Boston Symphony Orchestra: Andris Nelsons' Inaugural Concert (#4006#)

This wide-ranging, one-night-only event celebrates the start of BSO music director Andris Nelsons' tenure as the 15th music director of the orchestra and features two of the conductor's close colleagues, the acclaimed Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais and the internationally acclaimed German tenor Jonas Kaufmann. Each sings selections from the Wagnerian and Italian verismo repertoires, they then join forces for a powerful duet from Puccini's Manon Lescaut. The concert opens with Wagner's Tannhauser Overture - the work that first inspired a five-year-old Nelsons to a life in music - and closes with Respighi's spectacular orchestral showcase, Pines of Rome.

..With a view of performers as could never be had in a concert hall, the convenience of sub-scripts (for those not previously enmeshed in the whole Dickie Wagner zeitgeist) and the radiated total concentration of Maestro Nelson--again, facial clues invisible even to the boxed=plutocrats in attendance, who cannot see from behind. I think I'm going to like this new talent and that always fine O

It almost momentarily makes up for the vast-Wasteland which has been the boob-tube since it first hit the scene (mine, anyway.). Hitler may have been all those execrable things, by now documented too far beyond a fare-thee-well, but I can imagine his facial expressions mimicking those of the Maestro. Somehow he surely imagined he was embarked on a Grail-task, but--incapable of seeing the heaped-dead-bodies in his wake--he remainde steadfastly insane/nothing like the musical transcendence.

Anyway ... two hours with a gaggle of virtuosi, if you like that sort of stuff. Words fail, but this Orchestra was ON.
(Loved Nelson's curtailed dynamic range in the Wagner, such that the singers might work the wonders of magical aims expressed) ..in ppp not M-ƒ; you needn't shout with dialogue of that ilk.

Bon appetít.
The better-fi your audio paraphernalia, the more you'll hear why the B.S.O.'s rep is surely enhanced by that Hall.