"Hercules" is one of the pillars of the season

Handel's "Hercules" is one of his mightiest oratorios and one so dramatic that it has been successfully staged as an opera. Emmanuel Music, which has done much great work in reviving neglected Handel pieces, presents two performances of "Hercules" in October featuring an all-star cast of singers who are present or former members of Emmanuel Music. Since her days of singing in the choir on Newbury Street, mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson has developed into today's most electrifying female Handel singer, and Dejanira in "Hercules" is the most challenging role Handel ever wrote for a woman. Bass James Maddalena and countertenor Jeffrey Gall also return to Emmanuel for these performances, where they are joined by soprano Jayne West and tenor William Hite.

That will be quite a busy week for the Lieberson household. Lieberson's husband, composer Peter Lieberson, has completed his second piano concerto for the same forces that premiered the first: Peter Serkin, Seiji Ozawa, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His "Red Garuda" will have its premiere performances in Symphony Hall Oct. 14-16. Other major events of the fall segment of the BSO's season include the opening-night gala with soprano Hildegard Behrens (Sept. 29); the return of the beloved Belgian bass-baritone Jose van Dam, who joins a major debut artist, soprano Luba Orgonasova, in the orchestra's first performances of Zemlinsky's "Lyric Symphony" beginning Oct. 7; the return after several seasons' absence of popular pianist Evgeny Kissin, who plays Prokofiev's Second Concerto under the direction of Emmanuel Krivine, beginning Oct. 28; composer Oliver Knussen leading a concert performance of his Maurice Sendak opera "Where the Wild Things Are," beginning Nov. 4; the Boston debut of the outstanding (and fantastically brainy) young Italian pianist Gianluca Cascioli in Mozart's Concerto, K. 467; and the return of violinist Ida Haendel, who has a strong claim to be the greatest living master of her instrument - she plays the Dvorak Concerto beginning Nov. 26.

BankBoston Celebrity Series also has some stellar events planned. The acclaimed heldentenor Ben Heppner makes his local recital debut in Jordan Hall Oct. 15. Pianist Maurizio Pollini plays a Symphony Hall recital Oct. 17 and then joins the Berlin Philharmonic, under the direction of Claudio Abbado, for the Schumann Concerto Oct. 22, also in Symphony Hall. The world's favorite current Carmen, the glamorous Boston-trained mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, returns for a second Jordan Hall recital Dec. 3.

The Boston Early Music Festival is in the business of presenting the great international stars of the field. Among its attractions are the Tallis Scholars (Oct. 15-16), the up-and-coming Canadian countertenor Daniel Taylor with Les Voix Humaines (Oct. 22), the Gabrieli Consort (Dec. 23), and Musica Antiqua Koeln, under Reinhard Goebel, with mezzo Anne-Sophie von Otter as guest soloist, a co-presentation with BankBoston Celebrity Series (Nov. 14). The New York Collegium returns for a second Boston season, opening with Pergolesi's oratorio "La Morte di San Giuseppe" directed by Fabio Biondi in Jordan Hall Oct. 24.

Early-music standouts

No one should overlook such eminent resident early-music ensembles as Boston Camerata ("An American Celebration" Oct. 24 and "A Medieval Christmas," Dec. 17 and 19) and the Boston Museum Trio's long-running series at the Museum of Fine Arts, which opens a season focusing on Bach and his contemporaries Sept. 26.

The programmers at our radio stations keep telling us that listeners "don't like" opera, but devoted organizations persevere in performing operas, and audiences invariably show up to cheer them. The Boston Lyric Opera's production of Verdi's "Aida" in the Shubert Theatre opens Nov. 10, part of an all-Egyptian season that will include the local premiere of Philip Glass's "Akhnaten" early next year. The Boston Academy of Music is moving into a new home, the Emerson Majestic Theatre, and also moving into fully staged performances. Rossini's "L'Italiana in Algeri" with D'Anna Fortunato as Isabella opens a three-performance run Oct. 8. Thanksgiving weekend, there will be performances of a Gilbert and Sullivan double bill, "Trial by Jury" and "The Sorcerer."

Concert opera ventures include Boston Bel Canto's Jordan Hall performance of Verdi's "Il Trovatore" with the company's resident diva Joanna Porackova Sept. 25; the Handel & Haydn Society's semi-staged performances of Handel's "Semele" under the direction of Christopher Hogwood in Symphony Hall with a cast headed by Meredith Hall, David Walker, and Mark Padmore Oct. 29 and 31. Boston Baroque will perform Gluck's "Iphigenie en Tauride" Oct. 22 and 23 in Jordan Hall under the direction of Martin Pearlman. With a prestigious cast - Christine Goerke, soprano; Vinson Cole, tenor; and baritones Rodney Gilfrey and Stephen Salters - the concerts will be recorded by Telarc.

Boston is an oratorio town, and the fall brings performances of Bach's B-Minor Mass (David Hoose and the Cantata Singers in Jordan Hall Nov. 12-13) and Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" (Allen Lannom and the Masterworks Chorale in Jordan Hall, Nov. 14). The most popular "Messiah" performances are the ones by the Handel & Haydn Society (Andrew Parrott conducts Dec. 3-6 in Symphony Hall) and by Boston Baroque (Dec. 17-18 in Jordan Hall). The Spectrum Singers, under the direction of John Erhlich, offer Bach's "Magnificat" and Handel's "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" Nov. 20 in Emmanuel Church. The much-recorded and widely traveled Cape Cod chorus Gloria Dei Cantores, under the direction of Elizabeth Patterson, makes its Jordan Hall debut Oct. 29.

There is no end of chamber music and solo recital events of distinction. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museu has two weekly series. Saturday concerts are given by emerging artists (violinist Jennifer Frautschi and pianist Hugh Hinton lead off Sept. 25), and Sunday concerts feature established performers. The Borromeo Quartet began a Beethoven cycle last season that quickly became one of the hottest tickets in town; the cycle continues Oct. 17 and Dec. 12. In addition to its regular series of Jordan Hall and Sanders Theatre concerts, the Boston Chamber Music Society will perform Bach's complete Brandenburg Concertos in Emmanuel Church Dec. 17 and 19. Pianist Sergey Schepkin, whose CDs of Bach have created quite a stir, plays Book 1 of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" Oct. 9 to celebrate the release of his new recording; Book 2 follows Oct. 23. Emmanuel Music is in the fourth year of a seven-year, 51-concert survey of the major vocal, piano, and chamber works of Schubert that resumes with concerts Sept. 26, Oct. 3, and Nov. 14 in Emmanuel Church.

New-music schedules are usually the last to arrive, but the Boston Musica Viva's 31st season includes two fall concerts (Oct. 8 and Nov. 19). Collage New Music plays Elliott Carter's "Triple Duo" Nov. 7. Extension Works, a composers' collaborative, includes works by "Medford Masters" Sept. 24 and a guest appearance of the Adaskin String Trio from Canada Nov. 12. The Auros Group for New Music's eighth season promises concerts Oct. 16 (featuring Allen Shawn's delightful "Song of the Tango Bird" and Bernard Rands's "Canti lunatici") and Nov. 20.

Chamber choices

No music lover should fail to pull out the plums in the schedules of the chamber orchestras - the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra bids farewell to music director Gisele Ben-Dor; the Boston Classical Orchestra welcomes a new music director, Stephen Lipsitt; and the ambitious New England String Ensemble inaugurates a new series in Cambridge under its new music director, Susan Davenny Wyner. The Boston Modern Orchestra Project continues Oct. 9 with a program of symphonic jazz. The New England Philharmonic under the direction of Richard Pittman always presents enterprising programs; the first, Oct. 20, brings the first Boston performance of Gunther Schuller's "Vertige d'Eros."

The Boston Philharmonic, under the direction of Benjamin Zander, which has built a loyal local cult following for decades, made an impressive series of recordings that has created an international cult following. Pianist Katia Skanavi makes her Boston debut with the Philharmonic in Prokofiev's Third Concerto Oct. 16-17. Esther Budiardjo plays Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto with the Civic Symphony Orchestra of Boston Oct. 17. The beloved Slovenian pianist Dubravka Tomsic plays Liszt's First Piano Concerto with the New Hampshire Symphony Nov. 12-13 in Manchester.

Nor should anyone neglect the crowded concert calendars of such educational institutions as the New England Conservatory, Boston University, Brandeis University, Tufts University, Harvard University, Wellesley College, the Boston Conservatory of Music, the All-Newton Music School, and the Longy School of Music, which are full of worthwhile events featuring students, faculty, and distinguished visiting guests. Among the many significant concerts are the local debut of the Croatian pianist Kemal Gekic, an electrifying artist, in a Chopin Festival at Longy Oct. 22. That school's annual SeptemberFest, devoted this year to exploring music written at the end of several centuries, including our own, opens Sept. 17. The Lydian Quartet resumes its popular series at Brandeis Sept. 25 with a program featuring the music of Rebecca Clarke. Kathleen Supove, whose way of transforming the piano recital into performance art earned her major attention in The New York Times last season, returns to her old stamping grounds perform "The Exploding Piano" at the Boston Conservatory Sept. 26. Gilbert Kaplan, the businessman who learned to conduct his favorite piece, Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony, and became a leading Mahler advocate and authority, will conduct the only work in his repertory at Boston University Nov. 22.

In addition, there are always many one-off events of significance that pop up on the schedule. At least four immediately call out for attention. Superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma leads the list of luminaries celebrating the artistic legacy of the Tcherepnin family of composers in a special Symphony Hall concert Sept. 25. The third annual Concert for the Cure benefit in Symphony Hall Nov. 7 features Pinchas Zukerman as violin soloist in a program conducted by a notable American conductor who is seldom heard here, David Zinman. The Carl Nielsen Philharmonic from Denmark makes a special Sanders Theatre appearance Oct. 25 with pianist Lilya Ziberstein as soloist. Soprano Dawn Upshaw gives a free recital at Brandeis University Oct. 24.