Classical Music Agenda
The classical music schedule in Washington is starting to fill up, so that by February and March, we will be overwhelmed. Here are a few sure bets this week, as well as a smattering of concerts off the beaten path.
THE BIG GUNS:
>> Soprano Deborah Voigt has always had a big, gorgeous voice. She made news two years ago when she was fired from a production because the director wanted her character to wear a little black dress and thought she was physically too heavy. Since having a bariatric bypass surgery, she has slimmed down and returned triumphantly to the stage. This week she will join the National Symphony Orchestra for a concert performance of Richard Strauss's iconoclastic opera Salome, a role she has sung to great acclaim. Alan Held will make a vocally imperious John the Baptist. Tickets are still available for all three performances in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, on Thursday (January 18, 7 p.m.), Saturday (January 20, 1:30 p.m.), and next Monday (January 22, 8 p.m.). Not to be missed. Full-time students may be able to buy $10 tickets, through the Attend! program, for the Monday performance only.
>> The Shakespeare in Washington festival continues this week with the visit of the Kirov Ballet to the Kennedy Center Opera House. The troupe will perform Leonid Lavrovsky's 1940 choreography to the music of Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet this week, for several performances from Tuesday through Sunday. Evgenya Obraztsova, Olesya Novikova, and Maya Dumchenko will alternate in the role of Juliet, with Andrian Fadayev, Igor Kolb, Anton Korsakov, Mikhail Lobukhin, or Vladimir Shklyarov as Romeo. Attend! tickets ($10 for full-time students) have been offered for the performances on January 16 and 17.
>> DCist does not recommend going to Baltimore every week. The Ignoti Dei Opera company, reviewed last year in their strange and lovely production of La Didone, has been transformed into the American Opera Theater. Their plan now is to take the opera productions they create in Baltimore on a tour of small venues around the country. They will open their new production of Handel's Acis and Galatea this weekend at Baltimore Theater Project, an edgy little venue in Charm City. Acis and Galatea is an English opera with a lot of humor, and this production mixes opera with the circus, complete with "mime, magic, aerial performance, ringmasters, clowns, and dancing bears." Performances are scheduled for Friday (January 19, 8 p.m.), Saturday (January 20, 8 p.m.), Sunday (January 21, 3 p.m.) and through the following week.
Photo by Dan Rest, Deborah Voigt in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Salome
THE FREE KIND:
>> One of my favorite local musician duos, mezzo-soprano Barbara Hollinshead and lutenist Howard Bass, will give a free performance this Tuesday (January 16, 6 p.m.) of a program called Songs from Shakespeare's Troupe. Unfortunately, the venue is the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, possibly the worst possible place to hear this kind of delicate, intimate music. Still, it is free.
>> On Saturday (January 20, 6 p.m.) a group called the Classic Ko Ensemble will give a free performance at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage.
>> On Friday (January 19, 7:30 p.m.), the Wagner Society of Washington, D.C. (yes, there is such a thing) will present a free tribute to the Artistry of Thomas Stewart, the celebrated bass-baritone who passed away this past September. Tim Page, classical music critic of the Washington Post, will host the evening of video, interview, and audio clips at Funger Hall (2201 G St. NW), on the campus of George Washington University.
>> Pianist Spenser Myer will give a free recital on Sunday (January 21, 4 p.m.) at the Phillips Collection. You do still have to pay the price of admission to get into the museum.
>> The best free concert will probably be the one given by the Baltimore Consort, a fine early music ensemble. Also on Sunday, they will play music from the time of — you know who! — Shakespeare at the National Gallery of Art (January 21, 6:30 p.m.).
WORTH MENTION, BRIEFLY:
>> On Tuesday (January 16, 7:30 p.m.), bassoonist Dilyana Korova and friends will give a concert sponsored by the Beethoven Society of America at the German Embassy (4645 Reservoir Rd. NW). Music by Beethoven and others, as well as Bulgarian folk tunes, as an accompaniment for a folk dancer.
>> Baritone Sergei Leiferkus and pianist Vera Danchenko-Stern, at La Maison Française (4101 Reservoir Rd. NW), on Friday (January 19, 7:30 p.m.).
>> Laufman-Kurkowicz-Laufman Trio, Corcoran Gallery of Art, on Friday (January 19, 8 p.m.).
>> Pianist Brian Ganz with the National Philharmonic at Strathmore, on Saturday (January 20, 8 p.m.). He will play Shostakovich's first piano concerto.
>> St. Petersburg String Quartet on the Dumbarton Concert Series, at Dumbarton United Methodist Church (3133 Dumbarton St. NW) on Saturday (January 20, 8 p.m.).
>> The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio with violist Kirsten Johnson, in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Sunday (January 21, 7:30 p.m.). The program includes the American premiere of Richard Danielpour's new piano quartet.
>> For more concert information, go to Ionarts.