From threepenny operas to multi-million dollar productions, 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:
New York City Ballet’s Winter season kicks off January 23 with a tribute to Jerome Robbins. The program, running through February 3, features three works by the company’s co-founding choreographer: Fancy Free, In The Night, and The Four Seasons. The Four Seasons is the ballet scene from Verdi's opera Les vêpres siciliennes, as the convention of French grand opera at the time dictated that there be a ballet in the third act. For this standalone ballet performance, Robbins supplemented the original Four Seasons ballet with additional ballet music from the French versions of I Lombardi and Il Trovatore, both Italian operas for the French premieres of which Verdi added ballet scenes. In the Night is set to a selection of Nocturnes by Chopin. Fancy Free, Robbins' first ballet, was a collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, and follows three sailors on shore leave in Manhattan. Robbins and Bernstein later expanded the idea of the ballet into the musical On the Town.
NYCB will also present a second program this week, running January 25 through February 3, featuring Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia, set to a selection of music György Ligeti; Peter Martins’ Barber Violin Concerto, set to the violin concerto by Samuel Barber; and Justin Peck’s The Times Are Racing, set to from the album America by Dan Deacon.
The Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble will perform music from “The Golden Twenties” at Carnegie Hall January 22. The pairing of classical and modernism is a theme in the program, which will include two of Schoenberg’s arrangements of waltzes by Johann Strauss Jr., as well as Hindemith’s humorous arrangement of the “Overture to The Flying Dutchman as Played by Bad Spa Orchestra at 7 AM by the Well.” Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 1, and music from Weill and Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera complete the program.
Weill will be well-represented at Carnegie Hall this week, as January 23, the Philadelphia Orchestra visits to play the composer’s second symphony. Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the all-20th-century program will also include Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, in a celebration of the work’s centennial.
Carnegie Hall will also host performances this week from the American Symphony Orchestra, performing Dvořák’s Requiem with soloists Leah Hawkins, Lindsay Ammann, Joshua Blue, and Stefan Egerstrom; pianist Behzod Abduraimov; and the Orpheus chamber ensemble, performing Chopin’s first piano concerto with soloist Nobuyuki Tsujii.
The New York Philharmonic will perform Vertigo in concert January 23-26. The Hitchcock film starring James Stewart and Kim Novak will be shown while the orchestra, led by conductor Norman Huynh, plays Bernard Herrmann’s score live alongside it.
The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performs at the 92nd Street Y January 25, led by music director Richard Egarr, and featuring countertenor Reginald Mobley. The program includes several works by Handel (selections from operas and two concertos grosso), as well as the New York premieres of works by Errollyn Wallen and Tarik O’Regan.
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will present a concert of Elgar and Vaughan Williams January 25. Pianist Shai Wosner, violinist Arnaud Sussmann, violist Paul Neubauer, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and bassist Blake Hinson will play Elgar’s Sonata in E minor for Violin and Piano, and Vaughan Williams’ Quintet in C minor for Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass.
The Metropolitan Opera’s winter season concludes this week with more performances of Verdi’s Nabucco, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and Bizet’s Carmen, the latter two of which will return to the Met stage this spring.
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