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The Met’s Musical Metamorphoses New York
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall
04/28/2025 -
Emmanuel Chabrier: L’Invitation au voyage
Thomas Adès: Alchymia
Gustav Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (arr. Arnold Schoenberg and Rainer Riehn)
Susanna Phillips (Soprano), Michelle DeYoung (Mezzo-soprano), Ben Bliss (Tenor)
Soloists from Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Conductor) 
Y. Nézet-Séguin/S. Phillips
(© Nicholas Eastop - Scenkonstmuseet/Dario Acosta)
“As merry as a lark and as melodious as a nightingale.”
Paul Verlaine on Emmanuel Chabrier
“A saint.”
Arnold Schoenberg on Gustav Mahler
Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has unerring taste in codifying his programs. Last night he conducted his Metropolitan Opera Chamber Orchestra in a concert which could be called Seven Metamorphoses in Three Acts.
First was a Baudelaire poem changing to a Manet painting and finally changing to Emmanuel Chabrier’s song for soprano, piano and bassoon. Not to be outdone, Thomas Adès was inspired by four Elizabethan songs, without words but written for clarinet and string quartet.
Finally, Mr. Nézet-Séguin conducted a three‑times-transposed Song of the Earth. The initial poems were Chinese Tang Dynasty poems. There were made into a supposed translations. (The poetry was terrific but had nothing to do with the original verses.) Six of those verses were set to music by Gustav Mahler, with an orchestra as large and fierce as any of his symphonies. (He wanted to call it his Ninth Symphony, but slight superstition wouldn’t all allow him to use Beethoven’s number.)
Finally in this concert of metamorphoses, Arnold Schoenberg and Rainer Riehn set Mahler’s behemoth Song of the Earth to a pair of singers–and a paltry 14 instruments!
Of course Schoenberg was a genius in reorchestrating chamber music–so turning an orchestra to a chamber orchestra was as daunting as it was successful.
Successful because the transposition retained Mahler’s music–while giving us different colors, different styles. Did we want a ringing opening instead of a single horn with a few strings? Did we prefer a wind section in Abscheid (“Farewell”) instead of a single flute or single violin? Did we want a piano to fill in some of the missing instruments?
Possibly not. Yet Mahler himself used his orchestra sparingly. Thus we had a Song of the Earth with an unearthly transparency augmented with two fascinating singers and conductor Nézet‑Séguin enjoying his command with rare delight.
B. Bliss/M. DeYoung (© DarioAcosta/Skibigal)
The tenor was the young Ben Bliss. Granted the first two measures he was overcome behind Eric Ralske’s French horn, but after that his voice was framed by the Met Chamber Orchestra rather than struggling against it. He is not a natural heldentenor, so those terrifying high passages were sung with direct and intelligent voice.
Michelle DeYoung is a familiar voice here–and to that fine mezzo was added dramatic gestures. Where Mr. Bliss let his tenor carried the music, Ms DeYoung played this like a dramatic oratorio. As for that last song, ending Eternally... eternally, her voice and the concertante orchestral passages were magic.
As for conductor Nézet-Séguin, he always is enjoyable with grand ensembles. With a dozen‑plus master players, he was even more in his element. The players wore black, Mr. Nézet-Séguin came out with a green polo shirt. He eschewed the baton, and let his fingers do the leading. 14 players, ten fingers allowed an intimacy for the artists and a visceral excitement from the diminutive leader, all of which were irresistible.
The first two works were Carnegie Hall premieres, and the big surprise was Emmanuel Chabrier’s Invitation to a Voyage I should say a double surprise.
The innocuous title leads to erotic adventures. Venusberg and Ulysses-and-Calypso be damned. This was, yes, “Luxe, calme et volupté” with the flair of 1880’s Paris.
(Alas, the volupté was translated in the program as a prudish “delight”, instead of perhaps “lascivious sensuality”.)
The second unexpected thought: “Was this the composer of Espana? The writer of a few dozen operettas?? The lightweight melodist and social butterfly?” Perhaps. Except that this Baudelaire poem was a serious entrance to very serious eroticism.
The first stanza sounds like Arcadia–but this quickly segues into a bedroom filled with furniture which transcends time. Finally we have a canal filled with sunlight and boats bringing all those who want the same joy without chaos, life without quandaries.
In other words, poetry at its most Baudelaire-ish!
Chabrier’s 1870 music could have come from late Debussy. Rather than Proustian nostalgia, Brian Wagorn’s piano tangled into cadences without resolution, the bassoon by William Short played obligati with feeling. And Susanna Phillips not only looked the Siren, but even in the frequent high phrases and soothing middle‑soprano range was suitably seductive and musically appealing.
The second Carnegie Hall premiere was the always intriguing Thomas Adès, who could possibly be the most inventive composer in the world. In Alchymia, his alchemy was for a quartet of English songs–though we heard nary a quotation.
The string quartet was secondary to Anton Rist’s basset clarinet. An instrument resembling Mozart’s basset horn, but rarely playing solo. Here, Mr. Rist went through every trick in the clarinet compendium, although each of the four works had their own voice. The lower register of his instrument was used to great advantage.
The start was calm and then violent. The second, “The Winds so Wild”, was like a Thomas Adès transcription of Moldau. A lamentation made up “Lachrymae”, and the final “Lute Song” was the Adès version of a Downland or later Byrd song.
Adès was, as every deft and inspired. Yet one longs to hear it again (does YouTube have it?) to grasp the soul beneath the beguiling skin.
Harry Rolnick
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