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May 6-28: Washington National Opera performs Iphigénie en Tauride at the Kennedy Center. Plácido Domingo stars as Oreste in WNO’s first ever production of Gluck’s tale of fratricide, matricide and mariticide, all in one very messed up family following the Trojan War.
May 20: Philadelphia Orchestra with Gil Shaham at the Kennedy Center. Philly has one of the top orchestras in the U.S., and whence new NSO director Christoph Eschenbach came to D.C. amid much hoopla. Come see what all the fuss was about.
June 2: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Emanuel Ax at Strathmore. Piano great Emanuel Ax is a Grammy winner known for handling compositions ranging from the familiar and classical to the obscure and contemporary with equal elegance.
June 11: The Washington Chorus performs Verdi’s Requiem. Giuseppe Verdi decided the best way to eulogize beloved poet Alessandro Manzoni was as loudly as possible: double choir, extended orchestra, lots of brass. The BSO accompanies the Washington Chorus for this bunker-buster of a funeral mass.
July 4: National Symphony Orchestra performs “A Capitol Fourth” on the U.S. Capitol West Lawn. A Washington tradition. Tchaikovsky, pyrotechnics, and Tony Danza*.
*This year’s hosts have not been announced yet, but we have our fingers crossed.