Met Museum Announces December 2013 Schedule

The Met Museum will present Salzburg Marionette Theatre's Ring Cycle and Alice in Wonderland, Holiday Concerts from the Vienna Boys Choir, João Carlos Martins with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, The Crossing Choir, Salomé Chamber Orchestra, and Calmus Ensemble Leipzig and more in December 2013.

Performances

Please note that the location for the following concert has been changed to the Vélez Blanco Patio:
Saturday, November 23, 2013, at 7:00 p.m. in the Vélez Blanco Patio
Decoda: Line and Expression

The acclaimed young New York ensemble Decoda (formerly The Declassified), called "a new collective of some of the brightest young classical musicians in the world" by Time Out New York, presents a program that, like etchings, creates momentum and interplay through the use of musical lines, and makes evident the connection between the free and improvisational approach of the etching process and music written using similar techniques. The program combines tastes of 18th-century France-Rameau's Les Boréades and Couperin's Les Barricades Mysterieuses (a clear example of how musical lines can build upon themselves and take flight)-with contemporary works: a playful orchestration of the Couperin work by Thomas Ades, Golijov's Tenebrae, Nico Muhly's Motion, and Pärt's Fratres.

This program is in conjunction with the exhibition Artists and Amateurs: Etching in Eighteenth-Century France, which will be on view at the Museum through January 5, 2014. The exhibition is made possible by The Schiff Foundation.

Tickets: $30

Bring the Kids! $1 tickets for children (ages 7-16) when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket (subject to availability).

Saturday, December 7, 2013, at 7:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
João Carlos Martins with the Orchestra of St. Luke's-"Bach for the Holidays"
An all-Bach program performed by the renowned Orchestra of St. Luke's, led by Brazilian pianist and conductor João Carlos Martins.

Tickets: $30

Bring the Kids! $1 tickets for children (ages 7-16) when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket (subject to availability).

Sunday, December 8, 2013, at 7:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Calmus Ensemble Leipzig-Holiday Concert
Founded in the birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach, Calmus Ensemble Leipzig is one of the most successful vocal groups in Germany. The ensemble makes its Metropolitan Museum debut with a holiday program built around music by Bach.

This group of five Leipzig musicians-Anja Pöche, soprano; Sebastian Krause, countertenor; Tobias Pöche, tenor; Ludwig Böhme, baritone; and Joe Roesler, bass-has won international prizes and competitions, including the ECHO Klassik and Supersonic Award. The reach of their activities is constantly expanding, taking them throughout Europe as well as to North and South America. In 2010 the quintet made its debut at Carnegie Hall, New York.

Shaped by the centuries-old tradition of great German boys choirs, they are naturally at home in the vocal music of the Renaissance, the Baroque, and the Romantic, but they also have a passion for music of our own time. They have partnered with groups including the Lautten Compagney Berlin, the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, Hamburger Ratsmusik and the Frankfurt Radio Bigband. Calmus has also commissioned numerous new works from composers including Bernd Franke, Steffen Schleiermacher, Wolfram Buchenberg, Mathew Rosenblum, Bill Dobbins, Michael Denhoff, and Harald Banter, and the ensemble relishes singing pop, folk, and jazz, as well as chansons and evergreens from the 1920s. http://calmus.de

Tickets: $60

Bring the Kids! $1 tickets for children (ages 7-16) when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket (subject to availability).

Monday, December 9, 2013, at 6:30 & 8:45 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Vienna Boys Choir-Holiday Concert
Back by popular demand, the famed Vienna Boys' Choir, one of the oldest boys choirs in the world, returns to the Met with its annual holiday program.

The Vienna Boys Choir traces its beginnings to 1498, when Emperor Maximilian I moved his court and his court musicians from Innsbruck to Vienna. Today there are around 100 choristers between the ages of 10 and 14, divided into four touring choirs. The four choirs give around 300 concerts and performances each year in front of almost half a million people. Each group spends nine to eleven weeks of the school year on tour around the world. The choir's repertoire includes everything from medieval to contemporary and experimental music. Motets and lieder for boys choir form the core of the touring repertoire, as do the choir's own arrangements of waltzes and polkas by Strauss. www.wsk.at

These concerts are made possible by the Mrs. Donald Oenslager Fund.

Tickets: $90, $70

Friday, December 13, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Saturday, December 14, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Salzburg Marionette Theatre
The Ring Cycle, Abridged

This two-hour version of the Ring of the Nibelung set in the present day, is the first production to music by Wagner in the Salzburg Marionette Theatre's history. This 2012 production, which features two live actors with the marionettes, is performed to the classic Decca recording of Sir Georg Solti leading the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera Chorus, and a cast including Hans Hotter, Birgit Nilsson, Kirsten Flagstad, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

"We didn't want to do anything to belittle Wagner," said director Brunner in a Deutsche Welle English feature report (see the YouTube video), "but I do think the Ring is an excellent piece to perform with marionettes. Giants appear in the piece, so do dwarves, mythical figures, dragons, and snakes. You can depict all of them much better with puppets than with real people." The Salzburg Marionette Theatre is taking the production on a world tour this season, culminating with three months in the U.S.

For the past 100 years, the Salzburg Marionette Theatre has been renowned for its compelling drama-and-music presentations utilizing the remarkably lifelike movements of its elaborately costumed, two-foot tall, string-manipulated puppets, and lavish sets. "Through the space of a performance," said the New York Times, "they manage virtually without interruption what is denied to performers of flesh and blood: the leap to the realm of pure idea, where thought and expression are one." The Salzburg Marionettes perform to recordings of 18th- and 19th-century operas made by the world's leading orchestras and singers. The company was founded by Anton Aicher; his granddaughter, Gretl Aicher, was the Theatre's recent artistic director until her death in March 2012. The company employs about 12 full-time puppeteers, all of whom have spent years developing their technique. The company has its own costume department, a carpentry department, and a puppet studio where the puppets are made. www.marionetten.at

These programs are made possible by the Brodsky Family Foundation.

Tickets: $45

Saturday, December 14, 2013, at 2:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Sunday, December 15, 2013, at 3:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Salzburg Marionette Theatre
Alice in Wonderland
This production of Lewis Carroll's timeless classic Alice in Wonderland features a newly recorded soundtrack voiced by actors in English, with 19th-century English folk songs performed on violin and piano.

These programs are made possible by the Brodsky Family Foundation.

Tickets: $60 for adults, $30 for children

Friday, December 20, 2013, at 7:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Salomé Chamber Orchestra-Holiday Concert
After their 2012-13 concert series playing the rare instruments of the Sau-Wing Lam Collection, the Salomé Chamber Orchestra returns to the Met with a program of seasonal music.

The Salomé Chamber Orchestra, New York City's electrifying new conductor-less string ensemble, was formed in September 2009. Founded by the Carpenter siblings (violinists Sean and Lauren and violist David), Salomé is dedicated to advancing the works of both underappreciated and well-recognized chamber composers, and to performing a broad range of repertoire from Baroque to contemporary. Salomé's intelligent, artistic, and interdisciplinary approach to music-making produces refreshing and vibrant performances that attest to the wealth of talent that can be found in this great city and in this generation of musicians. www.salomechamber.org

Tickets: $40

Bring the Kids! $1 tickets for children (ages 7-16) when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket (subject to availability).

Sunday, December 22, 2013, at 6:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
The Crossing-Holiday Concert

After their critically acclaimed performance of David Lang's Pulitzer Prize-winning work, The Little Match Girl Passion, as part of the Met's holiday concert series in 2012, The Crossing choir returns with an encore performance of the piece, paired with the Wolfgang Rihm's hauntingly beautiful choral work Astralis.

Winner of the 2009 and 2011 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, The Crossing is a 24-member professional chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally. Formed by a group of friends in 2006, the ensemble was the resident choir of the Spoleto Festival, Italy, in 2007 and has since expanded such collaborations, appearing last September at Miller Theatre of Columbia University in the U.S. premiere of James Dillon's Nine Rivers with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), at Bang on a Can's first Philadelphia Marathon in 2010, and with Network for New Music during The Crossing's annual Month of Moderns festival in 2012. www.crossingchoir.com

Tickets: $60

Bring the Kids! $1 tickets for children (ages 7-16) when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket (subject to availability).

Every Friday and Saturday, 5:00-8:00 p.m. on the Balcony Bar-Free with admission
ETHEL and Friends
ETHEL, the acclaimed string quartet that Pitchfork.com described as "a necessary jet of cold water in the contemporary classical scene," began as resident ensemble at the Metropolitan Museum's Balcony Bar in October. Marking the first time that a prominent musical group has been featured in that venue, ETHEL will perform there each Friday and Saturday evening on a regular basis, sometimes with friends and collaborators, throughout the year. The quartet will also select musical groups from ETHEL's expansive list of notable colleagues to perform when the group is on the road. This new programming initiative will provide a variety of musical experiences to Met audiences, delivered by a range of ensemble types and compositions.

Click here for the schedule of performers.

The Balcony Bar serves appetizers and cocktails on the second-floor balcony overlooking the Great Hall. Three sets of performances between 5:00 and 8:00 p.m. will take place each Friday and Saturday.

Free with Museum admission

Talks and Conversations

Thursday, December 5, 2013, at 11:00 a.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Patriots, Pashas, and Peasants: French Painting from Delacroix to Courbet
"Plein-Air Painting and the Barbizon Landscape"
Kathryn Calley Galitz, Associate Museum Educator

The 1820s witnessed the birth of Romanticism, as Delacroix, Ingres, and other French artists embraced new subjects, inspired by cross-Channel exchanges and the lure of the exotic. The Paris Salon of 1824 launched the battle between the Romantics and the Classicists, an aesthetic struggle that defined a generation of French artists. By mid-century, the modern-life subjects of Courbet and Manet threatened to subvert the artistic establishment, setting the stage for the Impressionist revolution.

The subject of this fourth event of a six-part series is "Plein-Air Painting and the Barbizon Landscape." Subsequent talks in the series will take place December 11, and 19.

Tickets: $30; Six-talk series: $160

Wednesday, December 11, 2013, at 11:00 a.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Patriots, Pashas, and Peasants: French Painting from Delacroix to Courbet
"Gustave Courbet, Realist"
Kathryn Calley Galitz, Associate Museum Educator

The 1820s witnessed the birth of Romanticism, as Delacroix, Ingres, and other French artists embraced new subjects, inspired by cross-Channel exchanges and the lure of the exotic. The Paris Salon of 1824 launched the battle between the Romantics and the Classicists, an aesthetic struggle that defined a generation of French artists. By mid-century, the modern-life subjects of Courbet and Manet threatened to subvert the artistic establishment, setting the stage for the Impressionist revolution.

The subject of this fifth event of a six-part series is "Gustave Courbet, Realist." The last event in the series will take place December 19.

Tickets: $30; Six-talk series: $160

Thursday, December 19, 2013, at 11:00 a.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Patriots, Pashas, and Peasants: French Painting from Delacroix to Courbet
"Paris 1855: Painting at the Crossroads"
Kathryn Calley Galitz, Associate Museum Educator

The 1820s witnessed the birth of Romanticism, as Delacroix, Ingres, and other French artists embraced new subjects, inspired by cross-Channel exchanges and the lure of the exotic. The Paris Salon of 1824 launched the battle between the Romantics and the Classicists, an aesthetic struggle that defined a generation of French artists. By mid-century, the modern-life subjects of Courbet and Manet threatened to subvert the artistic establishment, setting the stage for the Impressionist revolution.

The subject of this last event of the six-part series is "Paris 1855: Painting at the Crossroads."

Tickets: $30; Six-talk series: $160