Yannick’s Met orchestra will make first Europe tour for 20 years

Yannick’s Met orchestra will make first Europe tour for 20 years

main

norman lebrecht

February 24, 2020

No sooner did Yannick Nézet-Séguin cancel a set of Berlin Phil performances that he was due to take to Baden-Baden than the festival announced he will compensate next year by bringing the Met Opera orchestra.

The tour wll take in London’s Barbican, the Paris Philharmonie and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in June-July 2021.

Joyce DiDonato will sing excerpts from Berlioz’s Les Troyens and there will also be act 1 of Walküre with Christine Goerke, Brandon Jovanovich and Günther Groissböck.

A new work by Missy Mazzoli is part of the package.

 

Comments

  • Karl says:

    20 years is a long time to tour! Let’s hope that’s a typo.

  • Vaquero357 says:

    Headline should probably read “First Europe Tour IN 20 Years,” which is a believable interval. In the 90s the MET Orchestra did some tours in the U.S. – I remember hearing them at Orchestra Hall in Chicago in 1995 – and regular visits to Carnegie Hall, but European tours must’ve been far less frequent – if there even were any.

    One point, though: The concerts by the MET Orchestra alone typically contained symphonic repertoire that a full-time opera orchestra rarely gets to play, a chance to show its chops in non-operatic repertoire.

    The repertoire mentioned above sounds like mostly the usual fare they encounter in the pit……

    • Christopher Clift says:

      Vaquero357

      Unless your company is Called Opera North! Their orchestra has a separate life giving orchestral (symphonic repertoire) concerts throughout the year

    • Stephen Owades says:

      While New York audiences have many opportunities to hear the Met Orchestra playing operatic repertoire in the opera house, music-lovers outside their home turf do not. It makes good sense for them to play mainly symphonic programs at Carnegie Hall and operatic programs on tour in Europe.

    • MWnyc says:

      It’s nearly 20 years. The last time the Met’s orchestra toured beyond New York City was to Europe in 2002.

  • Mike Gibb says:

    I really must pay closer attention. I saw Missy Mazzoli standing in the Parc Guell in Barcelona.

    If only Gaudi had realised a couple of tins of spray paint could have saved all of that faffing around with broken tiles

  • MacroV says:

    RFH? Not the Proms? Anyway, good point below that the MET orchestra, which doesn’t do many symphonic performances, usually focuses on non-operatic repertoire to exercise different chops. Though it’s hard to object to hearing them do Walkure Act 1 even though it’s totally in their wheelhouse.

    • MWnyc says:

      I don’t think the Met orchestra could ever do the Proms. While the Proms are on, the Met either has its contractually required time off or is rehearsing hard for the new season.

  • Miguel Cervantes says:

    Missy Mazzoli is being getting produced everywhere. Cher publique, What does she have that other composers of new music don’t have?

    • Alan says:

      Completely inoffensive music.

    • John Porter says:

      She’s a terrific composer, one that performer’s love to perform, writes well for instruments, and is both accessible and interesting. And, proof in the pudding is that she is being programmed by opera, orchestra, and chamber as well, by both performers and administrators.

  • Sir David Geffen-Hall says:

    20 years?

    Searching for the Flying Dutchman.

    Good luck!

  • MOST READ TODAY: