A BSO season of Messiaen, Mozart
The Boston Symphony Orchestra continues its recent tradition of presenting opera in concert next season with three performances of Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra" conducted by music director James Levine. It is one of the most ambitious programs of the 128th season, details of which the orchestra announced today.
Levine will conduct a total of nine weeks of subscription concerts, down from 11 this year. In addition to Verdi, he will focus on Mozart, devoting his final two weeks of concerts to a survey of 12 Mozart symphonies, spread over three programs, beginning with No. 1 and ending with No. 41, the "Jupiter" Symphony.
The season opens on Sept. 24 with Levine leading an all-Russian program featuring works by Glinka and Mussorgsky and Latvian soprano Maija Kovalevska making her BSO debut as a soloist, singing the letter scene from Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin." Two days later, Levine leads the orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in Brahms's "German Requiem."
Over the course of the season, Levine will also lead premieres of three new works: Leon Kirchner's "The Forbidden," Gunther Schuller's previously postponed "Where the Word Ends," and Elliott Carter's "Interventions" for piano and orchestra. The last work, a BSO co-commission in celebration of Carter's 100th birthday, features Daniel Barenboim as soloist and finds its home on a program alongside Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, Schubert's four-hand Fantasy in F Minor (played by Barenboim and Levine), and Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."
For the first time since the conclusion of his tenure as music director in 2002, Seiji Ozawa will return to Symphony Hall to lead the orchestra (Nov. 28-29) in Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" and Messiaen's "Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine." The latter work is intended to mark the Messiaen centenary year, as is a second Messiaen score, "Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum," which will be heard on a Levine-led program (Oct. 23-25) alongside Pierre Boulez's "Notations I-IV" and Berlioz's "Harold in Italy."
The season's guest conductors include Sir Colin Davis, who returns to the podium to close the season with Berlioz's "Te Deum" (April 30 to May 2); Kurt Masur, who conducts an all-Mendelssohn program (Jan. 22-27); and Alan Gilbert, music director designate of the New York Philharmonic, who leads Ives's Fourth Symphony (March 5-10). Also visiting the podium will be Charles Dutoit, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Yuri Termirkanov, André Previn, Herbert Blomstedt, Marek Janowski, and Hans Graf, among others. BSO assistant conductor Shi-Yeon Sung will make her Symphony Hall debut.
The season features a guest ensemble, Sequentia, which specializes in medieval music, performing the original German songs on which Carl Orff later based his "Carmina Burana." The same program (Nov. 5-8) features guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos leading the popular Orff score.
The principal roles of the Verdi opera will be sung by Barbara Frittoli, Marcello Giordani, José van Dam, and James Morris. Other soloists to appear over the course of the season include violinists Lisa Batiashvili, Julia Fischer, Janine Jansen, Leonidas Kavakos, and Gil Shaham; cellists Lynn Harrell, Pieter Wispelwey, Alban Gerhardt, and Alisa Weilerstein in her BSO debut; and pianists Maurizio Pollini, Richard Goode, Peter Serkin, Nelson Freire, Stephen Hough, Imogen Cooper, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
Among the repertory staples to be performed are symphonies by Mahler (Nos. 4 and 6), Brahms (Nos. 2 and 4), Beethoven (Nos. 4, 6, and 7), and Mendelssohn (Nos. 3 and 4).
Information and brochures are available at 617-266-1492 or bso.org.
