LANCASTER -- The Lancaster Festival presented visions of summer Wednesday night during its annual St. Mary Church chamber orchestra concert.

Throughout the history of the festival, St. Mary Church has been the site of many of the most magical moments, and that was the case with this program: "Summer,'' from Vivaldi's famous set of concertos, The Four Seasons; Knoxville -- Summer of 1915 by Samuel Barber; and A Midsummer Night's Dream by Mendelssohn.

Unifying the seasonal theme of these works was a text associated with it. Vivaldi wrote the sonnets upon which he based his concertos. Barber set the words of American poet James Agee. And Mendelssohn's score was created as incidental music to the Shakespeare play.

With festival artistic director and conductor Gary Sheldon at the harpsichord, Lancaster Festival Orchestra concertmaster Michael Davis, featured soloist, gave an emotionally apt reading of "Summer,'' more sturm und drang than bucolic pastorale. Birds might twitter in the first movement, but the sense of summer here is one of intense heat and stormy skies. Davis delivered the changing sentiments with the practiced hands of a painter on canvas.

Barber's Knoxville is a pinnacle of orchestral art song, a masterpiece of American musical impressionism. The languid images of small-town America form a backdrop for Agee's recollections of boyhood self-discovery.

Soprano Alfreda Burke, who portrayed a memorable Liu at last year's festival staging of Turandot, almost achieved the impossible: delivering a challenging vocal line in intelligible English in the wide open spaces of this venue. Yet the orchestra was the true star of this performance.

One often hears the Mendelssohn music to the Shakespeare play but rarely as it was originally intended. For this event, Sheldon created his own concert version, interspersing the music into a greatly abridged text that focused on the trio of supernatural creatures -- Oberon, King of the Fairies; Titania, his Queen; and Puck, his lieutenant. To ensure humor, he also included its most memorable human, Nick Bottom, who becomes entangled in Oberon's vengeful tricks against Titania.

Guest artist Tony Roberts narrated with an orator's demeanor. Having -- and creating -- the most fun were members of the Columbus Dance Theatre, choreographed by their artistic director, Tim Veach, who also played Bottom. His ass-inine pas de deux with Titania, portrayed by Roberta Taylor, cast fairy dust on the enchanted audience and was made all the more remarkable by the tiny space upon which it was danced. The Women's Chorus of the Lancaster Chorale teamed beautifully with Burke and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Racheva in the ravishing Mendelssohn songs.

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