Levine is Back (Soon)

[Ralph]

The Boston Globe
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Levine stages an 'Elektra' comeback
Strauss opera bound to be Tanglewood highlight

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff | May 21, 2006

James Levine is one of the world's major conductors, so the eyes and ears of the musical world would have already been focused on his appearances at Tanglewood this summer.

But now there is an added element of drama, because Levine is returning to the podium after an unprecedented four-month hiatus. The Boston Symphony Orchestra's music director fell onstage in Symphony Hall at the end of a concert in March, sustaining a rotator-cuff injury to his right shoulder that required surgery.

Levine's Tanglewood schedule is not light -- nine performances and one open rehearsal. He will repeat two major works from last season, but much of the programming is new, including a three-program Mozart-birthday festival that will include the BSO's first complete performance of the opera ''Don Giovanni" (July 21-23). With the vocal fellows and orchestra of the Tanglewood Music Center, Levine will also lead two performances of the American stage premiere of Elliott Carter's only opera, ''What Next?"

But the highlight of Levine's summer will probably be the concert performance of Richard Strauss's opera ''Elektra" with the Tanglewood Music Center orchestra and an important international cast: Christine Brewer as Chrysothemis, Felicity Palmer as Klytemnestra, Alan Held as Orest, Siegfried Jerusalem as Aegist, and, in the demanding title role, Lisa Gasteen.

The Australian soprano won the Cardiff Singer of the World competition (as did Karita Mattila and Dmitri Hvorostovsky) and is something of a late bloomer; she almost disappeared into her family's dry-cleaning business but now sings Elektra, Isolde, and Bruennhilde at London's Royal Opera House. She also performed in Levine's last ''Ring" cycle at the Met.

''Elektra" is one of the works that defined advanced music in the early 20th century. The retelling of the ancient Greek tragedy by dramatist/librettist Hugo von Hofmannstahl inspired the most challenging work Strauss ever composed -- probably his masterpiece. In one tightly constructed 90-minute act, the opera builds tension until the murders of Chrysothemis and Aegist by Orest, the final cataclysm as Elektra dances herself to death.

The orchestra is as important as any of the characters in the opera and often takes over telling the story and delineating the psychology of the characters. The score terrified players back in 1909, and it remains a major challenge today.

But Levine obviously enjoys presenting challenges to young musicians. The highlight of his Tanglewood schedule last summer was the all-Wagner concert in which the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra played Act 1 of ''Die Walkuere" and Act 3 of ''Die Goetterdaemmerung" with casts headed by Deborah Voigt.

Young musicians rarely have the opportunity to play such repertoire -- and some of them will probably never get to play it again. Levine got the members of the TMC Orchestra to play Wagner as if their lives depended on it, and one hopes to experience him doing it again with ''Elektra."

James Levine conducts the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and international soloists in a concert performance of Strauss's ''Elektra" July 15 at 8:30 in the Tanglewood Shed (the annual Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert). Tickets at the Tanglewood Box Office, from Symphony Charge at 888-266-1200, or from www.bso.org.