The New York City Opera Orchestra Music of Survival: Works by Weinberg, Korngold, and Rovner
Monday, February 24 at 8:00 PM
Carnegie Hall
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
881 7th Ave, New York, NY 10019
Tickets
PROGRAM:
WEINBERG Suite from The Last Inch
WEINBERG Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52 (NY Premiere)
KORNGOLD Cello Concerto
GENNADY ROVNER Metamorphosis (US Premiere)
Celebrate survival and perseverance through the universal language of music. New York City Opera presents Music of Survival: Works by Weinberg, Korngold, and Rovner, composers whose stories resonate with the enduring power of the human spirit.
The program opens with two rarely heard gems from Holocaust survivors: Mieczysław Weinberg‘s poignant Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52, making its New York premiere, followed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold‘s Cello Concerto in C Major, Op. 37 both featuring cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper. These works, born from the crucible of survival, showcase the profound artistry of composers whose legacies are only now being fully appreciated. Weinberg’s emotional Fantasia and Korngold’s vibrant concerto, originally written for the 1946 film “Deception,” offer a testament to their creators’ extraordinary talents and unwavering artistic integrity.
The concert culminates with the U.S. premiere of Gennady Rovner’s Symphony Metamorphosis, featuring soprano Elizaveta Ulakhovich. This contemporary piece echoes the same enduring spirit for the 21st century, bridging past and present. As we reflect on the journeys of Weinberg and Korngold, we are reminded of music’s power to transcend borders and foster understanding. This performance invites us to learn from history, encourage empathy, and celebrate the artistic resilience that continues to inspire and unite us.
Featuring the New York City Opera Orchestra led by Maestro Constantine Orbelian and featuring cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper and soprano Elizaveta Ulakhovich.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cello virtuoso, Kristina Reiko Cooper, has won worldwide acclaim for her musical diversity, artistry, and charismatic stage presence. Hailed by The New York Times as “sensational in concert” and as a “striking virtuoso” by the Los Angeles Times. Kristina has performed as a soloist with the world’s most distinguished orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonie, the Toronto Symphony, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra and the Osaka Symphony and has toured as a soloist with the Tokyo Yomiuri Orchestra and the Shanghai Symphony under the batons of conductors including Alan Gilbert, Alexander Liebriech, Constantine Orbelian, Joana Mallwitz and Francois Leleux. She has been a frequent guest at festivals, including the Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Musicians from Marlboro, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the Stresa International Music Festival.
Ms. Cooper is often heard performing music of our time and was recently named Co- Director of the New York based new music group, Continuum. She has had many works written and commissioned for her by composers including Philip Glass, Mario Davidovsky, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tania Leon, Kenji Bunch, Josef Bardanashvili and Benjamin Yusupov. She has toured worldwide to great acclaim under the baton of Tan Dun as his soloist in his multimedia cello concerto, The Map, and his Water Passion.
In November of 2022, Ms. Cooper performed as the soloist in the world premiere of Lera Auerbach’s Symphony No. 6 ‘Vessels of ‘Light’, dedicated to Chiune Sugihara and commissioned by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, and the American Society of Yad Vashem. The world premiere took place in Kaunas, Lithuania, the very city in which the Sugihara visas were issued. The US premiere of the work took place on April 19, 2023, before a sold-out audience in Carnegie Hall. Both premieres took place under the baton of Maestro Constantine Orbelian.
Upcoming concerto appearances include The Mexico City Philharmonic, the Jerusalem Symphony, the Israel Sinfionetta Beer-sheva, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Berlin Konzerthaus.
Elizaveta Ulakhovich, soprano, received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music, as well as her doctorate of musical arts from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Joel Krosnick. She is currently a visiting professor at the Buchmann Mehta School at Tel Aviv University. Very active philanthropically, she is Vice Chair of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and sits on the board of the Charney Forum for New Diplomacy. Kristina plays on the 1743 Ex-Havermeyer G.B. Guadagnini cello and lives with her husband and three children in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Elizaveta was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. Growing up in a cultural epicenter, Liza developed her love of opera from a young age. Liza studied in the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Music College in her home town. At the end of the third year she entered the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. While enrolled in the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, Elizaveta had the honor of studying under Evgeniya Gorokhovskaya, a People’s Artist of the RSFSR (National Rankings of Russian Federation). During that time, Liza won the third prize in the 2013 International Competition S.Monyushko “Ubelskaya swallow” in Minsk, Belarus. Then, in 2016, she received the Special Award in the 32nd international competition “Ismaele Voltolini” in Buscoldo, Italy. She was involved in the production of mono-opera “Cormorant, Samson and Delilah” based on Elena Skulskaya’s novel in Tallinn, which was broadcasted on Estonian national radio and television. Also in 2016, a year before her graduation, she was accepted into the Young Artist Program of the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, under the direction of Honored Art Worker, Dmitry Vdovin.
Her time in the Bolshoi was filled with many accomplishments. Liza participated in more than 100 concerts on the stage of the Beethoven Hall. She was involved in the premiere of M. Weinberg’s opera “Idiot” (the role of Alexandra Yepanchina’s) on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, and performed the role of the Polovtsian girl in Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor” on the historical main stage of the Bolshoi Theatre.
Throughout all of her studies, Elizaveta has worked with many teachers, including Irina Bogacheva, Lyubov Orfenova and Semyon Skigin (Russia), Alessandro Amoretti, Giulio Zappa, Franco Pagliazzi and Gianluca Pagliuso (Italy), Elizabeth Vidal and Jamal Moquadem (France), Evamaria Wieser (Austria), Mark Lawson, Robert Tuohy, Scott Barnes and Michael Paul (USA).
She made her debut for New York City Opera the summer of 2022 and was part of the US premiere as the soprano soloist in “Concert for Sugihara” performed at Carnegie Hall. At the conclusion of her program, Liza moved to New York City, where she now resides with her fiance and dog. She placed 3rd in 2019’s Gulio Gari International Singing Competition and is signed with Lombardo Associates.
Four-time Grammy-nominated conductor Constantine Orbelian has been called “the singer’s dream collaborator” by Opera News, which hailed him for conducting vocal repertoire “with the sensitivity of a lieder pianist.” In September 2024, Maestro Orbelian was appointed Executive Director & Music Director of New York City Opera.
He has toured and recorded with some of the world’s greatest singers, such as American stars Renee Fleming, Sondra Radvanovsky and Lawrence Brownlee, Stephen Costello and Charles Castronovo, and with the great Dmitri Hvorostovsky and other renowned Russian singers in European, North American, Russian and Asian music centers.
Orbelian’s accomplishments include being Music Director of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia of Russia, founder of the annual Palaces of St. Petersburg International Music Festival, Chief Conductor of the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra in Lithuania, and Artistic Director of the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in Yerevan, Armenia. Among his concert and televised appearances are collaborations with Hvorostovsky, Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko and Van Cliburn, including the legendary pianist’s farewell performance.
Recent performances included debuts at the famed Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires with Isabel Lenoard, Palacio Bellas Artes in Mexico City with Elina Garanca, Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra in Bucharest, and a recent production of Eugene Onegin in Cluj Napoca Opera house în România.
Born in San Francisco to Ukrainian and Armenian emigré parents, Orbelian made his performing debut as a piano prodigy with the San Francisco Symphony at the age of 11. After graduating from Juilliard in New York, he embarked on a career as a piano virtuoso that included appearances with major symphony orchestras throughout the US, UK, Europe and Russia.
The first American to become music director of an ensemble in Russia, he was awarded the coveted title “Honored Artist of Russia” in 2004 in recognition of his efforts championing Russian American cultural exchange. In 2012 the Russian Consulate in San Francisco awarded the maestro the Russian Order of Friendship Medal, joining such luminaries as Cliburn and Riccardo Muti in being so honored. In 2001 Orbelian was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, given to immigrants, or children of immigrants, who have made outstanding contributions to the United States.
Mieczysław Weinberg (December 8, 1919 – February 26, 1996) was a Polish, Soviet, and Russian composer and pianist. Born in Warsaw to parents who worked in the Yiddish theatre in Poland, his early years were surrounded by music. He taught himself to play the piano at a young age and eventually became skilled enough to substitute for his father as a conductor at Warsaw’s Jewish Theatre. During this period, he began to compose. At the age of 12, he started formal music lessons and soon thereafter enrolled at the Warsaw Conservatory. He studied piano with Józef Turczyński, who considered him and Witold Małcużyński as one of his best students. In 1938, Weinberg played for Josef Hofmann, who offered to teach him at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Weinberg declined, because he preferred to focus on composition instead; the invasion of Poland that initiated World War II in 1939 also made it impossible for him to accept. As the Wehrmacht advanced on Warsaw, Weinberg left his parents behind and fled with his sister towards the Soviet border. Discomfort forced his sister to turn back in mid-journey—he never saw her or the rest of his family again. During his only subsequent visit to Poland in 1966, he learned that his family had been murdered at the Trawniki concentration camp.
Weinberg took refuge in the Soviet Union, where he officially adopted a Russified version of his name. He settled first in Minsk, where he studied composition with Vasily Zolotarev, then in Tashkent. It was in that city that Weinberg met and married Natalya Mikhoels, the daughter of the actor Solomon Mikhoels. From there, Weinberg sent a copy of his Symphony No. 1 to Dmitri Shostakovich through an intermediary, which resulted in an official invitation from the Committee on the Arts to come to Moscow. Upon arriving in the capital, Weinberg successfully established himself as a composer.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold is often associated with the creation of the symphonic film score, gained fame through his 1930s-1940s Hollywood works but was already an accomplished composer of concert music, operas, and stage works. Born on May 29, 1897, in Brünn, Moravia (now Brno, Czech Republic), he moved to Vienna at age four, where his father became a music critic. A child prodigy, Korngold began composing at eight.
In 1906, Gustav Mahler declared him a genius and recommended Alexander von Zemlinsky as his mentor. By 1909, Korngold’s works, including Der Schneemann, Piano Sonata #1 in d minor, and Don Quixote, earned praise from figures like Richard Strauss for their originality and bold harmonies.
Der Schneemann debuted in 1910, first as a piano arrangement and later as an orchestral piece at the Vienna Hofoper. Other early successes included the Piano Trio, Op. 1 (1910), the Piano Sonata #2, Op. 2 (1911), and orchestral works like the Schauspiel Ouvertüre, Op. 4 and Sinfonietta in B Major, Op. 5. These works showcased his mastery of both large orchestras and intimate chamber music.
Gennady Rovner graduated from the Lubertz Musical School, Class of Piano, in 1975. Writing music has been a favorite hobby of his through out the years. He made his first professional debut as a composer in 2011 with the release of the vinyl record Tanaya. This particular album is based on a full-scale symphony, a concerto for piano and orchestra.
His sophomore album, India Inside, was released in 2015. Musicians from Russia’s leading symphony orchestras and renowned British and Indian musicians took part in the recording of the album. The record producer was the legendary Haydn Bendall (UK), who has worked with such renowned musicians, such as Paul McCartney, Andrea Bocelli, Sarah Brightman, and many others.
In the spring of 2020, a limited-edition vinyl LP called Tesseract was released in Germany, based on the Rovner Forms. It was performed in an improvisatory format by one of the great legends of Soviet and World jazz, Leonid Chizhik.
In May 2021, at the Lendoc Recording Studio in Saint Petersburg, The Grand Symphony Orchestra, under the guidance of world-renowned conductor Maestro Fabio Mastrangelo, recorded Rovner’s next album, Metamorphosis. This album premiered on September 19, 2021. The Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra performed nine compositions on this album, led by conductor Denis Lotoyev, Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation. The Artistic Director of the orchestra is Vladimir Fedoseyev, People’s Artist of the USSR.
Photos from a special event previewing the Carnegie Hall concert, “Music of Survival: Works by Weinberg, Korngold, and Rovner”, presented at the Kosciuszko Foundation on February 20, 2025.
Maestro Constantine Orbelian, Executive Director & Music Director of New York City Opera
Ewa Zadworna, Vice-President, Director of Cultural Affairs at the Kosciuszko Foundation
Bret Werb, musicologist at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC
Grzegorz Mania, piano
Andrzej Ciepliński, clarinet
Noreen Cassidy-Polera, piano
Kristina Reiko Cooper, cello
