Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 114, 1994
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series. Since her Boston Symphony debut at Tanglewood in 1984, Ms.McNair has sung music of Berlioz, Poulenc, Brahms, Haydn, and Mozart with the orchestra. She appeared with the BSO most recently in the Opening Night gala concert celebrating Seiji Ozawa's twentieth anni- versary as music director in September 1993. Ms. McNair is recording Ravel's Sheherazade and Debussy's La Damoiselle elue with Mr. Ozawa and the orchestra for Philips Classics in conjunc- tion with this week's performances. Susan Graham Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham made her Boston Symphony debut last November in Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette under Seiji Ozawa's direction, returning later that month for Berlioz's Les Nuits oTete. She was soloist in both those works, and also in the Asian premiere of Berlioz's Messe solennelle, on tour with Mr. Ozawa and the BSO in Hong Kong and Japan in December. Ms. Graham made her Covent Garden debut in a new production of Massenet's Cherubin and her Welsh Opera debut as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier last season. Return engagements brought her to the Metropolitan Opera as Ascanio in Berlioz's Les Troyens under James Levine, and to San Francisco Opera and the Salzburg Summer Festival as Annio in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito. In 1994 she returned to the Salzburg Summer Festival as Cherubino in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro marking the festival's seventy- fifth anniversary. Engagements in 1994-95 include her debut with Vienna State Opera as Octa- vian in Der Rosenkavalier and her La Scala debut under Seiji Ozawa's direction as Marguerite in Berlioz's Damnation of Faust. She returns to Covent Garden as Dorabella in Cost fan tutte and to Opera de Lyon as Berlioz's Marguerite with Jose van Dam and Thomas Moser under Kent Nagano; the latter production will be recorded by Erato. Also this season she sings Mozart's C minor Mass with John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir on tour in Spain and Switzer- land, and performs Brahms's Liebeslieder Waltzes at the Musikverein in Vienna, the latter work to be recorded by BMG Classics. Future recording projects include Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette with Myung-Whun Chung and the Bastille Opera Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon, and the role of Stephano in Gounod's Romeo et Juliette under Leonard Slatkin for BMG Classics. Recital engagements include her debut at London's Wigmore Hall, a solo recital in Washington, D.C., and a duo-recital with tenor Michael Schade at New York's Lincoln Center. Ms. Graham first sang at the Metropolitan Opera in the 1991-92 season, as the Second Lady in Die Zauber- fldte, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, and Tebaldo in Don Carlo. Earlier successes included the roles of Erika in Barber's Vanessa and Charlotte in Massenet's Werther with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the title role of Massenet's Cherubin while at the Manhattan School of Music. Ms. Graham is a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Schwabacher Award of San Francisco Opera's Merola Program, and a career grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation. Tanglewood Festival Chorus John Oliver, Conductor Organized in the spring of 1970, when founding conductor John Oliver became director of vocal and choral activities at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus marks its twenty-fifth anniver- sary this month. This past December, in its first performances overseas, the chorus joined Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for tour performances in Hong Kong and Japan of Berlioz's Requiem, Romeo et Juliette, the "Royal Hunt and Storm" from Les Troyens, and, in its Asian premiere, the Messe solennelle. Co-sponsored by the Tangle- wood Music Center and Boston University, and originally formed for performances at the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home, the chorus was soon playing a major role in the BSO's Symphony Hall season as well. Now the official chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus is made up of members who donate their services, performing in Boston, New York, and at Tanglewood, working with Music Director Seiji Ozawa, John Williams and the Boston Pops, and such promi- 61.