The Dude abides: Gustavo Dudamel returns to Carnegie Hall with an ambitious
program of Latin American music. Photo © 2011 Rolex.
Mr. Golijov is also the Hall's new composer-in-residence. And opera singer Renée Fleming takes the post of artist-in-residence with a four-concert Perspectives series featuring the New York stage premiere of André Previn's opera A Streetcar Named Desire.
Here are 12 quick highlights of the 2012-2013 season:
The season opens Oct. 3 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. This opens a three-night stand which also features the New York premiere of Mason Bates' Alternative Energy, the Franck Symphony in D minor and works by Dvorak and Respighi. Riccardo Muti conducts.
Oct. 14: The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra offers a program of Wagner and Strauss under the baton of Semyon Bychkov. Featuring sopano Eva-Maria Westbroek (Anna Nicole) singing Wagner's Wesendonck-Lieder and Strauss' mighty Alpine Symphony.
The Philadelphia Orchestra pays their annual visit with new music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the helm. Oct. 23 is their first appearance at the Hall this year, with the Verdi Requiem. Later programs include the Shostakovich 5th with Mr. Nézet-Séguin and a Pastorale Symphony late in the year with Sir Simon Rattle conducting.
On November 16, period performance expert Sir John Eliot Gardiner brings the Orchéstre Révolutionnaire et Romantique back to the Hall for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Also, Daniel Barenboim will lead a full Beethoven cycle in late January/early February. These four concerts feature the East-West Divan Orchestra, an ensemble he founded.
Gustavo Dudamel returns on December 10 for two nights with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. This is one of the showcases of the Music From Latin America festival, which also features appearances by Afro-Cuban pianist Chucho Valdez. Thses programs feature orchestral and choral music by six different South American composers, and should provide a thrilling cross-section of music from that continent.
On Jan. 23, 2013 soprano Dorothea Röschmann will sing an intimate recital in Zankel Hall focusing on the Lieder of Hugo Wolf and Franz Liszt. That same week (Jan. 27) features a duo recital of French songs in the Stern Auditorium, with Renée Fleming and her old singing partner Susan Graham. They will probably not be wearing the same dress.
On Feb. 24, countertenor David Daniels stars in the Handel opera Radamisto. Harry Bickett conducts The English Concert, an acclaimed period performance ensemble.
Mr. Golijov's major choral work La Pasión Según San Marcos is scheduled for this year's Creative Learning Project on March 10. The concert features young choral singers drawn from New York high schools. Robert Spano conducts the Orquesta La Pasión.
Renée Fleming's interpretation of Blanche DuBois stops at Carnegie Hall on March 14 in the New York concert premiere of Andre Previn's operatic version of A Streetcar Named Desire. Not to be confused with the musical Oh, Streetcar! starring Marge Simpson and Ned Flanders as Stanley Kowalski.
In recent years, Carnegie Hall has been making an impressive footprint in music education with programs like the Academy, which combines musicians from the Hall, Juilliard and the Weill Music Institute to play and learn together. Their most intriguing concert of the season is March 19, with Robert Spano conducting the Ensemble ACJW in Messiaen's Des canyons aux étoiles...
On April 15 and 17, German (super) conductor Christian Thielemann brings the Dresden Staatskapelle to town for a rare Carnegie Hall appearance. The German conductor will lead all-Brahms program, followed by Anton Bruckner's expansive Eighth Symphony.
Finally, the third Spring For Music festival kicks off May 6 2013. The slate includes cocerts by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop, an Ives marathon with the Detroit Symphony Orchesta under Leonard Slatkin, and a festival ending concert featuring the National Symphony Orchestra (from Washington D.C.) conducted by Christoph Eschenbach.
