Boston Hears Haydn's Creation in a Hall Built for Sound

The Creation opens with an orchestral picture of chaos, harmonies that refuse to settle, and then the chorus breaks into light. Haydn spends the rest of the oratorio building the world in sound: sun and moon, land and water, plants, then birds and animals, and finally the first man and woman, with Adam and Eve alone in Eden for the closing part. The BSO performs it in German with English supertitles, so the words stay readable while the music carries the scene. Three dates: Thursday November 5 at 7:30 PM, Friday November 6 at 1:30 PM, Saturday November 7 at 8 PM, all in Symphony Hall.

Thursday seats run $50.25 to $191.25 all in, a $40 to $181 seat plus $10.25 in fees, and the other two dates price close by. Rush tickets sell for $15 on the day at the Massachusetts Avenue box office, from 5 PM on Thursdays and 10 AM on Fridays, one per person and only while they last; the Saturday evening performance has no rush. The under40 code brings seats to $30 for November 5 and November 7, two per person with proof of age, and the BSO does not list November 6 for it. A $35 Student Pass covers many Symphony Hall concerts but is not confirmed for these dates. Quantities are limited everywhere.

Every date carries a pre-concert program, and the two evening ones are not part of a concert ticket. November 5 at 6:30 PM brings Robert Hazen and Mike Wong to the Cabot-Cahners Room for a 45-minute talk; November 7 at 6:30 PM brings poets Christian Wiman and Tracy K. Smith for a reading, both sold separately. November 6 at 12:15 PM is the regular half-hour talk by Teresa Neff, in Symphony Hall. Symphony station on the Green Line E is closed until summer 2029, so come in at Massachusetts Avenue on the Orange Line, four minutes away, or Prudential or Northeastern, five to seven. Bags are screened at every door and must fit standard backpack size, and the step-free entrance is the Cohen Wing at 251 Huntington Avenue.