Gioachino Rossini composed La Cenerentola (Cinderella) in 1817, just a year after his greatest success, The Barber of Seville, and it remains a staple of the repertoire. The opera’s high-spirited overture has been a concert favorite since its premiere. The Philharmonic first performed the Overture to La Cenerentola in January 1931, led by Bernardino Molinari, and most recently in April 1954, led by Wilfrid Pelletier.

The first opera produced by the celebrated collaboration between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte was the comic masterpiece Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), an adaptation of Pierre-Augustin Baumarchais’s play Le Mariage de Figaro. Only moderately successful when first performed at Vienna’s Burgtheater in May 1786, it became a sensation when it was produced at Prague’s National Theatre later that same year. The New York Philharmonic first performed selections from The Marriage of Figaro in November 1847, with vocalist C.E. Horn and conductor George Loder, and most recently at a Young People’s Concert in March 2009, with soprano Melissa Attebury and conductor Delta David Gier.

Within Gaetano Donizetti’s enormous output (including more than 70 operas), the comedy L’Elisir d’amore stands as one of his finest achievements. The title’s “elixir of love,” which is sold to a lovelorn peasant by a quack traveling salesman, is no more than wine, but its effects comically turn out to be just as powerful as any magic potion. The New York Philharmonic first performed music from L’Elisir d’amore in November 1844, with vocalists Amalia Ricci and Signor Sanquirico and conductor George Loder. The most recent performance of music from L’Elisir d’amore took place in December 1988, with Zubin Mehta conducting and tenor Vinson Cole.

Jules Massenet’s ballet suite from the second act of his opera Le Cid is a picturesque tour of seven distinct regions of Spain in seven movements, employing colorful orchestrations, striking dance rhythms, and inventive use of percussion, based on Pierre Corneille’s literary account of the 12th-century legend of Don Rodrigue (Le Cid). The Philharmonic first performed ballet music from Le Cid in October 1896, with Walter Damrosch leading the New York Symphony (which later merged with the New York Philharmonic to form today’s New York Philharmonic), and most recently in June 2004, led by Bramwell Tovey.

Charles Gounod composed a ballet to open the fifth act of his opera, Faust (1859), for its lavish 1869 Paris Opéra revival, and the production’s great success established the work’s popularity in France and throughout the world. Set in the 16th century, the opera (after Goethe’s poem) tells the tale of Faust, a doctor of philosophy, who makes a bargain with the devil (Méphistophélès) in return for eternal youth and the beautiful Marguerite. The ballet was intended to portray the pagan revels of , Walpurgisnacht, , which Méphistophélès presents to Faust to distract and lure him away from Marguerite. The Philharmonic first performed ballet music from , Faust, in November 1893, with Walter Damrosch leading the New York Symphony (which later merged with the New York Philharmonic to form today’s New York Philharmonic), and most recently in July 2004 in Vail, Colorado, led by Bramwell Tovey.

Conductor, composer, and pianist Bramwell Tovey has been music director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) since September 2000 and is also principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. He has presided as host and conductor of the New York Philharmonic’s Summertime Classics series at Avery Fisher Hall since its founding in 2004. Mr. Tovey has appeared as a guest conductor with ensembles including the London Philharmonic, London Symphony, Frankfurt Radio, and Bournemouth Symphony orchestras, and, in North America, the orchestras of Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Seattle, Montreal, and Toronto, where his trumpet concerto, Songs of the Paradise Saloon, was premiered in December 2009. This season Mr. Tovey appears with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall; in January and February he led the VSO in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, featuring the Toronto Mendelssohn and Vancouver Bach Choirs and an international cast, at the Cultural Olympiad of the Winter Olympic Games. In May 2010 he will return to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra as curator, conductor, and piano soloist for the contemporary Metropolis Festival, and to the main subscription season in the fall of 2011. He will make his Sydney Symphony debut in the 2010–11 season.

Mr. Tovey’s recent compositions include Urban Runway, co-commissioned by the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, premiered in the summer of 2008, and The Inventor, a full-length opera for the Calgary Opera to be premiered in January 2011. In 2003 he was honored with a Juno Award for Best Canadian Classical Composition for his Requiem for a Charred Skull. Bramwell Tovey received a 2008 Grammy Award and a 2008 Juno Award for his recording of violin concertos by Barber, Korngold, and Walton with violinist James Ehnes and the VSO. His other numerous honors include fellowships from the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and honorary doctorates of law from the University of Winnipeg, University of Manitoba, and Kwantlen University College. In 1999 he received the M. Joan Chalmers National Award for Artistic Direction, a Canadian prize awarded to artists for outstanding contributions to the performing arts.

Lyric soprano Nicole Cabell was the 2005 winner of the BBC Singer of the World Competition in Cardiff. A Decca recording artist, her debut solo album, Soprano, was named Editor’s Choice by Gramophone magazine and won an ECHO Klassik Award and the 2007 Georg Solti Orphée d’Or from the French Académie du Disque Lyrique. Her current season includes returns to The Metropolitan Opera (singing the role of Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème) and Lyric Opera of Chicago (as the Countess in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Adina in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore). She made her debut with New Orleans Opera as Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, with Atlanta Opera as Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and with The Cleveland Orchestra in Brahms’s A German Requiem, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst; she also returned to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with conductor Markus Stenz. Ms. Cabell sang Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with John Nelson and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and with Antonio Pappano and the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. She has given recitals in Urbana, Illinois, and Savannah, Georgia. Her future engagements include singing the roles of Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen with The Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago; Leïla in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers with Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; and Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Deutsche Oper Berlin and Cologne. She is also scheduled to make her debuts in Montreal and Tokyo. Last season Ms. Cabell made her debut at The Metropolitan Opera in the role of Pamina and then returned as Adina; she also sang the role of Leïla with Lyric Opera of Chicago, her home company. She performed in concert in Copenhagen, Prague, Munich, Frankfurt, Dortmund, Ottawa, and Indianapolis. This is her New York Philharmonic debut.

"She was spellbinding... When Cabell opened that great smiling mouth, what we heard was liquid gold." (The Times, London)