Night of Intoxication Under Strasbourg Stars

Joyce DiDonato reunited with Michael Spyres under John Nelson's baton; Lully's Atys in the Grand Style

John Nelson (centre) flanked by Michael Spyres and Joyce DiDonato in the love duet from Les Troyens Picture by Grégory Massat/OPS

Last April the American conductor John Nelson was due to conduct concert performances of Carmen in London, Paris and finally Strasbourg, where the opera would have been recorded live. The cast should have included Joyce DiDonato, integral to Nelson’s most celebrated Berlioz recordings (Les Troyens, La Damnation de Faust, Roméo et Juliette) - many of them made in Strasbourg. When Nelson’s health forced him to withdraw from the Carmen project, the recording and tour were cancelled, but I attended a concert performance in Strasbourg, where Nelson was replaced the Orchestre Philharmonique’s principal conductor, Aziz Shokhakimov, and DiDonato by the Russian mezzo Elena Maximova. The other principals all showed up - Michael Spyres, a superlative Don José, Elsa Dressig, de luxe casting as Micaëla, and the fine idiomatic bass-baritone Alexandre Duhamel as Escamillo.

At the time, Nelson’s health seemed fragile enough for some to speculate that his conducting career might be over. Happily, such conjecture has proved baseless. The Strasbourg concert he shared with his colleague Ludovic Morlot on January 26 proved that, although he looked frail, he was well enough to make the journey from his home in the US. It spoke volumes for the loyalty he inspires in orchestral musicians and vocal soloists that DiDonato and Spyres were there to welcome him back in grand style.