Hardly a year goes by that someone doesn’t proclaim the death of classical music, yet one wouldn’t know it by looking at what New York’s musical organizations have in store as we enter the 2002-2003 season. Presenters from Lincoln Center to Miller Theater are embarking on major undertakings — emphasizing themes, festivals and big commissioning projects – supplying fresh lifelines to the field.

Birthday Honors

Composer anniversaries are perennial big-ticket items and Hector Berlioz, born in 1803, is among this season’s musical birthday boys. Concert presenters everywhere are gearing up for appropriately lavish celebrations including the Metropolitan Opera, which presents its uncut, blockbuster production of Les Troyens (Feb. 10). The Virgilian epic stars Deborah Voigt, Ben Heppner and Olga Borodina, with James Levine conducting. The New York Philharmonic gets into the act a few days later, as Charles Dutoit conducts Berlioz’s colossal Requiem (Feb. 14) complete with a large chorus and choirs of brass stationed throughout Avery Fisher Hall.

The Philharmonic returns to Berlioz as Sir Colin Davis – one of today’s foremost Berlioz interpreters – leads the orchestra (April 9-12) in a concert performance of the composer’s delightful opera, Beatrice et Benedict (after Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing). No less ravishing will be James Levine leading the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in a pair of all-Berlioz concerts (May 10-11); and the London Symphony Orchestra making its annual Lincoln Center visit under Sir Colin performing several Berlioz favorites (March 4, 7, 9). In all, there are no shortage of opportunities to explore this composer’s elusive yet richly colorful idiom.

Another celebration that should not pass unnoticed honors the late German avant-garde composer Stefan Wolpe, in honor of the centenary of his birth (1902–2002). Wolpe is increasingly considered a major icon in modern music, having pioneered a highly original Arab-Jewish-Western synthesis while working in Palestine during the 1930s, before moving to New York and absorbing the city’s jazz currents. Several of his chamber works will be presented at Merkin Hall this fall (Oct. 12-13), followed by an equally enticing series of concerts at the 92nd St. Y (Oct. 26-27) featuring pianist Peter Serkin, violinist Daniel Phillips and the Brentano String Quartet. Other concerts include the Riverside Symphony at Alice Tully Hall presenting the American premieres of two studies (Oct. 30).

And one mustn’t forget Ned Rorem, the perpetually under-appreciated composer/wordsmith who marks his 80th birthday with the local premiere of Aftermath, a song cycle composed after the 9/11 tragedies, and a performance of War Scenes with Rorem on piano, presented by the Lyric Chamber Music Society (Oct. 23).

Conduct Becoming

This is also a big year in the conducting business, with prominent changeovers taking place at the podiums in Cleveland, Berlin, and Boston, among other orchestras. The appointment of Lorin Maazel to the New York Philharmonic has been a particularly hot topic with the media and industry-watchers since it was announced well over a year ago. The standard rap on the 72-year-old American maestro, of course, is that his technique and musicianship are beyond reproach but his interpretations can be oddly willful and micromanaged.

That said, Maazel opened the season in dazzling fashion with a program of music by Beethoven and John Adams, so far refuting critics who suggest the orchestra is entering a leaden period. The rest of the season promises two more premieres of New York Philharmonic commissions: Rodion Shchedrin’s The Enchanted Wanderer (Dec. 19-21) and Oliver Knussen’s Symphony No. 4 (June 5-7). The remainder of his list leans toward Russian repertory, leavened by Debussy, Gershwin, Varèse, Grieg, Penderecki, and Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony, among much else.

Tenors, Anyone?

Opera remains the hottest classical-music ticket in America, bucking trends of decline in other genres. Amongst the customary favorites that will grace opera stages this season – Barbiere, Traviata, Butterfly – are some welcome curiosities and important premieres. Poulenc’s harrowing masterpiece, Dialogues des Carmelites, arrives at the Metropolitan Opera in December in an acclaimed staging by John Dexter and conducted by James Conlon, with the radiant mezzo Patricia Racette as Blanche de la Force. Other new Met productions include William Bolcom's A View from the Bridge (Dec. 5) with Catherine Malfitano; Janacek's Jenufa (Jan. 13) with Karita Mattila; Bellini's Il Pirata (Oct. 21) with Renee Fleming and Dwayne Croft; and the aforementioned Les Troyens (Feb. 10).

A boisterous success at its 2000 San Francisco Opera première, Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, with a libretto by Terrence McNally, arrives at New York City Opera in a new production directed by Leonard Foglia, and a cast that includes John Packard and Joyce DiDonato (through Oct. 2). Based on the 1993 memoir by Sister Helen Prejean about her work as spiritual adviser to death row inmates (which also inspired the Tim Robbins movie), the opera has proven box office gold. As a recent New York Times review suggested, the score itself is uneven at best, but the staging, sets, and cast are all first rate and it’s sure to be a much-talked-about event for some time to come.

If that wasn’t enough reason to visit City Opera this season, the New York premiere of Mark Adamo’s Little Women just might be. The instant-classic operatic adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's cherished 1868 novel arrives from the Houston Grand Opera, where it was premiered in 1998. There have since been a number of stagings around the U.S., and like Dead Man Walking, it appears in New York trailing favorable notices.

Minimalists take Manhattan… And Brooklyn

Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave festival turns 20 this season and it celebrates, appropriately, by returning to its roots in composers of the Minimalist school. Featured will be Three Tales, a multimedia opera by Steve Reich and the video artist Beryl Korot (date), and the latest Philip Glass opera, Galileo Galilei (Oct. 1, 3-5), with Mary Zimmerman supplying stage direction and much of the libretto. The latter work examines Galileo’s life as a series of reminiscences, presented in reverse chronological order, and touching on the relationship between science and art. It ends with the young Galileo watching a performance of a work composed by his father, Vincenzo Galileo (Read the Chicago Sun-Times review).

As Glass and Reich enjoy plenty of buzz throughout New York this season, so does their most prominent successor, John Adams. In March, a nine-concert Adams retrospective will take place at Lincoln Center, highlighted by a staging of his acclaimed oratorio El Nino at the Brooklyn Academy (marking Lincoln Center’s first collaboration with its Borough competitor).

Speaking of alternative venues, Miller Theater at Columbia University is once again awash in fascinating offerings in 2002-2003. Of particular interest is “Sounds of New York,” a four-concert mini-festival featuring violinist Jennifer Koh (Dec. 5) and the powerhouse string quartet Ethel (Feb. 6, Mar. 13, April 24) that highlights the raw, idiosyncratic styles of the city’s most iconoclastic composers.

Hit Parade

As always, the schedule is dotted with big recitals, and several world-class soloists are making their debuts this season. At Carnegie Hall, we find violinist Hilary Hahn (who, last year, Time magazine named Best Young Classical Musician) and singers Thomas Quasthoff, David Daniels, Angelika Kirchschlager, and Simon Keenlyside. And at Lincoln Center, the exciting Russian violinist Vadim Repin (Jan. 26) makes his long-awaited New York recital debut in works by Tartini, Ravel, Grieg, and Prokofiev.

Best of the Rest

Some other not-miss events for 2002-2003:

• The American Composers Orchestra under Steven Sloane gives the New York premiere of John Harbison's Four Psalms at Carnegie Hall (Nov. 3). Written to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, the four psalms are sung in Hebrew and interspersed with English commentary on contemporary Israel by living people.
  
• Pianist Garrick Ohlssohn presents three concerts centering on visionary composer Ferruccio Busoni at Alice Tully (Jan. 19-Mar. 23)
  
• The world premiere production of Schubert’s Winterreise ("Winter Journey"), featuring baritone Simon Keenlyside, pianist Pedja Muzijevic, and dancers from the Trisha Brown Dance Company (with its namesake supplying choreography) (Dec. 2-13).
  
• The latest installments of Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives, in which prominent musicians act as curators for a series of concert programs, feature two hot tickets: Pianist Mitsuko Uchida playing Schubert sonatas, and violinist Gidon Kremer leading his Kremerata Baltica ensemble in rare works by Romanian composer George Enescu, as well as Alfred Schnittke, Luciano Berio, and Luigi Nono, among others.
  
• A Valentine’s Day recital by City Opera diva Lauren Flanigan called “Passionate Minds: Women Who Write About Love” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Feb. 14).

WNYC Programming Note:
Tune into Soundcheck from Sept. 23-27 for Audience Week, as the focus turns to those who listen to music rather than those who perform it: the esteemed members of the audience.