Just like clockwork, the fall season is here again, with operas and ballets opening left and right! Here is just a sampling of some of the classic arts events happening this week:
The Metropolitan Opera’s 2024-25 season takes flight September 23 with the Met premiere of Jeanine Tesori and George Brant’s Grounded, directed by Michael Mayer. Based on Brant's play of the same name, Grounded tells the story of Jess, a fighter pilot who is grounded due to an unexpected pregnancy, and subsequently reassigned to piloting lethal drones remotely. Mezzo-soprano Emily D'Angelo stars as Jess. The cast, expanded from the original one-woman play, also features tenor Ben Bliss as Eric, baritone Kyle Miller as the Sensor, and bass-baritone Greer Grimsley as the Commander. Soprano Ellie Dehn plays "Also Jess," a character who embodies Jess' dissociated self. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.
Also featured in the Met season’s opening week are revivals of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Puccini’s Tosca. Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann in English) is based on three stories by the 19th-century poet and music critic E.T.A. Hoffmann. Tenor Benjamin Bernheim plays the poet himself, narrating to a tavern of listeners stories of his tumultuous love life, involving run-ins with a Venetian courtesan, an aspiring singer with a tragic illness, and a lifelike clockwork automaton, played respectively by mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine, and sopranos Pretty Yende and Erin Morley. Mezzo-soprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya makes her Met debut as Hoffmann’s muse, appearing in the guise of the poet’s friend and sidekick Nicklausse, who saves Hoffmann three times from three villains played by bass-baritone Christian Van Horn. Tosca, meanwhile, is a verismo thriller telling the story of singer Floria Tosca, who gets caught up in a police investigation when her lover Mario Cavaradossi helps to hide an escaped political prisoner. Soprano Aleksandra Kurzak plays Tosca, opposite tenor SeokJong Baek as Cavaradossi and baritone George Gagnidze as the police chief Baron Scarpia.
One of the stories featured in Les Contes d’Hoffmann—the one about the lifelike clockwork doll—is Hoffmann’s The Sandman, which also formed the basis of a ballet, Leo Delibes’ Coppélia. In a moment of cross-plaza symmetry, the New York City Ballet will be reviving George Balanchine and Alexandra Danilova’s production of Coppélia for two weekends of performances, beginning September 27. The NYCB production is based on Petipa’s 1884 staging, updated with new choreography by Balanchine and Danilova and additional music from some of Delibes’ other ballet scores.
Two more dance programs will open at the New York City Ballet this week, beginning with “All Peck,” September 24. This season marks Justin Peck’s 10th year as resident choreographer with the company, and accordingly, the company will celebrate him with a program of four of his ballets, including In Creases, his first work created for the company. The program will also include Solo, set to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings; Partita, set to Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices; and Everywhere We Go, the second work in Peck’s long-standing collaboration with Sufjan Stevens. “Balanchine + Ratmansky” will follow, starting performances September 25, showcasing works by NYCB’s co-founding choreographer George Balanchine, and NYCB Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky. Russian composers are the throughline, as the program will include Balanchine’s Mozartiana (set to music by Tchaikovsky, inspired by Mozart), Memento Pro Gesualdo, and Movements for Piano and Orchestra (both set to music by Stravinsky); as well as Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH, set to Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
Two weeks into the season, the New York Philharmonic will have its season-opening Gala September 24, featuring Josh Groban. Manfred Honeck will lead the orchestra in a program which includes Franz Suppé’s Light Cavalry Overture, and a suite arranged by Honeck from Puccini’s Turandot. The Philharmonic’s popular The Art of the Score series will return September 26-28 with a concert of John Williams’ Grammy-winning score for the film Jaws. The score will be performed live to a screening of the film, with Anthony Parnther conducting.
Pianist Garrick Ohlsson will join the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall September 28 for a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9. The concert will also include Brahms’ Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, and a new work by Billy Childs.
BalletX, a Philadelphia-based contemporary ballet company, comes to the Joyce Theatre September 25-29. The company will present three New York premieres: Takehiro Ueyama’s Heroes, set to John Adams’ The Chairman Dances; Jodie Gate's Beautiful Once, with music by Ryan Lott; and Loughlan Prior's Macaroni, set to an original score by Claire Cowan.
New York City Center’s Fall for Dance festival continues this week through September 29. This second week of performances will feature Skylar Brandt and Herman Cornejo, Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M., Sara Mearns, Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and the Dutch National Ballet.
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