The sixth season of the Castleton Music Festival.
From June 28 through July 20, Rappahannock County hosts thousands of seekers of high culture with the sixth annual Castleton Festival. Music lovers decamp to its rolling hills for a slate of performances, including opera, symphonic concerts, bluegrass and more, all held on the 550-acre estate and home of festival founder, the acclaimed Maestro Lorin Maazel, and his wife and co-artistic director, Dietlinde Turban Maazel.
This year, in addition to new productions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, “Don Juan in Hell”—the third act of George Bernard Shaw’s drama Man and Superman—will be performed on Independence Day weekend. A theatrical reading, the rarely seen ironic counter-piece to Don Giovanni sees the notorious libertine in conversation with characters, including the devil.
“There is a good possibility that Jeremy Irons will perform the role of the devil,” says Nancy Gustafson, the festival’s general manager. (Irons, a member of Castleton’s advisory board, has agreed to participate if he can break away from filming his next project.)
New this year is a visit from opera enthusiast Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who will discuss “Law in Opera” following a performance of selections by Castleton student artists in training.
Other highlights will include a Bluegrass concert and fireworks, as well as an All-American concert, a performance of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and chamber music by the Castleton Chamber Players. “We’ve planned the weekends so that you’ll get a little bit of everything we do,” says Gustafson.
Tickets start at $20. For the complete schedule, visit CastletonFestival.org
