Alan Gilbert conducts Wagner & Mahler in Stockholm this month; more

Alan Gilbert makes his debut with the Royal Swedish Opera this month, when he leads the company in six performances (April 7-20) of Wagner’s Lohengrin, in a production by Stephen Langridge. While in Stockholm, Gilbert returns to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic – where he is Conductor Laureate – for two performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 (April 12 & 14). Before the month is out, Gilbert returns to New York to lead his home orchestra in four concerts, three of which will involve the world premiere of Marc Neikrug’s Concerto for Orchestra (April 26-28), a New York Philharmonic Commission.
 
Gilbert’s résumé as an opera conductor embraces a wide range of repertoire and several high-profile productions. He has led Britten’s Peter Grimes and the North American premiere of Thomas Adès’s The Tempest – among other works – at Santa Fe Opera; Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel at Los Angeles Opera; Zemlinsky’s Der Kreidekreis at Zurich Opera; and the Metropolitan Opera’s first production of a John Adams opera, Doctor Atomic, which Gilbert led in his company debut (a DVD of the highly-acclaimed performance – named the number one classical music event of 2008 by New York magazine – recently won the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording). Gilbert has also given hugely successful staged performances with the New York Philharmonic in Avery Fisher Hall of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, described by the New York Times as an “exhilarating success” and an “instant Philharmonic milestone,” and Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, which reached the “Best of 2011” lists for the New York Times and New York magazine. Similarly, Gilbert and designer/director Doug Fitch (his artistic partner for Le Grand Macabre and Vixen) gave performances of Wagner’s Das Rheingold in concert with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and earlier this year, Gilbert led his own arrangement of music from Wagner’s Ring in concerts with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
 
Gilbert comments about conducting Wagner’s Lohengrin:
 
“I’m really excited to be doing anything at all at the Stockholm Opera, but particularly Wagner; I’d been talking to Birgitta Svendén, the director there, about a number of Wagner projects, which hopefully will be realized over the coming years. For various reasons, we decided to start with Lohengrin, one of my favorite Wagner operas. After spending time with it over the past weeks and months – it’s the first time I’m doing the piece – I’m really stunned to observe how far Wagner had gone, even at this relatively early point in his compositional life. There are things about Lohengrin that I think make it, in a way, the greatest of his operas. He continued to develop, and even though for other composers this might have been the height of their achievement, for Wagner – he was just getting going! It’s brilliantly written and it goes so far into the spiritual realm that in some ways it has become my new favorite Wagner opera.”
 
Alan Gilbert has led acclaimed performances of various Mahler symphonies with several orchestras, particularly with the New York Philharmonic (where Mahler was Music Director from 1909 to 1911). Gilbert led the orchestra in a special presentation of the composer’s “Resurrection” Symphony just before the start of the current season – his third as Music Director. This event, entitled “A Concert for New York for the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 — In Remembrance and Renewal,” was telecast on PBS’s Great Performances on September 11 and is available on DVD. In January, Gilbert conducted three New York Philharmonic performances of the valedictory Ninth Symphony (an errant cell phone made one of the performances a worldwide news item). Last spring, Gilbert led the orchestra in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony on tour in Europe, in concerts commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death. On May 2, Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic will present Mahler’s Sixth Symphony at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The Stockholm performances come first, however, and Gilbert notes:
 
“This will be the first time that I’ve done the Mahler Sixth with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. It’s a continuation of both my relationship with the orchestra – where I was chief conductor for eight years – and of a Mahler sequence we’ve been doing. I returned there as a guest to do Mahler’s Third, and my final concert of my tenure with the orchestra featured Mahler’s Ninth. I’ve enjoyed so much doing the music of Mahler with the orchestra. It’s very exciting to be able to go back and continue with Mahler’s Sixth, which is such a profound work and goes to the heart of who Mahler is.”
 
Gilbert’s recording for the BIS label of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony was named an “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone, which called it “the finest recording the work has received… as exhausting and purifying an experience as any 80 minutes spent in your listening room has the right to be.”
 
Gilbert closes out April back in New York, with four concerts with his home orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall. April 25 is a Rush Hour Concert, consisting of Berlioz’s Le Corsaire Overture; Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with Lisa Batiashvili; and Debussy’s La Mer. The three performances that follow (April 26-28) offer those same works, with the addition of the world premiere of Marc Neikrug’s Concerto for Orchestra, a New York Philharmonic Commission. Gilbert, who has conducted a number of Neikrug’s works throughout his career, notes:
 
“Mark is one of the composers that I most believe in today. I’m very curious to experience his new Concerto for Orchestra with the New York Philharmonic; everything that Marc writes has his personal stamp, and is gripping and telling in a human way, but this piece was specifically conceived with the New York Philharmonic in mind. We started talking about it around the time of his last premiere with the New York Philharmonic, and he has spent a lot of time around the orchestra since then getting to know the individual players and getting to hear what the orchestra is doing. He says that the actual genesis of the work is what the Philharmonic is, and what it can be – so this is a particularly exciting premiere.”
 
A list of Alan Gilbert’s spring engagements follows. Additional information can be found at his website: www.alangilbert.com.
 
 
Alan Gilbert:  Spring 2012 Engagements
 
April 7, 9, 11, 13, 16, 20
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera (debut)
Wagner: Lohengrin
 
April 12, 14
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic
Mahler: Symphony No. 6, “Tragic”
 
April 25
New York Philharmonic (Rush Hour Concert) with Lisa Batiashvili, violin
Berlioz: Le Corsaire Overture
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 3
Debussy: La Mer
 
April 26, 27, 28
New York Philharmonic with Lisa Batiashvili, violin
Berlioz: Le Corsaire Overture
Marc Neikrug: Concerto for Orchestra
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 3
Debussy: La Mer
 
May 2
New York, NY
Carnegie Hall
New York Philharmonic
Mahler: Symphony No. 6, “Tragic”
 
May 3, 4, 5
New York Philharmonic with Yefim Bronfman, piano
Dvořák: Carnival Overture
Magnus Lindberg: Piano Concerto No. 2
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
 
May 8-15
CALIFORNIA 2012
New York Philharmonic
Cities: Costa Mesa (5/8), Los Angeles – Philharmonic debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall (5/9), Santa Barbara (5/10), Davis (5/12), San Francisco (5/13, 14), San Diego (5/15)
Featured works include West Coast Premiere of Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Berlioz’s Le Corsaire Overture, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Yefim Bronfman, Debussy’s La Mer, Ravel’s La Valse, Dvořák’s Carnival Overture and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4
 
May 19 (Saturday Matinee Concert)
New York Philharmonic with Glenn Dicterow, violin
Schubert: Octet
Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 1
Dvořák: Carnival Overture
 
May 19, 22, 26
New York Philharmonic with Glenn Dicterow, violin
Dvořák: Carnival Overture
Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 1
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
 
May 23
New York Philharmonic with Evgeny Kissin, piano
Grieg: Piano Concerto
Other works TBD
 
May 28
New York, NY
The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
New York Philharmonic
Free Memorial Day Concert
Mahler: Symphony No. 9
 
June 14, 15, 16
New York Philharmonic with Leonidas Kavakos, violin; Joshua Hopkins, baritone
Beethoven: Coriolan Overture
Korngold: Violin Concerto
Nielsen: Symphony No. 3, “Sinfonia espansiva”
 
June 16 (Saturday Matinee Concert)
New York Philharmonic with Alan Gilbert, conductor and violin; Leonidas Kavakos, violin; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Carter Brey, cello; Maria Kitsopoulos, cello; Joshua Hopkins, baritone
Schubert: String Quintet in C major
Nielsen: Symphony No. 3, “Sinfonia espansiva”
 
June 20, 21, 22, 23
New York Philharmonic with Emanuel Ax, piano; Jennifer Zetlan, soprano; Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; Paul Appleby, tenor; Joshua Hopkins, baritone; New York Choral Artists, Joseph Flummerfelt, director
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 22
Mozart: Mass in C minor, “Great”
 
June 29, 30
New York, NY
The Park Avenue Armory
New York Philharmonic
Pierre Boulez: Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna
Mozart: Act I Finale from Don Giovanni
Stockhausen: Gruppen for Three Orchestras
Ives: The Unanswered Question
 
 
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