FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE
SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES
MONDAY, JULY 20, 2026
VOL. 36, NO. 4
A Dreamy Midsummer Night at the Wheeler BY DAVID HOYT Festival Focus Writer
Arriving in Aspen during the summer can feel like entering a strange and spellbinding land, one not quite of the earthly world. Maybe it’s the altitude, but there’s a distinct hint of magic in the air, as if this were a place where transfigurations are possible and fairies flit about the forests and meadows. This makes the Aspen Music Festival and School the perfect place to enjoy a new production of Benjamin Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream, based on Shakespeare’s muchloved comedy. Directed by Simon Godwin—artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.—with music conducted by Dame Jane Glover and featuring the voices of the Colorado Children’s Chorale and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, audiences will have two chances to see the intimate Wheeler Opera House transformed into an enchanting, mystical realm, on July 20 and 22. “Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of his masterpieces,” says Patrick
Chamberlain, AMFS vice president for artistic administration. “You have one of the great Shakespearean directors directing it [Godwin]; one of the leading interpreters of Britten’s music, who knew him personally [Glover]; and one of the
most important voices before the public today in the role of Oberon [Costanzo]. It’s simply not to be missed.” Midsummer is the rare opera to assign a lead role to a countertenor: a high male voice. Britten wrote the role for its
PATTIMA SINGHALAKA
Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo joins the dazzling young artists of Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS to present Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Wheeler Opera House on July 20 and 22.
premiere performer, Alfred Deller, who popularized the modern revival of countertenor singing. “Britten wanted Oberon to be otherworldly, and when he wrote the piece there weren’t many countertenors outside the cathedrals,” Glover says. “Creating the role of Oberon really launched the countertenor into a much wider commodity. Now, of course, they’re growing on trees—and [they’re] extremely good. We’re so lucky to have Anthony Roth Costanzo with us this time, who’s not just a wonderful singer but a wonderful man of the theater who’s going to bring so much to this production.” The score makes use of different musical styles to represent the play’s three types of characters: simple, folk-like music for the rustic “rude mechanicals,” a romantic feel for the human lovers, and ethereal sounds for the fairy world. “What’s brilliant is that they all merge together at the very end of the opera, when the mechanicals perform their play for the aristocrats, and the whole thing just makes perfect sense,” says Glover. Director Simon Godwin says: “My career has very much
Edlis Neeson Opera Encounters Saturday, July 25 | 10 AM Wheeler Opera House Called “vocally brilliant and dramatically fearless” by The New York Times, “a bona-fide star” by The New Yorker, and “otherworldly” by The Wall Street Journal, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo knows how to make an impression. Together with Nico Muhly, one of the premier American composers to emerge this century, he will coach the rising stars of Aspen’s opera program—Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS (AOTVA)—in scenes from Handel’s Orlando, John Adams’s Nixon in China, Tan Dun’s A Mirror of the Soul, and more. Edlis Neeson Opera Encounters are a regular Saturday morning occurence at the Wheeler Opera House as AMFS artist-faculty members and guest artists coach brilliant young vocal artists from the AOTVA program.
See Midsummer, Festival Focus page 3
Mozart, Conlon, and the Art of Passionate Music-Making BY CINDY HIRSCHFELD Festival Focus Writer
When maestro James Conlon, one of the most esteemed and influential American conductors of our time, leads the Aspen Chamber Symphony in an all-Mozart program on July 24, listeners in the Klein Music Tent will hear more than just bright, memorable melodies. Conlon has a particular affinity for the Austrian composer. In fact, he just completed his 20year tenure as music director of the LA Opera by conducting The Magic Flute. This near life-long love for Mozart began when Conlon was first exposed to classical music at age 11. His affinity “was immediate and has persisted without interruption through six decades and hundreds of performances of symphonies, concerti, choral works and operas,” says Conlon. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, he adds, “I don’t know a bad piece of Mozart. His genius, humanity, and generosity know no limits.”
CHARLES ABBOTT
A young James Conlon (right) rehearsing in the Music Tent with violinist Itzhak Perlman (left) in 1980. An alumnus of the AMFS, Conlon has made music in Aspen for more than 50 years.
The Festival Orchestra program includes the overture to Symphony No. 29 and Symphony No. 38 (“Prague”). Pittsburgh Symphony principal clarinetist and AMFS artist-faculty Michael Rusinek joins the ensemble for Mozart’s only clarinet concerto, and 16-year-old violin prodigy William Yeh, winner of the AMFS’s 2025 Dorothy DeLay Violin Competition, will perform the Adagio in E major. As Conlon moves on from 47 years of serving as music director for major institutions—including the Ravinia Festival, the Cincinnati May Festival, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the city of Cologne, Germany, in addition to the LA Opera— he recalls his formative time as an Aspen Music Festival and School student. When Conlon attended AMFS in the summers of 1968 and ’69, the conducting program was “small but very effective,” he says. Yet for an 18-year-old Conlon, who had no formal See Conlon, Festival Focus page 3
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