| Nancy
Gustafson, '78 Performs at Chapin Hall to Kick Off Pontigny
Symposium
Gustafson is
an internationally acclaimed operatic soprano with a schedule
of leading roles in
theaters on both sides of the Atlantic.
She graciously accepted the offer to perform on Thursday, November
6th in Chapin Auditorum, in order to kick off the Weissman Center
symposium, "Artists, Intellectuals and World War II: The Pontigny
Encounters at Mount Holyoke, 1942-1944." Gustafson riveted
audiences with performances from French and American composers,
a rare mixture
of compositions put together especially for this historic event.
Gustafson impressed easily with her traditional renditions of Berlioz,
Poulenc and Canteloube, while equally delighting the crowd with
the playful medley, "I Hate Music!" by Leonard Bernstein.
Accompanied by Kristin Okerlund, Nancy Gustafson gave the opening
evening to
the Pontigny symposium just the right touch of glamour and sophistication,
tempered with a sense of well-placed humor and lightheartedness.
Biography of Nancy Gustafson '78
Gustafson
has had notable success as Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata in Vienna and
Munich, and as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at La
Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Bayerischer Staatsoper in Munich,
and at Covent Garden, in London. Appearances
in Europe have included Musetta in La Bohème, Salome in Herodiade,
and Nedda in I Pagliacci in Vienna; Arabella at La Scala and in Vienna;
Lisa in
Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades for Glyndebourne; Rusalka in Rome; Faust
at the Bastille; and Alice Ford in Falstaff, which she sang in Vienna with
Seiji
Ozawa.
Among her recent appearances in the United States are those in Houston and
at the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Lyric Opera of
Chicago.
Gustafson is especially well known for her appearances in the operas of Janacek.
She has sung the title roles of Katya Kabanova at Glyndebourne and in Vienna,
and Jenufa at Covent Garden.
In addition to recording
Das Rheingold with the Cleveland Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnanyi,
she has also recorded
Mahler's Symphony no. 2 with
the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta, and La Bohème under
Kent Nagano. Most recently she recorded The Czarevitch and The Land of Smiles
for Telarc. Gustafson also appeared with Luciano Pavarotti in a recording of
Pavarotti and Friends 2.
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