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MET Orchestra Close Out Two Nights of Shows at Carnegie Hall
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 25 June 2026 13:57
- Written by Jack Angstreich
The Met Orchestra with Yannick Nezet Seguin and Joyce DiDonato. Photo by Jennifer Taylor.
At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Thursday, June 18th, I had the immense pleasure of attending a magnificent concert—the second of two a week apart—presented by Carnegie Hall, featuring the marvelous MET Orchestra under the outstanding direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
The event started very strongly with a sterling account of the late Kaija Saariaho’s powerful Lumière et pesanteur, from 2009. In a note on the piece, the composer has commented thus:
Lumière et pesanteur is a gift for Esa-Pekka Salonen, inspired by his performance of my La Passion de Simone in Los Angeles, January 2009. This piece is an arrangement based on the eighth station of the Passion, which I know that he especially likes.
About La Passion de Simone, annotator Noémie Chemali says that:
this multimedia oratorio, created in collaboration with Lebanese-French writer Amin Maalouf and stage director Peter Sellars, premiered in 2006 at the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna. Written in the passion play tradition, it makes a loose allusion to Baroque oratorio, which historically depicts the suffering of Jesus. This work, instead, explores the life and spiritual journey of the iconic French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil (1909-43). Scored for orchestra, solo soprano, and electronics, it was subsequently performed by fellow Finn, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who inspired the orchestral arrangement known as Lumière et pesanteur.
In another program note, Nicholas Swett reported that “Saariaho came upon Weil's writings as a teenager.” The composer described how
the Finnish translation of her book Gravity and Grace was one of the few things I packed into my suitcase when I travelled to Germany in 1981 to continue my studies in composition. … The combination of Weil's severe asceticism and her passionate quest for truth has appealed to me ever since I first read her thoughts.
About Weil, in a 2021 interview Saariaho said:
I never totally understood what she is saying, but I am still trying. And I don't agree with her thoughts, but they force me to create my own opinions and they are very contemporary.
In Weil’s 1947 book, La pesanteur et la grâce, she wrote: “Two powers hold sway over the universe: light and gravity.”
The fabulous mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato then entered the stage for a superb—if maybe slightly underpowered—performance of Gustav Mahler’s extraordinary, five Rückert-Lieder, completed in 1902. About the now underrated poet, Friedrich Rückert, whose work provides the basis for them as well as the composer’s Kindertotenlieder and which was famously set by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, the composer told Anton Webern:
This is lyric poetry from the source. All else is lyric poetry of a derivative sort.
Annotator Harry Haskell explains that, “Unlike the Kindertotenlieder, the Rückert-Lieder were not conceived as an organic cycle.”
The second half of the evening’s program was at least equally memorable, consisting of an engrossing reading of Mahler’s incredibleSymphony No. 4 in G Major, which attained its final form in 1910. According to Haskell, “Mahler considered his new work ‘basically different’ from its three predecessors.” The composer wrote to his fiancée, Alma Schindler:
My Fourth will be very strange to you. It is all humorous, ‘naïve,’ etc.; it represents the part of my life that is still the hardest for you to accept and which in the future only extremely few will comprehend.
Haskell adds that Mahler “confided to a friend” that the symphony “depicted a cosmic gaiety emanating ‘from another sphere, and hence terrifying for humans: Only a child can understand and explain it, and a child does explain it in the end: a child who, if only at the chrysalis stage, already belongs to this superior world.’” The composer later commented “that humor of this type (as distinct from wit or good humor) is frequently not recognized even by the best of audiences.”
The initial movement opens charmingly—if maybe deceptively—and for much of it remains so, but it is punctuated by moments of almost aching lyricism and the music exhibits greater turbulence as it unfolds, although this eventually subsides before an abrupt, emphatic finish. The second movement is more playful with uncanny, almost sinister aspects and has an especially unconventional structure and considerable forward momentum for much of its length—it too ends suddenly, if relatively softly.
The ensuing, predominantly tranquil, slow movement—marked Poco adagio—has some of the celestial qualities of the celebrated Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony—which was famously employed by Luchino Visconti in his Death in Venice—but there are some dramatic, even portentous measures before it becomes quite cheerful and then recovers its serenity; it closes very quietly. (The composer stated that the movement signifies that “no harm was meant after all.”)
Mahler originally intended the last movement—a song set to the poem “Das himmlische Leben” from the influential 19th-century anthology, Des Knaben Wunderhorn—as the finale to his Third Symphony, and instructed that it “be sung with childlike, cheerful expression; entirely without parody.” It is buoyant, enchanting, often jubilant, with dynamic interludes, concluding irenically. (It was gloriously interpreted here by DiDonato.)
An enthusiastic ovation elicited an incredible encore from the mezzo-soprano and the ensemble: the "Urlicht" movement from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, the "Resurrection."
June '26 Digital Week III
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 24 June 2026 14:56
- Written by Kevin Filipski
MET Orchestra & Bruckner at Carnegie Hall
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 24 June 2026 13:44
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on June 11, 2026. Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera
At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Thursday, June 11th, I had the privilege to attend a rewarding concert—the first of two on consecutive weeks presented by Carnegie Hall—featuring the exceptional musicians of the MET Orchestra, under the admirable direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
The event consisted of a memorable reading of the Robert Haas edition of Anton Bruckner’s monumental and awesome Symphony No. 8 in C Minor. In a letter to Emil Kauffmann, the great composer Hugo Wolf commented on the work’s premiere thus:
This Symphony is the creation of a Titan, and in spiritual vastness, fertility of ideas, and grandeur even surpasses his other symphonies. Notwithstanding the usual Cassandra prophecies of woe, even from those in the know, its success was almost without precedent. It was the absolute victory of light over darkness, and the storm of applause at the end of each movement was like some elemental manifestation of Nature. In short, even a Roman Emperor could not have wished for a more superb triumph.
The impressive if unwieldy, initial, Allegro moderato movement begins solemnly, almost ominously, but a more lyrical contrasting theme is soon introduced, as well as passages of near-hysterical intensity and more purely noble statements—indeed, the effect of the movement is somewhat kaleidoscopic and it closes very softly. The repeating main body of the ensuing Scherzo—also marked Allegro moderato—has a playful quality replete with dance-like rhythms and a powerful, forward momentum but also with a more subdued, central section; the slower, exquisite, sunny Trio is graceful and serene with a quasi-bucolic character and at moments sounds almost Mahlerian—it finishes affirmatively.
The most elevated component of the score—and also possibly the most transparently beautiful—is to be found in the expansive Adagio that follows—its ethos is not so much elegiac but celestial rather, but with Wagnerian echoes and it builds to a brief but soaring climax and ends very quietly. The complex Finale opens with dazzling fanfares but these quickly accede to music in a more contemplative, even tentative mode, as well as some more dramatic measures; it concludes exultantly.
The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.
"Swan Lake" and the American Ballet Theater at the Met
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 22 June 2026 13:44
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Skylar Brandt and Herman Cornejo in Swan Lake.Photo: Rosalie O’Connor Photography.
At Lincoln Center’s wonderful Metropolitan Opera House—on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 11th—I had the privilege to attend a memorable version of the magnificent Swan Lake, presented by American Ballet Theater in its admirable production—the first seen this season—with impressive choreography by the previous Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie, based on that of the celebrated Marius Petipa along with Lev Ivanov. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s glorious score was expertly conducted by the always reliable Ormsby Wilkins, while the attractive sets and costumes were designed by Zack Brown, and the powerful lighting by Duane Schuler.
The unforgettable role of Odette-Odile was arrestingly performed by Skylar Brandt—she excelled in this last year as did her superb partner Herman Cornejo as Prince Siegfried and he remains one of the finest principals in the company. (They both elicited enormous enthusiasm from a very appreciative audience, especially in their stunning turns in Act II.) Both Andrii Ishchuk and Duncan Lyle were also effective in the divided part of von Rothbart, the evil sorcerer.
Not unexpectedly, the secondary cast was again quite strong and here, for reasons of space and readability, I’ll cite only the most remarkable, starting with Léa Fleytoux, Yoon Jeung Seo and Jake Roxander (who also danced the role of Benno, the prince’s friend) who as an ensemble beautifully realized the marvelous Pas de Trois from Act I. (They also shone in in this in last year’s production.) The dance of the four Cygnettes at the lakeside (in Act II)—possibly my favorite in the entire ballet—was here splendidly executed by Zimmi Coker, Breanne Granlund, Fleytoux again, and Betsy McBride. Also fabulous was the exhilarating dance of the Two Swans, here brilliantly achieved by Sierra Armstrong and Remy Young—the latter also was exceptional last year in the same role.
In Act III’s delightful divertissements too, the main dancers were enchanting, beginning with Atau Watanabe, Camila Ferrera, Rachel Richardson and Coker again—the latter two exquisitely resuming their roles from last year—as, respectively, the Hungarian, Spanish, Italian and Polish Princesses. The enthralling Czardas was led by Zhong-Jing Fang and Roman Zhurbin—he danced this magically last year as well. The terrific Spanish Dance consists of two couples, which here were first, Olivia Tweedy and—here also repeating from last year—Joseph Markey, and second, Abbey Marrison and Tristan Brosnan. And, lastly, the Neapolitan Dance was rendered indelible by Daniel Guzmán and Tyler Maloney. The key non-dancing parts included the perennial Nancy Raffa as the Queen Mother and Alexei Agoudine as both Wolfgang, tutor to the prince, and as the Master of Ceremonies in Act III, while the sterling corps de ballet was characteristically extraordinary.
With perfect justice, the artists received a standing ovation.
