of The Marriage of Figaro, filmed in 1990, can be viewed on DVD. Two other appreciable versions to sample: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s sumptuous post-dubbed film led by Karl Böhm with an all-star cast and Claus Guth’s psychologically acute, visually updated — think Eurotrash — 2006 Salzburg staging under Nikolaus Harnoncourt with Anna Netrebko as Susanna. The Metropolitan’s current production by Richard Eyre, on view next season with Chautauqua Opera alumna Elizabeth Bishop as Marcellina, takes inspiration and aesthetic from Jean Renoir’s great pre-World War II film, “The Rules of The Game.”

A Philadelphia-based arts critic, David Shengold has written for Opera News, Opera (London), Opéra Magazine (Paris), Classical Voice North America and Time Out New York, among many venues. He has contributed program essays to the Metropolitan, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Covent Garden and the Glyndebourne and Wexford Festivals programs and lectured for NYCO, Glimmerglass Festival and Philadelphia’s Wilma Theatre. He has taught on opera, literature and cultural history at Oberlin, Mount Holyoke and Williams Colleges.

If the Alumni Association of the CLSC is the heart of Chautauqua, then this Sunday might just be its biggest annual workout. Featuring the Silent Auction, and coupled with the Brick Walk Book Walk and Authors Among Us Book Fair, the 41st annual Great American Picnic will be part of an afternoon filled with the sizzle of burgers and smell of new books.

The funds raised by the Silent Auction, an event that began Wednesday and continues until 2:30 p.m. Sunday, July 14 have historically been earmarked for the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall. Now, the money goes to scholarships benefitting Chautauqua County high school students, sponsoring an all-expenses paid week at the Institution — including a writing class at the Young Writers’ Institute and housing with a host family. Last year, the Silent Auction raised over $8,000.

“We’re looking for that kind of success again this year,” said Cate Whitcomb, executive secretary of the Alumni Association of the CLSC.

Entering its 41st year, the Great American Picnic will take place from noon to 2:45 p.m. Sunday in front of Alumni Hall. In 1978, 100 years after the first CLSC class graduated, the Alumni Association revived the Country Fair — a CLSC staple of the 1920s — as the Great American Picnic.

This summer, thanks in large part to the capital gained from the 2018 auction, Chautauqua welcomes nine teacher-recommended, rising high school seniors to the grounds. Whitcomb, whose mother came to Chautauqua in 1945 on scholarship from the CLSC Class of 1913, helps coordinate the program.

This year, Alumni Association opportunities expanded to include Chautauqua County teachers and librarians. This new scholarship funds a week-long class at Chautauqua every year for four years, CLSC membership, graduation and books. It is the Alumni Association’s hope that these adult scholarship recipients will establish reading “circles” to extend what they have learned from their CLSC books in a ripple effect of lifelong learning.

“The point is to keep educating people and keep it going outside the grounds,” Whitcomb said.

Past treasures up for bid at the Silent Auction include a bicycle, a kayak and a pinball machine. This year, Whitcomb anticipates more antiques: jewelry, decorative items and ornate birdcages. There might even be a set of Spode china for an ambitious collector.   

“This woman (who owns the china) is having some trauma about parting with it, but she said it’s all packed up and she’s putting it in the car,” Whitcomb said.

In previous auction years, Whitcomb has secured earrings and wine at a respectable price.

“Somebody had donated the wine, and my contribution is a tax deductible gift to the CLSC, so everyone comes out ahead,” she said. “I got a tax deduction, they got a contribution and I got four bottles of wine.”

Although the dining room is usually “stuffed with things, spilling out into the hallways” for the presale on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, almost everything sells by Sunday, Whitcomb said. And then the cycle begins again — they start collecting “as soon as (the picnic) is over.”

“The tradition of it (excites me),” Whitcomb said. “The idea that this is the 41st one in a row, it’s a nice, innocent, happy tradition. … The place is always just running over with kids. It’s a way for families on a Sunday afternoon to have a fun recreation. And I love anything that continues and doesn’t just stop for lack of interest.”

Whitcomb sees this community engagement in even the smallest planning details. She recently sent out a call for donated baked goods to accompany the hot dogs, potato salad and chips for sale.

“Immediately I had people saying, ‘Oh, I’ll bring a spice cake,’ ‘I’m bringing two dozen chocolate chip cookies,’ ‘I’m bringing brownies,’ ” she said. 

Concurrent with the picnic is the Brick Walk Book Walk, an event introduced last year by Atom Atkinson, directory of literary arts. Atkinson organized the Book Walk at the top of the 2018 season as a “useful hinge” between the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival and the rest of the season, and to introduce Chautauquans to the Poetry Makerspace, which then resided in the Colonnade.

This year, Atkinson and the literary arts team wanted to ensure people were directed visually down to the grove for the Great Amerian Picnic and the special discounts at the CLSC Octagon. The Chautauqua Bookstore and Smith Memorial Library will be running their own promotions and activities.

“As a result, we have a very vibrant set of options — including dining options — at each end (of the Book Walk),” Atkinson said. “It’s great for people to see just how much literary activity there is and that it’s not contained in just one part of the grounds.”

Norma Rees, former president of the Chautauqua Literary Arts Friends and organizer of the Authors Among Us Book Fair, is excited to provide local authors with a venue that attracts the broader literary arts and Chautauqua community.

“Last year was so successful — we actually started out with eight signed-up authors, and people came up and said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know. Can I please?’ and we ended up with 15,” Rees said. “This year we’re starting out with 15, so we’ll see how many we end up with.”

Responsible for their own sales, authors decorate tables lining the brick walk however they see fit.

“Some people have a lot of sales. … This might be their third year showing,” Rees said. “Others don’t have so many sales, but they are really grateful for the opportunity to network and to interact with the public.”

Sunny skies are predicted for Sunday, and Rees said she isn’t too worried about a potential storm.

“I have been shone on for the last four years, so I’m optimistic,” she said.

The following Chautauquan authors will be in attendance at the Authors Among Us Book Fair: Pat Averbach, Roger Barrows, Henry Danielson, Syd Goldsmith, Robert Hirt, Rutledge Hammes, Carol Jennings, Lara Lillibridge, KeeKee Minor, Mary Ann Morefield, Susan Nusbaum, Deb Pines, Courtney Reece, John Strazzabosco and Sabeeha Rehman.

The Chautauqua Trio will make its chamber music debut in an all-strings performance featuring two pieces the members consider classics of their repertoire, and one piece they’ve only just discovered.

The Chautauqua Trio’s show is the third concert in the Chautauqua Chamber Music Resident Artist Series and will take place at 4 p.m. Saturday in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. The trio will play three pieces: Zoltán Kodály’s “Intermezzo for String Trio,” Ernst von Dohnányi’s Serenade in C Major, Op. 10 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Trio No. 3, Op. 9.

The Chautauqua Trio is composed of violinist Vahn Armstrong, violist Eva Stern and cellist Jolyon Pegis. All three are also members of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and longtime Chautauquans — Armstrong is here for his 27th summer, Pegis for his 26th and Stern for her 19th. The group was formed this year; they’ve played in quartets before, including with a pianist last year, and decided this year to form their own string trio — a unique sort of group that comes with delights and difficulties.

“There’s a sparseness to the string trio sound,” Pegis said. “It’s a very lean sound and it’s a little bit, sometimes, like walking on a tightrope. You don’t have that fullness of sound (of a quartet), so you hear absolutely everything, and that’s a good thing — if you like what you hear.”

All three trio members love the three pieces — other than that, there is no set theme to the concert.

Kodály’s “Intermezzo” is lesser known than the other two pieces, and like much of Kodály’s work, is influenced by Hungarian folk music. Kodály was one of the first ethnomusicologists, and worked to preserve the musical traditions of Hungarian natives and common folk; his experiences in this endeavor contributed to his style of composition.

Much like the Hungarian language, the piece has heavier accents at the beginning of phrases, making it a catchy melody.

“I’m a little bit surprised it’s been so much under the radar,” Armstrong said. “It’s a very charming piece, … very lovely.”

Dohnányi’s Serenade is a five-movement piece that is a classic part of many musicians’ repertoire. All the members of the trio have played it many times before throughout all stages of their careers. Pegis first played the piece when he was 11 or 12 years old, and his own son first played it at that age as well.

“(It’s) so fun to play and so fun to listen to, and it has beautiful, beautiful tunes,” Pegis said. “It’s a piece I’ve known for a long time, and I’ve loved it every minute I’ve known it.”

One thing that is interesting about string trios, Armstrong said, is that many musical pieces utilize four-part harmonies, and it’s a bit of a “magic trick” for the composers of trios to figure out how to create the fullness of that harmony with only three instruments.

Beethoven wrote several pieces that do this, of which String Trio No. 3, Op. 9 is the most musically ambitious, Armstrong said. It is also in C minor, an important key for Beethoven and some of his most famous works, such as Symphony No. 5.

“It’s interesting to hear this very early work of Beethoven,” Armstrong said. “There are things in this trio that we’ve been noticing as we’ve been working on it that really foreshadow some of his most sophisticated final pieces that he wrote at the end of his life. It’s quite remarkable.”

There is a difference between playing in the CSO and playing chamber music; whereas being in the orchestra is about working well as a part within the whole, in chamber music the audience can hear everything each person is doing. This means there is less room for error, but more freedom for individual expression. Additionally, the nature of chamber music is that there is no conductor.

“You make all the musical decisions, including what to play,” Pegis said. “You decide every nuance of the piece: color of sound, tempo, everything you’re going to do, who’s got the important voice at the time that needs to come out — and so it’s harder when you are the one responsible and it’s also extremely satisfying.”

Playing in a smaller group also gives orchestra players a chance to better hear themselves, which allows them to notice minor hiccups in their playing that might have otherwise been overlooked.

“It’s rewarding to play chamber music, but I think it’s also good for us,” Stern said.

The trio hopes Chautauquans find something to enjoy and something new to discover at the concert, and plans for this to be the first of many performances as a group.

“I’m sure we will do more trio concerts in the future,” Pegis said. “Definitely.”