Photo credit: Nik Babic
Asher Fisch
It’s not very often that a concert rises to an extraordinary level, beyond excellence to inspirational and rare. It was an honor to witness the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra performance of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) last Saturday evening.
This six-movement, hour-long work expands the concept of song as far as possible. A tenor and mezzo-soprano alternate as soloist, singing mystical poems from Hans Bethge’s Die chinesische Flöte (The Chinese Flute). Australian Stuart Skelton is the most exciting tenor today working in the big German repertoire. His handsome, virile voice has heft and brightness, and he sings with big-hearted passion. (As chance would have it, I heard him sing a phenomenal account of Parsifal in Berlin two weeks ago.)
Mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, among the greatest of concert artists of all time, returned to MSO and gave a remarkable, poetic, deeply personal performance of her three amazing songs, exploring psychological depth with singing of richness and refined artistry. The large-scale final song, “Der Abschied” (The Farewell), metaphorically saying goodbye to the world, left me nearly in sobs.
Only a mature, experienced conductor can approach a score such as this, and Asher Fisch returned to MSO to show yet another side of his exceptional talents. This was a performance of penetrating insights which seemed to allow the singers and every player to rise to exalted and rapturous results.
Fisch led a terrific account of Benjamin Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes” from the opera Peter Grimes, with every section shining. Lukas Foss was music director of MSO in the 1980s, and he was heard in the lovely Three American Pieces, with Bella Hristova playing with persuasive lyricism as violin soloist.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Fisch and Fabien Gabel have left all the other conductor candidates for the next MSO music director far behind in the dust. So far, Fisch or Gabel are the only conductors who deserve to inherit this great orchestra. If it’s not to be one of them, or someone at their hard-to-find artistic level, I wonder where this great orchestra is headed.
