Summer has ended and it's time to get ready for the beginning of the classical music season here in New York City. I already have purchased all my tickets and filled all my subscriptions and am now eagerly awaiting the first week of October when things start off.
At the Met, I'm scheduled to attend eight operas. This will be the first season without James Levine as Music Director and it will be interesting to see if any changes have already taken place within the company. Maestro Levine will still be present as "Music Director Emeritus," however, and will be conducting three operas - Rossini's L’Italiana in Algeria, Mozart's Idomeneo, and Verdi's Nabucco, the last with the great Placido Domingo singing the lead role as a baritone. I'll also be seeing a new production of Rossini's final work, Guillaume Tell, in what will be the opera's first staging at the Met in over 80 years. Another new production will be Gounod's Roméo et Juliette featuring the wonderful soprano Diana Damrau as Juliet. Later in the season, I'll see Verdi's Aida for the first time in many years and will also have an opportunity to hear the work of the "Music Director Designate," Yannick Nézet-Séguin, when he takes the podium in late April to conduct Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer. It all begins on October 1 when Fabio Luisi conducts what for me is the greatest opera of them all, Mozart's Don Giovanni. This will be the first opportunity I've had to hear the much touted baritone Simon Keenlyside who will be taking on the title role.
At Carnegie Hall, I'll be attending the Opening Night celebration when Gustavo Dudamel will lead the Simón Bolivar Orchestra in a rendition of Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps. Two nights later, I'll return to hear the same conductor and ensemble perform a work I'm eagerly anticipating, Messiaen's Turangalila-symphonie. Shortly thereafter, Simon Rattle will conduct Mahler's Symphony No. 6 with the Philadelphia Orchestra only a few weeks before he returns to lead another great orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, in Mahler's Symphony No. 7. Other orchestral performances at the Hall this season will include Daniel Barenboim conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin in Bruckner's No. 9, Franz Wesler-Möst leading the Vienna Philharmonic in Schubert's Ninth Symphony, Andris Nelsons leading the Boston Symphony in Beethoven's Third, the Eroica, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting a concert version of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the great Valery Gergiev conducting the Munich Philharmonic in yet another rendition of the Beethoven's Eroica, and finally at the very end of the season Esa-Pekka Salonen leading the Met Orchestra in Mahler's Symphony No. 1. As far as solo recitals, those I will attend all take place in the latter part of the season when I will hear four pianists whom I consider among the greatest now active - András Schiff, Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida and Yefim Bronfman.
I also renewed my subscription to the Lincoln Center's Great Performers series at David Geffen Hall and will first be hearing at the end of October the London Symphony perform Verdi's Requiem and then in the second half of the season, on two consecutive dates, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, led by its Music Director Iván Fischer, in performances of Beethoven's First, Fifth, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies.
Finally, I plan on attending several chamber performances given by the Jupiter Players and any number of recitals at Juilliard.
All in all, it should be a great season. And of course, as soon as I've heard them, I'll be posting my thoughts on all these performances here on this blog.
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