Revitalised Dallas gets a Ring next year
NewsFabio Ljuisi has included a complete Wagner Ring cycle in the 24-25 season at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
He says: ‘Going into my fifth year of this musical partnership with the incredible musicians at the DSO, we have developed a distinctively ‘Dallas’ sound, of which I am immensely proud. We are playing at a high artistic level, and I look forward to building upon that.’
Dallas would be the first US orchestra in recent memory to attempt a Ring in concert.
Cleveland and Philadelphia are the only American orchestras left with identifiable sounds. Chicago used to until Muti stripped them of their character. Dallas is a second tier group in a wealthy town but they chose well in Luisi.
The Chicago sound today reminds me more of the Reiner era than Solti/Barenboim eras. Personally, I think that’s good, although I am glad Muti has moved on.
Recently, it seems that the Cleveland sound has changed to focus more on the woodwinds and brass, and the strings sound less prominent and a bit mushy. Or at least when FWM is conducting in my opinion. It’s a distinct sound, but different and less enticing than it’s traditional sound.
Boston has a distinct sound also; sort of a hybrid Chicago/Cleveland sound.
Well Klaus, you have 5 years to restore their sound as their new music director, just don’t change them to sound like another Concertgebouw, and if Cleveland makes an offer, take it! Good luck.
They’re doing Rheingold and Walkure in May as a warm up before doing the whole Ring next year. Too bad they can’t stage it what with the Dallas Opera house sitting right next door to Meyerson Symphony Center.
The DSO is an excellent orchestra and so is their chorus. You should have heard them last evening raising the rafters with a knockout performance of Franz Schmidt’s Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln. Hair-raising it was. L(j)uisi likes big block-buster music and this orchestra delivers.
I was there last night as well. The orchestra and chorus are absolutely world class! It is easily the most difficult wiring for chorus in the repertoire and they all pulled it off!
Anyone recognize the cast?
Any decent orchestra can do the Ring, the Hong Kong Philharmonic did it under Jaap van Zweden.
Typical comment by someone who does not know the score.
What exactly is your point here? That Hong Kong did not do the Ring? That HK did not do a decent job? That Jaap van Zweden deserves all the credit?
Anybody who has studied the Ring’s score, knows that it requires things that are at the limitations of what even the best instrumentalists can manage and also including things that are NOT manageable, which means that any performance of this thing is at the highest level of performance practice. Even with familarity of the players it does not become ‘easy’ or ‘run of the mill’, it never does. So, to bring it off is always a great achievement, by whatever orchestra.
Cleveland attempted a full Ring in concert in the 90s in collaboration with Decca. Only Rheingold and Walküre were completed, if I recall correctly.
With all due respect. As an orchestral musician playing in the strings section I think that some of the notes Wagner wrote are unplayable and I wouldn’t want to be exposed on stage attempting to hit those crazy hard notes.
Good for Luisi but I feel for the musicians and I wouldn’t want to be in their place.
Oh no, my dear Richard, you are genius but there are too many notes!
This reminds me ’tis the season to pay $dallas to the texas man.
Does that mean the orchestra was devitalized after Zweden? One could think so…Litton had done a terrific job with the orchestra previously.
I’ve never seen Litton do a terrific job with anything.
I’ve never seen Litton do anything less than a terrific job. Memorable Mahler in Dallas, a week of wonderful concerts in Vail, a dynamite Mahler 3 with the Colorado Symphony. Not to mention many top-notch recordings. That recent Prokofiev cycle is quite impressive.
You should get out more. His Mahler 8 in Dallas was stupendous and when the DSO came to Carnegie around 1990 they did a wonderful Belshazzar’s Feast.
Luisi is an excellent conductor and of Wagner in particular. The DSO has been very good for a long time. The hall is fantastic. It should be terrific.
Cool. I hope there’s at least going to be a video; that’s a big achievement that should get exposure beyond just the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
And I have never heard the Dallas Symphony but have no reason to doubt that they’re great. Every orchestra is these days.
I’d like to see orchestras do more opera in general; shake things up from the standard two-hour “Overture-stage reset-concerto-intermission-symphony” format (the same around the world). It’s neat for a symphony orchestra – whose players generally don’t do much opera – to play one. And when you put the orchestra on the stage with the singers and eliminate the sets and costumes and put on a full-size orchestra, the emphasis – and the audience focus – shifts to the music. Plus it’s an Event.
But it’s expensive. This year the NSO and Noseda are doing Otello, and next year Baltimore and Jonathan Heyward are doing Aida.