Seattle Symphony’s 2023 opening night was impressive. Where was the audience?

Concert review

The start of a new concert season is always a special occasion. It’s a time to listen up, and to dress up; a time to return from the beaches and hiking trails to the symphony hall and beautiful music.

There was plenty of that last commodity at Thursday’s impressive and entertaining Raise the Curtain concert by the Seattle Symphony with guest conductor Ludovic Morlot. What was missing was the audience: From this viewer’s vantage point, it looked as if more than half of the hall’s seats were empty. (Only about 850 of the hall’s 2,500 seats were occupied, Courtney Bullard, the Symphony’s senior manager of public relations, said Friday.)  

The attendance Thursday is both worrying and unfortunate: This season marks not only the 120^th year of the Seattle Symphony, but also the 25^th anniversary of Benaroya Hall. Those are milestones worth celebrating, and so was Thursday’s concert (repeated Saturday), which revisited two historic occasions in its program lineup. One of these was the Symphony’s first official concert, in December 1903, which had also featured the Massenet “Phèdre” Overture and Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony. The opening of Benaroya Hall in 1998 also had included selections from Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung.”

Soprano Alexandra LoBianco, who has starred at Seattle Opera, and Morlot, the Symphony’s conductor emeritus, added some 20^th-century history to the musical lineup, which also included Honegger’s 1920 “Pastorale d’Été.” Morlot led stylish, evocative performances that gave unusual depth and warmth to the Massenet and Honegger works. The Honegger in particular evoked a shimmering, summery atmosphere in which several of the wind instruments take solo turns, all of them beautifully performed here.

It is not every day that you see four harps lined up onstage during a symphony concert, and this happy development was the setup for a suite created by Sir Jeffrey Tate from the “Götterdämmerung” finale.  LoBianco’s formidable task as soprano soloist was to prevail over the full orchestra situated right alongside her on the stage (harps and all), for a substantial chunk of the last and longest of Wagner’s four “Ring” operas. Would she be audible over the Wagnerian orchestra? Yes, LoBianco did indeed prevail, with a beautifully expressive timbre and a steady strength throughout her extensive register.

It’s a very likable program and the orchestra is in excellent form, after undergoing many changes during the COVID pandemic. Several players have left or retired; there are some new and gifted musicians in almost all sections. And judging from the size of the house, several audience members have retired, too — from concertgoing. This is a worrying development, one that is certainly not unique to the Seattle Symphony.

Let’s hope the Thursday audience turnout was uncharacteristic, because this is an orchestra well worth hearing. If you missed the opener, there’s plenty more in store at the Symphony, including a Sept. 29 concert with Peter Oundjian guest conducting the dazzling piano soloist Lang Lang in Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2, plus Respighi’s spectacular “Pines of Rome” (complete with recorded nightingale excerpts). That concert is nearly sold out; only concert-and-party tickets remain available, starting at $250.