Susan Graham at Tanglewood and the Proms
Susan Graham has a trans-Atlantic summer of concerts ahead, capping a season that has seen her win acclaim on opera stages in New York, Houston and Madrid. The Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano sings an orchestral recital of Handel and Gluck at Tanglewood in Massachusetts (July 22) and Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder with the Montreal Symphony (August 6), as well as Ravel’s Shéhérazade on a four-date European tour with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Colin Davis that culminates at the BBC Proms festival in London (August 24).
At Tanglewood, Graham performs arias by Handel and Gluck – two of her signature composers – with the Boston Symphony under Pablo Heras-Casado, on July 22. After taking her celebrated interpretation of the title role in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride to many of the world’s great opera houses, Graham returned home to the Metropolitan Opera in February for the revival of the Stephen Wadsworth production originally mounted for her there in 2007. Starring alongside Plácido Domingo, she earned praise once again in the New York Times for her performance of music that’s a “perfect fit” for her.
Graham sings another work she has made her own – Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder – with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano on August 6. She recorded the set of five songs with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony for a 2010 release in their multiple Grammy-winning Mahler cycle. After the concerts captured on the recordings, the Bay Area Reporter enthused over Graham’s “exquisitely tasteful and musically thrilling performances.”
Renowned for her expertise in the French repertoire, Graham has been honored by the government of France with the title “Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.” She sings Ravel’s sultry, shimmering vocal-orchestral triptych Shéhérazade on a European tour alongside the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and conductor Colin Davis, with performances at Italy’s Bolzano Festival (August 18), the Salzburg Festival (August 20), Dresden’s Semperoper (August 22) and, finally, at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms festival. The Proms performance will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and in HD sound on the BBC Web site. (Go here for more information.) Graham recorded Shéhérazade for her 2005 Warner Classics album of Ravel, Chausson, and Debussy titled Poèmes de l’amour, which Gramophone magazine named CD of the month and was dubbed “gorgeous” by editor James Jolly. The San Francisco Chronicle agreed, saying that the album’s highlight was Shéhérazade, with Graham capturing “all its swooning melodic arcs and exotic sense of wonder.”
Susan Graham: summer 2011 engagements
July 22
Lenox, MA: Koussevitzky Music Shed
Tanglewood
Boston Symphony Orchestra / Pablo Heras-Casado
Orchestral recital: Handel and Gluck
August 6
Montreal, Canada: Amphithéâtre Fernand-Lindsay
Festival de Lanaudière
Montreal Symphony Orchestra / Kent Nagano
Mahler: Rückert-Lieder
August 18
Bolzano, Italy: Teatro Communale
Bolzano Festival Bozen
Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra / Colin Davis
Ravel: Shéhérazade
August 20
Salzburg, Austria: Felsenreitschule
Salzburg Festival
Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra / Colin Davis
Ravel: Shéhérazade
August 22
Dresden, Germany: Semperoper
Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra / Colin Davis
Ravel: Shéhérazade
August 24
London, England: Royal Albert Hall
BBC Proms
Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra / Colin Davis
Ravel: Shéhérazade
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