With no fewer than three companies kicking off their seasons this week, the classic arts scene in New York is never quiet. Here is just a sampling of some of the classic arts events happening this week:
American Ballet Theatre’s fall season at the David H. Koch Theatre begins October 16 with Innovation Past and Present, a program featuring two world premiere works by Gemma Bond and Kyle Abraham. La Boutique, by Gemma Bond, is a new “tutu ballet,” set to music by Ottorino Respighi after Giachino Rossini. Mercurial Son will be Kyle Abraham’s first work for the company. The program will also include a revival of Harald Lander’s Études, set to music by Carl Czerny, adapted and orchestrated by Knudåge Riisager.
A second ABT program, Choreographers of the 20th and 21st Centuries, will start performances October 19, and include George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial, Alexei Ratmansky’s Neo, and Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room. Ballet Imperial, choreographed to Tchaikovsky's second piano concerto, had its world premiere in 1941, and its ABT premiere in 1988, and is a tribute to the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, where Balanchine received training. Ratmansky's Neo is a pas de deux, set to music by Dai Fujikura, originally choreographed for ABT Principal Dancers James Whiteside and Isabella Boylston for an online performance presented by the Joyce Theater in 2021. This will be the work's ABT premiere. Tharp's In the Upper Room is set to music by Philip Glass, and had its world premiere by Twyla Tharp Dance in 1986, before its ABT premiere in 1988.
The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players launch their 50th anniversary season with a Golden Jubilee, which will be held October 19 at Symphony Space’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The event is free to the public, with advance registration online. The festivities will begin in the afternoon with a musical and visual history of New York Gilbert Players, featuring comparisons of the original 19th century productions with NYGASP's productions of each show since 1974. In the evening, after dinner, the NYGASP company and full orchestra will give a concert featuring NYGASP Artistic Director Albert Bergeret's "Founder's Favorites," as well as audience requests.
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center kicks off their fall season with an all-Haydn program October 15. Opening with the “Sunrise” Quartet, and concluding with the “Surprise” Symphony, the program will also feature Haydn’s Concerto in C major for Violin, Strings, and Harpsichord, and the Trio in C major for Piano, Violin, and Cello. The Society’s season will continue October 17 with clarinetist Sebastian Manz and pianist Danae Dörken in recital, and October 20 with a program of Bartók’s Quintet for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, and Beethoven’s Septet in E-flat major for Winds and Strings.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Opera's season continues with Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, opening October 15. The opera, with a libretto by David Henry Hwang, is based on the life of poet Federico García Lorca, who was arrested and executed by the Falange during the Spanish Civil War. In this Met premiere production directed by Deborah Colker, mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack plays Lorca, alongside soprano Angel Blue as actress Margarita Xirgu, who starred in Mariana Pineda, one of Lorca's most famous plays. Soprano Elena Villalón plays Xirgu's student Nuria, and flamenco singer Alfredo Tejada plays Ruiz Alonso, the Falangist who arrested Lorca. Miguel Harth-Bedoya makes his Met debut conducting Golijov’s flamenco-infused score.
This week is also the final week to catch Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded at the Met. The opera, about a fighter pilot who is grounded as the result of an unplanned pregnancy, and reassigned to fly drones remotely, will have its final performance on Saturday October 19. That performance will also be broadcast live to cinemas worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series.
The New York Philharmonic presents Afromodernism: Music of the African Diaspora October 17 and 18. The concert will include the New York premiere of Nathalie Joachim’s Had To Be, a cello concerto written for Seth Parker Woods, who will perform the piece. The program will also include Carlos Simon’s Four Black American Dances, David Baker’s Kosbro, and William Grant Still’s Autochthonous Symphony, which, in the words of the composer, portrays “the fusion of musical cultures in North America.” Thomas Wilkins will conduct.
The Philadelphia Orchestra returns to Carnegie Hall October 15 with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato in a performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony. Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct the exceptionally long six-movement symphony, which lasts upwards of an hour and half in a typical performance, and thus stands on a concert program all on its own. For the chorus, the orchestra will be joined by members of the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir, the Philadelphia Girls Choir, and the Philadelphia Boys Choir.
Carnegie Hall will also present this week performances by Sphinx Virtuosi (October 16), pianist Taniil Trifonov (October 17), and the New York Pops with Adrienne Warren in a tribute to Tina Turner (October 18).
Dance company Dual Rivet brings their evening-length work SUBSCRIPT to the 92nd Street Y October 18 and 19. Created by Chelsea Ainsworth and Jessica Smith, and based on their short dance film In Capsule, SUBSCRIPT follows four characters through a non-linear narrative.
To stay up to date with classic arts news, subscribe to Playbill's classic arts newsletter.
