Conductor Daniele Gatti, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, and the BSO celebrate the bicentennial of Wagner's birth with selections from five of the composer's operas, encompassing the themes of love, identity, and redemption that pervade his works. The program includes orchestral excerpts fromGötterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), the final opera of Wagner's gargantuan Ring cycle; the powerful overture toTannhäuser, one of his great early successes; Kundry's narrative ("Ich sah das Kind") from Act II of Wagner's moving final opera,Parsifal, whose title character attains spiritual transcendence as a Knight of the Holy Grail; the ethereal Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin, music embodying a vision of the Holy Grail itself; and the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, a twenty-minute distillation of Wagner's four-hour paean to love.See the BSO's program detail page for links to notes, previews, and artist bios. The Globe critic found it mostly well performed, but not gripping. I can't comment because I wasn't there. The concert wasn't in my subscription (and I had a meeting that evening, so I couldn't get to the HMA either. So if you listen on Classical New England, we'll both be hearing the concert for the first time. The CNE BSO page has the links to interviews, etc. The Sunday repeat of this concert will be on March 31.
Tomorrow, Sunday March 24, at 1:00 p.m. Boston Daylight Time, you'll be able to hear last week's show, including the new Cello Concerto by Augusta Read Thomas.
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