This Friday, March 5, is the final performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni led by Music Director Alan Gilbert at The Metropolitan Opera before returning to the Philharmonic for two enticing and varied programs: music by R. Strauss, Debussy, Ravel (featuring Artist-in-Association Inon Barnatan), and Esa-Pekka Salonen on March 19–24; and, on March 26–28, the World Premiere of John Adams's Scheherazade.2 – Dramatic symphony for violin and orchestra (with Leila Josefowicz) alongside Stravinsky's Petrushka.
The production of Don Giovanni builds on Gilbert's expertise in opera, which Philharmonic audiences have experienced in Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (2010), Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen (2011), and HK Gruber's Gloria – A Pig Tale (part of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL, in 2014). The New York Times Chief Music Critic Anthony Tommasini wrote: "Alan Gilbert, in his second appearance with the Met, conducts a vividly detailed, urgent and elegant performance…. He conveyed the arc of Mozart's score. … The orchestra played superbly."
Look for Alan’s next opera gig in New York City when he crosses the Plaza again to lead George Benjamin’s acclaimed opera Written on Skin, August 11–15, 2015, in a Lincoln Center–New York Philharmonic collaboration.
(Photo: Chris Lee)
