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[INDEX]
Carnegie Hall’s 2003-2004 season was announced on January 7 in New York
by executive and artistic director Robert Harth, who continues the traditional,
star studded lines of Carnegie Hall programming in this, his third season
at the helm.
Next season’s highlights include:
• The Kirov Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, featuring Shostakovich’s popular
Symphony No. 7, violinist Maxim Vengerov playing Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole,
and Prokofiev’s complete ballet score Romeo and Juliet (Oct. 1, 3, 5,
2003).
• Vengerov returns to play Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin,
continuing his current enthusiasm for baroque violin repertoire(March,
19, 20, 2004).
• Voice lovers will mark German baritone Thomas Quasthoff’s recital of
Schumann and Schubert lieder (Oct. 11, 2003). Other baritone recitals
include: Thomas Hampson (Oct. 14), Matthias Goerne (March 7, 2004), and
Bryn Terfel (April 12, 2004).
• On the distaff side, soprano Renée Fleming performs with the very
fine Orchestra of St. Luke’s (Dec. 11, 2003). She returns with fellow
stars Anne Sofie von Otter and René Pape for an evening of Schubert lieder
accompanied by James Levine.
• The most anticipated vocal event of the season is surely the Carnegie
Hall Recital Debut of the divine soprano Deborah Voigt, accompanied by
James Levine (April 7, 2004). Running a close second will be the recital
by voluptuous Russian mezzo Olga Borodina (May 9, 2004). She will also
solo with the Met Orchestra (May 16, 2004).
• Opera fans take note: The Boston Symphony will offer a concert version
of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, led by Bernard Haitink. The stunning
cast includes Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Simon Keenlyside in the title
roles and Canadian baritone Gerald Finley as Golaud (Oct. 20, 2003). Another
French music highlight is sure to be the Philadelphia Orchestra’s performance
of Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony (Oct. 7, 2003).
• Pianist Emanuel Ax curates a season-long series of concerts exploring
fin-de-siècle French music and its influences. The programming is heavy
on Wagner, Franck, Ravel, and Chopin. Ax will play Debussy’s two books
of Images, and much more.
• Francophiles will also want to celebrate the bicentennial of Berlioz’s
birth with the Orchestre de Paris’s two Berlioz concerts (Nov. 20, 21,
2003).
• Among the galaxy of star pianists performing next season, one event
of human interest stands out. The venerable pianist Leon Fleisher, who
lost the use of one hand many years ago, gives his first two-handed piano
recital in decades on Oct. 31, 2003. Bravo.
• The increasingly eccentric young Chinese pianist Lang Lang makes his
Carnegie Hall recital debut on Nov. 7 with works by Haydn, Schubert, Chopin
and Tan Dun. He returns with the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Beethoven’s
Concerto No. 4 (March 9, 2004).
• Russian piano marvel Arcadi Volodos, whose fantastically slick and showy
style has stirred up considerable controversy, returns for a recital on
Jan. 31, 2004.
• The season’s top glamour event will be the Vienna Philharmonic’s three
concerts under their new music director Seiji Ozawa. Reports from Vienna
suggest that the Austrians love their Japanese maestro and are performing
well for him. Their New York concerts will include solid Austro-German
fare: Strauss’s Don Juan, Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande, Schubert’s
Symphony No. 8, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2, etc. (Feb. 18, 19, 20, 2004).
• The other hot ticket will be the Berlin Philharmonic with their new
music director Sir Simon Rattle. The dream team will play Bartok’s Music
for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, and
Ligeti’s Violin Concerto (Nov. 12); two Haydn symphonies, Debussy’s La
Mer, and a new work by French composer Henri Dutilleux for soprano Dawn
Upshaw (Nov. 13); and a new work by German composer Heiner Goebbels, Sibelius’s
Symphony No. 7, and Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 (Nov. 14, 2003).
• Rattle, a genius who should never be missed on his rare US visits, will
return to helm the Philadelphia Orchestra in Wagner’s Prelude from Tristan
und Isolde, Henze’s Symphony No. 10, and Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 (Jan.
27, 2004).
• The Met Orchestra, easily the best symphonic ensemble in New York, is
sure to please in programs featuring music by Berlioz and Brahms’s Piano
Concerto No. 2 played by the eccentric virtuoso Evgeny Kissin.
• The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will make its annual visit with crowd-pleasing
works by Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky. Conductor Herbert Blomstedt will try
to fill the large shoes of Riccardo Chailly (Feb. 14,15, 2004).
• Canadians appearing at Carnegie Hall next season include soprano Dominique
Labelle with the National Symphony Orchestra. A pack of top Canuck singers
including Isabel Bayrakdarian, Michael Schade, Russell Braun, and Norine
Burgess, will perform Brahms’s Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op. 52 on March 3,
2004.
• Of the many international orchestras visiting Carnegie Hall next season,
a novelty will be the rarely heard Staatskapelle Berlin under Daniel Barenboim
in four all Schumann concerts with the superb pianist Radu Lupu, cellist
Yo-Yo Ma, and violinist Gidon Kremer (Jan 21, 23, 24, 25, 2004). Another
potentially enjoyable offering is the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in
an all-Dvorak program with French pianist Pierre Laurent Aimard (March
22, 2004).
• For the first time in decades, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
(MSO) will not perform its annual Carnegie Hall concerts. But the MSO’s
ex-Music Director Charles Dutoit will return to Carnegie Hall on Oct.
26, 2003, the very date the MSO would normally have occupied, to conduct
a student band (ok, the band is the exquisite Juilliard Orchestra and
the soloist is Emanuel Ax, but still). Lest Montrealers get bent of shape,
Carnegie Hall Press Director Ann Diebold reassured me that the MSO's absence
is merely reflects the fact that the orchestra currently has no Music
Director. This lack of a supremo makes Carnegie nervous, since Music Directors
are guarantors of an orchestra's quality. Once the MSO names Dutoit's
successor, the orchestra will have a chance to return to Carnegie, all
things being equal. Incidentally, Dutoit will also lead next season’s
Carnegie Hall choral workshop, featuring Fauré’s Requiem, with Canadian
baritone Nathan Berg (Feb. 22, 2004).
Don’t forget that Carnegie Hall has a great student rush deal. Tickets
for most concerts are available for $10 on the day of the concert, with
a student I.D.
> Full Carnegie Hall 2003-2004
concert season
[INDEX]
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