UPPER WEST SIDE — The music of once-controversial 20th Century composer Igor Stravinksy will be making its way into the program at Lincoln Center's beloved "Mostly Mozart" festival when this year's festival begins Tuesday night.
This is the first time that the composer will have a prominent focus in the 25-day festival, an annual event that pays tribute to the music of Mozart and other classical composers from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as music from other periods.
Stravinksy fits in nicely with the rest of the festival's program because much of his music is very similiar in style to that of Mozart and his contemporaries, according to Lincoln Center's Ehrenkranz Artistic Director Jane Moss.
"Even though he is a 20th century composer and is indeed identified with strong radical developments which have a huge impact on the music of the 20th century, he actually also has very strong neoclassical roots which relate beautifully to the core period that Mostly Mozart is covering," Moss said in an interview on Lincoln Center's website.
The nine-part Stravinksy Too section of the festival will include performances by New York-based company Mark Morris Dance Group, which will perform a piece choreographed to the composer's 16-minute opera, "Renard."
Known for his other balletic movements such as "Firebird," "Rite of Spring," and "Persephone," Stravinksy's music has long been part of New York's dance and classical music scenes. Many of his works accompanied pieces choreographed by New York modern dance idol Martha Graham.
Other highlights of the festival include a "staged concert" of Wolfgang Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni," conducted by Ivan Fischer and performed by the Budapest Festival Orchestra. During the performance, actors with perform the opera, and even taking the role of sets and props, as the score is played.
Just as the music of Stravinksky lends itself to Graham's dramatic, often disturbing modern dance pieces, Mozart's music creates the melodramatic mood of the opera Don Giovanni, a story about an abusive, powerful and sexually prolific nobleman.
"This character Don Giovanni has always fascinated me all my life, because I always think he is an addict," Fischer said about the piece he will conduct.
"I think today we would send Don Giovanni to a shrink," Fischer added. "In the 18th century, what they did is they killed him."
"Mostly Mozart" will be at Lincoln Center from Aug. 2 to 27.
