The world premiere of Jacques Desjardins’ chamber orchestration of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby gives us a taste of the late 20th century operatic premiere the Metropolitan Opera considered important enough to include in its multi-CD tribute to James Levine’s 40th year on the podium. The cast is exciting, and includes some fine knowns (Susannah Biller, Jason Detwiller, Dan Snyder, Bojan Knezevic, and Erin Neff) and a few artists new to us (Marco Panuccio and Jordan Baker). With Nicole Paiement and Brian Staufenbiel in charge, expect a production that has the potential to either ignite or incite.
Jason Victor Serinus regularly reviews music and audio for Stereophile, SFCV, Classical Voice North America, AudioStream, American Record Guide, and other publications. The whistling voice of Woodstock in She’s a Good Skate, Charlie Brown, the longtime Oakland resident now resides in Port Townsend, Washington.