Sangmin Lee hoists Viktorina Kapitonova as the ensemble frames them; Boston Ballet’s Swan Lake, Feb. 27 in the Opera House. Rosalie O’Connor photograph
Time to breed lilacs. February was good for paying work, with an review of the BSO’s Die Tode Stadt to begin things, and Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata with BMOP/OO the next weekend. Two excellent programs for review, with questions and strengths in both performances. Read them here at Leonore Overture, or at Classical Voice NA.
With the rest of the month spent in museums (PEM, catching up, and MFA, beginning to visit John Wilson); seeing Boston Ballet’s splashy Swan Lake; and then the usual music, including a starry intro to Boston for Gabriela Ortiz at Symphony Hall—anyway, it felt like the final years at the Herald, when I acted like critic-at-large (don’t be impressed: everyone else in the arts had been fired).
I am still soaking everything avidly, and contributing little. If I’m a simple diarist for a bit, at least it’s exercise for typing.
Swan Lake—Mikko Nissinen choreographed his own snug version about ten years ago, and I haven’t seen it since. The major roles were well inhabited (Viktorina Kapitonova, Sangmin Lee, Lasha Khozashvili), the staging exceptional, and costumes glorious (both Robert Perdziola), but Swan Lake is an ensemble work first and foremost. Cheers to the troupe, and Nissinen’s steady infusion of new talent. Ensemble scenes were sometimes Cirque-de-soleil vivid, often with gorgeous lines partitioning the stage. Most of Tchaikovsky’s score is chamber music settings, and the orchestra (Mischa Santora) sounded terrific.
Composer Gabriela Ortiz holds the hardware: one of her Grammys for Revolución Diamantina, her ballet score that the BSO performed in late February. Mara Arteaga photograph
About fifteen hours later I was in Symphony Hall for more Tchaikovsky—Rococo Variations for Cello (Alban Gerhardt), and Francesca da Rimini, at the BSO. But the real highlight of that program was Gabriela Ortiz’s Revolución Diamantina, fresh off a Grammy win.
Ortiz curates the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood this summer, so let’s make this the beginning of a dive into her repertory. Revolución Diamanina is a ballet score (unstaged, as yet), which encouraged a kind of imaginary visual listening. Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero led the BSO, with eight singers from the Crossing serving as an octet of miked vocalists, blended with surprising elegance into the orchestra.
Pianist Inon Barnatan gives an encore, with conductor Eun Sun Kim seated behind him, after performing Bartok 3 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, March 6, 2025. Winslow Townson photograph
I first heard pianist Inon Barnaton at Music at Menlo, giving expressive recitals in intimate surroundings. The memories are fresh. He played Bartok 3 at Symphony Hall March 6, with conductor Eun Sun Kim, who directs San Francisco Opera, among other major affiliations past and present.
The Third Concerto is friendly Bartok—easier on the fingers for the artist, easier on the listener. I heard the last performance of this program, something I don’t do much, and it felt both vivid but certainly facile, conversational between artist and ensemble. Nicely done.
The Dead Land can be formidable. Shostakovich for the month of April at the BSO looms large for the imagination, or at least for the listener. I’m also glad to have a feature assigned on Martin Pearlman, leaving the Boston Baroque this year—the orchestra he founded—after more than five decades. Pearlman leads BB in a Mozart/Beethoven program this month, and then closes with Handel’s Ariodante in late April.