This spring, opera’s the thing! The most exciting opera project is a collaboration between the Boston Academy of Music and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project: Opera Unlimited — a week of contemporary chamber operas. BMOP’s Gil Rose will conduct two world premieres, Daniel Pinkham’s Poe-based The Cask of Amontillado on a bill with his Garden-of-Eden opera Garden Party (June 5 — Pinkham’s 80th birthday — and 8); and Elena Ruehr’s Toussaint Before the Spirits (about an 18th-century slave rebellion) on a bill with a long-overdue revival of John Harbison’s A Full Moon in March, his gorgeous and mysterious setting of the Yeats play (June 7 and 10). Harbison will also speak at a forum on the future of opera (June 3). And Boston will finally get to see Powder Her Face, about the scandalous Duchess of Argyll, by the shining light of younger British composers, Thomas Adès (June 6 and 8). It’s all at the Massachusetts College of Art’s Tower Auditorium; call (617) 242-7311. Rose and BMOP are also presenting the American premiere of Tod Machover’s exuberantly interactive Toy Symphony, a free-concert part of the 2003 Boston Cyberarts Festival. That one takes place April 26 at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium; call (617) 363-0396.
Boston Lyric Opera (Shubert Theatre, 617-542-6772) is currently doing unfamiliar Puccini: La rondine ( " The Swallow " ), a tunefully sentimental quasi-operetta; remaining performances are March 28 and 30 and April 1, 4, 6, and 8. And you won’t have to wait for New Year’s Eve for Johann Strauss’s ever-popular operetta Die Fledermaus ( " The Bat " ); BLO will stage it April 30 and May 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, and 13.
A 312-year-old opera is the centerpiece of this year’s Boston Early Music Festival (617-661-1812): Johan Georg Conradi’s Ariadne will get its first production since 1722 June 9-11 and 13-15 at the Emerson Majestic. BEMF is also bringing gamba superstar Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI with Iberian songs and dances to the First Congregational Church in Cambridge on April 4. Handel’s oratorio Theodora is certainly operatic (Peter Sellars staged a famous British production). We’ll hear it with Martin Pearlman’s Boston Baroque May 2 and 3 at Jordan Hall (617-484-9200). And while we’re going for Baroque: Bach’s B-minor Mass, May 9 and 11 at Jordan Hall, should be a memorable close to David Hoose’s 20th-anniversary season with the Cantata Singers (617-267-6502).
The spring highlight of the FleetBoston Celebrity Series (617-482-2595) is sure to be the luminous Slovenian pianist Dubravka Tom<t-75>ˇ<t$>si<t-75>ˇ<t$>c (April 6 at Symphony Hall). I’m also looking forward to the Brentano String Quartet (April 4 at Jordan Hall), Murray Perahia (April 27 at Symphony Hall), and the concert of American songs from William Bolcom and Joan Morris (rescheduled from March 22 to June 6 at Jordan Hall). The Cincinnati Symphony under Paavo Järvi features Siberian violinist Vadim Repin in the Sibelius Concerto (April 2 at Symphony Hall). And pianist Robert Levin’s Boston Marquee recital includes another John Harbison premiere, his Second Piano Sonata (April 13 at Jordan Hall).
The BSO (617-266-1492) has two significant world premieres. Ingo Metzmacher conducts 94-year-old American master Elliott Carter’s Boston Concerto on a program with a work by Carter’s earliest mentor, Charles Ives’s Three Places in New England, plus songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn, with the superb baritone Matthias Goerne, and Bartók’s bizarre Miraculous Mandarin Suite (April 10-12 and 15). And Kurt Masur leads a new work by the greatest living Russian composer, Sofia Gubaidulina, along with Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique (April 24-26). Also check out Gennady Rozhdestvensky leading Stravinsky’s exquisite " melodrama " Perséphone, with Marthe Keller narrating, and Prokofiev’s ballet Chout (April 17-19).
Benjamin Zander’s Boston Philharmonic (617-236-0999) offers Debussy and Ravel and works featuring stellar members of the orchestra: Harbison’s Oboe Concerto with Peggy Pearson, Chausson’s Poème with violinist Johanna Kurkowicz, and the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto with Rafael Popper-Keizer (April 24 at Sanders Theatre, April 26 at Jordan Hall, April 27 at Sanders). Susan Davenny Wyner’s splendid New England String Ensemble (781-224-1117) closes its season with works by Purcell, Schnittke (with violinist Gregory Vitale), Dvo<t-75>ˇ<t$>rák, and the winner of the Youth Concerto Competition (April 13 at Sanders Theatre). The Lydian String Quartet features another Wyner, composer Yehudi, joining Haydn and Beethoven at Brandeis (April 5 in Slosberg Hall; 781-736-3331).
One of Boston’s hottest younger composers, Andy Vores, is featured by Collage New Music, along with a new piece by Richard Cornell (March 30 at Suffolk University’s C. Walsh Theatre; 617-325-5200), and by Boston Musica Viva (a collaborative work with Jessie Shefrin), along with a world premiere by Richard Cornell and Debra Cornell, plus pieces by Louis Andreissen and Hanns Eisler accompanying films (May 9 at the Tsai Center; 617-354-6910).
And Craig Smith’s Emmanuel Music (617-536-3356) completes its seven-year Schubert vocal and chamber cycle with two concerts (May 4 and 11 at C. Walsh Theatre), the latter with super-pianist Russell Sherman.
