Lead hasn’t been allowed to be cast for a while, with fireworks it gets difficult depending on the location and, hand on heart, is “Dinner For One” really a laugh or isn’t it more of a document of desolate old age loneliness that has been painstakingly lightened up with slapstick? It’s good that there are other things to do at the turn of the year. Here is a selection of New Year’s Eve and New Year’s concerts.
Munich Symphony Orchestra
With a whole bunch of concerts, the Munich Symphony Orchestra says goodbye to the old year and welcomes the new one. Beethoven’s Ninth should not be missed. Anyone who is no longer in the mood for “Little Snowflake, Little White Skirt” can, with a clear conscience, quote the master himself and invite the assembled holiday party to the Isarphilharmonie with “O friends, not these sounds”. Under Joseph Bastian, the symphony plays twice with a promising line-up of soloists (Camille Schnoor, soprano; Olivia Vermeulen, mezzo; Daniel Szeili, tenor; Jochen Kupfer, bass). Bastian will also lead the New Year’s Eve concert, where the pleasant evergreen repertoire (Smetana’s “Moldau” and Sibelius’ “Finlandia” included) will encourage a festive mood. Finally, the traditional New Year’s concert – a blessing for everyone who is more concerned with their electrolyte balance than with Viennese waltzes on the first day of the year – will only take place on January 2nd and will be repeated a few days later. Olivier Tardy conducts.
Beethoven, 9th Symphony, Thursday, December 28th, 7:30 p.m. & Monday, January 1st, 4 p.m., Isarphilharmonie; Last Night Of The Year, Sun., Dec. 31, 8 p.m., Isarphilharmonie; New Year’s Concert, Tuesday, January 2nd & Sunday, January 7th, 11 a.m., Prinzregententheater, tickets below www.muenchenmusik.de
Tobias Melle
Given the weather conditions, the “awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the countryside” was rather reserved among those who traveled to the Munich area over the holidays. But you can still dream. With a media-sophisticated Beethoven New Year’s Eve concert, the Munich artist Tobias Melle wants to awaken longings and expand the listening process. He creates a visual accompanying program of images and videos for Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, reacting directly and live to what he hears. The concert will be played by the Kiev Symphony Orchestra, which has been finding refuge in Gera, Thuringia, since spring 2022. In keeping with the ecological inspiration of the Pastorale, a tree is planted for every ticket sold – in cooperation with “Plant for the Planet”.
Beethoven’s Pastorale in Pictures, Sunday, December 31st, 4 p.m., Isarphilharmonie, tickets below www.muenchenmusik.de
Munich String Quartet
A little smaller in the line-up, but no less sonorous: the Munich String Quartet invites you to exquisite chamber music in the Residenz on the last day of the year. The four top musicians – all members of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra – present a program that could not be better planned in terms of diversity of expression. Nostalgic melting in Giacomo Puccini’s “Crisantemi”, bitter, lively beauty in Antonín Dvořák’s String Quintet Opus 77. BRSO colleague Philipp Stubenrauch supports on the double bass. Waltz sounds by Johann Strauss and Joseph Lanner should not be missing.
New Year’s Eve Concert, Sun., Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m., Max Joseph Hall of the Munich Residence, tickets below www.muenchenmusik.de
Residence Soloists
As is well known, nobility obliges, which is why the resident soloists hardly have a moment of peace between the years. On the Old Year morning there will be Mozart, dance performances by Dvořák and Brahms as well as Vincenzo Bellini’s oboe concerto (solo: Giovanni De Angeli) in the Cuvilliés Theater. A similar program enlivens the afternoon in the same hall, only here the young Slovenian pianist Jure Gorucan can let off steam in, among other things, George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”. The concert will be repeated in the evening and performed on New Year’s Day in the Hercules Hall, only Mozart’s “Jenamy” concerto will be heard here instead of KV 466. Various special concerts with baroque music on New Year’s Eve and light classical music on New Year’s Day keep the ensemble and its audience going.
Residence soloists, various dates, December 31st to January 7th, information and tickets at www.bavaria-klasseik.de
Chamber opera
Even opera lovers don’t have to start the new year sadly. After Mozart’s “Figaro” became an audience favorite in the summer of 2022 and was hailed by critics as “wonderfully fresh”, the slightly condensed, musically streamlined opera comedy is coming back to the stage, this time in the Cuvilliés. As colorful, as lively as a year ago and ideal for starting the new year with optimism and verve.
Chamber Opera, The Marriage of Figaro, various dates, December 28th to January 4th, 7:30 p.m., Cuvilliés Theater, tickets below www.muenchenmusik.de
Operas in Bavarian
It has long been a classic among New Year’s events and perhaps an alternative for all those who have never been able to get used to Figaro speaking Italian. The “Operas in Bavarian” (not more Bavarian?, but only in passing) by the author Paul Schallweg make the Bajazzo at Spitzingsee despair, while Doctor Faustus makes a pact with the devil in Obermenzing. As always with the trio of actors Conny Glogger, Gerd Anthoff and Michael Lerchenberg.
Operas in Bavarian, January 1st, 3 p.m., Prinzregententheater, tickets below www.muenchenmusik.de