“If anyone wondered whether Fabio Luisi was the right choice to lead the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, any doubts should have been dispelled Thursday night,” writes Scott Cantrell in Friday’s (1/10) Dallas Morning News. “The orchestra’s music director-designate drew performances that combined finesse, suavity, subtlety and excitement…. In the all-American first half, works by Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber framed the local premiere of Fountain of Youth by composer-in-residence Julia Wolfe. (It’s a co-commission by Carnegie Hall and several orchestras, including the DSO.) The second half was devoted to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade…. Luisi’s extensive operatic experience surely informed the vivid account of Barber’s Andromache’s Farewell…. Lise Lindstrom’s soprano rose to fearsome outcries … but she could also float a delicate pianissimo…. Nothing in [Wolfe’s] 11-minute piece obviously evokes either still or surging fountains…. With rasping percussion early on—four washboards!—dissonances rise through the winds. Violins soar over the fray before resorting to jerky minimalist gestures…. There are a couple of percussive explosions. At the end, some members of the audience were audibly thrilled.… [In] Scheherazade … the orchestra played stunningly. Concertmaster Alexander Kerr delivered the violin solos with great elegance, pinpointing the highest pitches with unfailing accuracy.”
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