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STRAVINSKY Pulcinella

Almost 100 years ago, late in the summer of 1919, Igor Stravinsky began composing the ballet Pulcinella for chamber orchestra and three solo singers. It was premiered by the Ballet Russes at the Paris Opera on May 15, 1920. The dancer Léonide Massine created both the libretto and choreography, and Pablo Picasso designed the original costumes and sets. The ballet was commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev. The ballet score was later revised in 1922 by Stravinsky, creating the Pulcinella Suite for orchestra.

Pulcinella marked the beginning to Stravinsky's second phase as a composer, his neoclassical period. The ballet is based on on an 18th-century play Quartre Polichinelles semblables (Four identical Pulcinellas). For all its importance to Stravinsky's musical development, the idea for Pulcinella was not his, but that of the great Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. In 1919, Diaghilev proposed that Stravinsky take a look at some eighteenth-century scores with the idea of orchestrating them for a ballet. "When he said that the composer was Pergolesi, I thought he must be deranged," Stravinsky later remembered, but he did promise to at least consider the idea.
"I looked, and I fell in love," the composer recalled. Diaghilev showed Stravinsky a manuscript dating from 1700 which he had found in Italy; the subject of its many comic episodes was Pulcinella, the traditional hero of the Neapolitan commedia dell'arte, and a perfect fit for their own eighteenth-century ballet. Stravinsky later wrote that "Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course—the first of many love affairs in that direction—but it was a look in the mirror, too."

Pulcinella was a huge success --"one of those productions," the composer reported, "where everything harmonizes, where all the elements―subject, music, dancing, and artistic setting―form a coherent and homogeneous whole."

Season 2020/21

MÜNCHNER PHILHARMONIKER

PROGRAMME
COPLAND Music for the Theatre
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella

Julia Dawson, mezzo-soprano
Charles Sy, tenor
Douglas Williams, bass
Levi Hammer, pianist (Copland)
Rolf Verbeek, assistant conductor
Barbara Hannigan conductor

MUSIKKOLLEGIUM WINTERTHUR

PROGRAMME
COPLAND Music for the Theatre
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella

Ema Nikolovska, mezzo-soprano
Ziad Nehme, tenor
Antoin Herrera-Lopez Kessell, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor
Luis Castillo-Briceño assistant conductor

12 March, 2021 Broadcast

Stadthaus, Winterthur

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ORCHESTRE PHILHARMONIQUE DE RADIO FRANCE

PROGRAMME
WEBER Invitation à la valse (Orchestration d'Hector Berlioz)
WEILL Youkali
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella
OFFENBACH La Gaîté parisienne (Transcription by Manuel Rosenthal)

Julia Dawson, mezzo-soprano
Ziad Nehme, tenor
Douglas Williams, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor

28 May, 2021

Philharmonie de Paris

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LUDWIGSBURGER FESTSPIELE

PROGRAMME
GERSHWIN Girl Crazy Suite arr. Bill Elliot
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella

Coline Dutilleul, mezzo-soprano
Ziad Nehme, tenor
Douglas Williams, bass
Kunal Lahiry, pianist
Barbara Hannigan conductor

04 July 2021, 7:00pm

04 July 2021, 10:00pm

Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg

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COPENHAGEN PHILHARMONIC

PROGRAMME
GERSHWIN Girl Crazy Suite arr. Bill Elliot
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella

Tuuri Dede, mezzo-soprano
James Way, tenor
Sam Carl, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor

15 August, 2021

Tivoli Festival, Copenhagen

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Season 2019/20

SWEDISH RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

PROGRAMME
COPLAND Music for the Theatre
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella

Marta Świderska, mezzo-soprano
James Way, tenor
Antoin Herrera-Lopez Kessel, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor

MÜNCHNER PHILHARMONIKER

PROGRAMME
COPLAND Music for the Theatre
HAYDN Symphony No. 90
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella

Fleur Barron, mezzo-soprano
Gyula Rab, tenor
Douglas Williams, bass
Barbara Hannigan conductor

Season 2018/19

LUDWIG ORCHESTRA

Barbara Hannigan, conductor

EQ Artists

Ojai Music Festival

UNITED STATES / California
Libbey Bowl

06 June 2019, 7:30pm

Aldeburgh Festival

UNITED KINGDOM / Surrey
Snape Maltings Concert Hall

20 June 2019, 7:30pm