Summertime, and the livin’ is easy...Well, it’s not quite summer yet, but this May, Washington National Opera serves up a perennial favorite at the Kennedy Center Opera House: George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, May 23-31. Francesca Zambello’s acclaimed adaptation of Gershwin’s great American opera features two Washington favorites: Denyce Graves and Kenneth Kellogg.
It’s a busy month at WNO, as Mason Bates’ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs continues until May 10 at the Opera House.
Over at the Concert Hall, the National Symphony Orchestra is in full gear. May 8-10, Maestro Gianandrea Noseda conducts Gustav Mahler’s 6th Symphony, complete with a specially constructed percussion “instrument” for the third movement hammer blows of fate. According to the composer’s wife, Alma Mahler, these hammer blows represented three traumatic events in his life: the death of his eldest daughter, the diagnosis of heart disease and his resignation from the Vienna Opera. Mahler later took out one of the blows for musical reasons, but some conductors, including Maestro Noseda, insist on all three. NSO principal percussionist Eric Shin, aka “Thor” strikes the specially built box (see photo) with the hammer of fate.
Joshua Weilerstein conducts the NSO in an American-themed program May 29-31, including Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker is featured in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
And don’t forget the yearly National Memorial Day Concert with the NSO on May 25th (broadcast by WETA PBS)
As a prelude to the Notes & Frames Film and Music Festival coming to the Kennedy Center in June, Steven Reineke and the NSO Pops present A Symphonic Night at the Movies: The Wizard of Oz in Concert May 21 & 22.
Upstairs at the Terrace Theater, on May 11, the Kennedy Center Chamber Players’ Summer Concert features titled NSO musicians performing favorites by Dvořák and Johann Strauss II.
Looking forward to June 8th, Fortas Chamber Music Series director Jennifer Koh will play a heroic recital: performing JS Bach’s complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin!
For more information on all of these concerts and special events, visit Kennedy-Center.org.
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