Openings: The Boston Season begins, by Charles Warren
Boston Symphony Orchestra, October 7 and 15, James Levine Conductor
Mahler, Second and Fifth Symphonies; Harbison, Symphony No. 3
Emmanuel Music, September 24, Ryan Turner, Conductor
Handel,
Opera Boston, October 22
Beethoven,
Paramount Theater Film Series: Sternberg, Lang, Godard
The Boston musical season is now rolling along, with almost too many good things occurring to keep up with. The best news, and a great relief, has been the return of music director James Levine to the Boston Symphony Orchestra after many months off for back surgery and recuperation. Levine looks older, with more loose flesh around the face, and he walks onstage and off carefully with a cane (though at moments he just rests it on his shoulder and goes securely on). He seems to feel good, and once seated and starting to conduct shows great animation and involvement, indeed passionate involvement, in the work at hand. He has the orchestra playing spectacularly. He has really taken them beyond themselves, and they know it and seem to feel proud of it, as they should.
