Critic’s Choice
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center comes to town this week. The ensemble will perform a program of Americana, avant-garde and otherwise, 8 p.m. Thursday in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress. Admission is free, but only rush seats, which must be claimed on the night of the performance, remain.<
The most recent work on the program is Kronos-Kryptos, George Crumb’s new piece for percussion quintet, premiered in New York on Sunday. The same five percussionists will also perform Lou Harrison’s Suite for Percussion, and baritone Randall Scarlata will sing selected songs by Charles Ives and Aaron Copland, in a concert rounded out by music of Antheil, Cowell, and Burleigh. loc.gov
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Opera Lafayette will give a rare performance of La Susanna, Alessandro Stradella’s oratorio on the Biblical story, composed in 1681. In a co-production with Heartbeat Opera, this staged version plays 7:30 p.m. Sunday and Monday at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.
Soprano Lucía Martín Cartón stars in this timely story of a young woman who resists the lecherous advances of two older men in positions of power. The story of the men’s attempt to use their position as judges to force themselves on Susanna transcends its Biblical origins. operalafayette.org; 202-546-9332