5 minute read
Spano, O’Connor Bring Mahler’s Third to Aspen
FESTIVALFOCUS
Spano, O’Connor Bring Mahler’s Third to Aspen
BY EMMA KIRBY Marketing Coordinator
Marking the midpoint of the Aspen Music Festival and School’s (AMFS) 2023 summer season is one of the largest of all symphonies: Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony. “It truly just encompasses the world,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher. “It’s right in the middle of our summer and on purpose: it’s a centerpiece.”
AMFS Music Director Robert Spano leads the Aspen Festival Orchestra in the performance on Sunday, July 30 that features Kelley O’Connor as the mezzo-soprano soloist. Members of the Colorado Children’s Chorale and students from the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS (AOTVA) program make up the chorus.
Spano and O’Connor are frequent collaborators and close friends, having known each other for almost 20 years. “He’s such a joy to work with,” says O’Connor. O’Connor and Spano performed Mahler’s Third together just last year in Spano’s final concert as the music director of the Atlanta Symphony after a 22-year tenure. This week presents an opportunity for the pair to reunite and share the stage, and O’Connor is delighted to perform the work with Spano once again, this time in Aspen.
The setting makes for a special and organic experience. Mahler composed his Third Symphony during the summer, surrounded by nature in a one-room hut at Steinbach on the Attersee, near Salzburg, Austria. “You just look outside the Tent and know that Mahler was in a similar setting when he was writing this. You think, he was seeing what I am seeing. It really helps you to connect to the music,” says O’Connor.
In this 100-minute, six-movement Symphony—the longest symphony in the standard repertoire—Mahler aims to “encompass all of humankind and its relationship with the world and with each other,” says AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain. Unpublished programmatic titles that Mahler originally assigned to each movement give insight into how the composer structured the work as a “portrait of nature” and “picture of the universe” says Fletcher.
“Summer Marches In,” “What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me,” and “What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me” are orchestra-only. The human voice is introduced in the fourth movement: “What Man Tells Me.” The text, sung by O’Connor, comes from “Midnight Song” of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra. In the solo, “I’m asking people to realize that our grief may be deep, but we will also have joy, and it will be better than the grief,” says O’Connor. “In the end, it’s about accepting your feelings and having hope for the future. You’re reflecting on your own life and own situation. It’s always meaningful.”
You just look outside the Tent and know that Mahler was in a similar setting when he was writing this.
—Kelley O’Connor guest artist and mezzo-soprano soloist
A large chorus joins in the fifth movement, “What the Angels Tell Me,” singing text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. “What Love Tells Me” closes the monumental symphony. Unlike his Second Symphony, which closes with a large choral and orchestral movement, this movement is simple, omitting the mezzo-soprano soloist and chorus—a powerful choice, says O’Connor. “I’m almost always drawn to tears when I hear the last movement. It’s wonderful to end on this note of melodic beauty. To come back to the basic idea of ‘this is what love is.’ At the end, I feel like I’ve had a deep conversation with Mahler. We all—the orchestra, the audience—we all just feel fulfilled.”
“A performance of [Mahler’s Third Symphony] is an event, and a definite signature highlight for the summer,” says Chamberlain. “Mahler’s music is deeply connected to nature, and you hear it in all of his music, but you really hear it in this symphony.” And while 100 minutes may seem daunting, “you don’t feel the passage of time in a good performance,” he says.
Spano and O’Connor will collaborate again for a recital in Harris Hall on August 2, performing a selection of works by Debussy, Crumb, Carter, Schumann, and a work that Spano wrote for O’Connor, Sonnets to Orpheus.
“I just love making music with him. He’s so intuitive, he knows me so well, he knows my voice so well. And, he’s an incredible pianist—even though he won’t tell you that!” says O’Connor. A few of the works on the program may not be familiar: “I love introducing music to people that they don’t know, but end up loving,” says O’Connor.
