Photo by Attila Nagy.

 

The marvelous American debut tour of the superb Hungarian State Opera continued with a memorable orchestral concert at Carnegie Hall on the evening of Monday, November 5th.

 

The first half of the program, excellently conducted by Balázs Kocsár, was devoted to music from Italy, beginning with three works by the lesser known composer Aldo Finzi whose work has recently received some performances in New York. The first piece was the tempestuousInterludio,followed by the more noteworthy L’Infinito—one wonders if the title is an allusion to the celebrated eponymous poem by Giacomo Leopardi. This opus features an extremely beautiful Impressionist soundscape for much of its length. After Numquam (Sinfonia romana),the impressive soloist Nagao Haruka took the stage to perform Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by Fabio Vacchi who joined the artists for a final bow.

 

The adored tenor Placido Domingo led the musicians in the delightful Rákóczi Marchof Hector Berlioz after which soprano Andrea Rost then joined the ensemble to sing “Heia, in den Bergen . . .” from the classic operetta, Die Csárdásfürstin” by Emmerich Kálmán and the lovely “Vilja Song” from Franz Lehár’s extremely popular The Merry Widow. The final two works on the program were the most substantial: the rarely performed Symphonic Minutes of the underrated Ernő von Dohnányi and the extraordinary Suite from The Miraculous Mandarinby Béla Bartók. Enthusiastic applause was rewarded delightfully with an encore of the final movement fromSymphonic Minutes.

 

The debut tour continues this week with performances of the Hungarian National Ballet at the David Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.