Concert Review: The Bigger Bang Theory

The New York Philharmonic premieres Thomas Larcher's Kenotaph.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

A bigger bang: Semyon Bychkov, on podium leads the New York Philharmonic.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2019 The New York Philharmonic.

In his Symphony No. 2, "Kenotaph", the Austrian composer Thomas Larcher employs a bewildering variety of percussion instruments. Ranging from conventional drums to items found in kitchens and garages, this battery serves as the harsh and unyielding reminder of the cruelty and misery running rampant on our globe in this still-young century. On Thursday night at the New York Philharmonic, this young work was paired with a symphony of great intellectual rigor, the Fourth by Johannes Brahms. This was the second of four scheduled performances this week at David Geffen Hall.

Concert Review: Some Famous Last Words

Long Yu conducts the New York Philharmonic.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Yo-Yo Ma. Photo © 2019 Sony Classical.

The last compositions by any composer, especially those with shortened lives like Modest Mussorgsky and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, command a certain respect from listeners. This week at the New York Philharmonic, the orchestra played works by each man, flanking the New York premiere of a new concerto for pipa and cello by the second-generation Chinese composer Zhao Lin. The orchestra was conducted by Long Yu, who has developed a tremendous reputation in his own country (he has been referred to as the "Chinese Valery Gergiev") but has yet to break into podium stardom here.

Concert Review: He's Happiest On the Bench

Mikhail Pletnev returns with the Russian National Orchestra.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Mikhail Pletnev (at piano) with members of the Russian National Orchestra in 2017.
Photo courtesy the Russian National Orchestra © 2017.

When you're a world-class composer, conductor, arranger and concert pianist who is also the founder and artistic director of an important international orchestra, you can pretty much sit wherever you want. That's the home truth from Wednesday night's appearance at Lincoln Center by the Russian National Orchestra. For this concert, Mikhail Pletnev, who founded the orchestra in Moscow in 1990, chose the role of soloist, letting conductor Kirill Karabits make his New York podium debut.

Concert Review: The Revelations Will Not Be Televised

The Crypt Sessions presents Quatour pour la fin du temps.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Stephen Jackiw, Orion Weiss, Jay Campbell and Yoonah Kim contemplate the End of Time.
Photo by Andrew Ousley © 2019 The Death of Classical

The Crypt Sessions has returned and its timing could not be better. Their season opener was Tuesday night, with a performance of Messiaen's Quatour pour la fin du temps, a work written and premiered in a German prisoner of war camp in the dark days of World War II. For the forty-nine lucky souls gathered in the depths of the Church of the Intercession, it was a transcendental experience.

Concert Review: Break Glass for Beethoven

Jonathan Biss steps in at Carnegie Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

A higher state of Biss: Jonathan Biss and friend.
Photo by David Bazemann.

The piano sonata was still a relatively new form when Beethoven published his first set in 1795. In the next twenty-seven years, the composer would revolutionalize the way composers wrote for the instrument, placing ever greater technical demands not just on the stamina of performers and audiences but on the instruments that were used to play them. Today's piano, the modern concert Steinway favored at Carnegie Hall is an engine of steel, not the wooden box that Beethoven and Liszt were forced to contend with and sometimes break with the ferocity of their attack.

Concert Review: Yes, She Has No Bananas

Julia Bullock embodies Joséphine Baker in Perle Noire.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Julia Bullock (center) and composer-percussionist Tyshawn Sorey recreate the world of Joséphine Baker in Perle Noir
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo by Stephanie Berger © 2019 Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is no stranger to being used as a performance space. Operas, concerts and galas have been mounted in its galleries, atria and wide open spaces. However, Wednesday night's New York premiere of Tyshawn Sorey's Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine used an even more unusual location:  the Grand Staircase that leads upward from the entrance hall to the upper galleries of European art.  It starred the museum's current artist in residence, the powerhouse soprano Julia Bullock in a work that was part monodrama, part song cycle.

Concert Review: A Folio of Femme Fatales

Jakub Hrůša returns to the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The in-demand Mr. Jakob Hrůša returned to the New York Philharmonic last week.
Photo by Andreas Herszau © 2018 Bamberger Symphoniker courtesy IMG Artists.

Rudyard Kipling once wrote that the female of the species is more deadly than the male. On Friday afternoon, conductor Jakub Hrůša tested that theory with a program of works by Janacek and Rimsky-Korsakov depicting females of cunning and wit. These orchestral showpieces flanked the Piano Concerto No. 3 of Serge Prokofiev, the most elegant, energetic and outré of the composer's five.

The Feast of Seven: The Best Opera Recordings of 2018

Seven notable opera recordings in seven different styles.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The seven best opera recordings of 2018. Art © the respective classical music labels.

Although Superconductor mostly features coverage of live performances, recordings are and continue to be an important part of the classical music genre: the "permanent"...well...record of art that will endure in physical form for decades or even centuries after a performer has moved on to whatever awaits. I don't get to write about recordings anywhere near as often as I would like to, but that doesn't mean I don't listen to and pay attention to what is new.

To kick off our year-ending "Best of 2018" series, here are seven memorable opera recordings for 2018. Chronological order by style. And this year, there's no Wagner or Strauss!):

Opera Review: That Ol' Devil Music

Christian van Horn is the Met's new Mefistofele.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

He stole my balloons: Christian van Horn in the title role of Mefistofele at the Metropolitan Opera.
Photo by Karen Almond © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Devil always gets a bad rap. That's the premise behind Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito's lone completed opera. An ambitious setting of Goethe's Faust that retells the story from the Devil's point of view, Mefistofele used to prance its sulfur strut across the world's opera stages. But Thursday night's revival at the Metropolitan Opera was the first time that the opera had been seen, fully staged, in New York in eighteen years.

Concert Review: Steppe-ing Up Their Game

A new conductor lands at the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The conductor Tughan Sokhiev.
Photo courtesy the Orchestra Nationale du Capitole de Toulouse.

Prior to this week, the  Russian conductor Tughan Sokhiev was an unknown quantity at the New York Philharmonic. Currently music director of the Bolshoi Theater and the Orchestre Nationale du Capitole de Toulouse, he made his debut on the podium at David Geffen Hall, armed with a triptych of works from his native land by Borodin, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky.

Concert Review: Every Tuba Tells a Story

Jaap van Zweden conducts the Bruckner Eighth.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Jaap van Zweden shows off the latest in controversial baton grips.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2017 for the New York Philharmonic.

When a new music director takes the helm of a major symphony orchestra, there are certain works that will be tests of his mettle and ability. These works provide the scribes that scribble accounts of their performances some clues as to how the multi-year multi-million dollar relationship between maestro and ensemble will play out. New York's critics got some useful information on that front this week, as Jaap van Zweden led the New York Philharmonic in Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 in C minor. This is a big one: a ninety-minute work that stands as that Austrian composer's final completed composition.

Five Great Opera Performances: Spring 2017

Here are five memorable operas from the spring of 2017.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Does this really need a caption? Photoshop by the author.

This is a fertile time for opera in New York, with singers, conductors and impresarios exercising imagination and daring to bring lesser known operas before an enthusiastic public. From the daring new music of the PROTOTYPE Festival to the lesser-known stage works of Rossini and Rimsky-Korsakov, our city is a cornucopia of operatic opportunity.

Here are five of the more impressive opera performances reviewed on Superconductor in the spring of 2017.

Opera Review: Of Chickens and Eggs

Apotheosis Opera explores Richard Strauss' Capriccio.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Friendly rivals: Olivier (Wayne Hu) and Flamand (Joe Palarca) square off in Capriccio.
Photography by Steve Malinski for Apotheosis Opera.

Capriccio, the fifteenth and final opera by Richard Strauss, is usually mounted by a large company (in a too-cavernous house) as a vehicle for a star soprano who wants to add Countess Madeleine to her resumé (presumably to stand next to the Marschallin and Arabella in a gallery of elegant Strauss heroines.) On Thursday night, a scrappy new production by Apotheosis Opera  revealed depth and charm in what is too often dismissed as a supercilious and superficial work.

DVD Review: Miracles Out of Nowhere

The Royal Opera of Covent Garden mounts Parsifal.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The wounded and the penitent: Gerald Finely as Amfortas and Angela Denoke as
Kundry in a scene from Act II of Parsifal at Covent Garden.
Photo by Clive Barda © 2013 Royal Opera House of Covent Garden

Parsifal is the final completed stage work of Richard Wagner. For better or for worse, it is also the work that  lends itself most easily to radical interpretation. This latest DVD issue of the opera (released earlier this year on OpusArte) comes from the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden, and shows director Stephen Langridge's vision of the opera. He puts a secular spin on this story, re-imagining the Grail legend as a story of innocence lost and miracles achieved, although not always in a way that one would expect.

Concert Review: Mozart and the Crash Cart

A Friday matinee turns deadly at the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pianist Jeffrey Kahane conducted Mozart at the New York Philharmonic this week. 

On certain, rare occasions, the weekly routine of a New York Philharmonic subscription concert at Avery  Fisher Hall is broken by an extraordinary event. Such an event happened at Friday's 11am matinée performance. The concert featured pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane leading a thoroughly conventional program: Mozart's Symphony No. 38 sandwiched between two of his piano concertos: No. 21 in C Major and the heaven-storming No. 20 in D minor.

Concert Review: When Alienation Attacks

Steven Wilson plays NJPAC.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Steven Wilson with his new signature model guitar made by Jeff Babicz.
Photo by Rocco DeCarlo for StevenWilsonHQ.

Steven Wilson is a man out of time. A progressive rock hero for the modern age, he writes music with little care for radio or music television. A self-taught songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, he made his first recordings at the age of 13. He's matured since into a  brilliant, fearless songwriter with tart lyrics and a gift for imagery. In this decade, Mr. Wilson set aside his long-running band Porcupine Tree and other projects to launch a successful solo career. His music remains bleak, fierce and iconoclastic. On Sunday night, he brought his five-piece band to the Victoria Theater at NJPAC in Newark for the first of three area dates supporting his new solo album  Hand. Cannot. Erase.

DVD Review: The Wild One

The Guy Cassiers production of Siegfried storms La Scala.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"D'you want to know how I got these scars?" Peter Bronder's Mime (right) prepares to tell
Lance Ryan's Siegfried (left) in Act I of Siegfried.> Photo © 2013 Brescia/Amisano/Teatro alla Scala.

Siegfried is the third and most problematic opera in Wagner's epic Ring Cycle. It's a three-act fairy tale about a lunk-headed hero who slays the monster, gets the treasure and (fumblingly) wins his woman over a five-hour stretch. But in the hands of conductor Daniel Barenboim in this 2014 Blu-Ray from La Scala (filmed in 2012 and released last year on the ArtHaus Musik label) , the languors of this opera seem to just fly by. It's not that Mr. Barenboim is fast, it's that he keeps the action moving forward producing the most exciting Siegfried on DVD since the one he made at Bayreuth in the 1990s.

Concert Review: The Odd Couple

Dorothea Röschmann and Mitsuko Uchida at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pianist Mitsuko Uchida (left) and soprano Dorothea Röschmann.
Original photo of Dorothea Roschmann  © Sony Classical. Photo of Ms. Uchida by Justin Pumfrey © Universal Music Group.
Photo alteration by the author because it's nice to have them in the same picture.

Every once in a while in this business you get to see something unique. That happened on Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall, when soprano Dorothea Röschmann gave a lieder recital accompanied by a world-class pianist: Mitsuko Uchida. It is unusual to hear an internationally known virtuoso and a regular touring visitor to Carnegie Hall with a vast repertory in the role of accompanist, but the pairing proved inspired.  The evening, a stop on the artists' current North American tour, featured art songs by Robert Schumann and Alban Berg, in a concert that made the cavernous Stern Auditorium seem intimate and warm despite the crowd in attendance.

Concert Review: Of Strings and Broken Puppets

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Andris Nelsons led the BSO at Carnegie Hall.
Photo courtesy the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra continued their three-night stand at Carnegie Hall Thursday night with a program featuring Beethoven's Violin Concerto bookended by watershed works from the pen of Dmitri Shostakovich. Mr. Nelsons' stamp on this orchestra is beginning to make itself heard: a painstaking attention to orchestral detail and an almost intimate podium style that makes himself and his baton part of the working ensemble and not merely its music director.

Concert Review: The Long Dark Road

The Lord of the Rings concludes at Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Down with the King: Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Photo © 2003 New Line Cinema/Wingnut Films.

On Friday night, at Lincoln Center, the 21st Century Orchestra and Chorus, under the baton of music director Ludwig Wicki, premiered the score from The Return of the King, the third and final chapter in his ground-breaking film trilogy The Lord of the Rings. The performance, at a packed David H. Koch Theater, presented the performers with a considerable challenge, a three-hour gesamstkunstwerk that incorporated the motifs from the previous films, forcing conductor and massive ensemble to keep shifting gears to keep up.