Levine, who is now completing his third season as BSO music director, will lead the orchestra in a sampling of the challenging repertoire he has been conducting in Boston: Bart‹k's Concerto for Orchestra (Lucerne, D‹sseldorf, Berlin, London), Ives's Three Places in New England (Lucerne and Berlin), Elliott Carter's Three Illusions (Lucerne, D‹sseldorf, Berlin, London), and Ravel's Piano Concerto in G (Lucerne and Berlin) with pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. The only truly conventional Austro-German piece in the lineup is Brahms's First Symphony (Lucerne, Hamburg, D‹sseldorf, London).
At the Lucerne and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals, Levine and the BSO perform Bart‹k's only opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle, with Albert Dohmen in the title role, Michelle DeYoung as Judith and narrator ‹rs Kisfaludy.
Rounding out the tour repertoire is Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust (Lucerne, Essen, Paris, London). Tenor Marcello Giordani sings the title role, with baritone _minence grise Jos_ van Dam as M_phistoph_ls, mezzo-soprano Yvonne Naef as Margu_rite, bass Patrick Carfizzi as Brander and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.
The BSO's most recent international tour was in August 2001, when Bernard Haitink led the orchestra in a 10-concert tour of European music festivals.
