Saturday, August 15, 8:30pm
THE ROBERT AND JANE MAYER CONCERTS
ANDRIS NELSONS conducting
BARBER
Second Essay for Orchestra, Opus 17
BOITO
“L’altra notte in fondo al mare” from “Mefistofele,” Act III
KRISTINE OPOLAIS, soprano
PUCCINI
Intermezzo from “Manon Lescaut,” Act III
VERDI
Willow Song and “Ave Maria” from “Otello,” Act IV
Ms. OPOLAIS
{Intermission}
STRAUSS
“Ein Heldenleben” (“A Heroic Life”), Tone poem, Opus 40
The Hero—The Hero’s Adversaries—
The Hero’s Companion—The Hero’s Battlefield—
The Hero’s Works of Peace—The Hero’s Escape
From the World and Fulfillment
MALCOLM LOWE, solo violin
Opera activities at Tanglewood are supported by a grant from the Geoffrey C. Hughes Foundation.
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Second Essay for Orchestra, Opus 17
First performance: April 16, 1942, Carnegie Hall, New York Philharmonic, Bruno Walter cond. Only
previous BSO performances: December 1998, Leonard Slatkin cond.
The son of a physician, Samuel Barber grew up in a Philadelphia suburb within an environment sympathetic to
his ambition to become a composer. His mother’s sister was the noted contralto Louise Homer. Her husband,
Sidney Homer, a successful composer of art songs, provided encouragement and counsel. Barber entered
Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute at fourteen, where he studied piano, voice, composition, and conducting, and
met Gian Carlo Menotti, the composer who became his intimate companion for most of his life. As a student,
Barber composed some of the works—among them Dover Beach and the Cello Sonata—that are still heard
regularly today.
By the time Barber turned thirty, his pieces had been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland
Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, and in 1938 Toscanini led the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the
First Essay for Orchestra and the Adagio for Strings. In the years that followed, Barber continued to achieve
auspicious successes, most notably Knoxville: Summer of 1915, premiered by Serge Koussevitzky and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra, a Piano Sonata premiered by Vladimir Horowitz, and Vanessa, an opera with
libretto by Menotti, produced by the Metropolitan Opera in 1958 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize that same
year. At thirty-two, his reputation already well established, he was asked by Bruno Walter for a work in
commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic—this was the Second Essay for
Orchestra, premiered at Carnegie Hall on April 16, 1942.
Barber’s early music is characterized by a rather genteel, high-toned lyricism, with straightforward rhythm,
consonant harmony, and clear textures. The Second Essay was written as he entered a new period of
“experimentation,” incorporating elements into his music that other composers were exploring successfully.
Its lyrical primacy, solemn tone, and clarity of harmony, rhythm, and texture are characteristic of his earlier
works, while the pentatonic structure of the main theme, and its emphasis on the intervals of the fourth and
fifth, give it an American flavor—devices new to Barber, but used by a number of other composers during this
period. In addition, its breadth of utterance and reach for grandeur link it to many other American works of the
1940s.
The Second Essay encompasses three main sections: a sort of “prologue,” followed by a scherzo-like
developmental section, which leads to a fervent, hymnlike apotheosis. The opening section presents the
work’s two main themes. The first, the pentatonic theme with its “searching” quality, is introduced by the
flute, picked up by the bass clarinet, and then elaborated by the rest of the orchestra. The music gradually
becomes more animated, leading to the second thematic idea, first in the violas, followed by the oboe, with a
restless, repeated-note accompaniment in the flutes and clarinets. The energy level of the music increases as
the second idea is developed.
The second section follows a loud orchestral chord, as the clarinet and bassoon begin a skittish fugato, based
on the opening theme transformed into a rapid triplet rhythm. The second theme is added to the nervous
polyphonic tapestry, and the two ideas undergo considerable development. Finally, the themes are heard—in
reverse order—closer to their original guise, as the tempo broadens, forming a transition to the third section.
The concluding section is based on a third thematic idea, previously hinted at by the brasses toward the end of
the first section. This hymnlike theme begins softly but richly in the strings and gradually builds in intensity,
as the trumpets and horn add the opening pentatonic theme. The hymn finally culminates in a triumphant
affirmation whose sense of monumentality is remarkable for a work of such modest proportions.
WALTER SIMMONS
A recipient of the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for music criticism and a contributor to The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Walter Simmons is a musicologist, author, and critic who specializes in
20th- and 21st-century music.
Arrigo Boito (1842-1918)
“L’altra notte in fondo al mare” from “Mefistofele,” Act III
A musician, poet, novelist, critic, and generally sophisticated man of letters, Arrigo Boito’s legacy as a
librettist is secured through his work with Verdi on Otello and, especially, Falstaff, for which Boito produced
one of the finest librettos in the entire operatic repertoire. His hesitant and self-conscious work as a composer
of his own music was limited in scope and in general far less distinguished, a fact about which he himself had
no delusions, but his output nevertheless contains isolated bright spots. Noteworthy among these are the
Prologue and the Act III prison scene from his only completed opera, Mefistofele, an adaptation of Goethe’s
Faust on his own libretto. An abysmal failure upon its premiere in Milan in 1868, Mefistofele achieved much
more success eight years later in a significantly revised version that had its debut in Bologna, and it continues
to receive occasional revivals, usually as a vehicle to display a star bass in the title role.
“L’altra notte in fondo al mare” opens Act III and is a cri de coeur for the imprisoned Margherita, whom Faust
has seduced with Mefistofele’s help. Margherita, a simple country girl, has inadvertently poisoned her mother
with what Faust told her was an innocent sleeping draught that would allow her to sneak away to their
rendezvous, and is also falsely accused of killing the baby she bore as a result. Confused and abandoned, she
fights against madness and calls to the heavens for mercy in wrenching, virtuosically soaring strains.
JAY GOODWIN
New York-based annotator Jay Goodwin has written for the Metropolitan Opera, Boston Symphony
Orchestra, Juilliard School, and Australian Chamber Orchestra. Currently on the editorial staff at Carnegie
Hall, he was the Tanglewood Music Center’s Publications Fellow in 2009.
MARGHERITA
L’altra notte in fondo al mare
il mio bimbo hanno gittato;
or per farmi delirare
dicon ch’io l’abbia affogato.
L’aura è fredda, il carcer fosco,
e la mesta anima mia
come il passero del bosco
vola, vola via.
Ah, di me pieta!
In letargico sopore
è mia madre addormentata,
è per colmo dell’orrore
dicon ch’io l’abbia attoscata.
L’aura è fredda, ecc.
The other night they cast my baby boy
into the depths of the sea;
now, to drive me mad,
they say I drowned him.
The air is chill, the prison dark,
and my sad soul,
like a bird from the woods,
flies, flies away.
Ah, mercy upon me!
In deepest torpor
my mother lies asleep,
and—more horrible than all—
they say I poisoned her.
The air is chill, etc.
Trans. Dale McAdoo
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Intermezzo from “Manon Lescaut,” Act III
Puccini’s publisher, Giulio Ricordi, was less than enthusiastic when, in 1889, the composer proposed an opera
based on the Abbé Prévost’s popular but controversial 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de
Manon Lescaut and its materialistic, promiscuous, and ultimately doomed heroine. Ricordi’s main concern
was that the story had already been given two operatic treatments, the second of which was Massenet’s very
successful and well-known Manon. But Puccini was undeterred. “Why shouldn’t there be two operas about
Manon? A woman like Manon can have more than one lover,” he wrote. “Massenet feels it as a Frenchman,
with powder and minuets. I shall feel it as an Italian, with a desperate passion.” And, luckily for both him and
Ricordi, he did exactly that. Puccini’s Italianate Manon Lescaut, his third opera, premiered at the Teatro Regio
in Turin on February 1, 1893, and the response was sufficiently rapturous that by the time the 79-year-old
Verdi—the undisputed king of Italian opera for almost half a century—bid farewell with the premiere of his
valedictory Falstaff just over a week later, the succession was already secured.
Though wordless, the orchestral intermezzo that begins Act III is suffused with Puccini’s “desperate passion”
through and through. Positioned at roughly the midpoint of the four-act opera, just as everything has begun to
go horribly wrong for Manon, it marks the beginning of the fickle, feckless, and gold-digging anti-heroine’s
inexorable fall. Having left her young lover from Act I, Des Grieux, when his money ran out, and then become
bored in a bejeweled but frigid affair with his replacement, the wealthy, much older Geronte, Manon has
attempted to abscond with his jewelry and elope once again with Des Grieux. She is caught in the act,
however, and at the conclusion of Act II, Geronte has her arrested for theft. During the intermezzo, Manon is
transported from Paris to a prison in Normandy, where she is held with a group of prostitutes in preparation
for their deportation to Louisiana. Incorporating previously heard motives from the opening two acts—
including, most prominently, the ardent yet star-crossed theme of Manon and Des Grieux’s passion—the
intermezzo serves as a microcosm of the entire sordid tale, offering glimpses of sweetness and building to a
passionate climax, but ultimately turning bitter and spinning out of control. Though the serene, wistful
concluding measures seem to offer a glimmer of hope, any sense of optimism curdles as the curtain rises to
reveal Manon behind bars.
JAY GOODWIN
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Willow Song and “Ave Maria” from “Otello,” Act IV
In 1879, ten years before Puccini persuaded the reluctant Ricordi to support the Manon Lescaut project,
Ricordi had to do some convincing of his own to coax a new opera out of the aging, increasingly reclusive
Verdi, whose pen had been silent since the Requiem of 1874 and who had not added a new opera to his
catalogue since Aida’s premiere in 1871. Ricordi’s fellow lobbyist was Arrigo Boito, who was to become
Verdi’s final and finest librettist—for which we also have Ricordi, who patched up a rocky relationship
between the two men, to thank. Knowing of Verdi’s lifelong devotion to the works of Shakespeare, a passion
shared by Boito, Ricordi proposed an opera on Othello. Though resistant at first, the prospect of a new opera
on Shakespeare and on Boito’s accomplished first draft of the libretto were impossible for Verdi to resist. The
composition process was lengthy and fragmented and did not begin in earnest until 1884, after Verdi and
Boito solidified their artistic partnership by working together on revisions to Simon Boccanegra and Don
Carlo; but finally, in 1887, audiences in Milan reveled in the triumphant premiere production of Otello, an
innovative new breed of Verdi opera for a new musical climate, one of the genre’s towering masterpieces and
a staggering declaration that the longtime king of Italian music, who had begun to receive criticism for being
conservative and outmoded, was still untouchable.
Desdemona’s Willow Song and “Ave Maria” come from the beginning of Act IV, as Otello’s devoted wife
prepares for bed and awaits the arrival of her husband, who, having been manipulated by the jealous Iago, has
falsely accused her of betraying him with his friend and captain, Cassio. Though Otello has not yet
definitively condemned her, Desdemona seems to know that with her husband comes her death. She sings for
her handmaiden, Emilia, a tune that she can’t seem to get out of her head, a song that she recalls a poor,
heartbroken maidservant of her mother’s singing. Desolate and heartrending, it is at once a remembrance from
her past and a chilling premonition of her future. After she bids Emilia goodnight and farewell, Desdemona
prays an anguished “Ave Maria,” asking for mercy and intercession that she knows will not come.
JAY GOODWIN
VERDI “Otello,” Act IV
Desdemona’s bedroom. A bed, a prie-dieu, a table, a mirror, and some chairs. A lighted lamp hangs before
the image of the Madonna above the prie-dieu. On the right is a door. It is night. Desdemona, with the
assistance of Emilia, is preparing for bed.
[EMILIA
Era più calmo?]*
DESDEMONA
Mi parea.
M’ingiunse di coricarmi
e d’attenderlo.
Emilia, te ne prego,
distendi sul mio letto
la mia candida veste nuziale.
[EMILIA
Was he calmer?]
DESDEMONA
He seemed so to me.
He commanded me to go to bed
and there await him.
Emilia, I pray you,
lay upon my bed
my white wedding nightgown.
(Emilia does so.)
Senti.
Listen.
Se pria di te morir dovessi,
If I should die before you,
mi seppellisci con un di quei veli.
lay me to rest in one of those veils.
[EMILIA
[EMILIA
Scacciate quest’idee.]
Put such thoughts from you.]
DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA
Son mesta tanto, tanto.
I am so sad, so sad.
(seating herself mechanically before the mirror)
Mia madre aveva una povera ancella,
My mother had a poor maidservant,
innamorata e bella;
she was in love and pretty;
era il suo nome Barbara;
her name was Barbara;
amava un uom che poi l’abbandonò.
she loved a man who then abandoned her.
Cantava una canzone,
She used to sing a song,
la canzon del Salice.
“The Song of the Willow.”
(to Emilia)
Mi disciogli le chiome.
Unbind my hair.
Io questa sera ho la memoria piena
This evening my memory is haunted
di quella cantilena.
by that old refrain.
“Piangea cantando nell’erma landa,
“She wept as she sang on the lonely heath,
piangea la mesta,
the poor girl wept,
O Salce! Salce! Salce!
O Willow, Willow, Willow!
Sedea chinando sul sen la testa,
She sat with her head upon her breast,
Salce! Salce! Salce!
Willow, Willow, Willow!
Cantiamo! cantiamo!
Come sing! Come sing!
Il salce funebre sarà la mia ghirlanda.” The green willow shall be my garland.”
(to Emilia)
Affrettati; fra poco giunge Otello.
Make haste; Othello will soon be here.
“Scorreano i rivi fra le zolle in fior,
“The fresh streams ran between the flowery
gemea quel core affranto,
banks, she moaned in her grief,
e dalle ciglia le sgorgava il cor
in bitter tears flowing from her eyes,
l’amara onda del pianto.
her poor heart sought relief.
Salce! Salce! Salce!
Willow! Willow! Willow!
Cantiamo! cantiamo!
Come sing! Come sing!
Il salce funebre sarà la mia ghirlanda.
The green willow shall be my garland.
Scendean l’augelli a vol dai rami cupi
Down from dark branches flew the birds
verso quel dolce canto.
toward the singing sweet.
E gli occhi suoi piangean tanto, tanto,
So copious were the tears she wept
da impietosir le rupi.”
that even stones shared her sorrow.”
(to Emilia, taking a ring from her finger)
Riponi quest’anello.
Lay this ring by.
(rising)
Poor Barbara!
The story used to end
with this simple phrase:
“He was born for glory,
I to love...”
(to Emilia)
Ascolta. Odo un lamento.
Hark! I heard a moan.
(Emilia takes a step or two.)
Taci... Chi batte quella porta?
Hush... Who knocks upon that door?
[EMILIA
[EMILIA
È il vento.]
’Tis the wind.]
DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA
“Io per amarlo e per morir.
“I to love him and to die.
Cantiamo! cantiamo!
Come sing! Come sing!
Salce! Salce! Salce!”
Willow! Willow! Willow!”
Emilia, addio.
Emilia, farewell.
Come m’ardon le ciglia!
How mine eyes do itch!
È presagio di pianto.
That bodes weeping.
Buona notte.
Good night.
(Emilia turns to leave.)
Ah! Emilia, Emilia, addio!
Ah! Emilia, Emilia, farewell!
Emilia, addio!
Emilia, farewell!
(Emilia returns and Desdemona embraces her.
Emilia leaves. Desdemona kneels at the prie-dieu.)
Ave Maria, piena di grazia,
Hail Mary, full of grace,
eletta fra le spose e le vergini sei tu,
blessed amongst wives and maids art thou,
sia benedetto il frutto, o benedetta,
and blessed is the fruit, o blessed one,
di tue materne viscere, Gesù.
of thy maternal womb, Jesu.
Prega per chi, adorando a te, si prostra,
Pray for those who kneeling adore thee,
prega nel peccator, per l’innocente,
pray for the sinner, for the innocent
e pel debole oppresso e pel possente,
and for the weak oppressed; and to the
powerful man,
misero anch’esso, tua pietà dimostra.
who also grieves, thy sweet compassion show.
Prega per chi sotto l’oltraggio piega
Pray for him who bows beneath injustice
la fronte,
e sotto la malvagia sorte;
and ’neath the blows of cruel destiny;
per noi, per noi tu prega,
for us, pray thou for us,
prega sempre,
pray for us always,
e nell’ora della morte nostra,
and at the hour of our death
prega per noi, prega per noi,
pray for us, pray for us,
prega!
pray!
(She remains kneeling and, with her head bowed on the prie-dieu,
repeats the prayer silently, so that only the first words and the last are audible.)
Ave Maria...
Hail Mary...
... nell’ora della morte.
... at the hour of our death.
Ave!... Amen!
Hail!... Amen!
Povera Barbara!
Solea la storia con questo
semplice suono finir:
“Egli era nato per la sua gloria,
io per amar...”
Trans. © Decca Music Group Ltd.
Richard Strauss (1864-1919)
“Ein Heldenleben” (“A Heroic Life”), Tone poem, Opus 40
First performance: March 3, 1899, at a Frankfurt Museum concert, Strauss cond. First BSO performances:
December 1901, Wilhelm Gericke cond. First Tanglewood performance: July 29, 1962, Erich Leinsdorf cond.
Most recent Tanglewood performance: July 11, 2010, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos cond.
Seventy-eight years separate Strauss’s first composition and his last. For almost forty years, he devoted most
of his energies to opera, though he was a man of forty-one at the premiere of Salome in December 1905. He
had completed an opera called Guntram as early as 1893, but it disappeared from the stage almost
immediately. The Guntram experience cost him lots of headaches, both in Weimar, where he was conductor
from 1889 to 1894, and later in Munich, his next way-station. His happiest association was his engagement
during the rehearsal period and his marriage four months later to his pupil Pauline de Ahna, who took the
principal female role. Pauline plays an important part in Ein Heldenleben, as well as in such works as the
Symphonia domestica and the opera Intermezzo. The sound and the memory of her luminous soprano inform
countless pages in his opera scores and songs; and in the setting of Eichendorff’s Im Abendrot (one of the Four
Last Songs), Strauss built a wondrously moving monument to their enduring devotion.
After Guntram, at any rate, Strauss returned to a path he had already explored for a half-dozen years, that of
the orchestral tone poem. Reared in a conservative, classical tradition, having just arrived at Brahms by way of
Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Schumann, the twenty-one-year-old Strauss had fallen under the thrall of a much
older composer and violinist, Alexander Ritter, who made it his task to convert his young friend to the “music
of the future” of Liszt and Wagner. Strauss’s first and still somewhat tentative compositional response was the
pictorial symphonic fantasy Aus Italien (“From Italy”), which, at least to some degree, was still tied to the old
tradition. But the next work, Don Juan, completed September 1888—a work of astonishing verve, assurance,
and originality—represented total commitment to the “future.” Even allowing for the interruption to complete
Guntram, the series of tone poems was continued at high speed and with the most vigorous invention: Death
and Transfiguration in 1889, the revised Macbeth in 1891, Till Eulenspiegel in 1895, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
in 1896, Don Quixote in 1897, and Ein Heldenleben in 1898. Two postscripts followed at some distance—the
Symphonia domestica in 1904 and the Alpine Symphony in 1914—but the period of intense concentration on
the genre comes to an end with Heldenleben.
“Ein Heldenleben” is usually translated as “A Hero’s Life”; argument, however, could be made that “A Heroic
Life” comes even closer. But who is the hero? Two details point to Strauss himself. Though generally irritated
by requests for “programs” and insistent that music’s business was to say only those things that music could
uniquely say, Strauss authorized his old school friend Friedrich Rösch and the critic Wilhelm Klatte to supply,
for the premiere on March 3, 1899, a detailed scenario in six sections. One of these is called “The Hero’s
Companion” and it is, by the composer’s admission to Romain Rolland and others, a portrait of Pauline
Strauss. Another is called “The Hero’s Works of Peace” and is woven from quotations of earlier Strauss
scores.
The first large section of the work, swaggering, sweet, impassioned, grandiloquent, sumptuously scored,
depicts The Hero in his changing aspects and moods. Next comes the scene of The Hero’s Adversaries, the
grudgers and the fault-finders, including drastically different music—sharp, prickly, disjunct, dissonant.
Strauss was convinced that some of the Berlin critics recognized themselves as the target of this portrait and
the composer as The Hero. The Hero’s theme, on its next appearance, is much darkened.
One violin detaches itself from the others to unfold the vivid portrait of Pauline. Gay, flippant, tender, a little
sentimental, exuberantly playful, gracious, emotional, angry, nagging, loving—these are some of the
directions to the violinist in this scene of The Hero’s Companion. The single violin is again absorbed into the
orchestral mass and we hear love music, as lush as only Strauss could make it. Briefly the adversaries disturb
the idyll, but their cackling is heard as though from a distance. But the hero must go into battle to vanquish
them. Trumpets summon him, introducing that immense canvas, The Hero’s Battlefield. The hero returns in
triumph, or, in musical terms, there is a recapitulation as clear and as formal as the most ardent classicist could
wish.
The music becomes more quiet and we have arrived at one of the score’s most remarkable sections, The
Hero’s Works of Peace. Here Strauss weaves a texture both dense and delicate as he combines music from
Don Juan, Also sprach Zarathustra, Death and Transfiguration, Don Quixote, Macbeth, and his song Traum
durch die Dämmerung (“Dreaming at Twilight”). This episode is one of Strauss’s orchestral miracles, richly
blended, yet a constantly astonishing, shifting kaleidoscopic play of luminescent textures and colors.
Even now, the adversaries are not silenced. The hero rages, but his passion gives way to renunciation (this is
indeed very unlike the real Richard Strauss). The final section is called The Hero’s Escape from the World
and Fulfillment. The hero retires—to Switzerland, on the evidence of the English horn—and, after final
recollections of his battling and loving self, the music subsides in profound serenity. This, in the original
version, was undisturbed through the pianissimo close with violins, timpani, and a single horn. But Strauss
reconsidered, and in the few days between Christmas 1898 and the New Year he composed the present ending
with its rich mystery and fascinating ambiguity, an ending of marvelously individual sonority, and one that at
least touches fortissimo.
MICHAEL STEINBERG
Michael Steinberg was program annotator of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1976 to 1979, and after
that of the San Francisco Symphony and New York Philharmonic. Oxford University Press has published
three compilations of his program notes, devoted to symphonies, concertos, and the great works for chorus and
orchestra.
Guest Artist
Kristine Opolais
Kristine Opolais is one of the most sought-after sopranos on the international scene today, appearing regularly
at the Metropolitan Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper, Teatro alla
Scala, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, working with such conductors as Daniel Barenboim,
Antonio Pappano, Daniel Harding, Louis Langrée, Andris Nelsons, Gianandrea Noseda, Marco Armiliato,
Marc Minkowski, Fabio Luisi, Kirill Petrenko, Alain Altinoglu, and Kazushi Ono. In the 2015-16 season Ms.
Opolais returns to the Metropolitan Opera for a much-anticipated new production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut,
singing the title role alongside Jonas Kaufmann. Manon Lescaut has become a signature role for the soprano,
following her 2014 appearances in two new productions of the opera, at the Royal Opera House and
Bayerische Staatsoper. In spring 2016 she also appears at the Metropolitan Opera as Cio-Cio San in Madama
Butterfly; both this opera and Manon Lescaut will be broadcast to cinemas as part of the Met’s “Live in HD”
series. Ms. Opolais has maintained a strong relationship with the Metropolitan Opera since her 2013 debut
there as Magda in La Rondine. In April 2014 she made Met history, when, within eighteen hours, she made
house debuts in two roles, giving an acclaimed, scheduled performance as Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly,
then stepping in as Mimì for a matinee performance of La bohème the very next day—a performance
broadcast to cinemas around the world. Continuing her association with the Bayerische Staatsoper, she makes
two role debuts there in 2015-16: as Margherita and Helen of Troy in Boito’s Mefistofele and as Rachel in
Halévy’s La Juive. Since her 2010 Bayerische Staatsoper debut, when she stepped in to sing the title role in
Dvorák’s Rusalka, she has appeared there as Cio-Cio San, Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, Vitellia in La
clemenza di Tito, and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. Her collaboration with the Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden, has featured the Puccini roles of Cio-Cio San, Floria Tosca, and Manon Lescaut. She has also
appeared at Opernhaus Zürich in the title role of Jen˚ufa and recently made her house debut at Opéra National
de Paris Bastille. Recent concert performances have included appearances at the Salzburg Festival,
Tanglewood, the BBC Proms, and with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, WDR
Sinfonieorchester Köln, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Stockholm Philharmonic, and Filarmonica della Scala.
Highlights of 2015-16 include her debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Semyon Bychkov and
concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons on their 2016 European tour, to include her
Musikverein debut. Recent DVD recordings have included Deutsche Staatsoper’s production of Prokofiev’s
The Gambler, in which she sang Polina under the baton of Daniel Barenboim; Rusalka from the Bayerische
Staatsoper production, Don Giovanni from the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and Eugene Onegin from Valencia’s
Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia. A recent Orfeo International CD recording with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
of Puccini’s Suor Angelica was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award, and her latest release is Simon
Boccanegra with the Vienna Symphony on Decca. Kristine Opolais made her Boston Symphony Orchestra
debut in July 2013 at Tanglewood, in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem. She made her first Symphony Hall
appearance with the orchestra in September 2014, as a soloist in Andris Nelsons’ inaugural concert as the
BSO’s music director, a concert subsequently telecast in the PBS series “Great Performances.”