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I attended a performance of the Boston Symphony Orchestra this afternoon at Symphony Hall in Boston.

PROGRAM:

Friday January 6, 2012, at 1:30 p.m.

HAYDN: Symphony no. 88 in G

TURNAGE: “From the Wreckage,” Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra

Håkan Hardenberger, trumpet

–Intermission–

STRAUSS: “Also sprach Zarathustra,” Tone Poem for Large Orchestra, Opus 30

Marco Lehninger was the conductor, filling in for Andris Nelsons who canceled to stay with his wife for the birth of their first child. Lehninger is an assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

I was unhappy with the performance of the Haydn symphony. So as not to tweet anything unkind on the spur of the moment, I tweeted during intermission that maybe I had not been in the mood for the Haydn, but, to be frank, I really think the orchestra’s performance was subpar. It was as if they don’t know what a Haydn symphony, or this one in particular, is supposed to sound like. The performance lacked any sparkle, and it seemed as if the players were not 100% ensemble for some of the ensembles. It also appeared that the conductor was not in control of the orchestra, and I don’t think that would be entirely his fault.

The Turnage trumpet concerto, about fifteen minutes long, was not unpleasant. The soloist first plays a flugelhorn, then a standard trumpet, and finally a piccolo trumpet. What the piece has to offer is largely superficial. I don’t think that repeated listening would yield any additional depth or nuance. The composer came on stage at the end to receive some of the applause. He had not taken part in the pre-concert talk of Robert Kirzinger and Håkan Hardenberger. It was very gracious of Mr. Hardenberger to participate in the talk, and it was a pleasure to hear him.

After intermission came Richard Strauss’s tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra. On the whole I enjoyed it. The orchestra sounded wonderful at times, and never less than OK.

Reviews of the Thursday night performance:

Boston Classical Review

Boston Globe

Boston Musical Intelligencer

Anna Netrebko out of Covent Garden Traviata

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The Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet will be available November 18, 2011.

After surgery, Kwiecien is said to be ready for Don Giovanni.

I saw Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera on the night of Saturday October 22, 2011. The sets and costumes for this new production, set in the eighteenth century, were OK but nothing very special. A bit too much of the façades à la Hollywood Squares. No gratuitous displays of flesh, no dancing around in underpants, and no changing of shirts, as in so many recent productions here and there, but I don’t need to see any of that at the opera.

Ramón Vargas as Don Ottavio was by far the best member of the cast. He ranks among the best singers to perform the role, IMHO. Excellent projection and lovely sound. Barbara Frittoli as Donna Elvira and Marina Rebeka as Donna Anna also projected their voices very well. The other singers–among them Peter Mattei as Don Giovanni and Luca Pisaroni as Leporello–seemed not quite up to the size of the Met. They would have made more impression for me in a house with 3,000 seats or fewer, not the Met’s 4,000 or so. On the whole, though, a very satisfactory performance, just somewhat lacking in pizazz. The singers were not always singing, in the recitatives in particular, as if they expected the audience to hear and understand the words. And I suppose much of the audience would not have understood them. The audience laughed, when it laughed, at the translations on the little screens, not at the singer’s delivery of the words. Still the performance would have more punch if the singers did more to sing as if the words were to be heard and understood.

I also wonder whether bits of the recitatives were excised in a few places, but I can’t really say for sure. Maybe. Maybe not. For example, I don’t recall hearing the exchange:

MASETTO
Io, per servirla.

DON GIOVANNI
Oh bravo! Per servirmi;
questo è vero parlar da galantuomo.

Maybe there were such cuts, or maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention.