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of Chautauqua  Outdoor entertainment among the historic resort buildings is a constant source of joy to visitors.
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After 132 years, new life
surges at Chautauqua
By DAVID ZINMAN
of TheColumnists.com
It's strange how once familiar words can vanish from
the language and fade away, discarded and forgotten like old
childhood toys.
Take "Chautauqua," for instance, the historic cultural
resort in western New York. Its name was on everybody's lips
after the Civil War. It was "the" place to go in the
summer. When he was President, Ulysses S. Grant was curious and
came--the first of nine Presidents to do so. Grant's visit put
it on the national map.
Chautauqua offered a smorgasbord of lectures, concerts, and summer
school classes. It became a forum for ideas. It pioneered reading
courses and adult education when the average American had only
a fourth grade education.
The notion of a cerebral vacation caught on. It gave rise to
scores of traveling tent chautauquas--not connected to the original--exporting
"culture" to rural America. Chautauqua's name got into
the dictionary.
But the tent circuit died in the 1920s. Vaudeville, movies and
radio captured the public's interest. And the word "Chautauqua"
all but vanished from the lexicon.
Meanwhile, the original carried on. It is still there--a serene
gated community far from the turmoil of the outside world, lying
on the shores of a placid lake (that gave Chautauqua its name)
south of Buffalo.
Now in its 132nd year, Chautauqua is being re-discovered. Each
year, it attracts more visitors. Starting June 26 when its nine-week
season opens, it will spring to life like Brigadoon--ballooning
from a community of a few hundred to nearly 10,000.
"There is no place
like it," said Pulitzer prize-winning historian David McCullough.
"No resort. No spa. Not anywhere else in the country or
anywhere in the world. It is at once a summer encampment and
a small town, a college campus, an art colony, a music festival,
a religious retreat and the village square. And there's no place
with anything like its history."
Newcomers say they feel like they are on a trip back in time.
Quaint Victorian-era cottages with gingerbread trim and porches
dot its rolling grounds. Many people from New York and nearby
Pennsylvania and Ohio--some whose families trace back eight generations--own
summer homes.
"We call ourselves Chautauquans when we enter these grounds,"
says Tom Becker, its new president who came as a fund raiser
in 1985. "That identity is one of spirit and intent--art,
education, religion and recreation--give meaning to our existence
and purpose to our efforts."
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as a fund-raiser--and now serves as president. |
 Photo: David Kinderwater |
If all this sounds a bit stuffy--someone once said, "Chautauqua is a place where mothers take their grandmothers"--there is a lot here, too, for sports enthusiasts. Chautauqua has tennis, sailing, swimming, fitness gyms, jogging (there is an annual 2.6 mile race around the grounds), and a 36-hole golf course where Ben Hogan, Lloyd Mangrum, and Cary Middlecoff once played exhibitions.
But unquestionably, the premiere attraction is music. Its 76-piece symphony is its biggest draw. Time and budget constraints limit it to one or two rehearsals for each concert. By contrast, full-time orchestras like the New York Philharmonic have three or four or more rehearsals. But Uriel Segal, Chautauqua's conductor since 1989, says his ensemble "compares favorably" to the nation's top symphonies.
"How do we do it? It's a mystery," said Segal, a native of Israel. "Perhaps, motivation and ambition are part of the answer. The love of the place by all of us is also a factor."
Chautauqua's musicians hail from winter orchestras as far-flung as New York and Hawaii. One who played at Chautauqua for half a century was Andrew Galos, a violinist with the old NBC Symphony under Toscanini. Galos, who was in his 70s, died June 20, just six days before starting his 51st season with the Chautauqua orchestra.
Chautauqua's summer music festival is by far the nation's oldest--older than Brevard which started in 1936, Tanglewood (1940), Aspen (1949), and Blossom (1968). In fact, Chautauqua celebrates two musical diamond jubilees this year.
Both its symphony that performs in an outdoor, roofed-over amphitheater seating 5,000, and its opera company that sings everything in English began in 1929. They plan gala programs for their 75th year.
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which seats 5,000, is the site of all concerts and major lecture programs. |
World famous pianist Emmanuel Ax will play the Brahms second concerto at the first concert on July 3. And a massive 300-plus choir will do the Brahms Requiem on July 31. Singers will sit in a huge choir loft which on other nights is open to the audience--giving them the unique opportunity to watch the conductor face-on as the musicians do.
Other highlights include the return of three former conductors: Joseph Silverstein, Sergiu Comissiona, and Walter Hendl. Each will be a guest conductor for a night.
The opera company opens its season with Verdi's rarely heard "Stiffelio" and closes with the popular musical "Fiddler on the Roof." In between, it will do the American opera "Susannah" by Carlisle Floyd and Gounod's "Faust."
The opera house opened in 1929 after Mrs. O.J. Norton of Chicago donated the then magnificent sum of $100,000--the largest single gift made to Chautauqua up to that time. The building was a memorial to her late husband and daughter. Today, more than 100 operas have been sung in the 1,400-seat Norton Memorial Hall, where the motto over the stage reads, "All Passes, Art Alone Endures."
Jay Lesenger, its director, says what really makes opera unique here is the audience. "It doesn't leave after the performance. The company is very much a part of the community. We get a lot of feedback and get to know the people well. Many have become personal friends."
Chautauqua's opera, the nation's oldest continuous summer company, has been a proving ground. Some like Helen Jepson, Josephine Antoine, Donald Dame and Clifford Harvuot came as young artists and went on to sing with the Metropolitan Opera. Today, hundreds compete for 26 spots to be in the chorus, do secondary roles, and perform with the symphony.
There are also chamber music concerts, a music school, a student orchestra, and recitals. Even so, music is only one part of the program. Chautauqua offers lectures, plays, ballet, a writers' center, and a summer school with over 400 courses.
In fact, education and religion were the reasons for Chautauqua's start in 1874.
John Heyl Vincent, a Methodist minister, and Lewis Miller, an Ohio industrialist, founded Chautauqua as a two-week summer training encampment for Methodist Sunday School teachers. They wanted the teachers to improve their knowledge of the Bible.
The program soon added secular subjects and later expanded to eight and then nine weeks. And so began Chautauqua's lifelong learning movement. "Everyone has a right to be all that they can be and to know all that they can know," its founders said.
This summer, amphitheater speakers include Sandra Day O'Connor, Jesse Jackson, Bill Cosby, and Wendy Wasserstein. Courses range from computer instruction to painting and sculpturing as well as yoga, cooking, and belly dancing.
But the most enduring course is the four-year reading program of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, America's oldest book club. Begun in 1878, the CLSC enrolled 100,000 readers by the turn of the century and sponsored 10,000 reading circles all over America.
Those numbers have fallen off considerably. But the reading course remains. Each August, graduates gather to parade behind class banners and get their diplomas. Their ranks have included such notables as anthropologist Margaret Mead, psychiatrist Karl Menninger, and poet John Ciardi.
 Photo: Bruce Fox |
outdoor activities that abound at the Chautauqua resort. |
Most people come to Chautauqua for a week. A seven-day gate ticket costs $250 and admits you to all lectures and concerts. Plays, operas, and courses are extra. Visitors stay in hotels, inns, and condos (available by the week) and eat in restaurants on and off the grounds which stretch for about a mile from end to end.
Many find themselves coming back year after year, irresistibly drawn to the unique resort where they renew acquaintances with summer friends. After a while, they call themselves Chautauquans.
Segal, now in his 15th year as music director, is a Chautauquan who likes to bring others to his summer home. "Chautauqua has always been, and still is, a great place to invite family and friends," he said. "Without exception, they swear this was the greatest place they have ever been."
©2004 by David Zinman. The Zinman caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel.
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