First, the takeaway: Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s “Music of Faith” with the Philadelphia Orchestra was a sensational concert, perhaps the best I’ve heard in more than a season. Intriguingly juxtaposing two similar-but-very-different works composed 120 years apart—Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3 (Kaddish) and Rossini’s Stabat Mater—the maestro and his excellent collaborators were in tip-top form. Read more »
Our Own Joel Rozen in Slate ponders the “good gay vs. bad gay” politics of Zachary Woolfe‘s New York Times celebration of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Director Ivo van Hove, in collaboration with Flemish opera company Muziektheater Transparant, brings his trademark physicality and stripped-down aesthetic to bear on Leoš Janáček‘s “pathbreaking, emotionally raw song cycle” (The New York Times) Diary of One Who Disappeared. Featuring bravura performances by tenor Andrew Dickinson and mezzo-soprano Marie Hamard and additional music by composer Annelies Van Parys, BAM presents the US Premiere of this contemporary update April 4—6 at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House.
In 1917, Czech composer Janáček became obsessed with a married woman 40 years his junior. In the throes of despair, he penned more than 700 love letters and a haunting 22-part song cycle, about a village boy who falls in love with a Romany girl. Van Hove’s contemporary reimagining of Janáček’s Diary of One Who Disappeared paints a deeply affecting portrait of identity, infatuation, and ultimately, alienation. Read more »
Now, you would think nothing could please gaycentric La Cieca more than yesterday’s New York Times profile of the Met’s new music director, combining as it does four of your doyenne’s favorite things: Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Zachary Woolfe, opera and being out. (The brown paper packages tied up with strings I can take or leave.) And yet… Read more »
Philadelphia is a city famous for its musical institutions—so, of course, at this time of year Messiah performances abound.
The frequently-omniscient Future Met Wiki has recently vouchsafed a few morsels about upcoming Met seasons.
Though orchestrally lavish, this “semi-staging” delivers less theater than no staging at all.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin‘s triumphant Elektra at the Met was the subject of parterre box’s most-read article in March 2018.
Coming up at 3:15 PM, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.
Cher Public