Bluebeard’s Castle
Opera in one act
Concert performance
Libretto by Béla Balász

Performing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Sir Simon Rattle, conductor

On each of our inner maps, our yearning needs a few points of reference in order to set out on its journeys of discovery: for Sir Simon, one these is the composer Béla Bartók, another is the city of Baden-Baden with its legendary artists from Brahms to Boulez. Rattle has long since become a part of this history himself. When he returns with his London Symphony Orchestra to present Bartók, whose Concerto for Orchestra he once chose for his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker, we would like to give special prominence to this concert as well. Join us as we celebrate our season opening together! Bring a bit of extra time – to gather with your fellow audience members in the lobby and toast to the new season after hearing Bartók’s Concerto and his Bluebeard with its blazing expressionist music.

Lutosławski: Les Espaces du sommeil

Programme also includes Tchaikovsky: Fantasy Overture and Romeo and Juliet and Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique

Performing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Edward Gardner, conductor

‘Frustrated in love, a young musician of deep sensitivity and ardent imagination takes opium…’ With those words, Hector Berlioz set the scene for his Symphonie fantastique – a story of gothic horror and glittering excess, rolled into one roof-raising musical phantasmagoria and scored for the biggest orchestra the world had then seen. It’s a gripping way for the LPO’s Principal Conductor Designate Edward Gardner to raise the curtain on our new season; first, though, Tchaikovsky’s hugely popular overture sets the emotional bar high, and the great Gerald Finley enters the luminous world of Lutosławski’s Les Espaces du sommeil – music that inhabits the realm between dream and imagination.

Performing with:
Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Esa-Pekka Salonen, SFS Music Director Designate and Conductor
San Francisco Symphony
Yefim Bronfman, piano (Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2)

At once fiery and tender, Bartók’s music grabs a hold and doesn’t let go until the very last second. Esa Pekka-Salonen leads the SF Symphony in a transfixing program that opens with the extraordinary Yefim Bronfman performing Bartók’s exhilarating Piano Concerto No. 2. Then, experience Bartók’s heart-pounding one-act opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, featuring acclaimed vocalists Michelle DeYoung and Gerald Finley. Follow the twists and turns of this spectacular piece as we follow the story of young Judith uncovering her aging husband Bluebeard’s darkest and most astonishing secrets, hidden deep within his mysterious castle.

Performing with:
Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Esa-Pekka Salonen, SFS Music Director Designate and Conductor
San Francisco Symphony
Yefim Bronfman, piano (Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2)

At once fiery and tender, Bartók’s music grabs a hold and doesn’t let go until the very last second. Esa Pekka-Salonen leads the SF Symphony in a transfixing program that opens with the extraordinary Yefim Bronfman performing Bartók’s exhilarating Piano Concerto No. 2. Then, experience Bartók’s heart-pounding one-act opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, featuring acclaimed vocalists Michelle DeYoung and Gerald Finley. Follow the twists and turns of this spectacular piece as we follow the story of young Judith uncovering her aging husband Bluebeard’s darkest and most astonishing secrets, hidden deep within his mysterious castle.

Performing with:
Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Esa-Pekka Salonen, SFS Music Director Designate and Conductor
San Francisco Symphony
Yefim Bronfman, piano (Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2)

At once fiery and tender, Bartók’s music grabs a hold and doesn’t let go until the very last second. Esa Pekka-Salonen leads the SF Symphony in a transfixing program that opens with the extraordinary Yefim Bronfman performing Bartók’s exhilarating Piano Concerto No. 2. Then, experience Bartók’s heart-pounding one-act opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, featuring acclaimed vocalists Michelle DeYoung and Gerald Finley. Follow the twists and turns of this spectacular piece as we follow the story of young Judith uncovering her aging husband Bluebeard’s darkest and most astonishing secrets, hidden deep within his mysterious castle.

Performing with:
Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Esa-Pekka Salonen, SFS Music Director Designate and Conductor
San Francisco Symphony
Yefim Bronfman, piano (Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2)

At once fiery and tender, Bartók’s music grabs a hold and doesn’t let go until the very last second. Esa Pekka-Salonen leads the SF Symphony in a transfixing program that opens with the extraordinary Yefim Bronfman performing Bartók’s exhilarating Piano Concerto No. 2. Then, experience Bartók’s heart-pounding one-act opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, featuring acclaimed vocalists Michelle DeYoung and Gerald Finley. Follow the twists and turns of this spectacular piece as we follow the story of young Judith uncovering her aging husband Bluebeard’s darkest and most astonishing secrets, hidden deep within his mysterious castle.