The MET Orchestra returns to Carnegie Hall for two performances in May 2008 under two different conductors. On Sunday, May 18 at 3:00 p.m., Principal Guest Conductor Valery Gergiev concludes his season-long Perspectives series by leading the Orchestra in an all-Mussorgsky program that includes A Night on Bald Mountain and Pictures at an Exhibition as well as Songs and Dances of Death and “I Have Attained the Highest Power” from Boris Godunov with bass René Pape. Music Director James Levine returns to lead the Orchestra on Thursday, May 22 at 8:00 p.m. in a performance of Carter’s Variations for Orchestra, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor, and Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor with soloist Jonathan Biss.

Valery Gergiev’s inspired leadership as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre has brought universal acclaim to the legendary institution. Together with the Kirov Opera, Ballet, and Orchestra, Gergiev has toured in forty-five countries, including extensive tours throughout North America, South America, Europe, China, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Jordan, and Israel. This season, he celebrates his 20th anniversary as Artistic Director as the Mariinsky Theatre celebrates its 225th season. Gergiev is currently Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, and Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He is Founder and Artistic Director of the Stars of the White Nights Festival, the Moscow Easter Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival, the Mikkeli International Festival, and the New Horizons Festival, a contemporary music festival in the new Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall.

Since his June 5, 1971 debut at the Metropolitan Opera with Tosca, Music Director James Levine has developed a relationship with that company that is unparalleled in its history and unique in the musical world today. He conducted the first-ever Met performances of Mozart's Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani, I Lombardi and Stiffelio, Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Schoenberg's Erwartung and Moses und Aron, Berg's Lulu, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, as well as the world premieres of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and John Harbison's The Great Gatsby; all told, he has led nearly 2500 performances of 85 different operas there.

Maestro Levine inaugurated the "Metropolitan Opera Presents" television series for PBS in 1977, founded the Met’s Young Artist Development Program in 1980, returned Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen to the repertoire in 1989 (in the first integral cycles in 50 years there), and reinstated recitals and concerts with Met artists at the opera house. Expanding on that tradition, he and the MET Orchestra began touring in concert in 1991, and since then have performed around the world as well as in its own subscription series at Carnegie Hall. Since 1998, Maestro Levine and the MET Chamber Ensemble have performed three concerts annually at Weill Recital Hall and Zankel Hall. Mr. Levine is also concluding his fourth season as Music Director for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with season highlights including world premieres of a new horn concerto by Carter and symphonies by John Harbison and William Bolcom, the Boston and New York premieres of Henri Dutilleux’s Le Temps l’horloge with Renée Fleming, and season-ending performances of Berlioz’s Les Troyens.

Critically acclaimed pianist Jonathan Biss began his studies at age six. He later attended Indiana University and The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, studying with Evelyne Brancart and Leon Fleisher, respectively. As a soloist, Mr. Biss has performed with major US orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, Mr. Biss has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival and Musicians from Marlboro tours, and in the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival. He has also collaborated with groups such as the Mendelssohn String Quartet, and given recitals throughout the US and Europe. He was an artist-in-residence on NPR’s “Performance Today” and has been recognized with numerous awards, including an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Mr. Biss was the first and only American chosen to participate in the BBC’s New Generation Artist program.

Bass René Pape has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera every season since 1995, giving four career role debuts there: Méphistophélès in Faust, Gurnemanz in Parsifal, Escamillo in Carmen, and the Old Hebrew in Samson et Dalila. Pape first sang most of his other great roles at the Berlin State Opera, including Boris Godunov, King Marke in Tristan und Isolde, Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte, the title role and Leporello in Don Giovanni, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, King Henry in Lohengrin, Rocco in Fidelio, Hunding in Die Walküre, Orest in Elektra, and Ramfis in Aida. In addition to his appearance with the MET Orchestra, Pape’s American engagements this season include his first Met Opera appearances as Banquo in Verdi’s Macbeth—his 18th role with the company. Another highlight for American audiences this year will be the release of his first solo arias recording for Deutsche Grammophon in the fall. René Pape’s major international debuts were at Bayreuth under James Levine in 1994 in Das Rheingold; in 1997 at London’s Royal Opera in Lohengrin; at the Opéra National de Paris in a 1998 Tristan; and at Lyric Opera of Chicago in Die Meistersinger in 1999. Educated at the Kreuzchor and the Dresden Conservatory in his home town, Pape first attained international stature as Sarastro under Georg Solti at the1995 Salzburg Festival. Musical America named him Singer of the Year in 2001; the Opera News Awards honor him this year for his distinguished contribution to opera.

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is today regarded as one of the world’s finest orchestras. From the time of the company’s inception in 1883, the ensemble has worked with leading conductors in both opera and concert performances and has developed into an orchestra of enormous technical polish and style. The Met Orchestra maintains a demanding schedule of performances and rehearsals during the 32-week New York season, when the company performs seven times a week in repertory that normally encompasses approximately 27 operas, followed by a series of free parks concerts in New York and New Jersey. In the spring of 1991 the Orchestra under the leadership of Maestro Levine began concert touring, which has since taken them several times both across the US and to Europe (including their debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2002), as well as annually to Carnegie Hall. In the spring of 2006 the company returned to Japan for its fifth tour there in 18 years.

About Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives
Now in its ninth season, Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives series is an artistic initiative in which select musicians are invited to explore their own musical individuality and create their own personal concert series through collaborations with other musicians and ensembles. Other artists presenting Perspectives during the 2007–2008 season are pianist Yefim Bronfman and vocal innovator/conductor Bobby McFerrin.

Previous Perspectives artists have included conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim; conductors Pierre Boulez, James Levine, Michael Tilson Thomas, and David Robertson; violinist Gidon Kremer; cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Leif Ove Andsnes, Martha Argerich, Emanuel Ax, Maurizio Pollini, Peter Serkin, and Mitsuko Uchida; soprano Dawn Upshaw; bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff; the Emerson String Quartet; Senegalese vocalist Youssou N’Dour; Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso; and experimental rocker David Byrne. Perspectives artists for the 2008–2009 season are tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain and conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, who is the first artist to be invited for a second time to curate Carnegie Hall’s hallmark concert series.


Program Information
Sunday, May 18 at 3:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage
THE MET ORCHESTRA
Valery Gergiev, Conductor
René Pape, Bass

Perspectives: Valery Gergiev

ALL-MUSSORGSKY PROGRAM
A Night on Bald Mountain (original version)
Songs and Dances of Death
"I Have Attained the Highest Power" from Boris Godunov
Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Ravel)

Perspectives concerts are made possible, in part, by a generous grant from The Alice Tully Foundation.
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Thursday, May 22 at 8:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage
THE MET ORCHESTRA
James Levine, Music Director and Conductor
Jonathan Biss, Piano

ELLIOTT CARTER Variations for Orchestra
ROBERT SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36
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