1st Symphony Concert

In keeping with the musical theater premiere of Bizet’s *Carmen* at the Tyrolean State Theater, the season’s first symphony concert draws on a special connection to the opera stage: The TSOI opens with Rodion Shchedrin’s *Carmen* Suite—a fascinatingly modern ballet score based on Bizet’s opera, written exclusively for strings and a massive percussion section.

Shchedrin wrote the suite in 1967 for his wife, the legendary prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, who dreamed of dancing the role of Carmen. The premiere at the Bolshoi Theater caused a scandal—triggered by the combination of a sensual production and the passionately intense music, which was perceived as provocative. The uncompromising intensity and rhythmic sharpness made the work—which remains one of the most thrilling adaptations of an operatic classic to this day—world-famous.

Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 transports us to a completely different, yet no less gripping musical world, revealing a surprisingly serious side of the composer. Composed for the London Philharmonic Society, Dvořák deliberately sought to demonstrate symphonic grandeur with this work—particularly with an eye toward Brahms, who both influenced and supported him. Instead of folkloric lightness, the music is dark and dramatic, brimming with great inner tension. With its abrupt twists and turns and lack of a triumphant conclusion, the symphony seems almost combative, thereby gaining a special emotional depth that makes it one of his strongest and most moving symphonies.