The summer of 2014 brought far from perfect weather, but it brought a wide variety of arts in a wide range of quality, many near the very top of their respective fields.

In the 14 weeks between early June and the end of August, I count 30 news and evaluation pieces which I’ve written. Considering that during the summer, relatively few area organizations present the arts, leaving the honors to the professionals at Chautauqua Institution, that means that local lovers of the arts have had opportunities to participate in their favorite ones an average of three times per week.

We could argue whether there are events from before the first day of summer, or after the end of August which ought to be included, and the review of Renee Fleming’s performance with the Buffalo Philharmonic stretches that closing date by a few days, but let’s settle on those dates, and see how the summer progressed.

WESTERN NEW YORK

The above heading means ”outside Chautauqua,” of course.

Summer had a lively start, locally, when the Erie Renaissance Singers performed at St. Luke’s Church in Jamestown. The talented 12 singers are based in Erie, but nearly half of them are full-time residents of Chautauqua County.

Despite their name, they don’t limit their repertoire to music from the Renaissance, and they have a gift of performing music which challenges, yet entertains. It was a fine start to the season.

The Lucy-Desi organization brought a very full plate of entertainment to Jamestown this summer, with three consecutive nights of stand-up comedy. Beginning with a collection of humorists, headed by television personality Caroline Rhea, then progressing to the marital sparrings of Tom Cotter and wife Kerri Louise, both of which packed healthy audiences in to the Reg Lenna Performing Arts Center, and ending with the joint performance of Lucie Arnaz and Jay Leno at the Jamestown Savings Bank Arena, the trio of performances certainly added a lot of excitement to town.

The very first work to fall within our designated time slot was a world premiere of a play by area native Shannon Nixon, whose Masked Productions produced her play ”7 Years,” at the Studio Metro at The Spire in Jamestown.

Nixon is a fashion model, a singer, an actor, a director, and now a playwright, and I expect to be hearing much more from her in coming days.

The Olean Community Theatre is a favorite company of mine, and they took a production of ”A Grand Night for Singing” on a tour of Western New York communities. The tour originally included the Willow Bay Theater in Jamestown, so they asked me to review an earlier performance so that local audiences could have a description of their performance.

Unfortunately, unforeseen events ended up postponing their Jamestown performance, and if it has been rescheduled, I haven’t been told when it will happen.

The production is a collection of music which was created by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein Jr., and it was effectively and entertainingly performed by five men and five women, all talented. If the production makes it our way, if you enjoy the music of Broadway, you’ll enjoy the performance.

Fredonia-based painter Alberto Rey exhibited a room full of his paintings and a strong environmental message in the Weeks Gallery of Jamestown Community College. Rey skillfully captured some of the natural beauty of Western New York, yet coupled it with scientific measurements of the pollution and despoiling of natural waterways in our area.

In mid-August, we presented a review of three works – a book and two compact discs – plus announcing the winners of the Young Opera Awards, which are presented by the Chautauqua Opera Company each year. The inspiration for the column was the book ”Town of Chautauqua: Journey Through Time,” which used large format photography, often with stunning clarity, to bring to life the town of Chautauqua, which surrounds the northern end of Chautauqua Lake like a capital letter ”C.” The book, by Peter C. Flagg, is both artistry and local history wrapped together in an enjoyable pairing.

In late August, we attended a film showing at the Chautauqua Cinema of the film ”Life Itself,” which is a documentary dealing with the life and the death of film critic Roger Ebert, who was probably the best-known critic in our country. He, himself, arranged for the making of the film, which was fascinating as a human interest story, and wonderfully educational as well.

The remaining space in that column included reviews of two more films which have played in our area: ”Grand Piano” and ”Grand Budapest Hotel.”

We haven’t had the chance to read the finished version of local radio personality Jim Roselle’s published memoirs, but we’ve seen part of them, and we know Jim and his wonderful experiences and his gift for narrative. When my life slows down, which I hope it will do, I plan to get a copy and devour it. I hope you’ll do the same.

CANADA

We didn’t get to the Luminato Festival, in Toronto, which we have been trying to do in recent years, but we did manage to write a preview of what would be showing at that event, plus the programs of the giant Canadian theatrical festivals at Niagara-on-the-Lake, and at Stratford, Ontario. I understand that people may want to attend one or more of those events for quite a while before they find themselves with both the time and the money to attend, so I think it’s worth the time and trouble to offer advice on how to get there, how to get tickets, etc., each year.

The Shaw Festival, on the shores of both the Niagara River and Lake Ontario, is located in a beautiful place, which I always find healing to attend. They do excellent theater, and the sets are works of art which completely dazzle an audience, yet somehow never interfere with our entrance into the realities of the play.

We saw seven plays in three days at the festival – just over half of the possible offerings – and enjoyed them all greatly. The Shaw Festival is gradually moving away from their original mandate to do only plays which were written during the nearly 100 years in which George Bernard Shaw lived. A few years ago, they expanded the mandate to also include plays written more recently, which referred to the time period in question.

This year, in their small, experimental theater, the Studio Theatre, they did a fine mounting of ”The Mountaintop,” by Katori Hall, which was written recently and takes place in 1968. I think that was a fine choice, even if outside the mandate.

The festival does Victorian and early 20th-century productions as well as any company in the world, and people come to our area from all around the world to see it, but the social issues, moral issues, historical issues, and other subjects of their plays do begin to feel a bit similar, after many years of attendance in their four theaters.

Unlike the Shaw Festival, the Stratford Festival, which is a slightly longer drive from our area, does plays from any period of history from ancient days to written last month. They also have four theaters, and their productions are usually outstanding, although there is more likely to be something different from your expectations. Some viewers see that as a negative, and others as a positive. I’m firmly in the latter camp.

This year, I saw six productions in my three days in Stratford, and once again, I wouldn’t want to have missed any of them. This year, the festival did something I’ve never seen them do before: they did two completely different productions of the same play.

Shakespeare’s ”Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a play which encourages directors to play with it, because it is written as a play within a play, within another play, and because it involves magic spells, supernatural creatures, and the like. Peter Sellars, who directed one of them, is known world-wide for taking bold risks with plays and operas, sometimes to universal praise, and sometimes to lesser admiration.

I didn’t admire either production of that play, this time around. The more traditional production was done with a 20th century setting, and with some actors cast in the opposite gender to their own and much tomfoolery, such as pushing people into an onstage pool of water and throwing of cream pies. Sellars’ production was done in a concrete-lined basement, and involved all of the many roles, portrayed by only four actors.

That production made the audience focus on the wonderful language of the Bard and had some inspiring moments, but since an actor might switch roles in the midst of a single speech, it left many in the audience not knowing what was happening. I’m delighted that I had the experience, but didn’t think it was a success.

Film and television star Colm Feore did a star turn as King Lear, and the production has tied the festival’s record for the most tickets sold to the same production. I would not describe this as one of the most successful seasons which I’ve attended at Stratford, but it was wonderful all the same.

CHAUTAUQUA

One very important element of evaluating the arts at Chautauqua is the search for a music director for the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra has been performing for several years without one, and somehow has managed to maintain very high standards. It’s high time that such a leader be put into place, and this year five candidates conducted the orchestra, as something of an audition for the position.

To the best of my knowledge, the successful candidate has not been announced. When it takes place, we’ll let you know.

Chautauqua Opera did the too-brief, three-performance season, which has become the rule of thumb in recent years. The fact that both productions were spectacular makes up slightly for the neglect of the art form, but I find myself sadly unsatisfied in my hunger for opera, as do many of my readers.

A word to those readers, telling me your feelings may relieve the tension, which is fine, but I’m not the one who is presenting less opera. I can’t do anything more to help you get an improved situation.

This year, th COC produced a single performance of Puccini’s beloved ”Madama Butterfly” in the Amphitheater. Staging the opera there gets more people to take a chance on opera than would forsake their paid-for ticket to the Amphitheater in order to buy a ticket to Norton Hall, and it frees the company from the Norton family’s requirement that opera can be done only in English.

On the other hand, everything from steamboat whistles to dogs barking can damage the audience’s focus on the production. The quality of the singing was outstanding, and the staging most effective. The orchestra, conducted by guest artist Arthur Fagen, was a perfect musical platform on which the singers could rest their tonal production.

The second production, performed in good old Norton Hall, despite its lack of audience comfort, was Douglas Moore’s moving ”The Ballad of Baby Doe.” Since the concept of America’s move to the west was a seasonal theme this year, the play about miners in Leadville, Colorado, was right up the alley.

The women of the cast blew me away this year. Mezzo Leann Sandel-Pantaleo had that rich, womanly sound which is positively thrilling, and young soprano Cree Carrico marked out her right to rise to the very top of her profession. If she continues to care for her voice and chooses her performances wisely, she will certainly surpass even Renee Fleming’s degree of success.

The Chautauqua Theater Company performed their much fuller season of five major productions with varying degrees of success. The season opened with a production of ”A Raisin in the Sun,” directed by Ethan McSweeny, which succeeded in every imaginable way. By focusing on humanity, not on specific issues, the production really buried itself into the audience’s thoughts and feelings.

Three of this season’s production were newly written, including the world premiere of a work commissioned by the company from playwright Molly Smith Metzler. ”The May Queen,” the commissioned piece, was beautifully directed by Vivienne Benesch. It created a modern insurance office, where a young, newly hired administrator, lacking both experience and talent, has been put into authority over long-employed workers who resent and dislike her, and portrays a situation so common in today’s world as to really create a bond with the audience.

The two productions which were workshops, rather than full productions, were quite different in their scope. ”Dairyland,” by Heidi Armbruster, was the story of a professional food writer, who returns to her father’s farm and comes to see the entire issue of food with new eyes.

Sadly, I only saw the opening performance, and since workshopped plays often change substantially as the result of elements which succeed or do not do so, it may be a very different play by now. I said in the review, I enjoyed it greatly, and felt it was one of the most already-complete productions in the history of the company’s New Play Workshops.

”The Guadalupe,” by Carol Carpenter, was far less successful, in my view. It was a very violent and dark examination of drug cartels and immigrant smugglers on our country’s Mexican border, but the first performance was more of a body count than a shaped analysis of the situation. Perhaps the pressures on the company of doing the giant inter-arts collaboration, ”Go West: The Mythology of American Expansion” was at least partially responsible for the least successful Shakespearean production of recent seasons.

Lisa Harrow is a brilliant actor, but they put her into the male role of Prospero in “The Tempest,” and the entire production seemed to lack life and energy. I enjoyed last season’s “Romeo and Juliet Project” vastly more than the western expansion show, as it had the shaping and the development of Shakespeare behind it.

Casting an actor, a singer and a dancer in each of the major roles was a concept which truly worked, for me. ”Go West” seemed like many nice little performances, glued together, and while everyone who sang, danced, or acted did so with great talent, it all didn’t take us anywhere. Although the production created work and opportunities for all the arts elements of the Chautauqua program, including remarkable visual arts, it wasn’t a recipe to thrill.

Finally, this year the Department of Religion at Chautauqua sought our attention for a production of ”The Prodigal Daughter,” a mounting of the biblical parable, from the point of view of a woman. I was really glad that I got to see it and thought it was very well presented in the Hall of Philosophy. That’s my thoughts on the summer past. I hope you get to take part in as much of it as possible.

WINKS

Friday at 8 p.m., the Jamestown Concert Assn. will present a concert of music from the Great American Song Book, performed by soprano Sylvia McNair. The performance will take place at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, at the intersection of Main and Fourth streets, in Jamestown. Tickets are $20 for the general public, $17 for senior citizens, $7.50 for college students and free for younger students, if accompanied by an adult.

McNair will sing selections by Cole Porter, Gershwin, Hamlisch and other well-known American composers. Season tickets for the entire JCA list of presentations are available at considerable savings.

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Beginning Friday, and running through Oct. 19, the Lucille Ball Little Theatre of Jamestown will present a locally produced and performed production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s record-setting musical show, ”Cats.”All performances are at 8 p.m., except Sundays, when the curtain will rise at 2 p.m. The company performs at their own facility, at 18 E. Second St., in Jamestown. Individual tickets are $20. Season tickets are available at considerable savings.

”Cats” is the final production of the company’s 2013-14 season, but first-timers purchasing a season ticket to the 2014-15 season will be admitted to the show at no additional cost.

Mark Oct. 21 on your calendar. At 7 p.m., in the Fireplace Room of the James Prendergast Library, Dr. Stanley Weintraub will give the 2014 Murray L. Bob Memorial Lecture. Weintraub is a retired professor from Penn State University who has published many historical books and novels, many of which deal with the military. The topic of his lecture will be ”Escape into Christmas: Korea, 1950.”

The lecture will be drawn from the author’s latest book, “A Christmas Far from Home.” The lecture is the latest in a series of lectures which was created by Western New Yorkers to honor the late Murray Bob, who, for many years, was both director of the Jamestown library and of the entire Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System. The series brings to Jamestown a nationally known or internationally known figure in one of the many areas of learning in which Bob was interested. Admission to the lecture is free of charge, although donations to preserve and prolong the lecture series are welcome. The library is located at 509 Cherry St. in Jamestown.

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Speaking of saving dates,