Concert Review: Slip-Slidin' Away

Valery Gergiev and Daniil Trifonov return to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

And carry a small stick: Valery Gergiev.
Photo © 2017 Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

Six years and some months ago, the pianist Daniil Trifonov made his debut at Carnegie Hall. On Saturday night, Mr. Trifonov re-teamed with Valery Gergiev, now at the helm of the MET Orchestra. Mr. Gergiev spent many years as a principal guest conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, and one assumes that the players remain familiar with his eccentric conducting style. This was the first of three scheduled spring concerts by New York's greatest opera orchestra, an annual tradition at this venue following the end of the opera season.

Concert Review: Mr. Thomas' Neighborhood

MTT conducts the MET Orchestra in the Carnegie season closer.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

She's a pretty Yende. Soprano Pretty Yende made her big stage debut in Stern Auditorium
on Tuesday night. Photo © 2017 Nachtigall Artists.

Carnegie Hall ended its 2017-18 season Tuesday night with the last of three concerts featuring the MET Orchestra. This year, the pit band at the Metropolitan Opera has been playing under a succession of different conductors. This one was conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The music director of the San Francisco Symphony, Mr. Thomas (or "MTT" as he is known to all) will serve next year as a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist, and is scheduled to lead his California forces in the Opening Night concert on October 3.

Concert Review: The Ghosts of Conductors Past

The MET Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda play the Mahler Fifth.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gianandra Noseda in action.
Photo by Ramella and Giannese, courtesy Teatro Regio di Torino

There is no ensemble that has a bigger target on its back this spring than the MET Orchestra. After a tumultuous season at the Metropolitan Opera that included the explosion of a long-building sex scandal involving former music director James Levine, the firing of Mr. Levine (after a 47-year association) and a subsequent flurry of lawsuits that have kept the opera company in the headlines, it would be surprising if the shell-shocked players had the enthusiasm and focus for the three-concert series that ends the current Carnegie Hall season.

Concert Review: The Next Big Thing

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla leads the MET Orchestra.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla in action. Photo by Lawrence K. Ho.

This has been a season that the Metropolitan Opera would rather forget: one where scandal, not music-making has put the opera company in the public eye. So it was with some feeling of relief that the MET Orchestra, as the company's players are billed when giving symphony concerts at Carnegie Hall, reported to the stage of that august venue for Friday night's performance. This was the first of three performances, over the next few weeks: the last concerts of the Hall's current season.

Concert Review: Now We Can Play the Forbidden Music

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the MET Orchestra end the Carnegie Hall season.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

In flight: Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Photo by Nicolas Brodard © 2017 the Philharmonia Orchestra.

The Carnegie Hall subscription season ended Tuesday night with an epic concert featuring conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, the MET Orchestra and a heaping program of four works by Gustav Mahler and Jean Sibelius. These two composers remain touchstones of Mr. Salonen’s long and successful podium career. With bold repertory choices (including a Mahler piece that, unaccountably, may have had its Carnegie Hall premiere at his very concert!) and a starry pair of guests, this proved a revelatory and engrossing evening.

Concert Review: Between East and West Lies the North

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen in flight. Photo © Radio France.

In 2009, Esa-Pekka Salonen stunned the music world when he announced that he would step off the podium of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to devote his life to his first love, composition. Thus, a Salonen concert (at least one that does not include his own compositions) is a rarity in New York, happening only a few times per season. On Saturday afternoon at Carnegie Hall, an eager audience gathered to hear his take on two repertory warhorses: Schumann's Symphony No. 3 ("Rhenish") and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, a sprawling, valedictory work that was almost catalogued as that composer's Symphony No. 9.

Concert Review: The No-Bell Prize

The MET Orchestra goes all-Strauss at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The ever-glamorous Renée Fleming sang Strauss Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall.
Photo by Andrew Eccles for Decca/Universal Music Group.

The starry career of soprano Renée Fleming has been associated for the past two decades with the operas of Richard Strauss, and specifically roles like the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, the title role in Arabella and the Countess Madeleine in Capriccio, all more or less a fit for her aristocratic stage presence and charm.

Concert Review: And So His Watch is Winding Down

James Levine, Evgeny Kissin and the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

James Levine in 2013, ensconced in his special motorized wheelchair on the stage of
Carnegie Hall. The Met's music director will step down this year after 40 years of service.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

The concerts played at Carnegie Hall by the Metropolitan Opera's pit orchestra (billed for these occasions by the marketing department of that august institution as "The MET Orchestra") are the brainchild of music director James Levine. Lately though, they've seemed more like a burden, more weight added to the workload of a conductor whose career is drawing to its twilight. Mr. Levine is still a vital musical force, but he is retiring because of physical issues that have threatened and impaired his performances. (This was his first concert in the newly created post of Music Director Emeritus.)

Concert Review: A Pair of Deuces and a Queen

The MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Soprano Anna Netrebko. No that's not the puffball dress she wore on Sunday.
Photo by Thomas Bartilla for AnnaNetrebko.com

James Levine and the MET Orchestra returned to Carnegie Hall Sunday afternoon with a program that originally planned to balance two traditional German symphonies with bold works by Alban Berg and Elliot Carter. That symmetry was shattered, however when the Berg (the Seven Early Songs) was yanked off the program (along with mezzo Elina Garança) and replaced by a concert appearance from Russian soprano Anna Netrebko.

Crossing the Plaza

The New York Philharmonic Acquires Two Met Principal Players.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bassist Timothy Cobb (left) and clarinetist Anthony McGill have left the
Metropolitan Opera to join the New York Philharmonic. Photoshop by the author. 

Two principal musicians of the Metropolitan Opera's orchestra are leaving the opera company and crossing Lincoln Center Plaza to join the New York Philharmonic.

The New York Philharmonic announced yesterday that clarinetist Anthony McGill and bassist Timothy Cobb have accepted principal positions with their orchestra, filling two important and vacant positions with the historic ensemble. The defection of Mr. McGill and Mr. Cobb comes as union talks between the Metropolitan Opera and the members of its orchestra are heating up.

Concert Review: Buttoning Up

The MET Orchestra ends their season at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

One of the "Local 802" badges from Sunday's concert.
Used with permission of the photographer.

One year ago, the MET Orchestra's season-ending Carnegie Hall concert became the biggest story of the spring season. That concert, which marked the return of James Levine to conducting duties showed the players of the Metropolitan Opera's orchestra turning a corner and sounding inspired after a lackluster year spent without their music director. This Sunday's matinee concert was an all-Dvořák affair, just one day after the orchestra played two season-ending shows at the Metropolitan Opera House. It's a big story for a very different reason.

Concert Review: Racing Into the Light

James Levine conducts Mahler's Symphony No. 7.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

James Levine, triumphant, rolls onto the stage of Carnegie Hall.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera/The MET Orchestra.

The symphonies of Gustav Mahler are marathon works, an important test for any conductor eager to show his command of complex orchestration and vast marching forces of sound. On Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Opera music director James Levine gave his first Mahler performance since his two-year absence from conducting duties. The program: the orchestral Songs of a Wayfarer and the Symphony No. 7, the most mysterious and misunderstood work of the composer's catalogue.

Concert Review: Along the Comeback Trail

James Levine conducts the MET Orchestra.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

James Levine conducting the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

New Yorkers love a comeback. At least those New Yorkers who follow the Metropolitan Opera, a company that has reinvigorated itself with the return to duties of music director James Levine. That was evident on Sunday afternoon as James Levine led the MET Orchestra in his first subscription concert of the season at Carnegie Hall. Rolling onstage in his custom-built wheelchair and getting locked into the elevated conductor's kiosk, Mr. Levine received a thunderous reception from the sold-out Stern Auditorium.

Concert Review: The Comeback

James Levine conducts the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Metropolitan Opera Music Director James Levine leads the MET Orchestra
at Carnegie Hall in a concert on Sunday, May 19, 2013.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

The roar was deafening.

James Levine, music director of the Metropolitan Opera, returned to conducting on Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall. As the maestro's motorized wheelchair rolled into Stern Auditorium, the capacity crowd stood up and cheered. It has been two years since Mr. Levine conducted his last performance with the Met, two years of cancellations, painful rehabilitation and uncertainty for the conductor and the opera company.

Concert Review: In the Big Dream

The MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Fabio Luisi apparently demonstrating the proper way to eat one's baton.
Photo by Barbara Luisi.

Fabio Luisi has been an important figure in the musical life of New Yorkers in the last two years. Last season, he was promoted to Principal Conductor in the wake of a seemingly catastrophic series of health problems for the Metropolitan Opera's Music Director, James Levine. On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Luisi led the MET Orchestra (as they are billed for concerts0 in a bold, ambitious program, showing that even with Mr. Levine's impending return to conducting in 2013, this conductor is confident in putting his stamp on the ensemble in a concert setting.

This was an ambitious program. It started with the first Carnegie Hall performance of In tempus praesens, ("In the present time") the second violin concerto from the pen of Russian-Tatar composer Sofia Gubaidulina. Here, the solo part was taken by Met concertmaster David Chan. In tempus praesans begins with a deceptively simple series of wide intervals on the solo violin: less than a melody but more than a tone-row. From there, the piece set the soloist against the tuttis from a very large orchestra, minus its violin section.

Judging from a first listen, this piece folk influences of central Russia and the ancient, pagan ceremonies that also inspired Stravinsky's Rite. Huge, slab-like constructs were laid down by the violin-less string section. They seemed to rise up and impede the soloist's progress through the score. Colorful percussion and adventurous tonalities make one think of the late works of Scriabin, pushing the boundaries of tonality in the quest for mystic understanding through music.

Concert Review: She Wants Magic

Renée Fleming and the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Renée Fleming. Photo © 2011 QPrime Management.

On Sunday afternoon, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra came to play Carnegie Hall under the baton of Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi. The program was unusual: alternating two clarinet concertos (by Mozart and Aaron Copland) with short recitals from superstar soprano Renée Fleming.

The afternoon opened with Stephen Williamson playing Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. Mr. Williamson is a principal clarinetist of the MET Orchestra, currently playing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This is the last woodwind concerto written by this composer and one of his final works completed before the (unfinished) Requiem.  He played Mozart's athletic solo lines and octave leaps with agility.

Despite generating a pleasing tone, Mr. Williamson kept pausing between movements. He disassembled his clarinet, examined the cork ends, and fiddled with the action on the keys. At the second pause, he wiped  out the inside of the barrel, and bit in a new reed. So in addition to appreciating Mozart, the Carnegie audience may have learned enough to open their own woodwind repair shops.

Ms. Fleming swept onstage (in a bright magenta gown) to sing Mahler' five Ruckert-Lieder. The soprano's voice sounded impressive in the dreamy heights of Ich atmet' einen linden Duft and the extreme depths of Mitternacht. But in each song, her middle register seemed to vanish. Also, Ms. Fleming is an experienced interpreter of Strauss, but she lent a strange inflection to this German text. That said, the final "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" was impressive. Mr. Luisi proved a sensitive accompanist.

The second half of the program featured Aaron Copland's concerto, originally written for Benny Goodman. Anthony McGill showed himself to be an outstanding soloist, playing with bright, vibrant tone and racing through Copland's jazz-inflected figures. Mr. Luisi drew some gorgeous sonorities from the Met orchestra, lovely shimmers of strings with Copland's signature tonalities that suggest wide American landscapes and urban bustle.


In the course of her long career, Ms. Fleming has shown commitment to 20th century opera, especially in bringing Carlisle Floyd's powerful Susannah to the Met stage and creating Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Here, she presented three arias from modern American operas by Samuel Barber and Bernard Hermann.  Two of these arias appear on I Want Magic! the 1998 album which she recorded with the Met Orchestra and Mr. Levine.

She opened the short set with "Give Me Some Music" from Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, the opera that opened the new Met in 1967. Today it is chiefly remembered for director Franco Zeffirelli's extravagant pyramid set, which broke the opera house's brand-new turntable. Here, the soprano battled a sandstorm of orchestration, taxing her instrument to portray the Egyptian queen against the heavy brass and strings of Barber's score. She faced similar challenges in "Do Not Utter a Word" from Vanessa. But Mr. Luisi was more successful in managing the orchestra, creating a rich balance of sound. Ms. Fleming soared to some powerful heights in this frantic scena.

Bernard Herrmann is remembered for his film scores for Alfred Hitchcock: most notably Psycho. "I Have Dreamt" is from his opera Wuthering Heights, and featured Ms. Fleming as Emily Brontë's haunted heroine. Mr. Luisi drew rich tones from the Met orchestra, conveying Mr. Herrmann's rich, Korngold-like textures. But like Catherine's ghost, the middle voice seemed swaddled in the heavy orchestral fabric, and did not make a great case for future mountings of this Gothic opera.

Ms. Fleming offered one encore: "I can smell the sea air" from André Previn's Streetcar. This was a treat for New Yorkers, who have not yet seen this operatic version of the Tennessee Williams play onstage. Ms. Fleming did a powerful job of inhabiting Blanche Dubois's particular descent into madness, arching into Mr. Prévin's lush phrases with ease.