NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- As the live performing arts still reel from the coronavirus pandemic, here are 10 highlights from the flood of online music content coming in January. (Times listed are Eastern.)
Lonely House
This winter, Katharine Mehrling was scheduled to reprise her Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady at the Komische Oper in Berlin. The pandemic got in the way, but the companys devoted audience need not spend the season without this singers gifts. This performance (first streamed live late in December) offers a fresh look at Kurt Weill, focusing on that composers years in Paris and New York. Devotees know many of these songs. But Mehrlings energy aided by Barrie Kosky, the Komische Opers artistic director, on piano gives a saucy charge to a medley from the rarely staged Lady in the Dark. SETH COLTER WALLS
(Available until Jan. 22; operavision.eu and on YouTube.)
Un Ballo in Maschera
In case you missed it in August, this 1991 Metropolitan Opera performance of Verdis dark tale of love, betrayal, friendship and regicide returns to the companys series of nightly streams from its archives. Ballo is part of a week centered on Luciano Pavarotti, Met star supreme, but is also a showcase for the passionate artistry of soprano Aprile Millo, whose career burned bright in the 1980s and 90s, a throwback to divas of yore. James Levine conducts a cast that also includes Leo Nucci, Florence Quivar and Harolyn Blackwell. ZACHARY WOOLFE
(Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; metopera.org; available until Sunday at 6:30 p.m.)
Julia Bullock
Kurt Weill isnt just coming from the Komische Oper. One of our most luminous singers has four Weill numbers of her own to offer in a recital for Cal Performances that swings, in characteristic Bullock style, from the classical canon to contemporary work by way of golden age musical theater. Pieces by William Grant Still and Margaret Bonds are at the core of a program that also includes songs by Wolf and Schumann (selections from Dichterliebe), a set from The Sound of Music, and material from John Adams recent opera Girls of the Golden West, composed with Bullock in mind. Laura Poe is the pianist. ZACHARY WOOLFE
(Jan. 14 at 10 p.m.; calperformances.org; available until April 14.)
Eve Egoyan
This Canadian pianist, who specializes in contemporary music, will perform the premiere of her Seven Studies for Augmented Piano. This is a series of works she created for a Yamaha Disklavier an acoustic piano with a computer interface, coupled with software that allows her to augment and extend the sonic range of the piano, as she writes in a program note. The program, part of the 21C Music Festival presented by the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, includes a short video exploring Egoyans creative process. ANTHONY TOMMASINI
(Jan. 16 at 5 p.m.; rcmusic.com; available until Jan. 23.)
Wild Up
Artists from the Wild Up collective, including its conductor and artistic director, Christopher Rountree, are familiar to Los Angeles audiences. But for the groups coming monthlong project, Darkness Sounding, listeners around the world are invited. Some concerts will be available as livestreams, then archived, through Wild Ups Patreon page. At $5 for the month, you can access shows like this one on Jan. 17, simple lines/quiet music/silent songs, featuring pianist Richard Valitutto. A daylong house concert, its organized around largely soft, contemplative works by the likes of Ann Southam and Alvin Curran. SETH COLTER WALLS
(Jan. 17 at 9:58 a.m.; patreon.com/wildup; available indefinitely.)
Soldier Songs
David T. Littles Soldier Songs, for baritone and small ensemble, was born of the American invasion of Iraq. But, based on interviews with veterans of five wars, it speaks to conflict more generally and abstractly. And like the most satisfying politically minded art, its rife with complication not just in the scores uninhibited blending of genres, but also in the treatment of its subject, defying stereotypes and hagiographies. Soldier Songs puts you off as it draws you in, and it will haunt audiences anew in a virtual production presented by Opera Philadelphia, directed by and starring the baritone Johnathan McCullough. JOSHUA BARONE
(Jan. 22 at 8 p.m.; operaphila.org; available until May 31.)
Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber
As concerts have moved online during the pandemic, many have also gotten shorter. Thus Schwanengesang, the shattering collection of Schuberts final songs, can more easily stand alone on a program as it does in this Wigmore Hall stream from the baritone Christian Gerhaher and the pianist Gerold Huber, one of the great musical partnerships of our time. The duo also appear earlier in Wigmores richly scheduled January, presenting works by Schumann and Debussy (Jan. 25). Other hall highlights include soprano Lise Davidsen, singing Grieg, Sibelius and more (Jan. 17), and pianist Igor Levit, playing Hindemith, Schoenberg and Busoni (Jan. 29). JOSHUA BARONE
(Jan. 27 at 2:30 p.m.; wigmore-hall.org.uk; available until Feb. 26.)
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
This ensemble has been offering a series of documentary-style, hourlong discussion and performance programs called BSO Sessions. Twelve looks at composers who have bridged contemporary classical music and pop. There will be performances of a suite by Jonny Greenwood, of Radiohead, from his score for the film There Will Be Blood; Bryce Dessners Lachrimae; and Caroline Shaws Entracte. Steve Hackman, a composer and arranger skilled at this crossover, discusses the music and the stylistic overlaps with musicians from the orchestra. Nicholas Hersh conducts. ANTHONY TOMMASINI
(Jan. 27 at 8 p.m.; offstage.bsomusic.org; available until June 30.)
Hallé Orchestra
This orchestra, which has been streaming performances filmed at its Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, England, has an intriguing program coming up featuring pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, the eldest of the seven young, gifted members of a British musical family that has been gaining international attention. She plays Beethovens Piano Concerto No. 3 on the program, conducted by Mark Elder, which opens with Richard Strausss Serenade for Winds (written when its composer was 17) and ends with Sibelius Third Symphony. ANTHONY TOMMASINI
(Jan. 28 at 6 a.m.; halle.co.uk; available until April 28.)
Peter Evans Ensemble
Trumpeter Peter Evans is a reliable source of thrilling virtuosity. Thats true when hes working with the Wet Ink Ensemble or International Contemporary Ensemble, as well as when hes leading his own groups. This quartet, with electronics and percussion specialist Levy Lorenzo, violinist and vocalist Mazz Swift and pianist Ron Stabinsky, recently celebrated the release of a blazing album, Horizons. But this livestream wont be a victory lap; it promises a fresh slate of compositions by Evans. SETH COLTER WALLS
(Jan. 28 at 8 p.m.; roulette.org; available indefinitely.)
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