Sounds of America The Scene

Herbie Hancock joins Gustavo Dudamel for the LA phil’s Gershwin evening riccardo muti conducts the Chicago symphony in a Liszt bicentennial celebration p H o t o G r A p H y t o D D r o s e n b e r G

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bass-baritone Mark Doss as Thoas. In the same month, iconoclastic director Christopher Alden sets up shop with set and costume designer Michael Levine for a fresh take on Rigoletto. Quinn Kelsey and Lester Lynch alternate as Verdi’s eponymous court jester with Ekaterina Sadovnikova and Simone Osborne sharing the duties of Gilda, and Dimitri Pittas and David Lomelí trading off as the Duke of Mantua. Alternating at the podium are Johannes Debus and Derek Bate. www.coc.ca

New York Metropolitan opera Anna Bolena (September 26—February 4) Anna Netrebko assumes the throne as Henry VIII’s hapless second wife in this Met premiere and the initial instalment of its new Tudor Trilogy. This progression takes Netrebko out of many of the lighter, girlish roles that laid the foundation for her career, but if her initial run in the role in Vienna is any indication of what she’ll bring to New York this month, it could be a defining moment for the Russian soprano (burgeoning diva Angela Meade takes on the role for three performances in October). Muscovite mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova brings her core-shaking upper register to the role of Anna Bolena’s amorous rival, Giovanna Seymour – replacing Netrebko’s Viennese comrade Elīna Garanča, who withdrew from the production due to her pregnancy. Completing the Russian cast is smouldering Bashkortostan-born bass Ildar Abdrazakov as Enrico VIII. Directing Donizetti’s bel canto showpiece is David McVicar, last seen at the Met in a sublime Il trovatore. Met mainstay Marco Armiliato conducts. www.metopera.org

Los ANgeLes Los Angeles Philharmonic Opening Night (September 27) Stravinsky and Berlioz (September 30— October 2) Jazz legend and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s creative chair for jazz Herbie Hancock joins forces with Gustavo Dudamel for an all-star, all-American, all-Gershwin evening of works to usher in the tireless Dudamel’s third season with the LA Phil. Hancock combines his jazz pedigree and classical background (one that runs the gamut from Mozart to Debussy) for Gershwin’s swinging and syncopated Rhapsody in Blue after performances of the composer’s Cuban Overture and An American in Paris. In the same week, Dudamel furthers the blend of jazz and classical idioms with a programme comprised of John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Stravinsky’s Symphony in C and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. www.laphil.com

ChiCAgo Chicago symphony orchestra Muti Conducts Liszt’s Bicentennial (September 30) When Riccardo Muti brought the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to Carnegie Hall in April, his first appearance in New York as the CSO’s music director, a little bad blood would have been understandable – he did, after all, turn down the post of the New York Philharmonic’s head honcho. However, once a dream concert performance of Verdi’s Otello concluded (Verdi having always been a Muti speciality), the conductor was greeted with nothing short of a rock star’s reception from the audience. Such showmanship was also a trademark of Franz Liszt, so the idea of the Italian maestro celebrating the Hungarian composer and pianist’s bicentennial is as tantalising as it is unsurprising. Following an appetiser of Richard Wagner’s Huldigungsmarsch (an apt pairing given that Wagner was Liszt’s son-in-law), the orchestra lets loose with the birthday boy’s Piano Concerto No 1 with Lisztomaniac Michele Campanella at the keyboard and A Faust Symphony with tenor Eric Cutler. www.cso.org

BostoN Boston symphony orchestra Opening Night at Symphony Hall (September 30) In the wake of James Levine’s sudden retirement from his post in Massachusetts, the BSO picked up an enviable pinch-hitter in Anne-Sophie Mutter. The sterling violinist does double duty as soloist and conductor for the opening of the orchestra’s 2011-12 season with Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos 3 and 5 – a set she also recorded with Herbert Von Karajan for DG in 1978. As both violinist and maestra, Mutter is no stranger to these works, having recorded all five for Deutsche Grammophon in 2005 as part of her Mozart Project (in which Mutter records all of the composer’s major works for violin). The tune may be familiar, but it’s no less fetching. www.bso.org

Previews by olivia giovetti

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