From Schlosberg to Chagall, 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:
Heartbeat Opera presents a new adaptation of Richard Strauss’ Salome at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn, running February 4-16. The opera, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the play by Oscar Wilde, has been translated back into English by Tom Hammond, and adapted for seven singers by conductor Jacob Ashworth and director Elizabeth Dinkova. Dan Schlosberg has arranged the score for an ensemble of eight clarinetists and two percussionists. Soprano Summer Hassan stars as the Princess Salome, with Patrick Cook as Herod, Nathaniel Sullivan as Jokanaan, Manna K Jones as Herodias, David Morgans as Narraboth, Melina Jaharis as the Page, and Jeremy Harr as the Soldier. Francesca Federico, the alternate for the title role, will play Salome at the February 9 performance.
MasterVoices presents the New York City premiere this week of Blind Injustice, an opera by composer Scott Davenport Richards and David Cote based on Mark Godsey's book of the same name and casework by the Ohio Innocence Project. MasterVoices will present the opera in concert February 3 and 4 at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Blind Injustice, which had its world premiere at Cincinnati Opera in 2019, is based on real cases taken up by the Ohio Innocence Project, a center that works to free innocent people wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit. Four of the exonerees portrayed in the opera—Nancy Smith, Laurese Glover, Clarence Elkins, and Rickey Jackson—will join artists and experts in the field of criminal justice reform for a moderated conversation following both performances.
New York City Ballet’s winter season continues this week with an all-Balanchine program honoring the centenary of ballerina Maria Tallchief. The program will feature three works created for Tallchief by the company’s co-founding choreographer: Scotch Symphony, set to the third symphony by Felix Mendelssohn; Sylvia: Pas de Deux, an excerpt from the classic ballet by Léo Delibes; and Stravinsky’s Firebird, a collaboration between Balanchine and NYCB’s other co-founding choreographer Jerome Robbins, featuring designs by the painter Marc Chagall, whose images of violinists on top of buildings inspired the title of the musical Fiddler on the Roof.
A second NYCB program opening this week, Innovators & Icons, will feature three more ballets: Jerome Robbins’ In The Night, set to a selection of Chopin nocturnes; Balanchine’s Symphony in Three Movements, set Stravinsky’s symphony of the same name; and a new work by NYCB Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky. The new work, Ratmansky’s eighth ballet for the company, will be set to selections by Léon Minkus from Petipa’s full-length ballet Paquita.
The New York Philharmonic presents a Young People’s Concert at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall February 8. The concert, conducted by Jerry Hou and co-hosted by Hou and Justin Jay Hines, will feature selections from Beethoven’s fifth and sixth symphonies, Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) by Missy Mazzoli, who will also appear as a speaker, and two premieres by NY Philharmonic Very Young Composers Ayaan Mendy and Kai Lin.
The New York Pops present Let’s Misbehave: The Songs of Cole Porter at Carnegie Hall February 7. Guest artist Tony DeSare joins the orchestra along with trumpet player Bria Skonberg and tap dancer John Manzari to perform hits from the songwriter’s lengthy oeuvre. Steven Reineke conducts. Carnegie Hall will also host performances this week from pianist Seong-Jin Cho, who will perform the complete solo piano works of Ravel (February 5); clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Emanuel Ax (February 6); and jazz vocalist Claudia Acuña (February 7).
The Calidore String Quartet continues its Beethoven Quartet Cycle with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center February 4 with a concert at Alice Tully Hall of three more middle-period Beethoven quartets: String Quartet No. 10, nicknamed the “Harp” quartet, No. 11, called “Serioso”, and No. 12, which, written fifteen years after the previous quartet, marks the start of Beethoven’s late quartets.
February 7, the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra will perform Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets in celebration of an astronomical event in which Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus, and Neptune will all be visible in the night sky at once. The immersive concert will pair Holst’s music with projections by Nico Lee. The program will also include a performance of Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto for Orchestra and Piano Duet, with pianists Konstantin Soukhovetski and Slava Gryaznov.
Soprano and pianist Chelsea Guo makes her New York City debut at the Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall February 6. Joined by pianist Francesco Barfoed, Guo will perform a variety of piano works by Fauré Chopin, Ravel, and Ives, as well as songs by Pauline Viardot, Kurt Weill, Stephen Sondheim, and more.
To stay up to date with classic arts news, subscribe to Playbill's classic arts newsletter.
