Filling in for Goerne will be mezzo-soprano Mihoko Fujimura. An odd substitution? Not in this case: the work in question is
Das Lied von der Erde, Mahler's symphony/song cycle whose mid-range solos can be performed by either baritone or mezzo. Fujimura — who is currently singing Erda and Waltraute in the Bayreuth Festival's new
Ring cycle, to excellent reviews — joins tenor Nikolai Schukoff and the Fabulous Philadelphians under music director Christoph Eschenbach for
Das Lied at two concerts: August 26 at the Lucerne Festival and September 1 at the Berlin Festival.
The Philadelphia Orchestra's 2006 tour of European summer festivals, its first such tour in a decade, opens on August 24 in Frankfurt at the Rheingau Musik-Festival. The itinerary also includes Hamburg (for the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival), the Bonn Beethovenfest, two additional concerts at Lucerne and two performances at the BBC Proms in London through September 4.
More information on the tour is available at the orchestra's website, www.philorch.org.