Gramophone – September 2019

44 GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2019 gramophone.co.uk

SEASON PREVIEW 201920

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

The US premiere of Cincinnati

native Bryce Dessner’s Concerto

for Two Pianos opens the season.

Anne-Sophie Mutter appears in

Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Paulo

Bortolameolli conducts Schumann’s

oratorio Paradise and the Peri with

the May Festival Chorus, Music

Director Louis Langrée conducts an

evening of song with Renée Fleming,

and the orchestra’s 125th anniversary

concert includes Scriabin’s Poem of

Ecstasy and a new work by Icelandic

composer Daníel Bjarnason.

cincinnatisymphony.org

Cleveland Orchestra

Yuja Wang takes on Rachmaninov’s

Piano Concerto No 4 at Severance

Hall under Lorenzo Viotti, and

there’s a Schubert theme with the

‘Great’ Symphony from Music

Director Franz Welser-Möst and the

piano sonatas from Mitsuko Uchida.

As a season inale, Welser-Möst

conducts concert performances

of Berg’s Lulu (in its 1937 two-act

version) with Barbara Hannigan.

clevelandorchestra.com

Dallas Opera

Trusty favourites The Magic Flute

and The Barber of Seville bookend

the season in Dallas but there are

some rarities in between, including

Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden

Cockerel, and a meeting of

Stravinsky’s ‘ballet with song’

Pulcinella with Poulenc’s monologue

telephone opera La voix humaine,

the latter staged by and starring

Patricia Racette.

dallasopera.org

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Major works in the new season

include Or’s Carmina Burana,

Handel’s Messiah, Dvořák’s

Symphony No 9, Rimsky-Korsakov’s

Scheherazade and Berlioz’s

Symphonie fantastique, but the

season opens with a celebration

of 100 years of Detroit’s beautiful

Orchestral Hall conducted by

Michael Francis and including

Beethoven’s Symphony No 5.

Joshua Bell, Alisa Weilerstein and

Fabien Gabel are among the

visiting artists.

dso.org

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
The BSO’s season opens at
Meyerho with a fate-themed
concert conducted by Music
Director Marin Alsop, beginning
with Verdi’s overture to La forza
del destino and ending with
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4.
Later in the season Alsop conducts
Brahms, Wagner, Hindemith,
Prokoiev, Stravinsky, a world
premiere from Lera Auerbach and
Mahler’s Symphonies Nos 3 and 4.
bsomusic.org

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons’s sixth Boston
season extends his Shostakovich
symphony cycle (while even
inviting his ‘other’ orchestra, the
Leipzig Gewandhaus, literally to
join in) and includes a concert
performance of Act 3 of Wagner’s
Tristan und Isolde starring Jonas
Kaufmann. Nelsons will be on the
podium for the irst performances
of BSO commissions from
HK Gruber, Betsy Jolas, Arturs
Maskats and Eric Nathan.
bso.org

Canadian Opera Company

The new season at the Four Seasons

Centre opens with Robert Wilson’s

new production of Turandot

conducted by Carlo Rizzi, starring

Tamara Wilson, Joyce El-Khoury and

Sergey Skorokhodov. Christopher

Alden’s staging of The Flying

Dutchman is conducted by COC’s

Music Director Johannes Debus, who

is also in the pit for a new production

of Hansel and Gretel from Joel Ivany.

coc.ca

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Riccardo Muti will conduct the

Beethoven symphonies in his own

10th anniversary year at the CSO,

while pianists from Pollini to Levit will

take on the concertos and complete

piano sonatas. Elsewhere, Gergiev

will take care of Shostakovich’s

Leningrad Symphony, Susanna

Mälkki conducts Mahler’s

Symphony No 4, Blomstedt brings

Brahms, and there are visits from

Ray Chen, Yo-Yo Ma, Christian

Tetzla, Julia Fischer, Anne-Sophie

Mutter and Leonidas Kavakos.

cso.org PHOTOGRAPHY:

ROGER MASTROIANNI

NORTH AMERICA

The legendary pianist Mitsuko Uchida performs the complete Schubert piano sonatas at Severance Hall – a highlight of the Cleveland Orchestra’s forthcoming season