Music to Our Ears

executive summary by darmansjah

SPINGTIME IN EUROPE always rings with festivals and concerts, and 2013 cues a cultural cacophony. On may 6, Paris’s Notre Dame-and at least 849 other sites-chime in the cathedral’s 850^th birthday with World Organ Day, a 24-hour-plus marathon of concerts. So radical was the May 1913 debut of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring-danced by a Russian ballet company-that it sparked a near riot in the aisles of paris’s theatre des Champs-Elysees. St.Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre premiers updated choreography for Stravinsky’s Russian pagan tale on May (in advance of repeat performances in Paris). To mark the bicentennial of Richard Wagner’s birth on May 22, the German maestro’s hometown of Leipzig-a 73-minute train ride from Berlin-hosts a ten-day festival (concert, exhibitions, walking tours). Performing in a 2,000-year-old amphitheater, the Verona Opera celebrates its 100^th season June 14 to September 8 with a lineup honoring 200 years of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi.