Barbara Hannigan at the New York Philharmonic
Thrilling
By: Susan Hall - Apr 27, 2026
Barbara Hannigan made her conducting debut at the Wu Tsai Hall in David Geffen Hall. The performance was breathtaking. Singing Francis Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, Hannigan makes music visible in her movements. The orchestra understood her every gesture and engaged. Only Teodor Currentzis brings new life to classical musical performance, yet in a style quite different from Hannigan’s. Both conductors create a new experience for audience members, young and old. They also inspire the orchestras they conduct. Under Currentzis, the Berlin Philharmonic, inaruguably the finest classical orchestra in the world, reported playing the Verdi Requiem, a warhorse, as though it were a new work.
Fourteen years ago, Alan Gilbert, then music director of the New York Philharmonic, brought Hannigan to New York to perform in Grigor Ligetti’s Grand Macabre. The show was sold out–a hit. When Lincoln Center’s summer program was run by people-in-the-know, Hannigan performed in George Benjamin’s Written on the Skin at the Koch Theater. Franz Welser Most has had Hannigan conducting in Cleveland for years.
At last she arrives to three sold out audiences and makes an indelible mark again. She always does. An artist who protects her voice, her roles and her conducting, she has refused offers from another Lincoln Center constituent. She sings where the venue suits her style.
Now Hannigan takes her physical performance one step further. She has choreographed her hands, and arms and her body, both as a conductor and actress. The message to the orchestra is clear, because she conveys not only the mood but also the beat in her rhythms.
Magnified live on a huge screen above the orchestra are live images, in the moment, of her performance. Cameras were lined up under the first level balcony at the back of the hall and also at the back of the stage to give a frontal view. Denis Gueguin is cameraman for all the cameras. He sits at a table with a tiny control box. He is an artist worthy of Hannigan, who he reported was very involved in the design of this work. A few huge images focus on the moving mouth; most are following gestures and punctuation by the arms and body.
The audience is still, completely in the grip of the work. At the end, applause, thumping, callouts and jumping lasted for a half hour until the artist finally cleared the stage.
The work has been performed throughout Europe over a dozen times. Next up Prague. It is everything contemporary classical music should be, but not duplicable.Yet it can be an inspiration for performance venues and artists.