sounds of america

LOS ANGELES Los Angeles Philharmonic Shostakovich, Orango (December 2-4) Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts three performances of an unusual world premiere – the prologue to Orango, an unfinished, long-lost opera by Shostakovich. Apparently, the composer started the scathingly satirical work in 1932 as a ‘political lampoon on the bourgeois press’. The baritone protagonist is a human/ape hybrid who becomes a successful if sleazy journalist – the epitome of moral degeneracy – only to revert to apish behaviour. Originally commissioned by Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the revolution, Shostakovich abandoned the work unfinished. Only 40 minutes of the prologue were completed in piano-vocal score, which was unearthed from the composer’s archives in 2006. Peter Sellars directs this production, which has been orchestrated from piano sketches by the British composer Gerard McBurney. McBurney says the music – calling for 11 solo voices and chorus – has a heightened, manic, silent-movie quality. Shostakovich’s Symphony No 4, also composed during this politically turbulent period for the composer, follows Orango. laphil.com

CHICAGO Lyric Opera of Chicago Sir Andrew Davis Mozart The Magic Flute (December 6 – January 22) The Lyric Opera’s holiday show – complete with dancing bears and dinosaurs prancing through Mozart’s enchanted forest. – is a surefire seasonal crowd-pleaser. Davis conducts a youthful cast. One of the most sought-after lyric sopranos, Nicole Cabell, returns after singing Micaela in Carmen at the end of last season. She will surely shine as Pamina, which is fast becoming one her signature roles (she made her debut in the part at the Met in 2008). The charismatic tenor Charles Castronovo stars as Tamino, French baritone Stéphane Degout plays the hapless and endearing birdcatcher Papageno, and Kathleen Kim promises to dazzle us as the Queen of the Night with her pitch-perfect high Fs. Austrian bass Günther Groissböck fills out the lower frequencies as Sarastro. lyricopera.org

MINNEAPOLIS St Paul Chamber Orchestra Christian Zacharias Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 (Dec 1-3) The St Paul Chamber Orchestra, now in its 52nd season, shifts easily into a maestro-free mode. On this occasion, the German-born pianist Christian Zacharias will lead the orchestra from the keyboard in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 in C Minor. (Beethoven himself famously premiered the work in 1803 and played the solo part from memory, not having had a chance to set it down on paper.) Following the concerto, the orchestra will perform a suite of music from Beethoven’s rarely heard ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus, written in the same ‘middle’ period as the concerto. Initially a success after its Vienna premiere, Beethoven’s ‘heroic and allegorical ballet’ is now only occasionally revived, the overture being the one section performed with any regularity. Zacharias assembled this suite specially from the 18 pieces that constitute the ballet. Beethoven worked one of the themes from the work into the finale of the Eroica Symphony. thespco.org

BOSTON Boston Symphony Orchestra Beethoven and Harbison (December 1-3) Composer John Harbison’s Symphony No 5 had its world premiere with the BSO in 2008. It’s a dramatic, lyrical work for baritone, mezzosoprano and orchestra – which the composer refers to as an orchestral meditation on loss. The BSO is now giving the piece its second outing, in a series of performances led by Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek, chief conductor of the BBC Symphony and chief conductor designate of the Czech Philharmonic. This is his BSO debut, Levine having led the premiere. It’s certainly an ambitious piece – with the composer setting music to the work of three poets: Czesław Miłosz, Louise Glück and Rainer Maria Rilke. The texts dominate the work’s four movements and will be sung by baritone Gerald Finley and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke. Thrillingly, Harbison has smuggled an electric guitar into the BSO to represent Orpheus’s lyre. The second half of the programme features American pianist Jonathan Biss performing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto – with nary a Stratocaster in sight. bso.org

Biss: giving Boston Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto

BOSTON Handel & Haydn Society Handel Messiah (December 2-4) A Bach Christmas (December 15, 18) It wouldn’t be Christmas without a performance of Messiah. Many an orchestra in North America will be performing Handel’s immortal oratorio, but for audiences in the New England area, the Handel and Haydn Society seems likely to be the best bet. This is an old-world musical society, now in its 197th season. Under the leadership of Harry Christophers, the Handel and Haydn Society present ‘historically informed performances’ using instruments and techniques current in the composer’s era. In fact, it was this Society that was responsible for the American premiere of Handel’s Messiah in 1815. Later in the month the Society will present A Bach Christmas, which has been built around the composer’s prolific seasonal output, and includes Cantata 133 ‘In Thee I Do Rejoice’ and his Christmas Oratorio. Using Bach as a springboard, the concert will also feature further period seasonal works from 17th and 18th composers from Bolivia, Mexico and Ukraine. handelandhaydn.org gramophone.co.uk

GRAMOPHONE NOVEMBER 2011 V