Tenth music director Riccardo Muti opens this Valentine’s Day–themed program with selections from the CSO Resound release of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Barber’s The Lovers—settings of poems by Pablo Neruda—featuring the Chicago Symphony Chorus follows, along with Kiri Te Kanawa and Luciano Pavarotti in the love duet from Verdi’s Otello. The Orchestra’s 1956 RCA recording of Richard Strauss’s portrait of domestic life, his Domestic Symphony led by Fritz Reiner, concludes the program.
Celebrating Valentine’s Day
Playlist
Selections from Romeo and Juliet, by Sergei Prokofiev
Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Riccardo Muti conductor
The Lovers, by Samuel Barber
Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; Dale Duesing, baritone; Andrew Schnek, conductor; Margaret Hillis, chorus director
“Già nella notte densa” from Otello, by Giuseppe Verdi
Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Sir Georg Solti conductor; Kiri Te Kanawa soprano; Luciano Pavarotti tenor
Domestic Symphony, Op. 53, by Richard Strauss
Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Fritz Reiner, conductor