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BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Seiji Ozawa, Music Director 25th ANNIVERSARY SEASON Bernard Haitink, Principal Guest Conductor One Hundred and Eighteenth Season, 1998-99 *f=-"^ Friday, September 25, at 8 Saturday, September 26, at 8 Please note that Seiji Ozawa is ill with a viral infection and unable to conduct this week; we are grateful that Emmanuel Villaume was available to conduct these concerts at very short notice. The program remains unchanged. Emmanuel Villaume Making his Boston Symphony debut this week, the young French conductor Emmanuel Villaume won critical praise for two recent engagements in the United States—his debut with Washington Opera leading Puccini's La rondine in April 1998, and a return to the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in June 1998 for Gounod's Faust. Born in Strasbourg in 1964, Mr. Villaume began his musical education at the Strasbourg Conservatory and continued his studies in Paris, where he received degrees in literature, philosophy, and musicology; he also studied dramatic arts and performed in theatrical productions. He is the author of noteworthy musicological articles and research papers, including a new edi- tion of the score and libretto for Le Livre de Christophe Colomb by P. Claudel and Darius Milhaud. At age twenty-one Mr. Villaume was appointed dramaturg of the Opera du Rhin in Strasbourg. During his tenure he came to the attention of Spiros Argiris, music director of the Spoleto Festival in Italy, who invited him to conduct and narrate Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis in 1987. Mr. Argiris, who was also music director of the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, invited Mr. Villaume to make his American debut there with Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro in 1989. Mr. Villaume thus began a close collaboration with both festivals, conducting numerous symphonic concerts consisting of classical repertoire as well as several world premieres. His opera perfor- mances included Elektra, Parsifal, Jenufa, Salome, The Threepenny Opera, Die Fledermaus, and the American premiere of Hans Werner Henze's Der Prinz von Homburg. Mr. Villaume has appeared with the Montreal Opera for La Vie parisienne, Sarasota Opera for The Tales ofHoffmann, The Magic Flute, and Manon, Bonn Opera for Lafanciulla del West, Martina Franca Opera for The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, and the Opera Theatre of St. Louis for La rondine and Faust. He has led the orchestras of the Bastille Opera and La Scala, the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, and the orchestra of Venice's La Fenice, the latter in an all-Berlioz program including the fourth act of Les Troyens. At the 1996 Saito Kinen Festival he assisted Seiji Ozawa during that festival's production of Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tiresias. Mr. Villaume's engagements for 1998-99 include debuts at Covent Garden with Beatrice et Benedict, San Francisco Opera with Madama Butterfly, Dallas Opera with Faust, and Santa Fe Opera with Carmen, and a return to the Bastille Opera for Rigoletto. In the season 1999-2000 he will make his Los Angeles Opera debut with La rondine and return to the Washington Opera for Le Cid with Placido Domingo in the title role. Weekl.

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