Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra on its five-concert tour of European Festivals from August 18-24, marking their sixteenth international tour together. Here are the venues and program details. [Read more…]
Looking forward to the summer season: a conversation with Cleveland Orchestra artistic administrator Ilya Gidalevich
by Mike Telin
Now that summer is officially upon us, it’s time to locate the picnic basket, fill it with your favorite summer foods, and head to the Cuyahoga National Park with family and friends to enjoy a Cleveland Orchestra concert at Blossom Music Center. And, if anyone in your vehicle is under the age of 18, their seat on the lawn is free.
If you can’t make it to Blossom, the Orchestra has scheduled three early Friday evening concerts in its Summers@Severance series. Special “happy hour” drink prices will be offered one hour prior to each concert on Severance Hall’s front terrace. Attendees are encouraged to arrive early and enjoy the outdoor delights of University Circle.
“As usual the summer season is a mix of musical genres and artists,” Cleveland Orchestra artistic administrator Ilya Gidalevich said during a recent telephone conversation. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra with Rudolf Buchbinder (May 19)
by Daniel Hathaway
Strange to tell, but in its nearly hundred-year history, The Cleveland Orchestra never got around to playing two major works by Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček until last Thursday evening. On May 19, Franz Welser-Möst led the orchestra in their first-ever performance of Dvořák’s The Wood Dove and their first performance of more than the overture from Janáček’s opera The House of the Dead. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra in Dvořák’s Stabat Mater: a conversation with bass soloist Eric Owens
by Mike Telin
In a promotional video, Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst explains that Antonín Dvořák’s Stabat Mater is “the composer’s personal reflections after having just lost a child.” (Click here to watch the video: the Dvořák starts at 2:52.)
On Thursday, May 26 at 7:30 pm and Saturday, May 28 at 8:00 at Severance Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, under the direction of Welser-Möst, will conclude their 2015-2016 season with the Czech composer’s setting of an emotional medieval poem that sums up the thoughts of Mary standing at the foot of the cross when Jesus is crucified. The performances will feature vocal soloists Erin Wall, soprano, Jennifer Johnston, mezzo-soprano, Norbert Ernst, tenor, and Eric Owens, bass.
The Orchestra has extended a special $25 ticket offer for readers of ClevelandClassical.com for this week’s concerts. Purchase tickets here using promo code 26082. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra: a Franz Welser-Möst video and a conversation with pianist Rudolf Buchbinder
by Mike Telin
In a promotional video Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst says that Slavic music has a specific language which is often on the dark side, while pointing out that there’s always an element of folk music in it as well. (Click on the screenshot to view the video.)
On Thursday, May 19 at 7:30 pm at Severance Hall, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra in the first of four concerts of a program featuring Antonín Dvořák’s The Wood Dove and Leoš Janáček’s Suite “From the House of the Dead.” The performances will also include Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”) with Rudolf Buchbinder as soloist. Check our Concert Listings page for additional days and times.
From the House of the Dead is Janáček’s last opera, with a libretto translated and adapted by the composer from the novel by Dostoyevsky. Welser-Möst says in the video that the opera, set in a Siberian prison camp, is “darker than almost any other opera,” although he points out that in the end, it celebrates the human spirit. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra with Frank Peter Zimmermann (May 12)
by Daniel Hathaway
Music director Franz Welser-Möst returned to the Severance Hall podium on May 12 to lead the first of three end-of-season programs. The Thursday evening performance featured violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann in an exceptional performance of Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2. [Read more…]
Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra caps off its 30th-anniversary season (May 8)
by Robert Rollin
Last Sunday afternoon, May 8, in Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra presented the third and final season concert of its 30th-anniversary season under its talented music director, Brett Mitchell. The concert’s stylistic range was remarkable given the age of its participants. [Read more…]
Cheung, Adès, and Wagner with FWM and The Cleveland Orchestra (April 2)
by Daniel Hathaway
If planning an orchestral season is like assembling a vast jigsaw puzzle, The Cleveland Orchestra’s program on Saturday, April 2 felt as though it might have been put together from the leftover pieces after everything else had fallen neatly into place. [Read more…]
Joffrey, Cleveland Orchestra Partner In Psycho Thrillers (April 7)
by Daniel Hathaway
The Cleveland Orchestra’s newest collaboration with Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet brought a pair of dark, suspenseful stage works by Béla Bartók to Severance Hall on April 7 (with repeat performances through April 10). Nine Joffrey dancers and two fine singers shared the crowded stage with music director Franz Welser-Möst and the orchestra for performances of the ballet The Miraculous Mandarin and the one-act opera Bluebeard’s Castle that were riveting and chilling and made imaginative use of minimal stage gear and props. Read the review at Classical Voice North America
Behind the scenes at TCO’s Bartók productions: a conversation with répétiteur Miloš Repický
by Daniel Hathaway
When Severance Hall audiences experience the thrills and chills of Béla Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin and Bluebeard’s Castle this weekend with The Cleveland Orchestra and Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet, they’ll see the culmination of weeks of preparation by a whole staff of behind-the-scenes personnel. Among those who will be witnessing the fruits of their labors but not taking a bow at the end is the répétiteur for the two productions, Miloš Repický.
Repický, who serves on the music staff of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, has been hard at work on his third Severance Hall project, having previously served as pianist and vocal coach for Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen in 2014, and for Richard Strauss’s Daphne in 2015. [Read more…]