Classical Music in NYC This Week

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Our guide to the city’s best classical music and opera.

BLUE HERON at Corpus Christi Church (Oct. 1, 4 p.m.). A continuing marvel of Boston’s music scene, this superb choir has been making its way through the music of Johannes Ockeghem, the 15th-century Flemish composer. Part of the Music Before 1800 series, this is the conductor Scott Metcalfe’s sixth program of a run that will last until 2021, and it includes the “Missa Au travail suis” and the “Missa Ma maistresse.”
212-666-9266, mb1800.org

‘CROSSING’ at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (Oct. 3, 5 and 7, 7:30 p.m.; Oct. 8, 3 p.m.). Matthew Aucoin, the composer-conductor wunderkind, brings to New York an opera based on the diaries of Walt Whitman, and set in a hospital during the Civil War. From the 2015 premiere in Boston also come the ensemble A Far Cry, the baritone Rod Gilfry as Whitman, the tenor Alexander Lewis as the young soldier he falls for, and the director Diane Paulus, artistic director of the American Repertory Theater.
718-636-4100, bam.org

JUILLIARD415 at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater (Oct. 5, 7:30 p.m.). At a program called “The Genius of Monteverdi,” witness the genius of the conductor William Christie, an early-music exponent without compare. Here he leads the young players of Juilliard’s period-instrument group and an array of their vocalist classmates in several Monteverdi works, including the “Altri canti di Marte,” the “Lamento della ninfa” and the “Ballo delle Ingrate,” which will be staged.
212-799-5000, juilliard.edu

THE KNIGHTS at BRIC (Oct. 5, 8 p.m.). Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony is always nice to hear, but this concert from this Brooklyn orchestral collective is most notable for Britten’s “Les Illuminations,” to be sung by the uncommonly incisive tenor Nicholas Phan.
718-683-5600, bricartsmedia.org

“LA BOHÈME” at the Metropolitan Opera (Oct. 2, 7:30 p.m., and through Nov. 4). Franco Zeffirelli’s picture-postcard Puccini stands as a continuing rebuke to anyone who thinks Peter Gelb is an innovator, and here it returns yet again to Lincoln Center. There are just the 15 performances this season, and the first run of two has the lowest wattage. Angel Blue sings Mimì, Brigitta Kele takes Musetta, and Dmytro Popov is Rodolfo for three nights, before he gives way to Russell Thomas. Note that Sonya Yoncheva plays Mimì in the new year, opposite Michael Fabiano.
212-362-6000, metopera.org

MOMENTA FESTIVAL at Dixon Place Theater (Oct. 1, 7 p.m.). Now in its third year, this festival always comprises four concerts, each one put together by a member of the Momenta Quartet, and each free. They run on consecutive nights through Oct. 4, but the pick of the bunch may be the first evening, curated by the violinist Emilie-Anne Gendron. It includes music by Biber, Michael Small and Alyssa Weinberg for solo violin; “Silence Cosmos” by Kee Yong Chong; and the premiere of a version of the last movement of Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2, with a theremin replacing the usual soprano.
momentaquartet.com

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