by Daniel Hathaway
WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:
- The Cleveland Institute of Music will inaugurate its renovated Kulas Hall (pictured) on Friday at 7:30 with a Grand Re-opening program by the CIM Orchestra conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto and starring Gabriela Montero both as composer and piano soloist. On the playlist: Montero’s Concerto No. 1, “Latin,” Jerod Tate’s “Fani’ (Squirrel)” from Woodland Songs, Silvestre Revueltas’ Sensemayá, Carlos Chávez’s Symphony No. 2, “Sinfonía India,” and José Pablo Moncayo’s Huapango.
- BlueWater Chamber Orchestra will open its season on Saturday at 7:30 in Lakewood Civic Auditorium in collaboration with Ohio Contemporary Ballet. Daniel Meyer will conduct three dance pieces — Nicholas Rose’s Sehnsucht (music from Elgar’s Serenade for Strings), Heinz Poll’s Adagio for Two (music from Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor), and Paul Taylor’s Airs (music by George Frideric Handel) — as well as Schubert’s Symphony No. 5.
- Franz Welser-Möst leads The Cleveland Orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth) featuring tenor Limmie Puilliam and baritone Iurii Samoilov and Arthur Honegger’s symphony liturgique on Sunday at 3 at Severance.
For ticket and venue details, please consult our Concert Listings
WEEKEND ALMANAC:
German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach died on October 5, 1880 in Paris. His most famous work was his last one, the opera Tales of Hoffmann, which he left unfinished — he died four months before the premiere. But providing a better snapshot of his career are his nearly 100 operettas, which would go on to influence composers such as Johann Strauss Jr., Arthur Sullivan, and Franz Lehar.
That style is right up the alley of Ohio Light Opera, which in recent years has put on Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne and La Périchole, which Kelly Ferjutz described as “a screwball comedy disguised as an operetta” in her review of the production for ClevelandClassical.com. More recently, during OLO’s 2020 online season, members of the company came together virtually for performances of “Ne’er for a Trip” and “Love the Deceiver” from Offenbach’s Voyage to the Moon.
