Concert Review: The Glittering Sound of Another Age

Jane Glover conducts the Cleveland Orchestra.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor and period performance expert Jane Glover is in Cleveland playing
Mozart and Haydn. And Superconductor is there too. Photo © 2016 janeglover.co.uk

The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the finest and most unique ensembles in North America, playing all kinds of repertory with a professionalism and polish that evokes the legendary ensembles of central Europe. On Thursday evening, British conductor Jane Glover visited the orchestra in its home building of Severance Hall, leading a program of symphonies by Haydn and Mozart flanking a rare double concerto by the latter composer.

The Way the Big Wheel Spins

A look at possible music directors for the Metropolitan Opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Met faces difficult odds in its quest for a new music director.
Photoshop by the author.

The James Levine era at the Met is ending and the opera house stands poised to announce its next choice in the crucial role of music director. Although this subject has been touched on before it seemed time for Superconductor to take a look at available candidatess to lead the Metropolitan Opera and its orchestra. Considering that the posts of Music Director and Principal Conductor are both open, the Met needs to broaden its horizons and look at some new options on the podium.

Concert Review: Keeping the Faith

The Philharmonic resurrects Handel's Messiah.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Jane Glover.
Photo by Ken Howard for Chicago Music of the Baroque.

Ever since the twelve-year music directorship of the late Kurt Masur, the oratorio has resumed pride of place at the New York Philharmonic. That was confirmed last week when Jane Glover, the eminent British musicologist and conductor known to New Yorkers from her opera performances at Juilliard, made her debut with the orchestra conducting this year's run of Handel's Messiah.

Opera Review: The Music of the Future

Juilliard presents Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The cast of Iphigenie en Aulide at Juilliard.
(L.-R. Ying Fang, Virginie Verrez, Brandon Cedel, Yunpeng Wang.)
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2015 The Juilliard School.

The composer Christoph Willibald Gluck was a key figure in the transition from the baroque era to the so-called classical period that followed. The agency of this revolution was opera, specifically his seminal works Orphée et Eurydice and  Iphigénie en Aulide. The latter of these was his first work for the Paris stage and was presented Tuesday night in a new production at the Juilliard School's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.