La Scala to Stream Three Eun Sun Kim Concerts

Eun Sun Kim, the new Music Director of the San Francisco Opera, will be spending the holiday season in Milan. She has been selected to conduct the La Scala Theatre Orchestra in the three programs of the Concerts for Children series that will be presented by La Scala during the Christmas season. The title of the series is Wolfgang Amadeus and the Great Musical Fairy Tales, meaning that each program will couple one of Mozart’s compositions with music composed with an audience of children in mind. Each program will be hosted by Nicola Savino who, most likely, will be speaking Italian. The narrative offerings will be given stage coordination by Lorenza Cantini. The specifics for each of the three dates are as follows:

1. December 25: The program will begin with Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, narrated (presumably in Italian) by Giovanni Storti and Giacomo Poretti. This will be followed by Mozart’s K. 622 concerto in A major for clarinet and orchestra. The soloist will be Fabrizio Meloni playing a basset clarinet.
2. January 1: This program will begin with Camille Saint-Saëns’ suite The Carnival of the Animals. The movements depicting the different animals will be linked by a story written by Franco Pulcini, which will be narrated by Gioele Dix. This music has been performed in conjunction with a variety of different text sources (my personal favorite being the poetry of Ogden Nash). Unless subtitles are provided, the narrative may have little impact on those unfamiliar with Italian; but the music has its own devices allowing it to speak for itself! The Mozart selection will be the K. 525 serenade in G major, best known by the title “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.”
3. January 6: The final setting of a story for children will be “L’Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant” (the story of Babar, the little elephant), which Francis Poulenc composed for narrator and piano. The story behind this composition is that Poulenc put a copy of Jean de Brunhoff’s children’s book Histoire de Babar on his piano and improvised music while reading the book. The La Scala Theatre Orchestra will play an orchestration of the piano part prepared by Jean Françaix with the composer’s approval. The narrator for this concert will be La Pina, probably delivering the text in Italian. The program will conclude with Mozart’s K. 201 symphony in A major.

All three concerts will be live-streamed through the La Scala home page. However, those interested may find it more convenient to view the offerings through either the Facebook or YouTube channels maintained by the theatre. Live performances will begin at 2 a.m. However, after the premiere has completed, the video will be uploaded for future viewing. There will be no charge for viewing either the live-stream or the stored video.