Orchestra Enters ‘Ring’ At Center Stage, Etching Images In Wagner Gold
DALLAS – Augmented by 21 guest players and a full roster of singers, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra made a fine beginning to its novel concert cycle of the Ring operas with Das Rheingold and Die Walküre led by Fabio Luisi.
Desolation Illustrated: Frozen, Deathly Vistas Of ‘Sinfonia Antartica’
SEATTLE – Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 7, enhanced by photos and journal readings from Robert Scott's ill-fated expedition, conjured a convincingly brutal soundscape in a performance by the Seattle Symphony led by Gemma New.
Adams-Sellars ‘El Niño’ Blows Onto Met Stage With Look Of A Fixture
NEW YORK – With a lavish set by Lileana Blain-Cruz and a superb cast led by Marin Alsop, this complex collage opera from 2000 (the title refers to the boy Jesus) had a strong Met premiere. Familiarity could make it a deserved favorite.
Nadia Boulanger Opera, Despite Cuts, Displays Teacher’s Own Mastery
NEW YORK – La ville morte should have been the sensation of 1914 Paris but for the hand of fate. More than a century later, the only opera composed by the influential teacher was given its New York premiere by Catapult Opera Company.
Jesus’ Death: A Drama Drawn Lean For Harp, Mark Morris Dancers
BERKELEY – Set to Nico Muhly's cycle The Street, inspired by 14 poems by Alice Goodman and here renamed Via Dolorosa, Morris' dance had its quietly beautiful world premiere on a program with the dance of another death: that of Socrates.
Saint-Saëns And Ravel With True French Flair As Langrée Storms LA
LOS ANGELES – Conductor Louis Langrée seems to have found a potent connection with the LA Philharmonic. His pairing of Ravel's Ma mère l’Oye and Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony sparked one of the longest curtain-call ovations I've heard here.
Oratorio As Snapshots: Images From A Lifetime Framed In Words, Music
NEW YORK – We take for granted our ability to snap, and immediately see, dozens of photos a day. Composer Luna Pearl Woolf and librettist David Van Taylor’s Number Our Days: A Photographic Oratorio recalls a different time.
Conducting Laureate Shows Flair For Mahler With Third Symphony
SEATTLE – In 2016, Kahchun Wong won first prize in the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition with his take on the Third Symphony. That rapport with the composer was evident in a sublime account of the Third with the Seattle Symphony.
Racial Injustice Echoes In Music Before Solace Of Mozart’s Requiem
PORTLAND, Ore. – The first half of the Oregon Symphony program led by David Danzmayr featured pieces by William Grant Still and James B. Wilson that reflected on racism. The mood was softened by a moving account of the Requiem.
Amid An Opera’s Dark Waters, Musicians And A Critic Swim For Shore
DETROIT – Four orchestra players withdrew after learning of scenes of sexual horror and horrible death in Detroit Opera's production of Missy Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves. It's an impressive spectacle, but I felt both complicit and harmed.
Quasi-Robotics Concert, Where AI Perhaps Stood For Almost Involved
SAN FRANCISCO – The 10th season of the San Francisco Symphony's SoundBox series ended with a conceptually fascinating program called “Press Play,” curated by “Carol Reiley and her robots.” But it needed more AI compositions.
Music Director To Be, Mäkelä Turns Chicago Into A Rocking Scene
CHICAGO – Two days after the Chicago Symphony announcement, 28-year-old Klaus Mäkelä got a wild welcome and made an auspicious start, leading a program of high-intensity Shostakovich, the Tenth Symphony and Cello Concerto No. 1.
Chemistry Feels A Little Late (At Curtain Call) In Met Return To ‘Rondine’
NEW YORK – Three singers new to the Met offered accomplished debuts, but soprano Angel Blue and conductor Speranza Scappucci, both gifted artists, seemed outside their comfort zones in Puccini's ostensibly uncomplicated but very tricky work.
Multigifted Timo Andres Morphs From Pianist To Composer For Premiere
LOS ANGELES – A leading composer-pianist of his generation, Andres was at Disney Hall one night playing Philip Glass etudes, then returned as John Adams led the LA Philharmonic in Andres' quasi-concerto Made of Tunes with pianist Aaron Diehl.
Mälkki Meets Mahler And Raises Her Flag As Conductor At Forefront
CHICAGO – While Susanna Mälkki has led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra effectively on several occasions, her account of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 was of another order, affirming her place among today's preeminent conductors.
Concert Retraces Paths Of Chou Wen-chung, Composer As Patriarch
NEW YORK – Among diverse internationally known Chinese composers, Chou is revered as a musical father. A broad perspective on his works was offered at a centennial concert by Continuum Contemporary Music conducted by Joel Sachs.
As Orchestra Searches For Helmsman, Vänskä Proves It’s Not Adrift
SEATTLE – The Seattle Symphony's two-year absence of a singular guide at the helm inevitably leads to concerns that musicianship may suffer, but the forces sounded absolutely on course in the hands of guest conductor Osmo Vänskä.
Five Pianists Parade Their Perspectives On Theater Of Glass Etudes
LOS ANGELES – Lighting design and the rhythm of stage entrances conjured the solemn purpose of a ritual as the pianists rotated through Philip Glass' 20 Etudes, with each playing two pieces at a time and stagehands deftly switching benches.
Youth Orchestra Marks Decade With A Concert Uniting Starry Alumni
NEW YORK – To celebrate the 10th anniversary of NYO-USA, the National Youth Orchestra, Carnegie Hall assembled alumni from the program to create the NYO-USA All-Stars, with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and pianist Daniil Trifonov.
Comic Additive Helps Revive Early Bernstein Flop ‘Trouble In Tahiti’
MINNEAPOLIS – As foil to the dark misery of the couple in Tahiti, Minnesota Opera paired it in a double bill with Service Provider, a very funny take on cellphone mania that also deals with the same marital problem of a failure to communicate.
