New York Philharmonic

Beginning of article

Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortileges is one of those exceptional operas that don't need to be staged to hit their mark--in fact, it's one that can even prosper from the absence of someone else's limiting vision. I grew up with Ernest Ansermet's magical 1954 recreation of the score in equally magical Decca early stereo, and had no trouble conjuring up Colette's enchanted chairs and teapots, birds, cats, bats and squirrels; and though I was an adult when I discovered Lorin Maazel's version of 1960, it evoked its own distinctive altered state of imaginative delight. No staging I've seen has provided commensurate pleasure.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

But at Carnegie Hall Feb. …