The first half of the concert season has seen many events, including the annual Opera Gala, and three concerts. These are described in detail below. Opera Gala, May 5, 2010, featuring a variety of opera and classical music The annual Opera Gala at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York City, featured an array of opera and classical music performers. The performance took place on May 5, 2010. On a balmy evening in Manhattan, the Lincoln Center’s annual fundraising Opera Gala drew one of the largest crowds in the gala’s 18-year history. More than $6.5 million was raised to support The Metropolitan Opera. The $45-level tickets went on sale at noon on March 19. Guests at the Opera Gala, such as actor John Malkovich, singers Mireille Mathieu, Deborah Voigt, and Bryn Terfel, and conductors James Levine and Daniel Barenboim, heard a number of works by Verdi and Strauss. While the two composers dominate this season’s presentations, that evening’s Opera Gala opened with Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” The next piece, Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier,” featured two singers making their Met debuts: Russian mezzo-soprano Anna Netrebko, fresh from a critically acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut as Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata,” and Russian soprano Stephanie Blythe, fresh from her role as Soprano First in Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten. Tickets were $1500 for tables of 10, $1050 for tables of eight, $650 for eight seats at the dinner table. Conducted by Richard Wagner (1813–1883), this work is a very early example of Wagner’s interest in an operatic treatment of the ancient legend of Tristan and Isolde. This, the composer’s first opera, premiered on March 13, 1859 at the Königliches Theater in Munich, where Wagner was employed as a conductor and composer. Wagner conducted the work twice: on March 21, 1860, in the presence of Ludwig II and Queen Olga; and at the final performance, on April 12, 1859. This performance is the second of a two-performance production of Tristan und Isolde that was recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. The recording begins with an overture and an orchestral interlude, both of which take on a particularly Wagnerian quality through the use of motifs and leitmotifs. The following scene—the opening of the opera—is dominated by an accompaniment by harp and timpani, with flutes adding a light woodwind resonance. The woodwinds also add a rustic quality to the opening scene, which contains the work’s famous love duet. The orchestral prelude to the final act opens with the accompaniment of the horn and, over the course of the opening scenes, adds a fuller orchestral texture that includes trumpets and drums. Barenboim conducted Tristan und Isolde with a performance by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Staatskapelle, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and a cast that included René Kollo (Tristan), Patricia Bardon (Isolde), and Christian Gerhaher (Kurwenal). Directed by James G. Mengel, the production’s sets and costumes were designed by Robert Israel, with lighting by Thomas Zipp. This is also one of Wagner’s most frequently recorded operas, due to its orchestral scoring, and it’s this edition that has been used in reference recordings by Teldec. Richard Strauss (1864–1949) is considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time and is probably the greatest exponent of opera in Germany after Wagner. Strauss’s operas include Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Arabella, Der Zigeunerbaron, Die schweigsame Frau, and Der Rosenkavalier. From 1919 through 1931 Strauss composed four operettas to the libretto by Stefan Zweig: Der Schauspieldirektor (op. 76, 1919), Die ägyptische Helena (op. 71, 1921), Die beiden Papillons (op. 70, 1922), and Capriccio (op. 90, 1931). The music of Strauss was used as part of a celebration of the life of Mozart to commemorate the composer’s 300th birthday in 2006. Strauss conducted this work with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. This performance was the fourth performance conducted by James Levine with the Vienna Philharmonic, the first at the Salle Pleyel, Paris. Performers on the Salle Pleyel were Annette Dasch, Josef Greindl, Jürgen Böttcher, Klaus Florian Vogt, Ulf Schirmer, and the Orchestra of the Opéra de Paris conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi. This new production was set in an Austrian village in 1890. The performance was recorded on February 27, 2006, at the Paris Opera, Salle Pleyel. Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten was completed after the composer’s death and premiered in 1924 at Vienna’s Semperoper. Strauss collaborated with Stefan Zweig on the libretto for this work, which is based on a novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann. The work is a revision of the director’s earlier film Nosferatu, der ewige Vampyr, which is said to have had an influence on the opera. The film did not premiere until 1928 in London. A highly entertaining work, it depicts a wealthy man’s obsessive fascination with a mysterious and beautiful woman who is, unbeknownst to him, a vampire. In the opera’s prologue, the hero, Prince Gremin, recounts how he falls under the power of the vampire Count Orlofsky. Before the curtain rises on the first act, he and his father, the prince’s father, die. The prince is forced to wed Countess Elena. In the third act, the wedding is interrupted by the Count’s announcement that he intends to lock Elena in the tower and kill her as he did with his wife. She escapes his power, however, and returns to the wedding reception, where she is reunited with the prince. The opera opens with a series of solos for the viola, each accompanied by a brief solo for flute and accompanied by harp. The first act is followed by a march for the chorus with a fanfare of trumpets. The second act begins with a new introduction, which is followed by a new ballet scene, in which a gypsy and her daughter arrive. A male chorus has a solo. The character of The Countess Elena was given to singer Nelly Miricioiu, who was born in Bucharest, Romania, and was married to composer Mihai Iacob, who died at the age of 37, leaving Nelly a widow with a young son. She also has an older son, Daniel and has been married four times before. The second act is the only time when Strauss allows his audience to hear Strauss’s familiar fanfare. This overture is played as part of the wedding procession in Act II. This is the second of three productions of Die Frau ohne Schatten that recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. The first, in 1987, with James Levine conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was released as part of the label’s reissue series “The Golden Age of Opera on CD.” This production of Die Frau ohne Schatten was recorded during the week of April 16, 2004. Vladimir Vasilyev (1925–2010) was a Russian-American conductor, and music director of the National Symphony Orchestra. He was a native of Russia and a graduate of the Leningrad Conservatory, where he studied with Dmitri Mitropoulos. While his career began in Europe, he subsequently became music director at the Cleveland Orchestra from 1973 through 1975. He was music director for the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1983 through 1991. His other posts were with the St. Petersburg and Moscow philharmonics and the Leningrad Philharmonic. Vasilyev was born in 1925. In 1956, he married Vera Ivanova, and they had two sons: Oleg and Dmitri. In 1985, he married pianist Natalia Egorova, whom he had known when both were students at the Leningrad Conservatory, where she was one of his pupils. The marriage ended in divorce. While his career began in Europe, Vasilyev made his United States debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, conducting Mozart’s The Magic Flute in 1956, and it was his New York debut with Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades in the 1966/67 season. His first recordings with Deutsche Grammophon took place in 1980, with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Westminster Choir College in 1975. Vladimir Vasilyev’s recordings of Russian music included symphonies