Estival Festivals: Song of the South

For those in the D.C. area who aren't planning an excursion to Glyndebourne, Munich, or New York, here are some festivals this weekend that are closer to home.

The Ash Lawn Opera in Charlottesville, Virginia, is premiering its "Marriage of Figaro" tonight (Friday, July 17), featuring Elizabeth Caballero, a soprano I have liked in the past, and Magdalena Wór, familiar to Washington National Opera audiences; on Saturday, it follows with a performance of "Camelot." (As an extra plus for theater fans, the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, where the operas are performed, is screening the HD broadcast of Helen Mirren's "Phèdre" from the National Theater on Sunday the 19th -- another chance to see it if you missed last week's showing in DC.)

At the River Concert Series in Maryland, tonight's program features the principal trumpet and oboeist of the Maryland Youth Symphony and Tchaikovsky's Fifth. In Rappahannock County, Virginia, the Castleton Festival gears up for its final weekend with a reprise of last fall's "Albert Herring," a final "Beggar's Opera," and an orchestral concert on Sunday.

And in Baltimore, Artscape, a three-day, all-free arts festival, includes performances by the Baltimore Concert Opera, Opera Vivente (2 performances), and American Opera Theater (2 performances), and a performance/event by Mobtown Modern, the enterprising contemporary series, which is putting on Mauricio Kagel's "Eine Brise," for 111 bicyclists.