A Tasting Menu of Fall Arts
A sampler of outstanding selections from the coming cultural season, from soup to nuts.
Edited by Laura DannenWith contribution from Douglas Bair and Tiffany Wan
CLASSICAL AND MORE
Appetizer
Fresh-faced Carpe Diem String Quartet plays Mendelssohn, Mozart, and The Simpsons theme song with equal dexterity. Their outside-the-box chamber music captured the attention of the Grammy board last year with nominations in four
categories; listen for hints of folk, tango, pop, and rock in their UW debut. Nov 23, Meany Hall, 15th Ave NE & NE 40th St, UW campus, 206-543-4880; uwworldseries.org
Choice of Entree
Just a few years ago, Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak was “totally unknown,” says Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins. “She’s someone who’s burst upon the opera world like a meteor,” moving swiftly from the ensemble of the Hamburg State Opera to starring roles at the Metropolitan Opera. (She stole the show as the robot doll Olympia in the Met’s 2004 production of Contes d’Hoffmann.) SO recruits the young raven-haired beauty with “dynamite” stage presence to sing Lucia, a forlorn lover driven to murder and madness, in Donizetti’s tragic three-act Lucia di Lammermoor. Kurzak makes her company debut opposite SO regular William Burden (The Pearl Fishers, Iphigenia in Tauris) as Edgardo. Oct 16–30, McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, Seattle Center, 206-389-7676; seattleopera.org
Seattle Symphony without its veteran conductor Gerard Schwarz seems hard to imagine. Like wine without cheese. Or a Broadway musical without Nathan Lane. But the time has come for Schwarz and the symphony to part ways; this year’s opening night concert and gala will serve as a rousing overture to his 26th and final season here, before the music director steps down and 36-year-old French conductor Ludovic Morlot assumes leadership in 2011. The evening’s bill features two world premieres—the orchestral version of Schwarz’s original composition, The Human Spirit, and a cello concerto by resident composer Samuel Jones, played by Schwarz’s son, Julian Schwarz—in addition to performances by the Northwest Boychoir, Seattle Girls’ Choir, and Vocalpoint! Seattle. It also seems
appropriate that the symphony will play Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, with its darker
undertones and melancholic line: “All singing must end now.” Sept 11, Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 206-215-4834; seattlesymphony.org
Dessert
Watch Inspector Clouseau bumble to that big band beat during Jazz Goes to the Movies, when Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra plays classic numbers featured in The Pink Panther, Mission: Impossible, and more as film excerpts screen. Oct 30, Benaroya Hall, 200 University St; Nov 7, Kirkland Performance Center, 350 Kirkland Ave, Kirkland, 206-523-6159; srjo.org
Published: September 2010
Lucia di Lammermoor was my very first opera. Ah, this sure brings back very fond memories: I remember, at 10 or so, being completely flabbergasted by the set, customes, lighting, and of course, the singing.
Leave the political commentary out of your reviews!