The National Symphony Orchestra is about to lose its captain, when Music Director Leonard Slatkin steps down at the end of this season. Slatkin is clearly not ready to retire, although he has hinted that he is all too ready to move past the discomforts of his tenure in Washington. He will split his time among the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic in London, and the Pittsburgh Symphony, as well as teaching at Indiana…

As they did in 2006, the Cleveland Orchestra came to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Monday night for a concert sponsored by the Washington Performing Arts Society. After Washington, they will play a three-concert series at Carnegie Hall and then leave for an extended European tour. The Clevelanders were once arguably America’s best orchestra and were always classed among the Big Five symphonic ensembles in the country, a placement that more and more people…

On Sunday afternoon, Washington Performing Arts Society concluded another excellent season with the latest concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. The impressively full hall bore witness to the continued popularity of this prestigious ensemble, in spite of the turning of critical opinion against it. According to one recent assessment of American orchestras, the Philadelphians are no longer among the symphonic Big Five. The problems began when current Music Director Christoph…

Memorial Day has come and gone, and we are now officially in the summer hiatus of the Classical Music Agenda. Here are some highlights for this week: in a week or two, this feature will take a well-deserved rest until Labor Day, when the classical concert schedule returns to full power. TOPS THIS WEEK: >> On Wednesday night, the excellent NPR radio program From the Top will be recorded in front of a live audience…

Verdi’s Macbeth is the least worthy of the composer’s three settings of Shakespeare plays, but it is hardly fair to compare this homely little opera to the composer’s final masterpieces, Otello and Falstaff. Macbeth, the earliest of the three, has some beautiful melodies, some dramatic scenes, effective choral writing, and glimmers of what Verdi would eventually accomplish — the elimination of tired bel canto conventions or, short of that, the ingenious incorporation of those…

Washington woke up this morning to the sad news that Mstislav Rostropovich died in Moscow today, after undergoing treatment for cancer since February. The world has lost a giant of music, an enthusiastic, larger than life figure for many of his 80 years among us. Many Washingtonians felt the loss more keenly because of the Russian cellist and conductor’s long relationship with the city, as Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra from 1977 to…

April continues to be a busy month for your classical music critic, and that is just the way we like it here. This week has just about everything: some big names, some opera, some early music, and more free concerts than we probably deserve. Take your pick. >> The main event of the week is the much-anticipated (and sold out) Kennedy Center recital by Evgeny Kissin, sponsored by Washington Performing Arts Society. The program features…

Hopes are high for the Baltimore Symphony and Marin Alsop, the first woman to be appointed Music Director of a major American orchestra. Last night at Strathmore, Washington got a taste of the adventurous programming we may expect from Alsop, who has made a name conducting contemporary music, especially by American composers. In a brief introduction to this program devoted to the music of Philip Glass, born in Baltimore 70 years ago this year, Alsop…

Mstislav Rostropovich, the celebrated Russian cellist who led the National Symphony Orchestra from 1977 to 1994, has been admitted to a hospital in Moscow, according to reports this morning. He has been coming back to Washington as Music Director Emeritus ever since he stepped down (most recently reviewed by DCist last April). His condition is called “satisfactory,” and he even received a visit from Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday. In fact, the announcement of the…

This year is the 75th anniversary season of the National Symphony Orchestra, as well as the 10th year of the Leonard Slatkin era. So, as we recommended to you people in last week’s Classical Music Agenda, this DCist was in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall last night for the second of two performances by the NSO, kicking off the big season as part of the Kennedy Center Prelude Festival. (The Post and Ionarts were there…