Music director emeritus for life Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a program of works by Donizetti, Verdi, Golijov, Chabrier and Falla. (Amy Aiello Photography)
Something entirely magical took place at Symphony Hall in a recent concert that featured a breathtaking world premiere of composer Osvaldo Golijov’s fascinating, grand-scale work, “Megalopolis Suite,” along with four additional and wholly beguiling works by Donizetti, Verdi, Chabrier and de Falla. And, as always, the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and their invariably immensely inspiring conductor, Riccardo Muti (now music director emeritus for life), were in top form.
The Golijov work, a score in four movements that involves an enormous number of instruments, is a CSO commission. It was drawn and condensed from the score he wrote for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” a film that interweaves the fall of the ancient Roman Empire with a futurist New York, and that was long in the making. (It was only released earlier this year, and I have not seen it yet.) Coppola was in the audience.
The first movement of the piece, “Roma,” begins with the big but brief sounds of percussion, brass and bells. It then grows with high energy and lush drama into a beautiful melody that draws on the cry of the winds and the sound of the harp and strings, and then peaks with a great blast of sound.
Next comes “Love is in the Air,” which opens with a heart-breaking lyrical sound involving the strings and French horns, and then suggests a bit of high tension from the brass and timpani, with mood shifts continually filling the air. A big burst of sound involving all the percussion, as well as the piano and harp, then creates a riff of lyrical beauty and lushness, romance and grandeur, with the use of the full orchestra as it races with a monumental energy.
Various aspects of love and romance echo throughout the last two movements: “Death Kiss Utopia” and “Saturnalia.” And by the end of the piece, I found myself wishing that a supremely gifted choreographer might soon grab hold of the score and take full advantage of its dramatic possibilities.
Music director emeritus for life Riccardo Muti congratulates Osvaldo Golijov following the Chicago premiere of his “Megalopolis Suite” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Nov. 8, 2024. (Amy Aiello Photography)
The program opened with an exhilarating performance of Donizetti’s overture to “Don Pasquale,” his 1842 opera about a pair of young lovers. The winds and plucked strings captured a beautiful melody. Then came a big blast of sound, a playful riff by the strings, the whole orchestra in a stormy frenzy, and a number of lyrical mood shifts that culminated in high speed and palpable excitement.
Next was Verdi’s exquisite “The Four Seasons,” part of his score for the opera “The Sicilian Vespers.” It was composed in 1855 at a time when most ballets in Italy served as a section of an opera.
Opening the second half of the concert was Golijov’s piece, followed by “España” (1883), the popular work by Emmanuel Chabrier. The French composer drew on Spanish dance music a year after he spent time traveling in Spain and was inspired to compose this richly orchestrated and widely admired piece.
Then, closing the concert, was Suite No. 2 from “The Three-Cornered Hat” (1919), the immensely popular work by the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla that became the score for a flamenco-influenced ballet choreographed by Leonide Massine and designed by Pablo Picasso. The piece was richly enhanced by the use of timpani, a percussion section that included snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, castanets, tam-tam and xylophone, and the sound of a harp, celesta and piano. Ole! All in all, it was a thrilling night.
Note: This concert was only scheduled for two performances (Nov. 8-9), but I hope it might be brought back by the CSO (along with Maestro Muti) in a future season.
Note: This article has been updated to reflect that “The Sicilian Vespers” was an opera, not a full ballet.
Follow Hedy Weiss on Twitter: @HedyWeissCritic
