The MET Orchestra sans Levine
A good time was had by all at the last of this season's MET Orchestra concerts. The afternoon's program consisted of a mini opera gala bracketed by two pleasing orchestral works. The singers were soprano Erika Sunnegårdh, tenor Ben Heppner, and bass René Pape. Ms Sunnegårdh stepped in for an ailing Karita Mattila last month in performances of Fidelio at the Met, but it took another illness to bring her to Carnegie Hall on Sunday: James Levine's. When James Conlon took over the direction of the concert, he scrapped Mr Levine's program, which was to have followed Charles Wuorinen's Theologoumenon with Brahms's First. Mr Conlon kept Mozart's Linz Symphony as an opener, ended the program with Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, and filled the middle with an unusual but thoroughly satisfying assortment of vocal showstoppers.
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