Strange Magic: Ravel + Stravinsky

Stravinsky’s puppet-theater ballet and Ravel’s fantastical one-act opera share the program in a New World Symphony concert shaped by movement, color and theatrical imagination. The concert takes place Saturday, January 30 and Sunday, January 31 at New World Center as part of the orchestra’s 2026-2027 season. Led by Artistic Director Stéphane Denève, the program uses the venue’s immersive technology to bring added visual dimension to two early 20th-century works.

The first half features Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka, a vivid ballet score set at a Shrovetide fair where puppets, crowds and carnival energy blur into psychological drama. After intermission, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard joins the orchestra for Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, a surreal opera with a libretto by Colette in which a misbehaving child confronts a world of animated objects and animals.

Denève is Artistic Director of New World Symphony, Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, with a special affinity for French repertoire and contemporary music. Leonard, a three-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano and Juilliard graduate, brings extensive opera and concert experience to Ravel’s richly theatrical score.