SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

 Opening Night of the New York Philharmonic 2009-2010 Season: Renée Fleming (soprano), Alan Gilbert (conductor), New York Philharmonic, Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, 16.9.2009 (BH)

Magnus Lindberg: EXPO (2009, World premiere)
Messiaen: Poèmes pour mi (1936; orch. 1937)
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique (1830)


If opening nights in general can be sort of a mixed bag—often focused on fundraising, food, designer clothing and investment banking gossip (not to disparage the importance of any of those items)—this one seemed more successful than usual, with conductor Alan Gilbert making his much-anticipated debut as Music Director with the New York Philharmonic. Since 2004, when I heard Gilbert in a bang-up Ives Fourth Symphony, I've been impressed not only with his musical insights but with his programming. Avery Fisher Hall hasn't seen an opening night like this in a very long time.

If nothing else, the Philharmonic should be enthusiastically commended for engaging Magnus Lindberg as its Composer-in-Residence (a position now endowed by a gift from a prominent donor), and the fact that Gilbert placed a world premiere as his very first piece says volumes about his concerns, and how the Philharmonic of the future might look. The last time the orchestra opened a season with a premiere was in 1962, when Bernstein led Aaron Copland's Connotations.

Lindberg has set the bar high with strong works like Feria (1997), his Violin Concerto (premiered at the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2006), and his Clarinet Concerto from 2002, to be performed by the Philharmonic later in the season. Dedicated to Maestro Gilbert, EXPO was intended as a tribute to (or perhaps an encapsulation of) all that is new and exciting as the orchestra begins a new era. The composer writes, "[EXPO is] a piece built on qualities I find so gorgeous in Alan's way of making music—absolute technical and physical straightness, no mystery around the rational part of it, and then on top of that the highly irrational and mysterious part of how you actually put music together." Opening with a whip crack, the piece has prominent percussion, harp and brass, in what seems like a mini-concerto for orchestra (listed as about 12 minutes long). Its stylistic melange draws on tone clusters, neo-Romanticism and, at one point, a lively interlude that reminded me of Cirque du Soleil. Yet, somehow I felt vaguely dissatisfied at the conclusion, which a second hearing may correct, but in any case, this is exactly what Gilbert and the orchestra should be doing. The composer was on hand for a warm ovation.

Perhaps the evening's highlight came from another innovation: engaging one of the world's most prominent singers, but in repertoire that no one in the audience, most likely, has ever heard her do. Renée Fleming, known for her work in Richard Strauss, Verdi and Massenet, here delved into unfamiliar territory with Messiaen's Poèmes pour Mi, nine songs (in two books) about the vagaries of love and marriage. Some of the songs are predictably gentle, with references to spiritual and physical ecstasy, but others are almost practical in their treatment of the darker side of relationships. "Terror" opens with a tense "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ho," then proceeds to seemingly mock any couple's attempts to reconcile with each other. And although there was luscious shading in "Ta voix" ("Your Voice") and "Le Collier ("The Necklace"), Fleming produced a ravishing gutteral growl for "Les Deux guerriers" ("The Two Warriors"). At intermission I overheard some grousing about Fleming's French diction, but overall the question that kept running through my head was a resounding, "When is she going to do more Messiaen?"

The program ended with a fine account of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. If Gilbert refrained from letting the score screech and bellow all that it sometimes can, he brought out the work's classical origins in a nicely balanced reading. For some, "nicely balanced" would never be said in the same breath as "Berlioz" but there you go. The audience, eager to welcome the new maestro, called him back to the stage again and again.

Bruce Hodges