Beset by uncertainty about whether its leadership will keep their jobs under the new state government taking the reins March 1, the general manager of the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra (JPO), Arturo Gomez Poulat, said that he and Artistic Director Alondra de la Parra are nevertheless designing the orchestra's new season and hoping to propose artistic and business projects to cultural authorities in February.
Checking the orchestra's Website at this writing, one notes it is snazzier than ever and that the season's offerings are falling into place almost before one's eyes.
"We have almost finished the programs," Gomez said the same day.Outstanding dates in his mind, and surely in the minds of Guadalajara's legions of opera lovers, are February 22 and 24, when the 200th anniversary of the births of Wagner and Verdi will be celebrated with a wham-bam performance of memorable pieces from "Siegfried," "La Traviata" and "Aida," among others.
But the orchestra season actually begins at the Degollado Theater in what could be called a "Russian weekend" February 1 and 3. The concerts headline 10-year-old Guadalajara piano prodigy Daniela Liebman and another young Mexican pianist of Russian descent, Vlada Vassilieva. Featured are Shostakovich's cheerful and difficult Piano Concerto No. 2 and the Russian composer Alexander Scribain's dissonant and rarely performed "Prometheus: The Poem of Fire." The guest conductor for these concerts will be Anatoly Zatin of Ukraine, who currently chairs the music department at the University of Colima and is both pianists' teacher.
On the heels of this comes "Latino weekend" February 15 and 17. It kicks off with Moncayo's beloved "Huapango" and will be directed by the equally beloved De la Parra, who will be back in town from travels in Germany and France.
Later, on March 8 and 10, De la Parra directs Beethoven's stirring Seventh Symphony. Its second movement, Allegretto, is so popular that it has often been performed separately. Beethoven called the Seventh one of his best works and critics' hyperbole has ranged from adulatory — "a floodtide of inspired invention" — to the occasional grouser — "a lot of yaks jumping about."
Former JPO Director Hector Guzmán will be back March 15 and 17 directing Dvorak's Symphony No. 7, sometimes called "The Tragic," and Rachmaninoff's feared Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3, with Norman Krieger on piano.
General Manager Gomez, who only began his job last summer, said that neither he nor De la Parra, who started in late 2012 after a long and arduous search for a director to replace Guzman, are certain they will continue in their jobs with the incoming state government, which appoints workers, including cultural workers. (Virtually all public employees find themselves in this precarious position after every election.)
The popular De la Parra, he said, besides netting the same salary as her predecessor Guzman — 75,000 pesos per month — receives an additional amount, a fraction of her normal salary, from the Patronato, one of the orchestra's governing groups made up largely of individuals from the private sector. This bonus may have tipped the balance in cementing the deal that brought the star-like De la Parra to Guadalajara last year, as it had been said that her salary expectations outstripped the state's resources.