Boston Symphony Carnegie Hall Review Strauss Renee Fleming
Renée Fleming performed songs of Richard Strauss with the MET Orchestra Sunday at Carnegie Hall. File photo: Andrew Eccles
The Metropolitan Opera's flavour is over, but MET Orchestra concerts at Carnegie are ongoing, and turning out to be a final highlight of the 2015-xvi twelvemonth in music. The presence in the pit of one of the globe's dandy orchestras is one of the avails that sets the Metropolitan Opera autonomously from peers, and the opportunity to hear that orchestra play great concert music, fifty-fifty for but a scattering of concerts, is an annual privilege.
On Sunday, in the second of this year'south concert serial, the plan was devoted entirely to the music of Richard Strauss, who was equally at home composing for the phase or for the concert hall. The tone poem Don Juan was a flashy first to the afternoon, a strikingly crisp rendition that clearly demonstrated the orchestra's superior technical facility in this challenging music. One might take wished for a bit more than intendance in the balancing of some sections, but David Robertson brought clarity to the piece through his precision of musical gesture, executing tight crescendos and ritardandos, and coaxing a generous, shining sound from the orchestra.
The star attraction for Sunday's concert was Renée Fleming, whose long association with the Met needs footling introduction. Some of her recent performances take raised concerns almost the status of her vocalisation, but this programme featured some of the best singing she has done in New York in several seasons.
Beginning with Strauss's Iv Last Songs, she showed an instrument that yet has considerable color and definition; there is less volume than at that place once was, to exist sure, only on Sunday she never pushed, allowing her vocalisation rather to fold into the texture of the orchestra where once she might have tried to soar to a higher place it. That very restraint made her bookkeeping of these songs uncommonly noble—she crafted natural, tasteful phrases while projecting conviction in every function of her range. She showed all the command necessary to give a stunningly placid functioning of "Im Abendrot," while Robertson and visitor were superb in their support, playing with pining warmth in "September."
Fleming led off the 2nd half of the program with a set of five songs, a survey of Strauss's oeuvre stretching from 1897 to 1933 (all the style to 1948, if you count the orchestrations). "Meinem Kinde" featured limpid playing from the principal quartet in the strings, to which Fleming added soothing lines caressed with gentle affection. In "Das Bächlein" she managed true sparkle, skipping nimbly over the cool bubbling of the orchestra. In her well-deserved encore of "Cäcelie," she sang with fullness and conviction while the orchestra matched with enormous, swelling passion.
David Robertson. Photo: Michael Tammaro
The endmost bookend on the program was that concert staple Likewise sprach Zarathustra, which has seldom felt so fresh equally it did in Sunday'southward hearing. Robertson took the iconic opening motif at a surprisingly salubrious prune, but the progression lost none of its dramatic tension, landing with floor-shaking ability. The orchestra played with gorgeous, melting warmth in "Von der Hinterweltlern," leading with glassy tone into the majestic, sweeping contours of "Von der großen Sehnsucht."
Another side altogether was evident in "Das Grablied," showing a stewing, murky depth, only to shimmer and gurgle again in "Der Genesende." David Chan was exquisite in his Concertmaster solos, adding a touch of schmalz to his lines in "Das Tanzlied." The closing "Nachtwanderlied" was perfectly constructed, its bounding heroism giving way to a soft haze, and and so finally dissolving into perfect twilight. Such brilliant, idiomatic Straussian playing is enough to make one desire to fast-forrad to next April, when Fleming and the Met volition be reunited for what will nigh surely exist their last Rosenkavalier together.
James Levine conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra's concluding concert of the season 8 p.m.Th at Carnegie Hall with Christine Goerke and Stefan Vinke performing excerpts from Wagner'southward "Ring." carnegiehall.org.
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Source: https://newyorkclassicalreview.com/2016/05/fleming-met-orchestra-soar-in-strauss/
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