BSO extends an open invitation to conductor Haitink
Bernard Haitink has accepted the Boston Symphony Orchestra's invitation to become "conductor emeritus," a new position and title created especially for him. Haitink, who first conducted the BSO in 1971, has served as principal guest conductor since 1995 and has become a favorite with the orchestra and with audiences.
The title gives the maestro "an open invitation to appear with the orchestra whenever he is willing and able," according to BSO managing director Mark Volpe. (The honorific position does not carry a salary or administrative responsibilities.) Because of other commitments, Haitink cannot return to the BSO until the 2005-06 season, when he has accepted a two-week engagement, but he goes onto the masthead with his new title next fall, joining music director James Levine and music director laureate Seiji Ozawa.
(Haitink will appear in Symphony Hall next season, though: FleetBoston Celebrity Series has confirmed that he will lead a concert with his other orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle.)
Volpe said yesterday: "Maestro Haitink made it very clear that he wanted to relinquish the title of principal guest conductor because of the obligations that he feels it entails. He was a good sport and kept the title for two seasons beyond what he had intially agreed to, in order to help us out in the interim period between Seiji Ozawa and James Levine as music director. What we wanted to do was to find a title representative of the enormous regard in which he is held by the board, the orchestra, the management, and the new music director. There is a special dynamic that Bernard has had with the orchestra that Jim wants us to encourage. We are the only North American orchestra that Bernard continues to conduct, and we hope he will continue to do so as long as God is willing."
Keeping up: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, the mezzo-soprano who was the star of Haitink's glorious performances of Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande" earlier this season, is the subject of an extended profile in the Jan. 5 issue of The New Yorker, illustrated by a rapturous photograph taken by Richard Avedon.
Charles Michener, who wrote the profile, visited Lieberson at her home in Santa Fe and observed her preparing for the role of Melisande, including a session with her voice teacher, Herbert Burtis, in the Berkshires. Lieberson speaks about her childhood and mentions a high school performance of "Fiddler on the Roof," in which she sang Golde. She discusses her Boston period (1980-97) with warmth, and Emmanuel Music's Craig Smith contributes some pertinent commentary. The profile closes with an account of her FleetBoston Celebrity Series recital with pianist Peter Serkin in Jordan Hall last month.
Lieberson will sing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra next season, but BSO officials don't want to say what it will be until Levine is ready to announce his first full season. In the following season she will sing a new orchestral song cycle, a setting of Pablo Neruda poems by her husband, Peter Lieberson (the work was jointly commissioned by the BSO and the Los Angeles Philharmonic). And Emmanuel Music has been negotiating for Lieberson to return next season to sing in a concert performance of a Handel opera.
Celebrating: The Boston Conservatory will present a three-day "Winterfest" Jan. 30-Feb. 1 in the unusual and attractive venue it discovered in the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in the South End -- a chamber-music-sized space designed along the same lines as Symphony Hall.
Friday's program, "Percussionfest," has been coordinated by Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra percussionst (and Pops arranger) Pat Hollenbeck. The program features works by John Cage, Edgard Varese, Steve Reich, Alfred Schnittke, and others.
On Saturday, there's a recital by the extraordinary Israeli pianist Kirill Gerstein, winnner of the Rubinstein International Piano Competition. Gerstein's recital at the Boston Conservatory last season demonstrated chops at least the equal of Lang Lang's, and musical sophistication and poetic temperament that the more celebrated pianist has yet to develop.
His program includes a Bach Partita, Beethoven's last piano sonata, Rachmaninoff's "Corelli" Variations, and shorter pieces by Ligeti and Prokofiev. Sunday brings two concerts. At 3 p.m., there is a recital by violinist Irina Muresanu and pianist Michael Lewin (Beethoven, Brahms, Yehudi Wyner, and Andy Vores). At 7 p.m., the Hemenway Strings, trained by violinist Lynn Chang, play music of Vivaldi, Mozart, Elgar, and Golijov. Call 617-912-9222.Tuning in: Harvard radio, WHRB-FM (93.5), is now in "orgy" mode -- an extraordinary opportunity for music lovers to hear extended surveys of the recorded work of leading composers and performers. Today, a two-day tribute to the late Luciano Berio is in progress. Sunday through Wednesday, a major Dvorak retrospective fills the air.
Future orgies are devoted to such composers as Einojuhani Rautavaara, Lou Harrison, and Dmitri Kabalevsky; pianist Walter Gieseking; violinists of the Franco-Belgian tradition; conductor Yvgeny Mravinsky; and jazz pianist Ran Blake. Jan. 19 brings a 24-hour tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., including speeches, sermons, interviews, and music written in his honor.
Visiting: The Teatro Lirico d'Europa arrives at the Cutler Majestic Theatre late in March with productions of Verdi's "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto." The company's spring American tour also features a production of Puccini's "Tosca," but Boston won't see that work -- the company did not want to compete with the Boston Lyric Opera's production of the same opera, scheduled during the same period.
Several performances of the Teatro Lirico's "Tosca" will feature an unusual guest star: Metropolitan Opera soprano Aprile Millo, who has agreed to sing the part in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Portland, Maine (Feb. 4). In the mid-1980s, Millo was regarded as the most promising prima donna for the Italian dramatic repertoire, and she sang in all the major opera houses of the world. In the 1990s she went through a period of vocal difficulties from which she has emerged (triumphantly, according to reports), but she does not sing as often at the Met as she used to. Later this season conductor Eve Queler and the Opera Orchestra of New York will present Millo's first performance in the title role of Ponchielli's "La Gioconda."
Holding forth: Two forthcoming guests of the Boston Symphony Orchestra plan to offer lecture/master class events for the Cambridge Society for Early Music.
Conductor Ton Koopman, who appears with the BSO Feb. 5-10, gives a master class for aspiring conductors with the support of the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra in Paine Hall at Harvard Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. Cellist Pieter Wispelwey, who plays a C.P.E. Bach Concerto in Koopman's concerts, gives his own master class Feb. 9 at 7 p.m., also in Paine Hall.
