Concert Review: From Sunup to Twilight

Valery Gergiev conducts the Vienna Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Valery Gergiev conducting.
 Photo by Alberto Venzago © 2016 Columbia Artists Management Inc.

Saturday night's Carnegie Hall appearance by the Vienna Philharmonic was the second of three concerts given by the orchestra in New York on its current American tour. It also marked the fourth of five concerts last week for Valery Gergiev, the St. Petersburg-based conductor whose presence on a bill guarantees a small but vocal group of protesters outside the venue shaming the maestro for his ties to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Don Pasquale

The Met brings back Donizetti's comedy of love, marriage and other disasters.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Ambrogio Maestri (seated) and Levante Molnár ham it up in Don Pasquale.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Met's last revival of Don Pasquale burned the house down. Now, a new cast led by Eleonara Buratto makes her Met debut and tenor Javier Camarena rises from the ashes. Mega-baritone Ambrogio Maestri sings the title role.

Concert Review: To Battle the Giants

At the head of an army of performers, Kent Tritle takes on Mahler's Eighth.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gustav Mahler conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. Painting by Max Oppenheimer © 1935 Estate of the Artist.

You don't hear the Mahler Eighth much. 

Nicknamed the "Symphony of 1,000", it is the orchestral equivalent of Rabelais' medieval giant Gargantua. It requires two mixed choruses, children’s chorus, eight vocal soloists and an army of musicians with extra brass and wind, organ and a phalanx of strings. The score itself is another giant a 90-minute Pantagruel consisting of just two movements. For reasons known only to himself, Mahler paired the medieval hymn “Veni, creator spiritus” with a setting of the final scene of Part II of Goethe’s Faust, a gauzy exercise in German mysticism that depicts the long-suffering title character’s final transit into Heaven.

Concert Review: A Marathon for the Fingers

The Mariinsky Orchestra plays all five Prokofiev piano concertos.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Directing traffic: Valery Gergiev (standing, right) leads the Mariinsky Orchestra as pianist
Daniil Trifonov labors over the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto.
Photo by Robert Altman © 2015 Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Although Serge Prokofiev is a master of 20th century music, his five piano concertos suffer undue neglect. It is the current mission of the Mariinsky Orchestra and its music director Valery Gergiev, to correct that oversight. On Wednesday night, the Mariinsky players opened a three-night stand at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The program: all five Prokofiev piano concertos, played in chronological order by five different soloists.