Muti in his element in Italian opera excerpts

By Sam Jacobson, 28 June 2017

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“Muti gave a nuanced shape to each phrase to create a keen sense of operatic narrative”

Reviewed at Chicago Symphony Center, Chicago on 23 June 2017

Verdi, Nabucco: Overture

Verdi, Nabucco: Gli arredi festivi

Verdi, Nabucco: Va Pensiero, chorus of the Hebrew slaves

Verdi, Il trovatore: Anvil Chorus

Verdi, Macbeth: Patria oppressa

Verdi, Les Vêpres siciliennes (I vespri siciliani): Overture

Puccini, Manon Lescaut: Intermezzo

Mascagni, Cavalleria rusticana: Intermezzo

Boito, Mefistofele: Prologue

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Riccardo Muti, Conductor

Riccardo Zanellato, Bass

Chicago Symphony Chorus

Duain Wolfe, Choirmaster / chorus director

Chicago Children's Choir, Choirmaster / chorus director

Chicago Symphony Orchestra music on death: whimper then bang

Graham Meyer, 9th April

Jakub Hrůša leads the CSO in pedestrian Janáček and Rachmaninov, but Strauss's Four Last Songs and Wagner's Tristan excerpts send audiences home deeply touched.

***11

Klaus Mäkelä is speaking... Chicago is listening

Graham Meyer, 19th February

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Music Director Designate juxtaposes his Finnish countryman's music on their shared national epic, the Kalevala, with the heroic life limned in the tone poem of Richard Strauss.

****1

Matthew Aucoin’s Song of the Reappeared premieres in Chicago

Graham Meyer, 4th December

A strong world premiere of Aucoin's evocative and immediate Song of the Reappeared, a concerto for voice written for soprano Julia Bullock which sets vivid imagery by a poet who suffered under authoritarianism.

*****

Manfred Honeck brings his über-dramatic Mozart Requiem to Chicago

Graham Meyer, 20th November

The Austrian conductor's loudest fortes and softest pianos pull together a dramatic arc from the Requiem, other Mozart works and chant. But it's not really a funeral.

****1

Daniela Candillari makes her Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut

Graham Meyer, 3rd October

Without a baton, the contemporary-music specialist showcases the Chicago Symphony strings in an intimate program ranging from music of the last decade all the way back to Pergolesi.

****1

Polished Ravel x 2 from Alice Sara Ott with the Chicago Symphony

Graham Meyer, 25th September

Three hands for two concertos: Alice Sara Ott joins the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for Ravel's Piano Concerto for the left hand and the Piano Concerto in G major.

****1

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Sam Jacobson

Sam Jacobson has been writing for Bachtrack since 2015 and is currently in Pittsburgh, having previously lived throughout the Midwest. A keen traveler, he endeavors to see all the great orchestras and opera houses across the US and abroad. Outside of music, he works as a software engineer. He also maintains a blog which can be read here.

Muti in his element: Italian opera with the Chicago Symphony and Chorus