Author: Ben Weaver
Thursday February 23rd, 2023 - For many years, Nathalie Stutzmann (photo above) has been a highly accomplished singer, with numerous operatic and lieder recordings under her belt, and many awards, too. In recent years she has begun to spend more time on the conductor’s podium. I am always skeptical of performers transitioning to conducting because these are all highly specialized crafts. There have, certainly, been many extremely successful switch-overs, but mostly coming from the instrumentalist sides (people like Vladimir Ashkenazy and Christoph Eschenbach come to mind). It’s rare for singers to make the jump, and while someone like Plácido Domingo has conducted many operas over decades, he has never become more than passable in the pit. Which brings me back to Nathalie Stutzmann, who made her New York Philharmonic debut with these concerts, conducting a varied program of Wagner, Prokofiev, and Dvořák. Based on what I heard, Maestro Stutzmann is a phenomenal musician and she would have been a far more interesting new Artistic Director for the Philharmonic than the flashy but vapid Gustavo Dudamel.
The concert opened with a superb overture to Wagner’s Tannhäuser - an opera Stutzmann will conduct at the Bayreuth Festival this summer. The mournful strings that open the work were lovingly molded as the drama built, the Philharmonic’s wonderful string section matching Stutzmann’s passion at every step. The rock solid wall of horns, trombones, and tuba was heavenly. Appearance of Venus had a magical, light sound that - perhaps for the first time for me - sounded like a Mendelssohn fairy got lost in Wagnerland. The explosive, thrilling climax of the work brought down the house. I suspect Maestro Stutzmann’s Tannhäuser in Bayreuth will be very special indeed.
Above: Alisa Weilerstein
One of my favorite musicians, cellist Alisa Weilerstein (in a glorious red pantsuit) played Prokofiev’s Sinfonia concertante, Op. 125. Composed for (and with the help of) a very young Mstislav Rostropovich, this is a supremely difficult piece, which posed no difficulties for Weilerstein. The playful opening - like a ticking clock - is echt Prokofiev, and the cello enters almost immediately. Weilerstein’s gorgeous, mellow, glowing tone is always a balm to the ear. Even the crazed, breathless opening of the second movement sounded like the most romantic love song. Weilerstein’s passion and commitment never wavered; even when not playing, she gently swayed to the music. Prokofiev’s kaleidoscopic music - sweepingly romantic one moment, mockingly blowzy the next - can be tricky to navigate, but Weilerstein and Stutzmann had a deep connection and made everything whole. Stutzmann’s history of singing for conductors no doubt make her deeply sensitive to her soloists. She was careful to let Weilerstein room to breathe and to never let the orchestra overpower the cello. I hope Weilerstein and Stutzmann enjoyed working together because they make wonderful, deeply sympathetic music together; may their partnership continue and grow.
Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E-minor, Op. 95 (subtitled hastily by the composer “From the New World” as he handed the score off to be copied for the world premiere performance by the NY Philharmonic in 1893) is easily one of the most standard works in the classical repertoire: a warhorse as popular as Beethoven’s 5th and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. It’s easy to get jaded and cynical, and roll our eyes when another performance is on the program. These works can be played by any orchestra with their eyes closed, and the audience will dutifully applaud. But sometimes you hear a performance that makes you sit up and rethink your cynicism, and reevaluate why these works are warhorses in the first place. It’s not pure chance that some of these compositions have been played more than others, and will continue to be played.
This evening’s performance of Dvořák’s 9th was such a performance: Maestro Stutzmann led a revelatory, fresh, thrilling interpretation of a work we’ve all heard countless times. She struck a perfect balance between embracing the familiarity of the melodies while not lingering on them for their own sake. Harking back to Mendelssohn’s fairies dropping in on Wagner’s Tannhäuser, many moments of Dvořák symphony sounded like his beloved Slavonic Dances of decades earlier, effortlessly swirling and swaying. The second movement was perhaps the most wonderful music making of the evening from all involved. It’s chamber music-like orchestration, with small sections of the orchestra handing off music to one another, was wondrously coordinated. I was reminded of that famous speech Salieri delivers in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” about Mozart’s Serenade for Thirteen Wind Instruments: “A single note, hanging there, unwavering. Until a clarinet took it over, sweetened it into a phrase of such delight!” That’s what the entire Largo felt like tonight: every note being sweetened into phrases of delight. The opening notes of the final movement have never sounded more like the theme from “Jaws” (wouldn’t be even a little bit surprised if that’s where John Williams got the idea considering how many of his ideas were directly lifted from existing works). The swirling rhythms and melodies have seldom sounded this fresh and exhilarating.
The ovation that greeted the performance was huge, people leaving the theater were buzzing about the debuting conductor. I hope we see and hear much more of Maestro Stutzmann at David Geffen Hall.
~ Ben Weaver