Saturday, December 21, 2024
The New York Philharmonic began the 2018-2019 season in light and ended in darkness with the world premiere of David Lang's opera prisoner of the state. The NYP commission, conducted by Music Director Jaap van Zweden, performed June 6-8 as part of the orchestra's Music of Conscience series, explored the long tendrils of totalitarianism - and an opera born out of hate is brilliant. prisoner of the state is a meditation on Beethoven's only opera Fidelio (1805), whose titled character infiltrates where her wrongfully incarcerated husband is held and saves him from execution. Written during the Napoleonic wars, Beethoven never hid his passion for freedom. Lang removes
Tag: Jaap van Zweden
Jaap van Zweden’s First Week at The New York Philharmonic
With an opening night gala and an ambitious, awesome sounding first subscription concert, Jaap van Zweden officially became the New York Philharmonic's 24th Music Director. The Dutch maestro, who transitioned from Concertmaster of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to conductor with the Leonard Bernstein's encouragement, comes to an orchestra still in serious need of overhauling and/or dynamiting David Geffen Hall and continuing its overdue image change. van Zweden's predecessor Alan Gilbert succeeded making the NYP a local and digital presence (here's hoping Gilbert gets his wish to one day conduct Olivier Messiaen’s St. François d’Assise because Manhattan socialites will never sign off on it unless