Gustavo Dudamel is not taking over as music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic until September. But he has begun to signal his ambitions for this high-profile next chapter of his career, with an announcement on Thursday that the orchestra would perform operas on the stage of Carnegie Hall starting this fall.
This comes the same week that Dudamel brought the Philharmonic to Radio City Music Hall for a two-hour concert. In an interview, he said these two initiatives reflect what will be a top priority when he takes over: encouraging the orchestra to explore new neighborhoods and venues across the region.
Dudamel applauded the tradition of summer concerts that the Philharmonic presents in parks in New York’s five boroughs, and suggested that he would expand those efforts.
“We are starting with Radio City, which is a place the Philharmonic hasn’t played,” he said. “We are doing opera at Carnegie Hall. We are keeping and enriching the park concerts, but even more, we are trying to connect with the cultural life of different neighborhoods.”
The Radio City concert — a program of classical works, show tunes and film music — was a high-profile event. The hall was debuting its new sound system, based on the one at the Sphere in Las Vegas, in front of an audience of nearly 6,000 people. Dudamel, uncharacteristically, returned for multiple encores, including one featuring the Broadway star Bernadette Peters.
Initially, the Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall will collaborate for five seasons, with Dudamel leading the orchestra in an annual concert opera, beginning in November with a two-night run of Puccini’s “Tosca.” The cast will include the soprano Marina Rebeka as Tosca, the tenor Jonas Kaufmann as Cavaradossi and the baritone Ludovic Tézier as Scarpia.
In a joint interview, Dudamel and Matías Tarnopolsky, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said that from their earliest discussions about the Dudamel era, they had talked about working with other New York cultural institutions, such as the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, a salsa and Latin jazz band, which will join Dudamel and the Philharmonic at Geffen Hall in May.
These kinds of collaborations, Tarnopolsky said in a statement announcing the Carnegie Hall arrangement, would be a “centerpiece” of what Dudamel would do during his tenure in New York. Many of the details of those expanding programs are being worked out now, to be in place when he officially arrives in September.
Carnegie Hall was the Philharmonic’s home from its first performance there, in 1892, until it moved to Lincoln Center in 1962. Dudamel has been a regular presence there over the years, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He first appeared on that stage in 2007, leading the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela.
During his time as the music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he has regularly conducted operas in concert. In May, he will conduct Wagner’s “Die Walküre” over three evenings at Walt Disney Concert Hall in May.
Adam Nagourney is the classical music and dance reporter for The Times.
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