Aside from the musical pleasures it provided, the Berkshire Opera Festival’s festive concert of opera arias and ensembles in the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington on Thursday celebrated the 10^th anniversary of the company, giving the audience a chance to appreciate the singers who will be taking part this week in Verdi’s La Traviata (three performances, August 23^rd, 26^th, and 29^th, in the same space). [tickets HERE]

Founded by Brian Garman and Jonathan Loy, the company has produced one major opera each summer, along with occasional recital programs and second operas (usually shorter). Pride of place, in the number of his operas performed, goes to Verdi, but the repertory has also included Donizetti, Mozart, Strauss, Gounod, Puccini, and Jake Heggie.

Conductor Brian Garman served as a genial host for the evening and conducted most numbers, though Gary Larson, who has previously been Assistant Conductor and Chorus Master of the Berkshire Opera Festival, also led three. Garman introduced the selections in groups of three, following a bright performance of the Fledermaus overture of Johann Strauss the younger. Garman explained that, in addition to the soloists in the forthcoming Traviata performances, some other singers, who had been connected with the company’s performances over the previous decade, would also appear.

 We first heard two of the most famous arias, and a once-quite-famous, if now rarely heard, third. Weston Hurt, who will be the elder Germont in Traviata began with the Toreador Song from Carmen before Raquel Gonzáles gave us “Un bel dí” from Madame Butterfly. From lyric tenor Joshua Blue, who will be Alfredo Germont later in the week, came a relative surprise, Goldmark’s once-famous Queen of Sheba (Die Königin von Saba).

The delicious sextet “Riconosci in questo amplesso” from The Marriage of Figaro  ( Mozart is on record as having described this as his favorite number from the opera) was interpreted by Vanessa Becerra, Erin Reppenhagen, Joshua Blue, Weston Hurt, John Cheek, Maximilian Jansen, and Adam Partridge.

Tenor Viktor Antipenko in the role of Canio, intoned “Vesti la giubba” from Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci before the Berkshire Opera Festival Chorus got its moment with the much-loved chorus from Verdi’s Nabucco, “Va, pensiero,” which first truly established Verdi’s fame among his contemporaries. Another surprise, drew from a repertory not (yet) assayed by the BOF: a pair of arias from Handel’s Semele, traditionally thought of as an oratorio, though with a secular subject from classical mythology, and sung by named characters. Adam Partridge sang “More sweet is that name,” followed by Maximilian Jansen with one of Handel’s most famous arias, “Where’er you walk.”

Conductor Garman introduced the next group by noting wryly that people often ask when BOF will mount Aida, one of the biggest and most unwieldy in its stage demands of all popular operas. By way of consolation, he offered the simple final scene of the opera, with only three soloists and an offstage chorus: Raquel González portrayed Aida, Viktor Antipenko her lover Radames, and Erin Reppenhagen characterized Amneris.

 Two more popular numbers preceded the evening’s finale:  Vanessa Becarra as Marie singing the brilliant coloratura of Donizetti’s “Chacun la sait” (Daughter of the Regiment) preceded Joshua Blue and Yazid Gray venturing forth with one of the best-loved tenor/baritone duets in the repertory, “Au fond du temple saint,” from Bizet’s The Pearl Fisher.

To provide a particularly festive close to the evening, as well as a glimpse of the coming opera performance, all the assembled singers and chorus took part in the bubbling drinking song, “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” from the first act of Traviata—but with a special twist. Brian Garman invited the audience to join in on two of the choral refrains (the printed program included the audience words in bold-face). “Sing along. If you don’t know how to pronounce it, just sing ‘la la la.’” And so, after we had reveled in some lively, humorous, intense, or dramatic singing, as well as fine orchestral playing, we went home in high spirits.

Steven Ledbetter is a freelance writer and lecturer on music. He got his BA from Pomona College and PhD from NYU in Musicology. He taught at Dartmouth College in the 1970s, then became program annotator at the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to 1997.