Next summer for the first time, the Boston Symphony Orchestra will open its Tanglewood season with an opera. Music director James Levine will lead the BSO and vocal soloists in a concert performance of Berlioz's epic "Trojans" in two parts, July 5 and 6. The same work concludes the BSO's Symphony Hall season in May.
The BSO also announced today a new Tanglewood sponsorship.
Levine will once again lead the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in a concert performance of an opera: Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" on Aug. 2, with a cast featuring Renée Fleming, Ramón Vargas, Peter Mattei, and Vitalij Kowaljow. In addition, he will lead a fully staged TMC production Aug. 9 and 10 of Weill's "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" and will direct this year's Festival of Contemporary Music (July 20-24), which is entirely devoted to the works of Elliott Carter on the occasion of his centenary.
BSO conductor emeritus Bernard Haitink will return July 12 to lead the orchestra in Mahler's Second Symphony. He will also lead an all-Beethoven program July 11 including the composer's "Pastoral" Symphony and the Triple Concerto, with pianist Jonathan Biss, violinist Julia Fischer, and cellist Daniel Müller-Schott. (The same three will also perform a chamber music recital in Ozawa Hall.) More all-Beethoven programs conclude the season with the composer's Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, 5, and 9 scheduled for the final weekend. The Ninth will be led by Christoph von Dohnányi on Aug. 24.
Brahms and Mozart will also be played in concentrated doses, with Levine leading an all-Brahms program (the Third Symphony and the First Piano Concerto, with Yefim Bronfman) on July 25 and the Emerson String Quartet performing all three Brahms Quartets on July 17 in Ozawa Hall. Conductors Andrew Davis, Hans Graf, and Andre Previn will participate in an all-Mozart weekend Aug. 8-10. Other guest conductors to appear include Leonard Slatkin, Peter Oundjian, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, and Carlos Miguel Prieto, who will lead a program featuring Yo-Yo Ma in Lalo's Cello Concerto.
Among the other soloists will be violinists Gil Shaham, Janine Jansen, Joshua Bell, Midori, Sarah Chang, Pinchas Zukerman, and Stefan Jackiw and pianists Leon Fleisher, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Emanuel Ax, Imogen Cooper, Garrick Ohlsson, Charles Rosen, Ursula Oppens, and Peter Serkin. BSO principal flute Elizabeth Rowe will make her solo debut in a Mozart concerto with the orchestra; principal horn James Sommerville will also perform a Mozart concerto and will return to the Horn Concerto written for him by Elliott Carter, as part of an all-Carter BSO program on July 24. That will be one of 10 Carter concerts in this year's Festival of Contemporary Music.
On July 8, Keith Lockhart will lead the Boston Pops Orchestra and TMC vocal fellows in a concert performance of Stephen Sondheim's "Little Night Music"; he will also lead a Bernstein tribute with Brian Stokes Mitchell on Aug. 17. John Williams returns to conduct the Pops in a night of film scores on July 26, and the orchestra will participate in Tanglewood on Parade on Aug. 5.
The Mark Morris Dance Group will be first out of the gate at Ozawa Hall June 26 and 27. Also in Ozawa Hall, the Beaux Arts Trio will give its final two Tanglewood performances, Barbara Cook sings an 80th birthday concert, and the Kronos Quartet brings a characteristically eclectic program, including Aleksandra Vrebalov's "Pannonia Boundless," Webern's Six Bagatelles, Steve Reich's "Triple Quartet," and selections from John Zorn's "Dead Man."
Tickets go on sale to the public Feb. 17 at 888-266-1200, tanglewood.org.
