Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Peter Rundel

A Dog's Life – Frederic Rzewski's 2nd Piano Concerto – is full of playful detail, but a little too long.

My preparations for a Thursday evening trip to Lincoln Center: studying the super-formula of Stockhausen’s 29-hour opera project, entitled Licht; choosing an outfit in the perfect shade of cerulean; girding myself for a panic attack similar to the one I experienced the last time I witnessed a section from Licht (Oktophonie).

A first impression of Quartett, a 2011 chamber opera composed by Luca Francesconi and staged by Àlex Ollé (of the innovative Catalan theatre group La Fura dels Baus), may be that it presents an unapologetically modernist take on the Liaisons dangereuses story which will impenetrably hang together as some fearsomely Teutonic total artwork.

The Ensemble Resonanz is a Hamburg-based contemporary chamber orchestra committed to finding bridges to modernism amid works from centuries past, and to that end this concert featured Helmut Lachenmann set alongside Mozart, and Beethoven’s Six Bagatelles rescored by Manuel Hidalgo.

En 12 scènes, Giordano Bruno de Francesco Filidei retrace la pensée et la condamnation à mort de ce savant du 16e siècle. Un opéra assez inhabituel dont l’intérêt majeur réside dans l’esthétique musicale, stupéfiante de cohérence et foisonnante de détails raffinés. 

A l’occasion de sa seconde collaboration artistique avec le Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, le chorégraphe britannique Wayne McGregor nous propose un voyage chorégraphique dans l’univers du peintre Francis Bacon.