SOPRANO
Erika Baikoff
"The wonderful Erika Baikoff brought relief to the Mahler landscape in the last movement sublimely introduced by the harp and the clarinet. With a pure and very expressive voice, both in the music and in the text, the Russian-American soprano envelops in a fragile but transparent case the paradise described in this wonderful music."
Russian American Soprano, Erika Baikoff, is a recent graduate of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. As a Lindemann Young Artist, she sang the roles of Xenia in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Barbarina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. At Maestro Nézet-Séguin's invitation, she joined the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra's tour of Das Rheingold and was featured as the soprano soloist in Mahler's 4th Symphony with Maestro Rustioni and the Ulster Orchestra. Equally passionate about chamber music, she made her debuts with Schubertíada and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, both of which she will return to in future seasons. The 2023/2024 season includes debuts with the Houston Grand Opera, London Symphony Orchestra, and Ciclo de Lied.
In 2022, she joined the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra's European tour of Das Rheingold and was featured as the soprano soloist in Mahler's 4th Symphony with the Ulster Orchestra, under the baton of Maestro Daniele Rustioni. The 21/22 season also included debuts with Schubertìada in Spain and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, both of which she will return to this season.
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Xanthe
Die Liebe der Danae
February 22nd
2025
Danae must marry a wealthy man, to settle her father’s debts. All dream of gold here, and Danae more than all others. A powerful man takes an interest in her and sends another ahead. It would appear the right husband has been found. But, of course his wealth comes with a condition, which stands in the way of true happiness. Danae must, Danae can choose between wealth and love, between dreams and reality, between the promises of wealth and riches, and of love and all its happiness.
The “cheerful mythology” of Die Liebe der Danae reassembles various legends and characters of Greek antiquity, and recounts the story of a woman, who successfully asserts her love against the reason of state and capriciousness of the gods. What appears inconceivable in the scoring of similar baroque period material, which in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen leads to doom and destruction, is possible here.The god stands aside and frees the way for the happiness of two people. Framed by a squad of comic figures and music in which the gold always glitters, and which all scatter after here.
With full orchestra and gigantic sounds, Richard Strauss looks back in his late work to the motifs of his own operas and the history of music. He would not live to see the 1952 world premiere. The piece was last restaged at the Bayerische Staatsoper in 1988, and it will now be interpreted by the team surrounding the Strauss specialists, Claus Guth (director) and Sebastian Weigle (conductor).
