Sankaram’s scope came to life in the production of the 2018 one-act opera ‘Taking Up Serpents’. The production has a script by Jere Dye, and the Glimmerglass commission and premiere of “Holy Ground” by Damien Guetter and Lila Palmer. “Taking Up Serpents” is the dark and intense story of Kayla (Mary Hollis Handley), a young woman who finds a job at a drugstore in a bay town in Alabama. She believes in speaking in tongues and practices rituals with snakes.
Sankaram and Dye delve deep into their seemingly fanatical parents, the spiritual longing that drives them and somehow speaks to a confused Kayla. “Holy Ground” explores spirituality in a completely different way. With a fanciful and cleverly written score, the piece tells a fascinating modern tale about a group of unfortunate archangels struggling to recruit a young woman to give birth to God in human form. is presented. (Again? Didn’t it take root the first time?)
Among the works this summer, even familiar works such as Bizet’s “Carmen” came across stories of exploited female factory workers and dark portraits of “community.” Carmen (Briana Hunter) is a group of bandits. Dennis Graves, the famous interpreter for the lead role, directed a psychologically sharp production. Zambello’s influence on the festival has never been clearer.
But when her appointment was announced in 2010, she may not have seemed to make the logical choice for the job. Over the years, he brought to Glimmerglass, as Zambello puts it, graceful leadership skills and “excellent aesthetics.” When he stepped down in 2006, amid staff turmoil, he entered a four-year transition period under Michael MacLeod. I was ready for an artistic shock.
Zambello had an international reputation as an opera director in major theaters such as Paris, Milan, London and Moscow. She was hitting staging concepts that critics felt didn’t work, especially in her early days. Her 1992 debut at the Metropolitan Opera, “Lucia di Her Lammermoor”, was seen by many as a Symbolist debacle. She returned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in her 2003, where she created a stunning visual and moving piece of Berlioz’s epic poem ‘Les Troyens’.