Concert Review: Julliard Orchestra - Emmanuel Villaume

Concert Review: Julliard Orchestra - Emmanuel Villaume

April 18, 2012, Avery Fisher Hall

Julliard Orchestra - Emmanuel Villaume

Wagner - Berlioz - Strauss

On this day, there were TWO Alpine Symphonies on offer in NYC! The other one was Ashkenazy conducting the European Community Youth Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. I chose to remain loyal to the Julliard Orchestra conducted by someone unfamiliar to me partly because of the accompanying piece.

Conductor Emmanuel Villaume immediately established the tone of the entire performance with Wagner's Lohengrin overture. This piece can sound lean and lifeless in the concert hall (like HKPO/EdW's Wagner). Not so here; there was a warmth and sensuality in the performance that continued to permeate the evening.

Berlioz' Les nuits d'ete was sensitively accompanied, lavishly cast and capably sung by three young singers, which included the smashingly beautiful Chinese soprano Xu Lei, who had apparently already begun a career with the Metropolitan Opera.

As satisfied as I was with the first half I wasn't quite prepared for the magnificence of the second half. Strauss' Alpine Symphony received a stunningly voluptuous performance which combined swashbuckling assurance with finesse and poetry. What a world away from the performance I had previously heard (EdW's bland performance with the HKPO)!

Addendum: NYT review