Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | Seattle

An evening of piano four-hands and Mendelssohn’s Octet launch Seattle Chamber Music Society’s summer festival, with distinct personalities repeatedly braiding into something larger.

Presented without staging, Seattle Opera’s concert Daphne places Strauss’ extreme vocal demands and saturated orchestral writing in sharp relief, offering a high-risk encounter with a rarely heard late opera.

In ‘The Eloquent Oboe’, Tekla Cunningham and colleagues draw out the quiet drama in solo Bach cantatas – where the oboe’s sigh becomes the soul’s own speech.

A lean Seattle Symphony under guest conductor Ivars Taurins brings stylish energy to Baroque orchestral theater by Telemann, Hasse and Handel.

Two rhapsodies anchor a program that ranges from brass-driven bravura to Ravel’s iridescent orchestral color. Seattle Symphony closes its season with breadth, nuance and elegant command from emeritus Ludovic Morlot. 

Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony commemorate the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth and present the world premiere of Benjamin Attahir's Hanoï Songs. 

Kazuki Yamada returns to the Seattle Symphony with a pair of Requiems and a rousing Elgar Enigma.

South African musical phenomenon Abel Selaocoe plays multiple roles as the soloist in his Four Spirits, which is complemented by a shockingly fresh Symphonie fantastique under Lawrence Renes.

Ludovic Morlot conducts a strong cast, led by local mezzo J’Nai Bridges, in a concert performance of Saint-Saëns' biblical opera. 

Hilary Hahn and Brahms are the big name draws, but Seattle Symphony's program introduces a remarkable young conductor who makes a powerful impact.

Chamber music values and luxury casting with world-class string players enriched this hefty program of an elegiac Bach sonata and valedictory works by Bartók and Brahms.

Ludovic Morlot conducts the Seattle Symphony in Messiaen's remarkable Des Canyons aux Étoiles, which bows to the majesty of the stunning geological and astrological entities of the southwestern US landscape, still sounding as if it had been written yesterday. 

A light, amiable touch predominates in the Peter Kazaras production of Le nozze di Figaro, with a focus on the opera's impeccable comic pacing.

All three works were spirited, full of bravura and performed with panache and undisputed virtuosity.