O’er the season vernal, time may cast a shade—but ne’er o’er the New York classic arts scene. Ring in the spring with just a sampling of some of the classic arts events happening this week:
The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players’ 2023-24 season concludes this week with a double bill of Trial By Jury and The Sorcerer, two of the earliest collaborations by Gilbert and Sullivan. Trial By Jury, expanded from a one-page piece Gilbert had written for the humor magazine Fun, was created as a one-act companion piece for a production of Offenbach’s La Perichole, and tells a comic account of a trial for breach of promise of marriage. The curtain raiser will be followed by the very next opera Gilbert and Sullivan wrote together, The Sorcerer, which concerns a young man, Alexis, who, on the eve of his wedding, decides to make all the village as happy as he by hiring a sorcerer to mix a love potion into the tea at the wedding banquet. Trial By Jury will star Daniel Greenwood as the Learned Judge, Rebecca L. Hargrove as the Plaintiff, Cameron Smith as the Defendant, Amy Maude Helfer as the Counsel, David Auxier as the Usher, and Patrick Lord-Remmert as the Foreman of the Jury. The Sorcerer will star Daniel Greenwood as Alexis, Michelle Seipel as his bride-to-be Aline, and James Mills as John Wellington Wells, of J. W. Wells & Co., the old-established Family Sorcerers.
Pianist Alice Sara Ott joins the New York Philharmonic April 4-6, performing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major. The program will also include Webern’s Six Pieces for Orchestra, Strauss’ Tod und Verklärung, and Scriabin’s Le Poème de l’extase. Ott will be making her NY Phil debut, as will conductor Karina Canellakis, who leads the program.
The Orion String Quartet will give its farewell performance April 2 at Alice Tully Hall, presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, capping off the season’s Quartet Panorama. The ensemble will perform Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, and Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major, with the famous “Große Fuge,” one of Beethoven’s most innovative compositions, which the composer had originally written as a finale for the quartet, but ultimately published separately, providing the quartet with an alternate, more commercially accessible finale.
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will present “The Soldier’s Tale” April 7. Fourteen musicians will perform four programmatic works: Telemann’s Gulliver Suite from Der Getreue Musik-Meister; Ravel’s Chansons madécasses; Respighi’s Il Tramonto; and Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat.
Early music ensemble Hespèrion XXI comes to Carnegie Hall April 3, led by conductor and viol player Jordi Savall. The ensemble, which specializes in music of the Baroque and pre-Baroque eras, will present a program of works by Frescobaldi, Kapsberger, de’ Cavalieri, Falconieri, and more.
The Nederlands Dans Theater returns to New York City Center April 3-6. The company will perform William Forsythe’s N.N.N.N., Imre van Opstal and Marne van Opstal’s The Point Being, and Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s Jakie. The latter works will be having their U.S. premieres.
D-Composed, the Chicago-based Black chamber music collective, comes to the Kaufman Music Center April 4, with composer and media artist Pamela Z, to perform a concert curated by Natalie Joachim. The ensemble will perform works by Joachim, Z, Jessie Montgomery, and more.
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein performs at the 92nd Street Y April 3, performing Bach’s Cello Suites No. 1 and 3, Kodály’s Sonata in B Minor for Solo Cello, and Joan Tower’s For Alisa, a piece commissioned specifically for Weilerstein.
Quatuor Ébène will perform at Carnegie Hall April 5, giving a program comprising Mozart’s String Quartet No. 21 in D Major, Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3, and Grieg’s String Quartet No. 1 in G minor.
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