Seiji Ozawa

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Following Levine's departure, the BSO picks up the pieces

After Jimmy
This past week, James Levine ended his BSO tenure after seven seasons, citing challenges regarding his health and the "ensuing absences they have forced." Since leaving Symphony Hall almost five years ago, I've been watching the Levine saga unfold, gritting my teeth with every notice of malady and ensuing cancellation.
By SEAN KERRIGAN | March 09, 2011

Following Levine's departure, the BSO picks up the pieces

Feeding frenzy

The media rain on James Levine's parade, plus Boston Midsummer Opera
The media rain on James Levine's parade, plus Boston Midsummer Opera
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 03, 2010

Blythe spirit

Opera Boston’s Offenbach, Thomas Quasthoff, the BSO, Boston Baroque, and BU’s Sondheim
Leaving the Cutler Majestic after the opening night of Opera Boston’s latest Offenbach, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein , you could see the smiling faces of an audience that had had a good time.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 17, 2010

Let's rock

The BSO, the Cantata Singers, Discovery Ensemble, and BCMS
WGBH radio has ended its 58-year tradition of live Friday-afternoon BSO broadcasts, and it doesn't seem that public outcry is going to change that.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 25, 2010

In the swim

Guerilla Opera, von Stade’s farewell, the BSO, Handel and Haydn, the BPO, and that Tosca
My head’s swimming.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 14, 2009

A song to sing, O!

Seiji Ozawa returns to the BSO, Boston Early Music Festival's 17th-century chamber operas, the Bostonians' Yeomen of the Guard
Seiji Ozawa returns to the BSO, Boston Early Music Festival's 17th-century chamber operas, the Bostonians' Yeomen of the Guard
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 02, 2008

Russian, Spanish, American . . .

Music in all accents comes to the concert halls
What everyone is looking forward to this fall is the return to the podium of Boston Symphony Orchestra music director James Levine.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 11, 2008

Young and old

Mark Morris at Tanglewood
The presence of company veterans infuses Mark Morris Dance Group with a maturity that both grounded and lifted this presentation to a higher plane.
By JANINE PARKER | July 02, 2008

Conquering heroes

Winterreise from Thomas Quasthoff and James Levine, the Cecilia’s Handel, Levine’s return, Brendel’s farewell
One sign of Boston’s rich classical-music scene is that there are often hard choices to make when two outstanding events are scheduled at the same time.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 29, 2008

Pass the Hollandaise

Mariss Jansons and the Royal Concertgebouw at Symphony Hall, February 1, 2008
The first LP I ever bought, way back in 1963, offered Chopin’s E-minor piano concerto performed by obscure artists.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | January 30, 2009

Hot and cold

More French music plus Osvaldo Golijov at the BSO; Sarasa’s warm tribute to Craig Smith
James Levine’s second French program this season with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was more compelling than the one with which he began the season.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 11, 2007

Hail and farewell

The Berlin Philharmonic’s Mahler, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and the BSO’s Smetana
The season’s most eagerly awaited (and, with its $187 top ticket price, most expensive) classical concert was not a disappointment.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 27, 2007

Craig Smith (1947–2007)

Boston loses a beloved musician
For more than 30 years, Emmanuel Music has been central to the cultural life of Boston.
By EDITORIAL | November 19, 2007

Voice of authority

Thomas Quasthoff holds forth
German baritone Thomas Quasthoff has overcome adversity (his mother took Thalidomide) to become the outstanding German lieder singer of his generation.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | November 14, 2007

Lorca without Lorca

Opera Boston’s Ainadamar, plus Ida Haendel, the BSO, and West Side Story
Is it possible for a work of art to seem both completely sincere in its intentions and at the same time counterfeit and manipulative?
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 30, 2007

Double or nothing

Mark Morris revives Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Tanglewood; Cosí fan tutte on Beacon Hill
The American premiere of Dido took place here in Boston, at the Majestic Theatre in June 1989.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 03, 2007

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson

1954–2006
We were very lucky, here in Boston, to have had so many chances to hear Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died in Santa Fe last Monday at the age of 52.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 11, 2006

New to Boston

Chorus pro Musica does Verdi’s Attila ; the Bostonians do Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande
Last year, Jeffrey Rink’s Chorus pro Musica gave us seductive belly wriggling; this year: “screams, rape, moans, blood, pillage” and the desire to “feast on limbs and severed heads.”
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | June 07, 2006

Odds and endings

Russell Sherman, the Cantata Singers’ Belshazzar , and Dmitri Hvorostovsky
The classical-music season is winding up without winding down.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 16, 2006

Ear-popping

Opera Boston’s Lucrezia Borgia , the BSO’s Oedipus Rex
Of the three operas recently competing with one another, Opera Boston’s presentation of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia was in some ways the most fun.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 09, 2006

Granduer and intimacy

Frühbeck de Burgos at the BSO, the Borromeos’ Schoenberg, BMOP at Club Café
One of the most delightful moments in Mozart comes at the very end of his Symphony No. 39 in E-flat, the first of his last trio of great symphonies.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 18, 2006

Ralph Hamilton

1946–2006
My lovable, impossible friend of more than 30 years, the artist Ralph Hamilton, died on February 19, of complications from diabetes. He was only 59. It’s a very sad loss. He was one of Boston’s most original and searching painters and had been doing some of his most ambitious and moving work.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 09, 2006

We {heart} Schoenberg

The BSO makes even the ‘hard’ parts appealing
Now we can add James Levine’s Gurrelieder to the list of the BSO’s historic triumphs.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 28, 2006

Amazing weekend

James Levine with the BSO and BSO Chamber Players, Hoose and the Cantata Singers
James Levine’s opening salvo for his year-long Beethoven/Schoenberg series with the Boston Symphony Orchestra couldn’t have been more ambitious: the work that opened Symphony Hall in 1900.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 24, 2006

Mixed blessings

Ringing in the new year on a mostly high note
The Boston Symphony Orchestra began the new year with one of its most disappointing concerts since music director James Levine took over.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 18, 2006