Zubin Mehta, who was Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1962 – 1978, returns to the podium to lead the orchestra in a program that opens with music from the last of Wagner’s operas in The Ring Cycle: Götterdämmerung. The concerts begin with an infrequent Friday morning concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall and continue through Sunday.
The music from Götterdämmerung includes “Rhine Journey,” “Funeral Music” and “Immolation Scene.” This is highly dramatic music that should find the Philharmonic in top form. Joining for these performances is soprano Christine Goerke who has sung the role of Brunhilde in The Ring Cycle to rave reviews. She was part of the 2018-2019 Metropolitan Opera season that included Wagner’s epic operas.
In Zachary Woolfe‘s New York Times review of the production he said of Goerke: “Where the scenes for the Gibichung siblings in “Götterdämmerung” had been bland, there was now a curdled charge, and, in that opera, a crushing realism in Brünnhilde’s acquiescence in what is, essentially, her own rape. There, as elsewhere in the cycle, Christine Goerke was a perceptive and responsive presence, her face an open book of emotion, building to a powerful yet modest, human-scale Immolation Scene.”
Having attended Friday morning’s concert, I can tell you that just hearing Goerke sing “Immolation Scene” is worth the price of your ticket.
The second half of the program features Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 and two works by Webern: Six Pieces for Orchestra Op. 6 and Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24.
Mehta, who has the title of Conductor Emeritus with the LA Phil, has long been beloved for his commitment to the orchestra. His passion for this music should make this a terrific couple of hours with German classical music.
For tickets for Friday morning go here.
For tickets for Saturday evening go here.
For tickets for Sunday afternoon go here.
Photo of Zubin Mehta by Oded Antman/Courtesy of Los Angeles Philharmonic Association