Our guide to the city’s best classical music and opera happening this weekend and in the week ahead.
‘AGRIPPINA’ at the Metropolitan Opera (Feb. 6, 7:30 p.m.; through March 7). Handel’s early Venetian opera arrives at the Met in a production by David McVicar, and with an all-star cast. Joyce DiDonato takes the title role, with Kate Lindsey as Nerone, Iestyn Davies as Ottone, Matthew Rose as Claudio, Duncan Rock as Pallante and Brenda Rae as Poppea. Harry Bicket conducts.
212-362-6000, metopera.org
AMERICAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at Carnegie Hall (Jan. 31, 8 p.m.). How many orchestras would come up with a Beethoven tribute concert without any works by Beethoven in it? Not many, but the American Symphony revels in being different. Leon Botstein conducts Spohr’s “Historical Symphony,” Reger’s “Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Beethoven,” Liszt’s “Fantasy on Motifs From Beethoven’s Ruins of Athens” and Ustvolskaya’s Piano Concerto. Lucas Debargue is the soloist. And if you want some actual Beethoven, Botstein and his orchestra can walk you through the Symphony No. 5 at Symphony Space on Sunday at 4 p.m.
212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org
DORIC STRING QUARTET at Weill Recital Hall (Feb. 6, 7:30 p.m.). The Doric is one of the most accomplished young string quartets around, which is saying something at a time when we’re inundated with them. Alex Redington, Jonathan Stone, Hélène Clément and John Myerscough play works by two composers they have recorded to considerable acclaim — Haydn and Schubert — and give the United States premiere of Brett Dean’s String Quartet No. 3, “Hidden Agendas.”
212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org
SUSAN GRAHAM at Alice Tully Hall (Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m.). With Malcolm Martineau at the keyboard, Graham weaves songs by Grieg, Strauss, Fauré, Mahler and many more composers through the eight songs of Schumann’s “Frauenliebe und -leben.” Be sure to hear that even if you somehow manage to find a ticket to the other big vocal recital, on Friday evening at Zankel Hall, in which Peter Mattei sings Schubert’s “Winterreise.”
212-721-6500, lincolncenter.org
[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC at David Geffen Hall (Feb. 5-6, 7:30 p.m.; through Feb. 11). All power to the Philharmonic for its Project 19, a multiyear effort to commission new works from 19 women composers, in honor of the passage of the 19th Amendment. The first fruit is Nina C. Young’s “Tread Softly,” appearing here along with Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Mozart’s “Great” Mass. Carter Brey is the cello soloist, and the vocalists in the Mozart include Miah Persson and Nicholas Phan.
212-875-5656, nyphil.org
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S at Carnegie Hall (Feb. 6, 8 p.m.). Baroque music from this orchestra and its principal conductor, Bernard Labadie, who deliver two works by Handel and four by Vivaldi, including two settings of the “Salve Regina.” They are joined by the violinist Daniel Hope and the contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux.
212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org
CAROLINE SHAW at Miller Theater (Feb. 6, 8 p.m.). Shaw’s music is plenty familiar now, so we might see this composer portrait as a celebration of her recent success. There’s a nod to the past with performances by the Attacca Quartet of three string quartets, “Punctum,” “Entr’acte” and “Blueprint,” two of which are featured on a widely heralded recording on New Amsterdam/Nonesuch. And there’s a nod to the future: In addition to joining So Percussion for her song cycle “Narrow Sea,” Shaw performs songs created with that quartet for a future recording project, “Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part.”
212-854-7799, millertheatre.com
Source: Music - nytimes.com
