Some interesting musical programming is tied into the Torino Winter Games, no trace of which is likely to make it onto the television broadcast. Daniel Harding leads the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in programs of Beethoven and Sibelius (wintriest of composers). Composer Carlo Galante has created a new version of The Tempest, inspired by Purcell. Puccini's Manon Lescaut and La Bohème will be performed in Torino's Teatro Regio, where both works had their premieres, in 1893 and 1896. If I understand the site correctly, Manon will be directed by French movie star Jean Reno (Le Femme Nikita), who is to "take his first steps in an opera production, together with a tried and tested team of French authors who always follow him in his theatrical and film creations." Don't tell Peter Gelb. (Charles Downey at ionarts, always a step ahead, has more.) The major event is the Feb. 15 premiere of Arvo Pärt's La tela traslata, a work for chorus and orchestra inspired by the Shroud of Turin. I hope some report leaks out about all this. Perhaps a Noise reader is in attendance? A Ferneyhough-obsessed bobsled champion, or Furtwänglerian figure-skater?
