Barbara Hannigan makes a dream debut as a conductor with the Concertgebouw Orchestra ★★★★★

You don’t realize it at first, but the woman sitting on the otherwise empty stage is the Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan (51). Quiet and focused, she looks ahead. Then a faint smile appears on her mouth. In her field of vision, four women have settled on a yoga mat.

Soon Hannigan will perform for the Concertgebouw Orchestra, where she will make her conducting debut. This first concert of three, on Thursday evening in the Concertgebouw, is different from the rest. It starts a bit later, the program has been shortened and a large part of the seats in the hall have been removed; instead there are carpets on the floor. The public sits or lies on cushions and mats brought along.

The room is bathed in blue light when Metamorphoses by Richard Strauss is used. Hannigan lets the twenty-three strings, sighing heavily, turn on the four notes of the second motif. With truly magical dynamics and tempo changes, you can hear a hint of relief in the lyrical, major part. At the end the basses cry out the Beethoven quote again Third Symphony. The chromatic descent of the violins – so intense – ends in the most beautiful final chord ever.

The dark atmosphere grabs you by the throat – lying relaxed is out of the question. Certainly not when through a melancholic Greek lullaby Lonely Child by Claude Vivier (1948-1983) begins. The whole range of sounds of the ring gong (a bowl-shaped inverted bell) is spun out by the orchestra into a thick mixture of dissonant colours. The Greek soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou, with a voice characterized by a full, warm bottom, sings Vivier’s piece about a child who has to comfort herself in an unprecedentedly moving way. Unshunned sadness in a dream debut.