Concert Review: Music of (Easy) Conscience

The New York Philharmonic opens a three-week festival to end its season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Jaap van Zweden leading the New York Philharmonic.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2019 The New York Philharmonic.

The New York Philharmonic is in the endgame of its spring 2019 season, the orchestra's first with Jaap van Zweden as its music director. That endgame is a three week festival dedicated to "music of conscience". This loose aggregation covers symphonies and a new opera by David Lang in the coming weeks, with the connection between works being the creation of music at times of great social and political storm and stress. On Tuesday night, Mr. van Zweden led the last concert of the first program of the festival pairing pieces by Beethoven and Shostakovich. Though these two men lived in very different times and political climates, each work had the benefit of being readily familiar to even the most conservative members of the audience.

Concert Review: Two Tickets, No Paradise

Gianandrea Noseda conducts at Carnegie Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gianandrea Noseda. Photo © 2017 Fondazione Teatro Regio di Torino.

The Carnegie Hall calendar is released every year in the final week of January, but not everything on that august and immense document comes to fruition. The concert originally planned for this Sunday would have featured Gianandrea Noseda conducting Verdi’s grand opera  I Vespri Siciliani in its five-act entirety with the Teatro Regio di Torino. Its substitute: a two part choral concert with Mr. Noseda leading the National Symphony Orchestra, who are based in Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center.

Opera Review: Her Dark Materials

On Site Opera presents Murasaki's Moon.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Another bad creation Genji (Martin Bakari) and his maker, the Lady Murasaki (Kristen Choi.)
Photo by Stephanie Berger for On Side Opera © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

On Site Opera, Eric Einhorn's company that mounts interesting operas in extraordinary places. This week, the company presented the world premiere of Murasaki's Moon, commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and mounted in that august institution's Astor Court, a Chinese-themed meditative space hidden in the northeast corner of the second floor of the museum's main building. (If you want to visit, it's Galleries 217 and 218.) This writer attended the first of two performances on Saturday, the third of a six show run that wrapped Sunday afternoon.

Concert Review: The Messiah Complex

Evgeny Kissin returns to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The chosen one, at the controls. Evgeny Kissing at Carnegie Hall.
Photo by Steve J. Sherman.

"Oh my God," the woman said. "He's amazing! He's like the Chosen One!"

Everybody loves a good salvation story, which might be why the above was said about Evgeny Kissin at intermission (right next to my seat) at last night's Carnegie Hall concert.. The storied Russian pianist made his yearly visit to the historic venue with an intelligently constructed program, dovetailing neatly between the development of music for his instrument in the 19th and 20th centuries. As the recital was sold out, Carnegie Hall added seating on the Perelman Stage, both behind and to the left of the artist as he played.

We've Got a Horse Right Here: The 2018-19 Metropolitan Opera Season

Perqs, re-creations and the Metropolitan Opera season that was.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Yes, this is a parody of Parks & Recreation starring (l.-r.) Javier Cammarena, Federica Lombardi
Stefan Vinke, Anna Netrebko, Kyle Ketelsen, Christine Goerge, Ambrogio Maestri and Greer Grimsley.
Original image © NBC, opera singers © The Metropolitan Opera, photoshop by the author.

Another Metropolitan Opera season is in the books, and the hard-working singers, actors, dancers, musicians, stagehands and army of support that makes up America's largest opera company is on their way to Pawnee, Indiana for some much deserved recreation at America's biggest Harvest Festival. So this year, let's call the awards the "Little Sebastians" and celebrate by awarding tiny statues of small horses, so small that you can't even see them on the Internet.

Or something.

Anyway, Here's the awards for the Met season-that-was.

Presenting: the Little Sebastians!

Concert Review: Faith Without Pause

Bernard Labadie leads Bach's Mass in B minor.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bernard Labadie leads Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Quebec
in Bach's Mass in B minor. Photo by Melanie Burford.

Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B minor is more than church music. It is a towering setting of the Catholic liturgy that while never performed in full in the composer's lifetime, can elevate the listener no matter what faith they profess. Its glories were on full display in Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night. The performance (mounted without an intermission) was by the period ensemble Les Violins du Roy and La Chapelle de Quebec under the leadership of their founder Bernard Labadie.

Concert Review: The Fearless Academic

Mitsuko Uchida plays Schubert at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Mitsuko Uchida and friend. Photo by Geoffrey Scheid.

There is nothing conventional about Mitsuko Uchida. At this stage in her career, the reigning grand dame of the piano recital has eschewed the traditional recital format for long concerts that are meditative studies on the work of just one composer. Luckily for Carnegie Hall audiences  this season, that composer is Franz Peter Schubert, whose work she is revisiting at the conclusion of a two year journey through his piano sonatas.

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.

Opera Review: He Sleeps With the Fishes (and Everyone Else)

The Juilliard Opera mounts Don Giovanni.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Take my wife, please. Masetto (Gregory Feldman, right) looks on as the Don (Hubert Zapiór)
woos Zerlina (Jessica Niles) in a scene from Act I of Don Giovanni.
Photo by Richard Termine.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music is timeless. But are the ribald, sexist opera libretti of Lorenzo da Ponte still workable on the stage in this era of #metoo? That is the question asked by the Juilliard Opera and director Emma Griffin. Her new staging of Don Giovanni bowed Wednesday night at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. In its two acts, Ms. Griffin sought to turn this opera, the story of a rabid sexual predator at play in the streets of Seville, Spain on its head and deliver a message about today's sexual ethics.

She partly succeeded.

Concert Review: A Night Out With Your Old Boss

Pablo Heras-Casado returns to the Orchestra of St. Luke's.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pablo Heras-Casado (standing) seen here leading the Orchestra of St. Luke's
returned to Carnegie Hall last Thursday night. Photo by Ferrando Sancho from the conductor's website. 

The tenure of Pablo Heras-Casado, for the first seven years of this decade at the helm of the Orchestra of St. Luke's was, by and large a positive one. It boosted the reputation of this excellent New York orchestra and gave the young conductor a chance to be heard on the biggest stages of New York. On Thursday night, Mr. Heras-Casado returned to the podium at Carnegie Hall to conduct the OSL in a program that looked forward and back, embracing the best of 20th century neo-classicism and continuing the ensemble's ongoing deep dive into the major works of Franz Joseph Haydn.

Opera Review: The Empire Doesn't Strike Back

The Metropolitan Opera brings back Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conspirators: Vitellia (Elza van den Heever) and Sesto (Joyce DiDonato)
plot as Publio (Christian Van Horn) looks on in a scene from La Clemenza di Tito.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

In past seasons at the Metropolitan Opera, revivals of the company's 1984 Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito were often done out of a sense of obligation to the composer's reputation. However, this spring run, under the baton of new broom conductor Lothar Koenigs,  has been particularly inspired. On Tuesday night, in the penultimate performance of this opera this season, the cast, featuring soprano Elza van den Heever and mezzo Joyce DiDonato made the case for this work being one of the composer's strongest efforts.

Concert Review: Dark Wood and Silver Linings

The London Philharmonic Orchestra returns to Lincoln Center.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The violinist James Ehnes was the featured soloist on Monday night with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Photo by Benjamin Eolovega courtesy Lincoln Center.

One of the foibles in covering orchestra concerts in New York City is differentiating the five permanent orchestras based in London, England. It is necessary to keep these bands straight from one another in one's own mind, especially since most of them are regularly rotated visitors on the big stage of Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall.  This week it was the turn of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, not to be confused with the London Symohony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra or the others. Their appearance was part of this spring's Great Performers at Lincoln Center schedule.

Opera Review: Zapped!

Handel’s shocking Semele strikes Carnegie Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Lightning rod: Brenda Rae as Semele at Carnegie Hall
Photo by Steve J. Sherman for Carnegie Hall.

One does not always think of Georg Friedrich Handel as a paragon of musical experimentation. On Sunday afternoon, the English Concert, (which is in the middle of presenting an annual cycle of Handel masterpieces at Carnegie Hall) struck down that thesis. This year’s entry is Semele, a hybridization of opera and oratorio. Unusual in that it uses the oratorio formula and an English text (by the poet William Congreve) to tell a mythological tale, Semele flopped in 1744. Today, this work is regarded as one of the composer’s boldest and most impressive achievements. 

Concert Review: Murder, Mayhem and Major Key Transitions

Dream Theater returns to Metropolis at the Beacon.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Dream Theater: (l.-r. Jordan Rudess, Mike Mangini (on drums) John Myung,
James LaBrie, John Petrucci) returned to the Beacon Theater on Friday night. Photo by the author.

(This review is respectfully dedicated to my friend and colleague Peter Danish, who got us the tickets. Thanks again, man.)

The progressive rock band Dream Theater has enjoyed its long existence by following two rules: doing what they want to do as musicians and ignoring sniffing rock critics. (Critics have responded to this indifference by pretty much ignoring the band: their reputation rests on word of mouth.) Since I'm a classical music critic, I went to see them (for the sixteenth time since 1993) at the Beacon Theater on a night when the band was celebrating its return to its hometown of New York and I was celebrating my forty-sixth spin around the sun.

Concert Review: Darkness, Light and Opera

The Budapest Festival Orchestra returns to New York.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Iván Fischer has led the Budapest Festival Orchestra since founding it in 1983.
Photo by Marco Borggreve.

The stately arches of Carnegie Hall are often witness to the most solemn of musical occasions. There is something ritualistic about the white plaster walls, the gold filigree and the elaborate columns evoking the sense of occasion. This weekend however, two concerts by the Budapest Festival Orchestra were among the most enjoyable and raucous at that storied venue. The music at each was that of Béla Bartók, Hungary's greatest composer of the 20th century.

Concert Review: Time Standing Still

efim Bronfman returns to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Yefim Bronfman, shown here in performance at the 92nd St Y,
returned to Carnegie Hall this week. Photo by Chris Lee © 2018 The New York Philharmonic.

One of the pleasurable difficulties in covering so-called “classical” music concerts is encountering an artist for whom the word “criticism should not be too stringently applied. Such an artist is the pianist Yefim Bronfman, who returned to Carnegie Hall on Thursday night for a solo recital of Debussy, Schumann and Schumann. All the works chosen were executed at a very high level indeed.

Well, that was easy, wasn't it? Ok. Maybe a little more.

Concert Review: Her Dark Materials

With the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Mitsuko Uchida returns to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The ten magic fingers of Mitsuko Uchida. Photo by Jean Radel.

The art of conducting a piano concerto from the keyboard, and also playing the fiendishly difficult piano parts written into such a work, sometimes produces conflicting results. Soloists used to the traditional position in front of a conductor may find themselves relying on the bow of their concertmaster. Others may have trouble splitting the tasks of orchestral leadership and visiting virtuoso. None of those problems befell Mitsuko Uchida, who brought her current collaborators in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra to Carnegie Hall for a concert of Mozart and Berg on Friday night.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: La Clemenza di Tito

Mozart's drama of intrigue and attempted assassination in Ancient Rome.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Matthew Polenzani (seen here in the title role of Mozart's Idomeneo)
sings the title role in La Clemenza di Tito at the Metropolitan Opera this season.
Photo © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

A stellar cast (Joyce DiDonato, Matthew Polenzani, Elza van den Heever) takes the stage in this late season revival of Mozart's opera seria of passion and power politics.

Opera Review: One Little Goat

Amore Opera celebrates a decade with Meyerbeer's Dinorah.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Looking for goats in all the wrong places: Jennifer Moore in Dinorah.
Photo © Amore Opera.

Mention composer Giacomo Meyerbeer to an opera lover and they will think of enormous five-movement works with extravagant staging requirements, lengthy ballets and tremendous orchestral and choral requirements. And yet, there was another less elaborate side to the Meyerbeer. This month, the small Amore Opera company, which is celebrating a decade of bringing intimate opera to the ears of New Yorkers, brought back Dinorah. This is an all but forgotten pastoral fairy tale, in the genre of  opera-comique that had not been staged in New York in 100 years. Sung in French and linked with spoken dialogue passages delivered in English, this proved to be a fun Saturday afternoon at the theater at Riverside Church.

Concert Review: Wide Boys

Thomas Adès conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Thomas Adès: Photo by Jesse Costa for the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Although the first conductors were themselves composers, the wearing of both hats at the helm of a symphony orchestra is always cause for comment. On Wednesday night, the British composer Thomas Adès, who is currently in the new role of "Artistic Partner" with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led that band at Carnegie Hall in a program featuring the New York debut of his Piano Concerto.