Joyce DiDonato eagerly anticipates her debut turn in iconic ‘Neruda Songs’

Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder. Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs. Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915. 

These works are among the mainstays on the short list of art songs regularly presented by orchestras, but an example from 2005 is establishing itself on this list: Neruda Songs by American composer Peter Lieberson (1946-2011).

Famed mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato will join guest conductor Edward Gardner in Lieberson’s masterwork May 7-9, as she makes her second set of appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as the ensemble’s 2025-26 Artist-in-Residence.

The composer wrote the love songs for his wife, famed mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who performed them only a few times before dying the following year after a relapse of cancer.

The intimate works are settings of love sonnets by Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and they arguably possess the emotional power and depth of art songs by masters of the form such as Franz Schubert and Richard Strauss.

“This will be my debut with this gorgeous song cycle,” DiDonato said in an e-mail interview with Experience CSO. “Most sadly, I never heard Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in person. Perhaps even more sadly, I never met her, but I did meet Peter, who wrote a piece [The World in Flower, 2007] for me shortly after Lorraine had passed. The love they shared is evident in every phrase of this cycle.”

DiDonato admits it’s a “very tricky thing” for another singer to take on music so closely associated with a celebrated performer like Hunt Lieberson. “But I think all great artists want the music to live on — and to be offered to the public again,” she said. “I’m certain with Edward Gardner these concerts will be incredibly special.”

DiDonato is one of the most heralded singers of our time: witness her starring role in the Metropolitan Opera’s stagings of Kevin Puts’ The Hours during its 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, alongside sopranos Renée Fleming and Kelli O’Hara.

DiDonato made her CSO debut during the 2016-17 season, taking part in the ensemble’s first performances of Giuseppe Martucci’s song cycle La canzone dei ricordi (Song of Remembrance), and she has returned more or less regularly since then.

The orchestra asked her to serve as its 2025-26 artist-in-residence, following two other top-level artists: violinist Hilary Hahn, who inaugurated the post in 2021 and served in the role for three seasons, and pianist Daniil Trifonov.

In addition to performing two programs with the CSO and making an appearance as part of the Symphony Center Presents Chamber Music series, DiDonato has made sure that each of her visits has featured education and engagement activities that allow her to connect with the city’s myriad facets.

Giving the CSO’s upcoming performances of the Neruda Songs an added dimension is its historical connection to the work. In May 2008, mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor and the CSO presented the first performances of the cycle after Hunt Lieberson’s death, in Chicago and then at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

In March of that year, the composer traveled with the then 28-year-old singer to Hawaii and taught her the songs, one a day. She learned about him and his wife — whom she heard sing only once, in 2003 — and their relationship.

“Once it became that personal to me, he became a friend to me; I felt honored to tell their story, because it is their story. Every time I sing it, I feel as if she is saying it through me to him. I think it is just such a powerful message,” O’Connor said in a 2008 interview with the Denver Post.

Two months later came the concerts — a huge challenge, considering O’Connor was still in the early stages of her career, and the concerts marked her first time performing this work and dealing with all the mystique surrounding it.

“It was a very high-profile event,” O’Connor said. “There was pressure for me just to be the first one to sing them since Lorraine had.

“When you go to Carnegie with a touring orchestra, you have that day [to prepare] and that’s it. And I had never even been in Carnegie Hall, ever, so it was definitely a supreme power that intervened.”

A glowing review of the Carnegie concert by music critic Justin Davidson in New York magazine validated her efforts.

“Her interpretation will probably sharpen over time,” wrote Davidson, “mixing some muscular joy in with the sad softness, but she has the visceral glimmer, excellent Spanish and technique and tone to draw out the songs’ surreal languor. It’s good, too, to see a new piece flow into the repertoire of other orchestras. Conductor Bernard Haitink’s baton barely had to quiver for the Chicago Symphony to unfurl textures of gossamer, satin and down.”

DiDonato is excited to collaborate with Gardner when the CSO returns to the Neruda Songs. She calls herself a fan of the English conductor, who has considerable experience with vocal music, having served as music director of the English National Opera during 2007-2015.

“We met each other over 20 years ago, but we only first worked together last season in Berlioz,” she said. “I had the great joy of joining his orchestra in Oslo in spring 2025 as well, and it was electric. He is really a gift to this world.”