Soprano Nina Stemme Comes to Alice Tully Hall, 4/25

Midway through her engagement at Houston Grand Opera performing Tristan und Isolde this April, acclaimed soprano Nina Stemme joins the Swedish Chamber Orchestra in New York for a single performance on Thursday, April 25 at 7:30 pm at Alice Tully Hall for the final concert of Lincoln Center's 2012-2013 Great Performers season.

Thomas Dausgaard conducts the concert which, in the first half of the program, breaks with the usual format by alternating song and orchestral selections into a continuous musical stream. Ms. Stemme offers orchestral songs by Grieg, Sibelius, Wagner, Weill, Berlioz, Schubert and Richard Strauss that are interwoven with the orchestra's performance of works by Beethoven, Elgar, Brahms and Ravel and others, all focused on the theme of "Love, Hope and Destiny." The second half of the program features Brahms' Symphony No. 1.

Tickets, priced from $ 45 to $90, are available online at LCGreatPerformers.org, by calling CenterCharge at 212-721-6500, or at the Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Hall box offices, Broadway and 65th Street.

A noted Wagnerian, soprano Nina Stemme made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1993 in the role of Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer, but did not return to the Met until 2005 for performances in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. Her only other New York appearance was the title role in a concert performance of Salome with The Cleveland Orchestra this past December at Carnegie Hall. The New York Times said the soprano was "A vocally blazing yet eerily alluring Salome." This past November's Opera News named Stemme "Woman of the Year," saying, "On the eve of Wagner's 200th birthday, the opera world is abuzz with one name-Nina Stemme." The article continued, "Reserves of great-hearted beauty...are a large part of what makes Stemme unique. Her voice has...an irresistible magnetism-a combination of purity, magnitude and steely strength, built on a foundation of intelligence, focus, good sense and absolute musicality."

A tightly knit ensemble of 38 regular members, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra made its U.K. and U.S. debuts with Thomas Dausgaard in 2004 performing at the London Proms and at the Mostly Mozart Festival, respectively. The New York Times wrote of their New York performance: "It has been a longstanding complaint in the classical music world that as recordings and jet travel have shrunk the globe, an international sound has been fostered that has filtered out regional differences in timbre and interpretation ... And every now and then an orchestra comes along with a sound that is surprising and fresh."