Curtis Symphony Orchestra & Curtis Opera Theatre: "Ravel, Dukas, and More" (Photo Roundup)

On Sunday, November 6, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and the Curtis Opera Theatre opened the 2022–23 season in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Cultural Center with a glorious night of French music. Curtis’s Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow Jacob Niemann led the first performance of the evening with a spirited reading of Paul Dukas’s wildly popular symphonic tone poem, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, internationally renowned music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and mentor conductor at the Curtis Institute of Music, then took the podium and led the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and members of the Curtis Opera Theatre in a selection of French operatic jewels by Charles Gounod (Roméo et Juliette), Claude Debussy (Pelléas et Mélisande), and Jules Massenet (Werther).

The concert’s first half concluded with the prison scene and final trio from Gounod’s Faust, featuring a special guest appearance by internationally renowned bass-baritone Eric Owens, director of vocal studies and the Curtis Opera Theatre, as the sinister Méphistophélès.

The evening closed with two exhilarating works by Maurice Ravel, conducted by Maestro Nézet-Séguin—Mother Goose Suite, a charming set of storybook miniatures, and his ravishing romantic “choreographic symphony,” Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2.

Check out the highlights below from photographer David DeBalko!