Maestro Keri-Lynn Wilson leads soprano Ailyn Pérez, mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis, tenor René Barbera, bass Soloman Howard, and the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in Verdi’s Requiem at David Geffen Corridor on August 26, 2026, in New York Metropolis. Picture: Richard Termine / Met Opera
Critics should all the time battle their prejudices within the pursuit of accuracy and reality. You’ll be able to’t let private attitudes about artists or public occasions cloud or shade your judgment. However — it’s laborious and plenty of critics don’t even strive.
Within the case of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, I’m so moved and distressed on the plight of Ukraine combating in opposition to evil by the hands of Russia that my essential judgment is biased. Within the case of the orchestra’s founder, Music Director, and Principal Conductor, Keri-Lynn Wilson, I have to cope with totally different prejudices that rightly concern each nepotism and the historical past of sexism feminine conductors have skilled. (I don’t know what occurred within the case of the gifted Nathalie Stutzmann, however I’m fairly positive if she was male, possibly it might not have ended because it did with the Met.) I’m completely happy to report that each the Ukrainian musicians and their chief acquitted themselves beautifully over two evenings final week at David Geffen Corridor.
I’ve been favorably impressed with Maestro Wilson’s work on the Metropolitan Opera in Russian operatic repertoire main Woman Macbeth of Mtsensk and The Queen of Spades. Her La bohème final Fall was succesful however relatively unidiomatic. Regardless of arriving with a number of earlier profession achievements, on the Met struggled to maneuver previous her function as Mrs. Peter Gelb and set up herself as an knowledgeable and succesful conductor.
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra has launched into its 2026 “Invincible Tour” and after six stops in Europe they wound up in New York Metropolis’s Lincoln Heart on August 25 and 26. Two applications introduced a large repertory with the primary consisting of Strauss’s Vier Letzte Lieder with dramatic soprano phenom Lise Davidsen, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, and a contemporary premiere: Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets’s Suite from The Moms of Kherson. The second program centered on Verdi’s epic Messa di Requiem prefaced by a Gloria by acclaimed Ukrainian composer Bohdana Frolyak. (A few of the European dates swapped out the 4 Final Songs for Mahler’s Rückert Lieder that includes German soprano Julia Kleiter.)
Soprano Lise Davidsen with conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson and the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra on August 25, 2026, at David Geffen Corridor in New York Metropolis. Picture: Richard Termine / Met Opera
To start with, the 2 Ukrainian premieres had been tonal, extremely listenable, well-crafted, and paying homage to Soviet film scores from the 20th century – in a phrase: Retro. (By the way in which, that isn’t a knee-jerk unhealthy factor.) They featured what a good friend of mine has dubbed “tonality in disaster,” that means dissonance and darkish chordal plenty within the strings. Then each items resolved into lyrical reflection. Kolomiiets’s Suite began out with low, darkish chords that sounded just like the opening of Wagner’s Das Rheingold and concluded with an ethereal message of peace. The Suite is from an opera (which is able to ultimately make its solution to the Metropolitan Opera in 2029 — if humanity, artwork, and democracy survive that lengthy…) involved with two Ukrainian moms who journey throughout battle traces into enemy Russia to rescue their two sons from a summer season camp-turned-prison camp. Frolyak’s Gloria additionally appeared a journey from doubt and despair to shimmering hope with pulsing string figures wafting in direction of the heavens to arrange us for the Requiem to come back.
On the Tuesday program, Davidsen was intermittently beautiful however appeared uneasy with the 4 Final Songs. Her post-Isolde voice, in contrast to different sopranos identified for his or her performances of this cycle, isn’t a naturally floaty instrument and she or he appeared to be gingerly navigating her method via the excessive tessitura of “Frühling” and “September.” “Beim Schafengehen” engaged extra of her expansive, darkish center voice and in “In Abendrot” she discovered a extra supreme steadiness between wealthy broad lyricism and floating silvery radiance. Davidsen has a fancy and still-developing voice. This was not a vapid, clueless interpretation. (Reportedly she hadn’t dug beneath the floor of the fabric when she first introduced it in New York with the Met Orchestra just a few years in the past.) My companion described her efficiency as a text-free vocalise, however that wasn’t my notion. She was speaking the textual content however her vocal manufacturing was a bit backward and centered over and up relatively than ahead – so phrases had been overshadowed by tone.
I’m obsessive about the 4 Final Songs and gather recordings – however dwell performances over the a long time have nearly all the time disenchanted me. (The late Margaret Worth, an underpowered Felicity Lott, a shiny however empty Karita Mattila, and vocally hollowed-out Deborah Voigt). This efficiency had extra vocal command and a few memorable moments and rated a bit greater. In the meantime, I need to hear what Davidsen does with the “Wesendonck Lieder.”
Keri-Lynn Wilson’s studying of Beethoven’s Seventh had sturdy ahead motion with little time for reflection or lyrical growth. It had sprint, vigor and was very nicely performed by the Ukrainian musicians. The string part was notably clear and exact and I heard no horn bloopers at any time. It was fairly invigorating.
Maestro Keri-Lynn Wilson leads soprano Ailyn Pérez, mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis, tenor René Barbera, bass Soloman Howard, and the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in Verdi’s Requiem at David Geffen Corridor on August 26, 2026, in New York Metropolis. Picture: Richard Termine / Met Opera
The Verdi Requiem was an enormous enchancment over the Met’s rendition in September 2023 below their music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin which sounded just like the Canadian maestro was sight-reading a rating he had simply acquired. This had significantly better shaping, distinction, and total structural understanding. It was additionally shifting and thrilling with Verdian dramatic assault and drive. There was additionally a way more constant and vocally authoritative quartet of soloists.
A newly blonde Ailyn Pérez, in a low-cut, tight-fitting black lace robe, sang with creamy smoothness with easy accessibility to floated or full-throated excessive notes. American mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis has a richly centered, lush tone that ranged from contralto depths to agency (if sometimes opaque) forte high notes. Ms. Lewis is predicated on the Bavarian State Opera however I hope she finds her method again house typically. René Barbera is one other American singer who sings extra in Europe and needs to be regularly featured on the Met – he has Leicester in Maria Stuarda this upcoming season, fortunately. However he may enliven the Met’s typically lackluster and repetitive tenor casting in La bohème and La traviata. Barbera’s background in bel canto repertoire proved helpful right here as he had class and agility in abundance. However it’s now a mature voice with a darkening timbre which dealt with the extra tortured, dramatic passages with aplomb. Basso Soloman Howard has a dense, centered tone that crammed out the sepulchral annunciations of his deep-voiced project superbly – “Confutatis Maledictis” had just a few musically unfocused moments however in any other case he was a pillar of vocal energy.
The wonderful quartet was backed up by a well-drilled group of Metropolitan Opera common and further choristers billed because the “Met Choral Artists” who had been below the route of Tilman Michael, the Met’s refrain director. Everybody held up their finish superbly and I used to be impressed with the management, cohesion, and musical focus of Mo. Wilson’s route.
The viewers was fairly massive on Tuesday night time, filling up the home to the rear and higher ranges, and a number of other had been wearing Ukrainian nationwide costume. It was an enthusiastic and festive crowd with cries of “Slava Ukrainy!” The Requiem program was much less bought which was unlucky because it was very price listening to. An orchestral setting of the Ukrainian Nationwide Anthem (folk-like and tuneful) supplied a shifting encore (each nights). I discovered that the Freedom Orchestra’s message of solidarity, idealism, and bravado was backed up by the excessive stage of artistry of all concerned.
