Contemporary Opera Director Claus Guth and celebrated Set Designer Michael Levine transform PARK AVENUE ARMORY Hall for a spectacular reimagining of Schubert’s Schwanengesang. The cycle forms a series of masterful snapshots of all that life has to offer, and features a performance that transcends genre: Jonas Kaufmann and his longtime accompanist, pianist Helmut Deutsch, interpret the collection of songs, augmented by additional Schubert repertoire an atmospheric soundscape and transformative light and video projections to create a production that is part performance, part installation. “a rare treat … the theatrical ingenuity and visceral force was so strong that the audience let out an audible gasp of shock” (The New York Times), “a remarkable theatrical coup … Kaufmann’s burnished tenor remains potent, unleashing powerful torrents of sound.” (The Financial Times), “Doppelganger is awesome experimental theater on a grand scale … There’s really nothing like it in New York right now.” (Theatermania)
Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Williams & Friends: A Celebration!
Superstar violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter celebrates her 60th birthday year with a performance she created with her friends and musical colleagues. She joins the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra along with legendary conductor and composer John Williams, longtime friend and pianist Yefim Bronfman, her protégé, cellist Pablo Ferrández, and sought-after conductor Susanna Mälkki. Anne-Sophie Mutter performs the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Yefim Bronfman and Pablo Ferrández in the first half of the evening, under the baton of Susanna Mälkki. The second half will bring Anne-Sophie Mutter together with the legendary conductor and composer John Williams for a special program featuring his compositions. This one-night-only performance is not to be missed!
DANCE ON!
When one thinks of dance as an art form, images of seemingly endlessly flexible bodies full of beauty, strength and youth inevitably come to mind. But the impression of lightness is deceptive. Dance is hard physical work and, as in high-performance sport, the pressure to perform is high. This takes its toll. With a few exceptions, most dancers have reached their zenith at the age of forty. The duet with their own transience begins and a possible farewell from the stage becomes foreseeable. At the same time, this maturity harbours great artistic potential, for it is their enormous wealth of experience that gives many dancers their magical charisma. The film accompanies the dancers Friedemann Vogel (1st soloist, Stuttgart Ballet), Polina Semionova (prima ballerina, Staatsballett Berlin), William Moore (1st soloist, Ballett Zurich) and Gesine Moog (dancer in Dance On Ensemble, Berlin) on a piece of their journey. All four offer personal insights into their dance careers and reflect on this threshold of “transition”.
Marin Alsop conducts Bernstein’s Kaddish
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop and the Chicago Symphony Chorus are to perform Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Kaddish’ Symphony, where women’s voices are the tether to the highest powers, examining the essential, eternal questions of humanity and faith. PROGRAM Golijov: Rose of the Winds; Bernstein: Symphony No. 3 (Kaddish)
Anne-Sophie Mutter and NY Philharmonic at Kraftwerk Peenemünde
It is a special place: it was here that the Nazi regime had the rockets developed that were used to bombard London during World War II. Today, the former turbine hall is a place of remembrance and reconciliation. Anne-Sophie Mutter, the four-time Grammy Award winner and formative soloist, mentor and visionary, connects Germany and the USA like no other violinist. Her husband, the American-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor André Previn, who died in 2019, dedicated the violin concerto ‘Anne-Sophie‘ to her. It is one of his most successful works and a profound love letter full of virtuosity for a master of her instrument. Joan Tower is also dedicated to strong women. With “1920/2019” from the New York Philharmonic‘s Project 19, the young composer pays tribute to the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote and which celebrated its centenary in 2020. The New York Philharmonic also finds diversity in equality in Béla Bartók’s most successful work. His concerto for orchestra, premiered in Boston in 1944, demands brilliant solo and virtuoso performances from the orchestra. PROGRAM Previn: Violin Concerto ‘Anne Sophie‘; Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra; Tower: 1920/2019 (European premiere)
San Francisco Symphony – Season Opening Gala 2021
Feel the energy as the great San Francisco Symphony welcomes its new music director Esa-Pekka Salonen with its 110th season Reopening Night, filled with jazz and dance from special guests. To kick of the evening, Slonimsky’s Earbox is a virtuosic piece composed in 1995 by Bay Area composer John Adams, full of cascading phrases of minimalist patterns being played with remarkable precision and energy by the orchestra. Alonzo King’s choreography for the four movements of Alberto Ginastera’s Ballet Suite Estancia is a joyride. The dancers of the Alonzo King LINES Ballet excel themselves at athletic jumps and limber, airy movements within the explosive last dance of the suite, the ‘Malambo’. Gaia, a 27-minute opus by the jazz legend Wayne Shorter forms the centerpiece of the evening and features the extraordinary bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding. The evening evolves into a true night of enchantment with ‘Noche de incantamiento’ by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas who wrote a percussion extravaganza with his music to the film La noche de los Mayas in 1939.
Jan Lisiecki plays Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Chopin
Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki has won acclaim for his extraordinary interpretive maturity, distinctive sound, and poetic sensibility. The New York Times has called him “a pianist who makes every note count”. Lisiecki’s insightful interpretations, refined technique, and natural affinity for art give him a musical voice that belies his age. The concert halls in Germany opened their doors during difficult times: Jan Lisiecki played a classic-romantic program on June 9th, 2020 in the Philharmonie Essen at the Ruhr Piano Festival with sensitivity and strength. “Perhaps the most ‘complete’ pianist of his age” BBC Music Magazine
Jonas Kaufmann – My Vienna
My Vienna is a deeply personal tribute to the world-famous melodies from the birthplace of waltz and operetta. Jonas Kaufmann has always had a special rapport with Austria and Vienna. His grandmother had a fondness for the light classics and was happy to sing the evergreens of Johann Strauss, Franz Lehár and Robert Stolz – a nice contrast to his grandfather’s passion for Wagner. As a child, Jonas spent much of his free time on his grandparents’ farm in Tyrol. Austrian television was almost more familiar to him than its German counterpart. Since then he has had a deep love for Viennese songs and operetta. “The music always put me in a good mood”, he recalls. “When I had unlikeable things to do as a student, like cleaning or vacuuming, all I had to do was play Carlos Kleiber’s Fledermaus recording, and in no time at all I had a grin on my face.” Viennese songs and scenes from operettas; music by Johann Strauß, Franz Léhar, Emmerich Kálmán, Robert Stolz, Ralph Benatzky, Jaromir Weinberger, Peter Kreuder and Georg Kreisler.
Maurizio Pollini plays Beethoven
Celebrated for music-making of matchless sophistication, unshakeable concentration and adamantine integrity, Maurizio Pollini occupies a special place among the ranks of today’s great pianists. The Italian artist has been hailed by Gramophone as “a towering musical presence”, a description supported by six decades of critical and public acclaim for the power and beauty of his artistry. Pollini’s performances of Beethoven’s piano sonatas have assumed almost legendary status – now 42 years after his first CD recording of the Sonatas, he is returning to the Herkulessaal in Munich, playing the last Beethoven Sonatas Nos 30-32.
Cinderella
The entire classical world looks to this young lady – because what she creates is not only of the highest quality always, but also of supra-regional importance. And at just 13 years of age. We’re talking of Alma Deutscher, of course. The British composer, violinist and pianist can already look back on a proud list of works, but she finally composed her first opera “Cinderella”. Thunderous applause and standing ovations were the result of the sold-out performances at the Opera San José. Anyone expecting a work full of childhood fantasies from a child who writes opera will actually be a little disappointed – or rather rewarded with the surprising opposite. Alma Deutscher is often compared to the prodigy Mozart. A flattering comparison, of course. “She would rather be the first Alma than the second Mozart” (Scott Pelley for CBS News). Alma Deutscher’s opera is full of depth, variety and multifaceted richness, as only a young, highly talented girl’s equally experienced, yet equally unbiased view of the fairy tale and the world might allow.