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The modern Olympic Games were first held in Athens, Greece, in 1896. Since then, the games have been held in cities like London, Paris and Los Angeles — the closest they have ever been to Chautauqua Institution is Lake Placid, New York, in 1932 and 1980.

But get ready, Chautauqua, to have your very own summer games: the CHQ Olympics.

Starting at noon Sunday and lasting through Thursday, individuals and teams of Chautauquans will compete in various activities. Some activities will be competitive and points will be awarded to winning teams — by the end of Week Three, gold, silver and bronze medals will be awarded.

The CHQ Olympics debuted last season, and many aspects of this season’s games will seem familiar.

“I was really lucky to have been given a pretty good foundation from what was done last year,” said Alyssa Porter, who recently joined Institution staff as director of youth and family programs this season. “For a first-year event, it sounds like it was a really big success.”

Porter had some ideas of her own to enhance the experience. She wanted to offer a wide range of activities — some are competitive and others are participatory. Teams can earn competitive points for events like the Inflatable Swan Race from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday at Children’s Beach. Others focus on wellness, and teams can earn participation points through events like the Choose Your Own Wellness Adventure, which doesn’t have a specific time or date.

“You can choose to walk 10,000 steps; you can bike,” Porter said. “You can try out a new healthy recipe, you can practice mindfulness or meditation, or do whatever works for you on your wellness journey.”

The goal is inclusivity for all Chautauquans. Other featured events include science, technology, engineering, arts and math events on Bestor Plaza; lawn games from noon to 2 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Wednesday on Bestor Plaza; and kayaking from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday at the Sports Club.

And what set of games would be complete without a structure modeled off of Harry Potter?

The 2019 CHQ Olympics will be structured like a House Cup from the famous J.K. Rowling series. Participants can enter as an individual or as teams of four to six people. Each individual and team will be assigned a color — blue, green, red and orange — toward which competitive and participatory points will be counted. All points will be tracked by volunteers, and Porter said the winning color, or “house” will be announced at 5:30 p.m. Thursday during the closing ceremonies on Bestor Plaza. Essentially, individual and team entrants become part of a larger team — their color — as they compete throughout the week.

But to Porter, winning is not the most important aspect of the games. She’s most excited the CHQ Olympics’ “community-building aspects.”

“I love the idea of these four teams bringing people together who may not know each other, who may not have spoken before coming to Chautauqua,” Porter said. “Incorporating new families to the Chautauqua experience, right away as soon as they jump in … those kinds of elements, I think, are going to be really fun this year.”

To register a team, visit chq.org/chq-olympics.

Property Owners Who Rent — a subdivision of the Chautauqua Property Owners Association — held its first meeting of the season Wednesday afternoon to discuss Chautauqua Institution’s water distribution system and updates on street lighting.

The discussion was led by Chautauqua Utility District Superintendent Mike Starks, who assumed the position in May 2018 when his predecessor, Tom Cherry, retired after 40 years of service.

Some street lights on Instiution grounds were owned by Buffalo’s National Grid until February, when CUD purchased the street lights from the company after nearly 10 years of work, Starks said.  The lights formerly owned by National Grid will all eventually be replaced with either Cree LED lights in cobra head lamps, or Neri 804 Heritage lamps with LED bulbs, as requested by the CPOA. Starks expects the project to be completed by next season.

However, attendees raised concerns about critically underlit areas, specifically around the Hall of Christ and South Parking Lot. While there is no immediate plan to address those areas, Starks said he would look into furnishing emergency lighting.

These plans were approved by the CPOA in 2016, and will not raise taxes or create additional charges or fees for property owners, according to Institution Trustee Bill Neches.     

Starks also went in-depth into the water treatment plant and distribution systems. The Institution draws surface water from Chautauqua Lake into the plant where chemicals and filters disinfect the water.

The disinfected water is then pumped into homes and to the 1 million-gallon storage tanks on the courses at the Chautauqua Golf Club. Daily, the water treatment plant pumps out 500 gallons of water per minute, according to Starks.

Used water is sent to what Starks called a “state-of-the-art,” multimillion-dollar wastewater treatment plant, updated in late 2017. After the waste is separated and filtered, the clean water is flushed back into Chautauqua Lake.

“What we return to the lake is much, much cleaner than what we take in,” Starks said.

When asked why CUD doesn’t switch to ground water harvested from drilled wells, Starks said wells could not support the Institution’s water intake. However, CUD is exploring alternative water sources in the event of lake water contamination.

Additionally, CUD will be updating pipes across the grounds based on pipe age and disrepair; that project will take place in phases ranging from five to 20 years. 

The next POWR meeting, at 1 p.m. Wednesday, July 17, in the Presbyterian House Chapel, will focus on landscaping.

During a phone call a few months ago with the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion and senior pastor, Jared Jacobsen found the answer to a problem.

“I don’t exactly know what to do,” Jacobsen told Robinson. “Most of the platform themes for this summer don’t lend themselves to religious themes.”

Robinson suggested he find a way to incorporate Week Three’s “A Planet In Balance: A Week in Partnership with National Geographic Society” into one of his Sacred Song Services, perhaps through the hymn tune “Terra Beata.”

That was all he needed to say.

At 8 p.m. Sunday, July 7 in the Amphitheater, Jacobsen — Chautauqua Institution’s organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music — will present the Sacred Song Service “Terra Beata,” which means “blessed Earth” in Latin.

“Terra Beata” is a tune by Christian hymn composer Franklin L. Sheppard that was adapted from the poem “This Is My Father’s World” by American writer and clergyman Maltbie Davenport Babcock.

“(The program) is going in a couple different directions, just to celebrate the magic of God’s creation,” Jacobsen said. “And if you need that, there’s no better place to go than St. Francis of Assisi.”

Part of the setlist for the service will be Assisi’s hymn text “All Creatures, Worship God Most High.”

“It’s seven verses of nature imagery and the bounty of nature,” Jacobsen said.

Jacobsen said Francis was wealthy as a child, and that his father was a cloth merchant and weaver.

“Francis gave up all his wealth when he was a teenager and took a vow of poverty, much to the horror of his parents,” Jacobsen said. “So our image of St. Francis — in the brown robes with bare feet, with a bird on his shoulder and cradling a lamb — that was his real world. And with his father’s blessing, he eventually liquidated his inheritance and gave it away to people that needed it.”

Chautauqua’s wealth of home gardens, many of which have statues of St. Francis, make it the ideal place to celebrate Francis’ hymn, according to Jacobsen.

“The Seal Lullaby,” with words by English poet Rudyard Kipling and music by American composer Eric Whitacre, will also be featured.

“It sort of hit the choral music world by storm when it premiered about 10 years ago,” Jacobsen said. “It’s so tender. It’s not an overtly religious text, but it’s in reverence to the life of this mother to her child.”

According to Jacobsen, while this Sacred Song Service is more secular than his typical program, it will be more accessible because of it.

“You don’t have to be of any particular faith tradition to understand that when you’re walking around in a place like (Chautauqua), nature is gracing you at every turn,” he said.

Review by Steve Sucato:

Chautauqua mainstay Charlotte Ballet returned to the Amphitheater Wednesday night for the first of its two productions this summer. With its “International Series,” the company offered up a taste of the classics, both ballet and modern, along with two contemporary dance spectacles.

Opening the program was Peter Schaufuss’ reconstruction of the balcony scene pas de deux from Sir Frederick Ashton’s Romeo & Juliet. The rarely seen pas de deux, first staged on the Royal Danish Ballet in 1955 to music by Sergei Prokofiev, was danced by Charlotte Ballet’s Chelsea Dumas and Josh Hall. 

Ashton’s uniquely beautiful choreography for the scene was a mixture of reserved delicacy and elegance. Rather than focusing the pas de deux on Romeo and Juliet’s impassioned desire for one another, as in other interpretations — including Ashton’s successor at England’s Royal Ballet, Sir Kenneth MacMillan — the scene appeared to hone in on the couple’s unbridled joy. When the two first meet onstage, they get lost in each other’s eyes and we get lost in their heartfelt discovery of one another. 

Hall’s Romeo was dashing to Dumas’ angelic Juliet. Ashton’s illustrative movement for the pas de deux included unusual rolls of the head and shoulders by the dancers, Hall lifting Dumas in arabesque to hop in small steps arcing around the stage, and Dumas contently relaxing into Hall’s embrace, her head resting on his shoulders. The euphoric and dreamy dance concluded with a trio of kisses by the pair as Romeo departed the stage leaving Juliet with one arm raised, smiling and pledging her eternal love for him heavenward.

From classical ballet to classic modern dance, a brief portion of “Cunningham Centennial Solos” came next. Performed by Anson Zwingelberg, the solo excerpted from Merce Cunningham’s BIPED (1999) and Objects (1970) was part of 2019’s international commemoration of what would have been the late choreographer’s 100th birthday. Zwingelberg, performing to experimental electronic music by John King, bounded about the stage, arms curved like parentheses at his sides, hopping and turning from one delineated dance step into another. Zwingelberg gave a respectable performance of the iconic choreographer’s signature minimalist, technically demanding choreography.

Next, the work of choreographer and former Ballett Frankfurt dancer Helen Pickett was presented for a second successive summer as part of Charlotte Ballet’s repertoire. Pickett’s “IN Cognito,” which the company world premiered in Charlotte last April, was inspired in spirit by North Carolina writer Tom Robbins’ 2003 novel Villa Incognito. 

The contemporary ballet, set to music by Jóhann Jóhannsson, Mikael Karlsson and Joshua Rubin, was said to explore the duality of wanting to be seen and not wanting to. With a nod to North Carolina’s furniture industry, Pickett littered the stage with furniture pieces including lamps, chairs, a sofa and a potted tree that dancer Elizabeth Truell, at times throughout the ballet, hid behind. 

Nine dancers performed Pickett’s idiosyncratic movement that appeared a cross between 1960s staccato jazz dance and the mechanized motions of a music box dancer. Injected into that was everything from lush contemporary ballet partnering to snippets of the social dance “The Floss,” in which a person with clenched fists repeatedly swings their arms from the back of their body to the front on each side.

All given a turn in the spotlight over the course of the ballet, Pickett juxtaposed dancers highlighted in spotlight with those in shadow performing alongside or behind them in moments of unison choreography; the effect was entrancing. When not moving the furniture about the stage, the dancers performed around and on it, as in a daring twisting and turning trio that saw Sarah Hayes Hawkins lifted and flipped about by Ben Ingel and Juwan Alston as a trio of women to their side danced with heads bowed and throw pillows pressed to their ears.

A quirky work of competing moods in both demeanor and musicality, the dancers could be found at times lounging on furniture as they watched others perform, coyly lurking in the shadows on various parts of the stage, or precision marching about in packs.

The movement-dense and engaging work came to a halt in a false ending as the dancers all laid on their backs in silence on the stage floor before continuing for a bit more as it had before that break.

The final piece on the program, “Petite Cérémonie” (Little Ceremony), came courtesy of French choreographer Medhi Walerski. Premiered by Canada’s Ballet BC in 2011 (where Hope Muir was a former rehearsal director), Walerski’s contemporary work for 15 dancers, 15 white boxes on a white dance floor, was a bit of a mashup of the choreographic stylings of a plethora of European choreographers over the past several decades, including Ohad Naharin, Pina Bausch, Mats Ek and Jiří Kylián.

Walerski said in a YouTube video about “Petite Cérémonie” that he wanted to create a work where the dancers and dancing were more human, with a less of an emphasis on perfection. Taken as a whole, he realized that desire with a gem of a work that was unlike any seen at Chautauqua before.

Danced to music by Mozart, Bellini, Vivaldi and others, the piece began in a slow burn to the distant sound of an opera singer’s aria as dancer James Kopecky quietly walked to center stage to stand with legs together and began a step sequence alternating one foot tapping the top of the other that was repeated continuously, while the rest of the cast emerged from various areas of the Amphitheater to walk through the audience and join him onstage in a horizontal line doing the same stepping sequence.

Walerski’s choreography for the work then moved through more of these unison group movement sequences that varied in tone and intensity. Costumed in black cocktail dresses for the women and black suits for the men (white shirts untucked and sans ties), the dancers moved through precisely timed, gesture-laden choreography that had them snapping their fingers, clapping, vocalizing grunts, groans and laughter in surprising spurts throughout the work.

Feeling more at times like being witness to a surreal dream of a dance work than to an actual one, “Petite Cérémonie” turned bizarre into beauty as it built energy toward an inevitable big bang ending. 

Father into the work, Ingel, in a humorous vignette, juggled three balls while speaking into a microphone explaining how a man’s compartmentalized brain differs from a woman’s, and adding one of those compartments is empty and that men are happy to dwell there doing nothing. A couple’s group dance followed, led by soloist Sarah Lapointe who performed with a smooth slinkiness. After that came a succession of delicious Kylián-esque pas de deuxs beginning with adroit dancers Maurice Mouzon Jr. and Alessandra Ball James and a women’s group dance in shadow light, with Kopecky to the side of them standing atop a white box mouthing a speech no one would hear. The work came to its climactic end with the dancers again each pushing around a white box, this time to the “Winter” section of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, stopping to perform dance phrases seated on them and then in one final flurry, lift and stack them into a pyramid where several dancers scrambled up it to create a tableau of posed dancers reminiscent of a fashion magazine photo spread.

For Chautauqua audiences who have known and loved Charlotte Ballet’s stellar performances over the past several decades, Muir’s bold new contemporary repertory for the company has given them even more to love.

Based in Painesville, Ohio, Steve Sucato is a contributing writer, critic and reporter. His work has appeared in such publications as The Plain Dealer, The Buffalo News, Pittsburgh City Paper and Dance Magazine, among others.

For the cast of ¡Figaro! (90210), the experience of performing their characters, especially on several nights throughout the season, is deeply profound.

Baritone Jesús Vicente Murillo, who plays Figaro, said there’s nothing like developing a character along with castmates.

“This has been so much more of a developmental process — I’ve watched all of us grow as characters and as actors and singers,” Murillo said. “I feel like so much of the characters that we’ve showed up with have changed and improved.”

At 7 p.m. Sunday, July 7 in Norton Hall, the Chautauqua Opera Company cast of Young Artists will come together to perform a third night of Vid Guerrerio’s ¡Figaro! (90210), a modern take on Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

The original, four-hour opera tells the story of the main characters Figaro’s and his fiancé Susanna’s wedding day; both are employed as servants by Count Almaviva. This opera comes three years after Figaro helped the Count marry his wife, Countess Rosina, in the first story of the Figaro trilogy written by Pierre Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville.

In this adapted version of The Marriage of Figaro, Guerrerio’s ¡Figaro! (90210), the Count and his wife are placed in Beverly Hills, living an extravagant lifestyle as Paul and Roxanne Conti, who are portrayed by Matthew Cossack and Lauren Yokabaskas. Figaro and his fiancé Susana, played by Laura León — originally referred to as Susanna in the original story — are undocumented Mexican workers employed by Paul and Roxanne. Through scheming, deception and flirtation, Susana fights for her Green Card while also trying to marry Figaro. Meanwhile, Roxanne attempts mending her relationship with her husband Paul.

Murillo said the story is a new opera and not just a “translation” of another opera, which allowed him to look at the story with fresh eyes.

“Once I came to terms with that, it was very liberating because I feel like when it is a translation, you’re trying to recreate the original as best as possible,” Murillo said. “When it’s an adaptation, you really have no obligation to recreate the original. Rather, you just create it for what it is.”

The characters in ¡Figaro! (90210) are stock characters; stereotypical, two-dimensional, usually found in fictional work. Murillo said he had preconceived notions of Figaro’s character, but he could still play the archetype while bringing aspects of himself to the role.

This is Cossack’s first time playing the Count. He said he had to be both comfortable with his castmates as well as the adapted story itself.

“(The Count) is completely different, but he’s still alike in some ways,” Cossack said. “So, it’s about finding the similarities between the adaptation and the original — it’s a completely different animal.”

Each Young Artist said they were enjoying the process, despite the differences from traditional repertoire. Cossack said this different experience brought them together in a new way.    

“We kind of clicked from day one,” Cossack said. “We all brought something unique to the characters, and those individual characters really found a way to make this show work.”

For León, she said her character’s actions are reflective of what many women have to do to survive and be successful. She said since the opera carries themes of racism and sexism, her character has to appease her superiors in different ways to achieve her goals, something Leon has done herself.

“Susana literally has to survive in a place where she has to wear many different faces,” León said. “As a woman, that’s something that I never really internalized, as in the things that I have to do (to be taken seriously).”

Throughout the performance, Susana has to disguise herself and play different roles, helping her friends and avoiding threats of deportation. Murillo said León plays Susana well, showing how she’s just a regular person navigating real world issues.

“Susana is one of the greatest characters in all of opera, in that she does so many things,” Murillo said. “It’s a hard role to sing; it’s a hard role to act. Susana is an exceptional character in that she isn’t exceptional — she’s just an everyday person.”    

Yokabaskas had a different conception of her role as the Countess. She said she originally thought the Countess was a “real housewife of Beverly Hills” type of woman, but stage director Eric Einhorn changed her mind.

“You can go at it thinking of yourself and not necessarily putting on a whole different character,” Yokabaskas said. “And that really changed it for me, as I think of these people as people and not a caricature.”

Yokabaskas said the show is all about people and relationships, a notion that came to her as she continued to develop her character.

The cast hopes to share the contemporary love story of ¡Figaro! (90210) as they head into their third performance. León said she is going to change things up and focus on different aspects of her character in this performance.

“Last time I was trying to be more human, but this time I am going to play up the love story,” León said.

The cast members are eager to keep telling the story of people, relationships and love. Murillo said it’s a real story, and it’s a little bit different every night.

“Opening night just showed that this show is a living, breathing animal that cannot be tamed,” Murillo said. “I am really excited to see what happens tonight.”

Steven Osgood, the general and artistic director of Chautauqua Opera, will lead a ¡Figaro! 90210 Operalogue at 5 p.m. Sunday, July 7  in McKnight Hall.

Over the past two decades, Mustafa Akyol has studied the complexities of both Islamic theology and the arguments behind religious freedom.

“I’m not doing theology for theology’s sake, I’m doing it for human rights,” said Akyol, a journalist, nonfiction author and senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity.

And indeed he is — while Akyol has authored books like Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty, he was also arrested briefly in 2017 by Malaysia’s “religion police” while giving a lecture there on free will in religion.

At 2 p.m. Friday, July 5 in the Hall of Philosophy, Akyol will lead the second Interfaith Friday of the season with a lecture on Islam and the problem of evil. Akyol will be in conversation with The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion and senior pastor.

Akyol is a regular contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and is currently working on his next book, titled Reopening the Muslim Mind for Reason, Freedom and Tolerance.

“I’m writing a new book which delves into the theological conundrums of early Islam, which I believe are quite important today,” he said.

One key dispute in early Islam that Akyol said he’ll cover in his new book is the Euthyphro dilemma, a philosophical problem involving a view of morality and theism discussed by Socrates in one of Plato’s dialogues.

“It goes back to Socrates,” Akyol said. “It’s based on a question: ‘Does God order something that is objectively right and ban something that is objectively wrong, or do things become right or wrong based on God’s commandments?’ ”

By way of an example, Akyol said to consider the sixth of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not kill.”

The Euthyphro dilemma, according to Akyol, asks if killing became morally wrong because God included it in the Commandments, or if it was already bad, and the Ten Commandments came about as a reminder of that.

“This was a big dilemma for theologians, both in Christianity and Islam,” he said. “In Christianity, it ultimately led to the Divine Command Theory.”

According to Akyol, the Divine Command Theory says that “whatever God does is right, and whatever God bans is wrong.”

“In Islam, (the theory) is represented by Ash’arism,” he said, referencing the theological school of Sunni Islam that employs an orthodox guideline in its teachings.

The problem with thinking in such a binary way, according to Akyol, is that it “doesn’t leave much room to discuss the problem of evil.”

“The solution from (the Ash’ari) perspective is: ‘Whatever God is doing is good, so why are you even asking?’ That is a roadblock on moral reasoning,” he said.

While Akyol questions the moral frameworks of Islam and their social consequences in his books and lectures, he said he hopes attendees of his Interfaith Friday lecture will understand that Islam, Christianity and Judaism are fundamentally similar religions.

“They’re all different forms of Abrahamic monotheism,” he said. “That’s why the same theological questions that have been asked throughout history have bothered Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.”

In the 20th century, however, Akyol said the politics of modern life drive adherents to these religions apart — even though he said they have more in common than they might realize.

“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for instance, makes a lot of Muslims and Jews think that there’s a big rift between us,” he said. “That’s a political issue. There’s a world of faith and belief that should not be boiled down to politics.”

Throughout the Institution’s 145-year history, presidents and heads of state, such as Earl Aberdeen and Bill Clinton, have visited Chautauqua’s grounds. But, to the best of archival knowledge, never before has the Institution received a queen.   

But at 8:15 p.m. tonight, July 5, in the Amphitheater, the queen will take the stage. The queen of soul, that is.

Diana Ross, one of the few recording artists to have not one, but two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, has enchanted audiences around the world for decades.

“Who wouldn’t want to invite Diana Ross?” said Deborah Sunya Moore, vice president of performing and visual arts. “She is the queen of soul, the queen of Motown — she’s a legacy artist that I have always wanted to have here.”

Ross, whose performance tonight is provided for by Week Two program sponsor Erie Insurance,  is an American singer, record producer and actress, and has been performing since her start in 1959 with The Primettes in Detroit, which would later become The Supremes. By 1970, Ross left the group to pursue a solo career. Once her solo career began, she continued to thrive in the music industry, releasing hits like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Love Hangover.”

She has since released a total of 12 top-10 hits, and won a Grammy in 2012.

“I just think having an artist of such importance in America is exactly the type of thing that we want to do at Chautauqua, and I’m just so honored that we have this opportunity to present her,” Moore said.

Among her responsibilities at the Institution, Moore is in charge of scheduling evening entertainment. She said she is excited for Ross to perform in the new Amp because, since its 2016-17 renovation, it is now fit for an artist of her prestige. Those renovations included a larger orchestra pit, improved stage lighting and technology systems for sound and projection, a larger stage, an improved loading dock with stage-level access and a new area for artists, guests and production crews.

“I’m excited that she’ll be singing in the new Amphitheater, which has a backstage area which, I think, is now appropriate for an artist of her stature and is typically what an artist of her stature expects,” Moore said.

Moore is delighted to welcome Ross to Chautauqua, as she’s an artist Moore especially admires.

“I hope she feels and senses what a community this is and just how special it is to have her here,” Moore said.

Moore believes Ross’ performance could potentially be, “the most memorable moment of the summer.”

Here’s a look back at Ross’ six solo No.1 hits!

Timeline by Digital Editor, William Carter.

During a brutal heatwave in Chicago in July 1995, which killed 739 people, some areas of the city fared better than others.

In Englewood and Auburn Gresham, two neighborhoods that border each other in Chicago’s South Side, the number of people who died in the heat wave varied drastically, despite the fact that both neighborhoods had high rates of poverty, unemployment and crime.

In Englewood, there were 33 deaths out of 100,000 residents. In Auburn Greshman, there were just three deaths out of every 100,000 residents.

In his book, Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life, published last year, sociologist Eric Klinenberg argues that the dramatic difference in the death rate in these two seemingly similar places can be attributed to the presence or lack of social infrastructure in the community — places like libraries, playgrounds and coffee shops.

Klinenberg will discuss the effect of social infrastructure on communities at the 10:45 a.m. lecture Friday, July 5 in the Amphitheater, closing out Week Two, “Uncommon Ground: Communities Working Toward Solutions.”

“People forge bonds in places that have healthy social infrastructures — not because they set out to build community, but because when people engage in sustained, recurrent interaction, particularly while doing things they enjoy, relationships inevitably grow,” Klinenberg wrote in Palaces for the People.

These relationships are incredibly helpful in disaster situations, such as the 1995 Chicago heat wave. When people feel more connected to their communities, they are more likely to check in on each other. This is especially helpful when it comes to residents who are elderly, sick or live alone, and might be in need of help.

“During the heat wave, the people of Englewood were vulnerable not just because they were black and poor, but also because their neighborhood had been abandoned,” Klinenberg wrote. “The residential blocks looked and felt ‘bombed out,’ and the social infrastructure that had once supported collective life had deteriorated.”

Klinenberg is a professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. His research focuses on cities, climate change, culture, politics, media technology and social policy. He has published work in a number of journals, and his writing has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Before Palaces for the People, Klinenberg authored Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone; Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media; and Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago.

Klinenberg argues that there are myriad benefits of people living in more interconnected communities.

“While social infrastructure alone isn’t sufficient to unite polarized societies, protect vulnerable communities or connect alienated individuals, we can’t address these challenges without it,” he wrote.

Baritone Daniel Belcher has been playing Figaro for 23 years. With a fitting voice and exemplary comedic timing, Belcher has fully embraced the character; Figaro has become a part of Belcher.

“I always say that visiting Figaro is like visiting an old friend,” Belcher said. “When I describe my Figaro — it’s kind of like any role actually — at the end of the day, it’s just me.”   

Belcher said he’s comfortable with the role but is looking forward to seeing a new side of the character with a new cast.

Chautauqua Opera Company will open Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia — known more commonly as The Barber of Seville — at 4 p.m. Friday, July 5 in Norton Hall. The opera is described as an “opera buffa,” which means a comedic opera where the comedy is written within the music.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia, based on the play of the same name written by Pierre Beaumarchais, is set three years before The Marriage of Figaro, another Beaumarchais play and an opera by Mozart; it offers insight into the beginnings of the characters’ relationships.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia is a story about a love-struck nobleman, Count Almaviva — played by Young Artist Blake Friedman, tenor — who hopes to make the lovely Rosina —  played by Guest Artist Aleks Romano, mezzo-soprano — fall in love with him. Rosina is the ward of the forever grumpy Dr. Bartolo, played by baritone Guest Artist Marco Nisticò, who hopes to marry Rosina when she comes of age. The Count asks Figaro to help him in his quest to meet Rosina, which sets the scene for the rest of the opera.   

The characters are dealing with 18th-century problems, like class stature, but in the end, it’s a basic love story. Belcher said that as the first story in the Figaro Trilogy, it sets the scene for deep topics in the following works; the trilogy begins with The Barber of Seville, followed by The Marriage of Figaro and The Guilty Mother.

“When Beaumarchais was writing (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), he was really just introducing these characters first,” Belcher said.

Kathleen Smith Belcher, stage director for Il Barbiere di Siviglia, said that comedy is key to the plot, but getting the comedic timing right is more difficult than people realize.

“Comedy is a lot harder,” Smith Belcher said. “And it’s all about timing.”

She said sometimes if a wrong step is taken or the actor misses a beat, then it throws the rest of the bit off, which is even more difficult when the comedic timing is written into the music.

“One of my rules of comedy is the people aren’t funny, the situation is,” Smith Belcher said. “It’s about trying to pull people back that are trying to be funny when, really, I want them to just be real people with real problems.”

The character of Figaro is a jack of all trades and manipulates almost everything in the opera, which drives the situational comedy. Smith Belcher was inspired by Beaumarchais, who was a playwright, clockmaker and polymath. In this production, Figaro stops time and moves it in order to help the lovelorn Count.

“He manipulates everything in the play and opera anyway,” Smith Belcher said. “He was able to, among his other tasks, manipulate time as well — he stops time when he needs to.”

Belcher said the element of time fits well with the music, creating a fun twist on the traditional story.

The cast is a mix of Guest Artists and Young Artists, bringing together opera singers with varying experiences. Smith Belcher said the cast members are familiar with the opera, making the rehearsal process smooth.

“When everybody comes on their A-game, and this team is, it’s like kids with a toy box,” Smith Belcher said. “It’s just a lot of fun.”

Romano, who plays Rosina, has been in Il Barbiere di Siviglia several times throughout her professional career.

“I love spitfire female characters,” Romano said. “She is a bit of a spitfire and this music is all about showing the virtuosity of the voice, but she’s not here to just sing pretty notes.”

For Friedman, it’s the second time that he has played the role of the Count. Count Almaviva disguises himself in different roles to get closer to Rosina.

“In some ways, I look at (The Count’s situation with) Rosina as a parallel to my own life in trying to get into the career of being an opera singer,” Friedman said. “I literally get into different characters to try to find a way to make it to the end goal of working as an opera singer.”

The cast brings the lighthearted romantic comedy to life, creating something that everyone can enjoy. Belcher said there is a stigma that opera is traditional and difficult to understand, but this opera defies that stigma. Chautauqua Opera’s production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia is visually and audibly interesting, perfect for all types of audiences, Belcher said.

“If people have been hesitant about coming to the opera, then this may very well be the best one, two or three to jump into,” Belcher said. “There’s a lot of activity, the comedy is great, the voices are spectacular — it’s just a lot of fun.”

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  The Chautauqua Symhony Orchestra, led by Conductor Rossen Milanov, delivers a strong performance accompanied by famed pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk on Tuesday night, July 2, 2019 in the Amphitheater. ALEXANDER WADLEY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
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  Conductor Rossen Milanov directs the Chautauqua Symhony Orchestra to stand for applause after finishing the first song of the concert during the performance Tuesday night, July 2, 2019 in the Amphitheater. ALEXANDER WADLEY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
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  The Chautauqua Symhony Orchestra, led by Conductor Rossen Milanov, delivers a strong performance accompanied by famed pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk on Tuesday night, July 2, 2019 in the Amphitheater. ALEXANDER WADLEY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
• 
  The Chautauqua Symhony Orchestra, led by Conductor Rossen Milanov, delivers a strong performance accompanied by famed pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk on Tuesday night, July 2, 2019 in the Amphitheater. ALEXANDER WADLEY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Review by Christopher Gibbs-

Three long threads were woven into the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra concert Tuesday evening. The first is called “Into the Music/After the Music,” intermission-less programs after which the audience is invited to ask questions of Music Director Rossen Milanov. The second: several concerts this summer featuring Russian music, in this instance Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Finally, there is the ongoing collaboration of the CSO with the remarkable pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk, who is appearing for his 14th consecutive summer at Chautauqua.

The briefer programming format has several advantages. Audiences evidently enjoy that some concerts are given without an intermission, while welcoming the chance to linger afterward for a discussion that helps to build bridges between listeners and performers. More practically, most CSO concerts are prepared with just one rehearsal. This used to be the standard procedure for every CSO concert until a few decades ago, when the total number of season performances was slightly reduced and the number of rehearsals somewhat increased.

But most concerts are still presented with limited rehearsal time, which demands the conductor’s efficient preparation and the orchestra’s adept professionalism. The fine results speak for themselves, but it all requires strategic planning. A program like the one on Tuesday, with just two works totaling some 45 minutes of music, benefits from having a bit more time to rehearse, especially when it includes an often tricky and relatively rarely performed piece like the Rachmaninoff concerto.

Milanov’s care was immediately evident with the opening work, the far more commonly heard Prelude and Liebestod from Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, which he led in an uncommonly subtle performance. This is a piece that changed music history (two weeks from now we will get to hear another game changer when the Music School Festival Orchestra joins the CSO for Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”).

The opera’s plot revolves around the doomed love of the title characters, as Isolde is betrothed to Tristan’s much older uncle, King Marke. One of Wagner’s brilliant achievements in this opera was finding a musical analogue to the lover’s unfulfilled erotic passion. The first chord in the Prelude — the “Tristan Chord,” perhaps the most discussed and famous in all of Western music — is unresolved according to the traditional rules of tonal harmony (the Rolling Stones would say it gets “no satisfaction”). Wagner immediately repeats it, again without resolving the dissonance. And then does so again and again — for nearly five hours. The effect is astonishing. The chord is finally resolved only at the very end, when Tristan and Isolde are both dead.

What we heard Tuesday gave us the beginning and end of the opera, skipping the many hours in between. Milanov chose a relatively fast tempo for the opening, one that I think serves the music well, unlike some conductors who drag things out, supposedly for greater profundity. The pacing over the course of work was totally convincing and built to effective, blossoming climaxes that wonderfully captured the sweep of this intoxicating score.

Midway through, there is a quick splice that transports us to the end of the opera. This is when Isolde, standing over the body of her dead lover, sings her “Transfiguration,” which because of a piano transcription by Wagner’s father-in-law, Franz Liszt, became more popularly known as the “Liebestod” or “Love Death.” In the opera,   the music of this some 7-minute-long section largely repeats that of the great second-act love duet before the lovers are discovered, but orchestras often perform the excerpt purely instrumentally. 

Gavrylyuk’s special bond with Chautauqua has led to his return each summer for performances with the CSO, recitals and chamber music, master classes and a more recent position as artist-in-residence and artistic adviser to the School of Music’s Piano Program. There is clearly a commitment on both sides that continues even as his international recognition and career justifiably skyrocket.

This summer displayed another type of loyalty and flexibility. Daniil Trifonov, a terrific pianist who performed with the CSO some years ago, was supposed to play Scriabin’s Piano Concerto on the season’s opening concert, but had to cancel. Gavrylyuk graciously stepped in to perform Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” In turn, he switched his originally scheduled performance for Tuesday of Brahms’ First Concerto to Rachmaninoff’s First.

I will gladly hear Gavrylyuk play anything, but he is a Rachmaninoff specialist, so it is a particular pleasure that Chautauquans in short succession got to hear him perform two of the composer’s five works for piano and orchestra. While he has recorded all of Sergei Prokofiev’s piano concertos, and some of Rachmaninoff’s solo keyboard music, Gavrylyuk has not yet recorded the concertos (his widely praised performance of the Third Concerto at the BBC Proms concerts in 2017 can be viewed on YouTube, and is simply extraordinary).

Chances to hear Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 are relatively rare, especially in comparison with the composer’s much more familiar second and third concertos and Paganini Rhapsody (his fourth concerto is the unjustly ignored ugly duckling). Although he composed a fair amount of juvenilia, Rachmaninoff decided that the First Piano Concerto should be presented as the official Opus 1. The 17-year-old began composing the work in the summer of 1890, and premiered its first movement in 1892. A few years later he published the concerto in a two-piano version, but cooled on the piece, which he stopped playing until he could get around to revising it.

By his mid-30s, Rachmaninoff was an internationally famous composer, particularly after the success of the second and third concertos (1901 and 1909). It was not until 1917, just before he left Russia in the wake of the Revolution to live permanently in the West, that he returned to his youthful effort. The revisions involved a thinning out of the orchestration, making some structural modifications, writing a new cadenza for the opening movement, and considerable recasting of the finale. He gave the first performance of the new version in 1919, at Carnegie Hall.

Despite the revisions, the First Concerto still sounds like the Rachmaninoff whose music audiences so embraced, chronologically situated, as it is, both before and after its phenomenally famous siblings and dazzling Second Symphony. Since the original version of the concerto survives we know that the revision remains close to what the teenage Rachmaninoff initially composed.

Gavrylyuk brought to his performance his usual thrilling technical wizardry, but also the large-scale drama that makes his Rachmaninoff so special. Milanov and the CSO were perfect partners in this drama and adeptly handled the tricky metrical challenges of the final movement. Audiences can look forward to this fabulous pianist’s recital in the Amphitheater next week.

Christopher H. Gibbs is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Music at Bard College, artistic director of the Bard Music Festival, executive editor of The Musical Quarterly and program annotator for The Philadelphia Orchestra. His books include The Life of Schubert, which has been translated into six languages, and the College Edition of The Oxford History of Western Music, co-authored with Richard Taruskin.

The word “history” holds more meaning than just being a record of events.

“I don’t want to just talk about our history; I want us to talk about our story, and it is our story,” said Chuck Yarborough, who in April was named the Organization of American Historians Tachau Teacher of the Year. “Black history, white history, Jewish history, Christian, rich, poor male, female — all of it is our story.”

As a continuation of the Week Two interfaith theme, “Common Good Change Agents,” Yarborough, a history teacher at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, and two of his students addressed the role of history in their lecture, titled “Burial Ground is Common Ground,” in conversation with The Atlantic’s James Fallows.

Yarborough incorporated two projects into his curriculum for students to help them connect with the history and community of Columbus, Mississippi.

“The reason the projects that we’ll talk about today resonate is because so many of us understand that we’ve not been allowed to understand and engage that complete, complex story,” Yarborough said. “We’ve been tackling tough issues together by exploring our communities, our states and our nation’s story on the common ground of the burial ground, our cemeteries.”

Yarborough literally means exploring cemeteries. Every year, he presents a list of people to his students: people who died before 1930, lived in Columbus, Mississippi, and contributed to the history of the town. Some of the names on the list are from Yarborough wandering around the local cemetery. His students then pick an individual to research in Columbus’ local library archives and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson, Mississippi. This research is a part of the first project titled “Tales from the Crypt,” that students work on in Yarborough’s class.

“I challenge them to think about looking through the life of somebody and thinking of that as a window,” Yarborough said.

After conducting primary research from August to November, the students write research papers and create a performance, based on the person they researched, to present to the community — staged in the local cemetery.

“Between 40 and 50 students audition. … The final performance, by candlelight in costume, is in the cemetery before about 2,000 guests,” Yarborough said. “At that moment you see an example of the power of performance, students finding meaning in historical research, conveying it to the public and challenging that public to think.”

Through the performances and by connecting the history of Columbus with the community, Yarborough said that students are creating a space where the community is free to think, creating that common ground.

Erin Williams, one of Yarborough’s students and a recent graduate of MSMS, was invited to the Hall of Philosophy podium to perform. She was dressed in a late-19th-century costume and told the story of Susan Casement Maer, the editress of the Columbus Commercial, a local newspaper.

“In 1881, I heard that the Columbus Commercial was for sale, so I went out on a limb and decided to buy it, Williams said, as Maer. “I even told a couple of my friends, because I was so excited about buying the business. But they all said things like, ‘Women do the chores,’ and ‘Jobs like those are for men,’ and ‘Women take care of the children, not business.’ I took their opinions with a grain of salt. I love to write and I knew I commanded that newspaper.”

Yarborough said performances like Williams’ were beneficial for the community because they took people from history and connected them with important issues that continue to be addressed today, including gender roles, race, war, loss and even slavery.

“This is not a kinder, gentler, happier kind of thing all the time,” Yarborough said. “You know, sometimes there’s great humor in the performances but they are also honest. And I do expect that, as we walk into that burial ground, people are open to receive what the students have drawn from their research.”

The second project Yarborough has assigned to his students is the Eighth of May Emancipation Celebration performance, a project which allows students to portray some of Columbus’ late-19th- and early-20th-century African American leaders.

Union troops arrived in Columbus on May 8, 1865, and although it didn’t end slavery, Yarborough said that the troops’ arrival brought hope that an end to slavery and white supremacy was indeed in sight. The project itself is completed in small groups of students within Yarborough’s African American history classes.

“Groups of students do research on individuals that are associated in some way, and they also write scripts, and then they ask students that are dramatic performers to perform them rather than perform them themselves,” Yarborough said. “We do that performance … on a stage that the city has put in the cemetery forests. It happens in the historic Sandfield Cemetery, a historic African American burial ground established in the 1840s.”

On this stage, students perform passionately; there is even a student-directed, student-led gospel choir that performs music between the scenes.

“(The show) culminates after the final dramatic performance with the students inviting the audience to sing together,” Yarborough said. “And there’s not a more powerful moment for me on an annual basis than that moment.”

Dairian Bowles, Yarborough’s student and another recent graduate of MSMS, was then invited to the stage to perform his skit on Senator Robert Gleed, the only African American to represent all of Lowndes County in the state legislature. Bowles was also dressed in a costume that reflected the style of the late 19th century.

“At the age of 17, I was living in the grips of slavery in Virginia … and I escaped, but unfortunately, I was captured outside of Columbus,” Bowles said, as Gleed. “Once I was free, I immediately set to work on starting my own businesses and helping throughout my community. In 1867, the military governor appointed me to the Columbus city council. … In 1870, I was elected to the Mississippi State Senate.”

Yarborough said the true importance of the performances was that the research students conduct gives the public a more complete, well-rounded history of Columbus, and stimulates conversation.

“Again, most importantly, (these projects) spur conversation,” Yarborough said. “I invite people, and I see people beginning to look at each other differently. You know, we can’t be in relationship with one another unless we know something about each other’s story. And this is where these projects begin to get at that.”

After Yarborough’s close, Fallows posed a few questions to the MSMS group. The first question was directed to Williams and Bowles, about how they transitioned to MSMS from their prior school districts.

MSMS is a public school district that students must apply to in order to be considered for enrollment. Both Williams and Bowles said there was some difficulty adjusting to the school’s expectations but found the experience overwhelmingly positive.

“I went to not the greatest high school,” Bowles said. “While I was there, I was like the smart kid, but when I got to MSMS, it was just nothing but smart kids. So … it made me develop as a person because I couldn’t just depend on, ‘Oh, I’m that smart guy,’ because nobody cared.”

Fallows then asked about Columbus’ — and all of Mississippi’s — reception to the students’ projects and performances.

“Well, you know, I think Mississippians — and by the way, I think this applies everywhere — all know that the history we learned, whatever age you are, is incomplete,” Yarborough said. “And, I have found audiences to be receptive to anything new and more expansive in Columbus. … And in the past three years, we’ve averaged about 250 people in attendance … and we do have, in that audience, new people with exposure in our local paper and television that are coming. And again, that conversation is beginning afterwards as people turn to one another and say, ‘I didn’t know that.’ ”

The last question Fallows posed was to Bowles and Williams. He asked them what they had learned from being a part of such impactful projects for the community and for Mississippi as a whole.

“It’s not all black and white,” Bowles said. “There’s always a portrayal of heroes and villains, but I think that the biggest thing I learned is that, when I look at a history book or I look into these things, (I realize that) they were people. They were people in the community … that had their own lives, their own beliefs and they were influenced by what they saw.”

Williams said people do not always hear all sides to a story, and understanding the story as a whole is something important to work toward.

“I just think, when I’m seeing something like history, I need to try to see it from everybody’s perspective or try to research to see if I could see it from everybody’s perspective,” Williams said.

For generations, the story of America has been told time and time again, but not every story is the same. This is the premise for Andrew Roth’s lecture: “American Tapestry: The Stories We Tell Ourselves.”

Roth, scholar-in-residence at the Jefferson Educational Society in Erie, Pennsylvania, and former president of Notre Dame College and interim president of St. Bonaventure University, will give his lecture at 3:30 p.m. Friday, July 5 in the Hall of Philosophy, as part of the Oliver Archives Heritage Lecture Series.

“I’m a person who, you might say, went away to college 55 years ago and never left,” Roth said.

Roth got the idea for this lecture during a conversation about fractious politics while working as president of St. Bonaventure University.

“Americans no longer agree on the American story,” Roth said.

Roth plans to discuss the year 1968, and how it became recognized as a watershed year due to events like Apollo 8 orbiting the moon and the iconic picture of the Earth rising, as well as the birth of culture wars due to fractious politics, with campaigns growing quarrelsome and irritable.

“What shattered (in 1968) is the American story — the consensus about what the American story is,” Roth said.

Some argue that there is no single American story — just American stories. Roth uses the analogy of a tapestry to describe how these varying stories intertwine.

“Some threads are thicker than others,” Roth said. “Some of the main threads are freedom, self government and diversity.”

Roth will also touch on how humanity’s ability to tell stories is what sets humans apart and defines them as a species.

“Stories can help explain where we came from, who we are and where we are going,” Roth said. “We are what we pretend. We have to be careful of the stories we tell.”

Roth will discuss the issues that arise from telling multiple American stories, and how they shape the country’s past, present and future.

“We are trying to do something that is not easy to do: blend diverse people from all over the world to one culture, while respecting diversity,” Roth said.

Roth’s lecture fits into the Week Two theme, “Uncommon Ground: Communities Working Toward Solutions,” by discussing the story of the continuing experiment in the United States of trying to answer questions regarding self government and freedom.

Roth plans on having a conversation with the audience following his lecture about their thoughts and notions and invites people to send him these via email at roth@jeserie.org.

As soon as Jack Gulvin turned a crank that lifted up a rack of nests in white, basketball-sized gourds, purple martins flocked to it, finding the nest that held their own little babies or eggs.

Their black and indigo bodies soared in the sky around the nests, which by now had been raised about 12 feet high. In one parent’s beak was a dead dragonfly it had just captured to feed its children.

“It looks like an Alfred Hitchcock movie,” said Gulvin on Monday as he stood, head tilted to the swarm of birds in the sky.

Gulvin has been taking care of the purple martin population at Chautauqua for 20 years, doing meticulous checks of each of the 102 compartments every five days from late May to the end of August.

At 4:15 p.m. Friday, July 5 near the lake between Miller Bell Tower and the Sports Club, Gulvin will facilitate a Purple Martin Chat, organized by the Bird, Tree & Garden Club. The chats take place at the same time and place every Friday through July 19, to teach Chautauquans about the birds.

During one of his checks on Monday, Gulvin filled out a detailed spreadsheet, neatly marking how many eggs or hatchlings, which he calls pinkies, are in each nest. He referred to a record of when the eggs were laid so he knows when they should hatch.

In one nest, the pinkies had hatched since the last time he checked them. With one hand, he took one of the hatchlings out of the nest and held it up to life-size reference pictures of the pinkies in his binder to figure out how old they were. They grow quite a bit every single day, so their ages were easy to tell: three days.

When mom and dad aren’t around to feed them, the hatchlings spend most of their time sleeping, smushed against each other like sardines in a can. They are pink and featherless, with two big round bulges at the top of their heads, where their eyes will open around nine days of age.

The warm weather this time of year has been perfect for purple martin hatching, Gulvin said. It has been a particularly good year for the babies.

“They look really fat and healthy,” he said.

In one of the nests, however, only one of the five eggs hatched. Gulvin tossed the four remaining eggs out into the surrounding brush and added some white pine needles to the nest to make sure the one surviving baby forms properly.

Gulvin speculated that the nest belonged to teenage purple martin parents who did not know how to properly build a nest or incubate the eggs.

Female purple martins lay one egg each day until her nest of eggs is complete. All of the eggs typically hatch within a day of each other.

Gulvin worked in resource management at the National Park Service, and retired 30 years ago at the age of 36. He now lives in Westfield, and keeps busy checking on the purple martins at Chautauqua Institution, as well as some purple martin nests and a dozen bluebird boxes in Westfield.

Gulvin said he did not know much about purple martins when he took over caring for them 20 years ago. He quickly learned about the species and how to care for them with help from the Purple Martin Conservation Association, which is based in Erie, Pennsylvania.

There is one cluster of nests at the Chautauqua Golf Club, one near the shuffleboard courts and three on the shore near the Sports Club. Some of the nests are housed in what look like birdhouse apartment buildings that have 14 compartments each and are made by a local Amish man. Some are in round gourds, either natural or plastic, that hang from racks hoisted onto a pole.

The golf course and lake front provide a good environment for the birds, who do best in wide-open spaces devoid of trees, to avoid predators like hawks.

“On the East Coast, (the birds) are completely dependent on humans to provide them housing,” Gulvin said.

Gulvin designed and built some compartments that look like little metal buckets and are inspired by woodpecker cavities. These compartments hang from the bottom of the wooden structures.

“There’s something about purple martins that make you inventive,” he said.

Every winter, Gulvin takes down the natural gourds. They get scraped and sanded, repainted and primed to get them ready them for the next season.

The purple martins have clearly taken a hold on Gulvin, who dedicates much of his time to taking care of them. When he dies, he said he will leave his entire estate to the Purple Martin Conservation Association, since he does not have a spouse or children.

When he finished checking one batch of compartments, Gulvin stepped back and relished in watching the parent purple martins flock in to feed their children. He said his best turnout was about five years ago, when he helped to fledge 423 martins from the Institution.

“I don’t get paid in anything but personal satisfaction with raising all of these birds,” he said.

And then he went off to check the last cluster of nests.

Chautauqua Opera Company Young Artist Sidney Ragland grew up in California, surrounded by Gospel music and his Creole culture. The soulful sounds of Gospel and rhythm and blues  influenced his voice even as he transitioned to opera.

“The music was always just a thing in the house and the church,” Ragland said. “Though I won’t be singing much French, the Spanish is a big part of it, as well as spiritual, because that is the community that I come from and how we worship and express our spirit.”

At 4:15 p.m. today in the Athenaeum Hotel Parlor, three of the Young Artists will express their cultural influences in celebration of the Fourth of July in the second Afternoon of Song Recital, titled “I Too Sing America.” Ragland, along with mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Beteag and soprano Cristina María Castro, will perform some of their favorite selections that showcase their diverse backgrounds.

Miriam Charney, the accompanist and coach for Chautauqua Opera, said this recital is a chance to show that the country is stronger because of its vast array of ethnicities.

“It’s not a new concept, but it’s one that seems to be discussed and dismissed a little too easily these days,” Charney said.

Castro grew up in Texas, surrounded by her Puerto Rican culture. She said honoring her heritage and being immersed in an ethnically diverse community has always been a part of her life.

“I grew up around it, and it was just normal,” Castro said. “For me, I saw a lot of Mexican and Cuban immigration in San Antonio, so we were really connected to those communities — it just doesn’t seem new to me.”

She will sing a few German and English selections, and finish her set with a Puerto Rican piece called “Preciosa.”

The title for the program, “I Too Sing America” — a quote from a poem by Langston Hughes — was suggested by Ragland, who said he is looking forward to revisiting some old songs and offering a message of acceptance through music.

Ragland said it is difficult for people to embrace different races, cultures and communities, even in modern society.

“It’s important that we embrace it now,” he said.

For Beteag, her family heritage is a strong reason for her musical inclination. Her ancestors were from Germany, Romania and Poland. Beteag is going to honor her German roots in particular by singing selections from one of her favorite composers: Johannes Brahms.

“I call Brahms my ‘roll out of bed and sing’ music because I love it so much,” Beteag said. “So I am really excited to share that.”

At the end of the recital, the three Young Artists will sing “Lady of the Harbor,” composed by Lee Hoiby with text from the poem by Emma Lazarus, to bring the celebration of America full circle. Charney said the recital is made up of songs that truly show America.

“(The Fourth of July has) always been a white holiday, and that’s not what the country is all about,” Charney said.   

The Young Artists hope the recital gives people a chance to not only listen to opera but to remind people about all the different pieces that make up America.

“We’re bringing people back to their roots a little bit and remembering that almost everybody was an immigrant,” Beteag said. “No matter how far removed we are, we all came here, so that is something to be celebrated.”

When she was young, Chautauqua Theater Company Artistic Producer Sarah Elizabeth Wansley used to force her younger cousins to act in her plays at family reunions.

“They absolutely did not have a choice,” Wansley said.

Now, after directing shows for years and finishing her undergraduate and graduate studies, the actors in Wansley’s shows tend to be more willing participants.

Wansley is taking the helm as director of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for CTC’s 2019 season. The production is a traveling show, visiting locations like Riverwalk in Jamestown, and Lakeside Park in Mayville throughout the summer, and at 4 p.m. today on Bestor Plaza.

Ever since casting her cousins in her family reunion shows, Wansley said she’s loved the communal aspect of theater.

“There’s something about theater that embodies humans,” Wansley said. “It brings people together. It asks us, even as complete strangers, to come together and put ourselves inside the shoes of the characters. It’s a very empathetic experience.”

To that end, Wansley is fully supportive of taking Shakespeare on the road and bringing the performances to those who might not otherwise be able to see them on Institution grounds.

“I absolutely loved the idea of taking Shakespeare outside the gates,” Wansley said. “I think it’s a dream way of bringing (Institution President) Michael Hill’s ‘turning gates into gateways’ to life, and letting as many people experience these shows as possible.”

Last year, Wansley was the producer for As You Like It, CTC’s first run at a traveling Shakespeare show. Now that the program is in its second year, Wansley said she’s excited to keep it moving forward.

“I feel like, in a great way, since the program was so successful last year, we’re building on everything that we did already,” Wansley said. “This show has a little more design support, and we’ve had the full support of the design shops. This year it feels a little elevated.”

Wansley said directing and producing classic shows like Shakespeare’s is valuable, even centuries after the plays were written.

“I love finding ways that these stories live today,” Wansley said. “We can take stories that we’ve studied in places like school or that live in our cultural memory — and especially in Midsummer — be surprised at how modern they are.”

Wansley said Midsummer remains relevant because it deals with themes of indecision and love — themes people of any age can relate to. The story of the young lovers struggling to overcome the oppressive Athenian law has kernels of relatability to this day.

Wansley said there were some challenges that came with getting this particular show on its feet.

“The main challenge was time,” Wansley said.

Most of Midsummer’s cast, made up of CTC conservatory members, arrived at the Institution on June 10. Midsummer’s opening night was June 25, which meant Wansley had just short of two weeks to get the performance up and running.

“It was a very quick and dirty process,” Wansley said. “But actors of all levels were able to help each other out throughout.”

In addition to the rapid rehearsal schedule, Wansley said that figuring out how to effectively take the show on the road was a challenge. The entire set — the forest of Athens, the workplace of the rude mechanicals and the grand palace of Duke Theseus of Athens — needed to pack into the back of a single pickup truck.

But despite the hurdles, Wansley said she was never concerned about the cast’s ability to pull it off.

“They’re so capable, in every sense of the word,” Wansley said. “They’re incredibly physical and willing to commit themselves to their roles, and they bring so much of themselves to these characters.”

Despite the handful of stressors and challenges, Wansley hopes the product they have created will go a long way toward providing an escape for the audience.

“I hope that anyone watching has the chance to take a break from the stressful things in their own lives,” Wansley said. “The play tells the story of people remembering how to laugh and have fun, and we hope the audience laughs with them.”

When Emily and Stuart Siegel came to Ajo, Arizona, as part of what they called their “Big-Ass American Adventure,” they were struck by both the natural and architectural beauty of the town.

“There was an opportunity (in Ajo) that we had been hoping to create for ourselves elsewhere, and it just presented itself to us right here,” said Stuart Siegel, co-director of the Sonoran Desert Inn & Conference Center along with his wife, Emily.

At the time of their road trip, the Sonoran Desert Inn was still under construction as part of a project by the nonprofit International Sonoran Desert Alliance.

The building was originally an elementary school annex built in the 1940s; the ISDA enlisted the expertise of Tucson architect Rob Paulus to help transform it into the Sonoran Desert Inn.

At 2 p.m. today, July 4, in the Hall of Philosophy, the Siegels will continue the Interfaith Lecture Series by asking “How Many Shrimp Tacos Does it Take to Save an Impoverished Former Mining Town?” as part of Week Two’s interfaith theme, “Common Good Change Agents.” The Siegels will be in conversation with James Fallows, a reporter for The Atlantic and founder of its American Futures project.

Siegel said the decision to stay in Ajo came about during a volunteering stint with the ISDA.

“A lot of people had been coming here and visiting for a long time, but there had never been a place that was a central destination,” he said. “We’re not just a hotel — we’re proactively marketing this town.”

The Sonoran Desert Inn, according to Siegel, functions for Ajo the way a convention and visitors board does for a larger city.

“We work a lot with the (Ajo) Chamber of Commerce; we do a lot of marketing and make connections that bring visitors and press here,” he said.

Around the same time the Siegels first traveled to Ajo, Fallows and his wife, Deborah — who is a fellow for the nonpartisan think tank New America — were visiting the town for The Atlantic as part of their own trip across the United States for the Futures project.

“Ajo, Arizona, is geographically spectacular,” Fallows said. “Sociologically, there’s a tri-national alignment of people there, including the people of the Tohono O’odham tribe.”

But while Siegel and Fallows said the Sonoran Inn had become a cultural hub for Ajo, Siegel emphasized that Ajo’s cultural growth cannot be solely attributed to him and his wife.

“Things in Ajo go through cycles,” Siegel said. “We’re definitely not able to say, ‘the town was in a state of disrepair, and we came in and now it’s magically flourishing.’ That’s not at all the reality.”

According to Siegel, narratives of that nature are often the result of classist or racist prejudices.

“(Some people) want to hear that a couple people with a few good ideas magically saved the town,” Siegel said. “That’s a problematic way to think about things.”

Still, Siegel said he’s “proud to contribute to increased visitation” of Ajo.

“We have a Tuesday night meal series where we give some local chefs the chance to cater for the community,” he said. “We also have the only monthly shrimp taco night in town. We’ll definitely take credit for that one.”