Diverging little from the format that has made it one of the largest and most prestigious classical music series in the world, the Aspen Music Festival will return this summer for its 59th season with a characteristic mix of popular regulars and new faces.
This year’s lineup, which will run June 19 through Aug. 17 and include more than 350 concerts and other events, centers on the storytelling theme of “Once Upon a Time . . .”
“We’re juxtaposing a lot of times narrative and lyrical forms just to invite the listener to think: How does music tell a story and what kinds of stories does it tell?” said Alan Fletcher, the festival’s president and chief executive.
Directly related to that theme, the Aspen Opera Theater Center’s schedule features three works all based on fairy tales. Two are adaptations of the Cinderella tale — Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” (July 8, 10 and 13) and Massenet’s “Cendrillon” (Aug. 12, 14 and 16) — and the third is Humperdinck’s well-known “Hansel and Gretel” (July 24, 27 and 28).
The season will culminate Aug. 17 with a rare presentation of Arnold Schoenberg’s “Gurre-Lieder,” a vast cantata for five soloists and a massive chorus and orchestra. The composer began work on the piece in 1901, and it was premiered in Vienna in 1913.
“This is for many people literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Fletcher said. “I’ve only heard it once live myself. I think it will be a revelation to people who don’t understand that Schoenberg started out as one of the greatest of all romantic composers.”
The performance will feature festival music director David Zinman, the Colorado Symphony Chorus and U.S. Army Chorus, and such notable soloists as tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, who will sing the title role in the Metropolitan Opera’s upcoming production of “Peter Grimes.”
Zinman also will lead the June 22 world premiere of a new suite from John Harbison’s 1999 opera, “The Great Gatsby.” The 12-minute work, which was commissioned by the festival, incorporates the jazz elements from the opera.
Other season highlights:
Marin Alsop, former music director of the Colorado Symphony and an alumna of the festival’s school, will return June 27 to lead the Aspen Chamber Symphony in a program that includes Christopher Rouse’s “Friandises.”
Up-and-coming cellist Alisa Weilerstein will join conductor David Robertson and the chamber symphony for a July 5 performance of Osvaldo Golijov’s “Azul,” a 2006 work that the much-in-demand composer describes as a “21st-century baroque adagio.”
Pianist Joseph Kalichstein’s 40th anniversary with the festival will be marked with a July 10 concert that will showcase him along with three other major keyboard artists — Emanuel Ax, Mischa Dichter and Yefim Bronfman.
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein will present Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” during a July 26 recital. Her recording of the challenging work was released in August 2007 and quickly climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard classical chart.
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