Barbara Hannigan Returns to the NY Phil
Hannigan sings Poulen's Human Voice
By: Susan Hall - Apr 13, 2026
Barbara Hannigan arrives at the New York Philharmonic on April 23. Her memorable debut came fifteen years ago in Grigor Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre under conductor Alan Gilbert. It sold out. The production—directed by Doug Fitch with a multimedia set and backdrop—was the Philharmonic’s first opera. Gilbert introduced Ligeti by having audience members participate in his Poème Symphonique for 100 Metronomes, with patron Joseph Rosen assisting.
In 2015, Hannigan returned for the now-defunct Lincoln Center Summer Festival in George Benjamin’s Written on the Skin. Four years later, we caught her at Juilliard conducting an electrifying performance of Béla Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin.
Franz Welser-Möst invites her frequently to conduct the Cleveland Orchestra. She has toured Europe with her Ludwig Orchestra, celebrated a John Zorn birthday at Columbia’s Miller Theatre, and now serves as chief conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
At last, she returns to the Philharmonic, singing and conducting Poulenc.
She arrives at a moment when the Lincoln Center complex seems to need La Voix humaine—the title of the work she will perform—more than ever.
Ninety-eight trees belonging to the people of New York—not Lincoln Center—have just been demolished. History offers uneasy echoes: Hitler cut down trees in Berlin’s Tiergarten to clear space for plane to land near his bunker. One wonders what motivates such acts here. A Lincoln Center constituent has cited a planned $200 million donation from Saudi Arabia, raising questions about influence, priorities, and transparency. Meanwhile, talk of appointing former New York mayor Eric Adams as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia has faded.
Once billed as a beacon to the world, Lincoln Center now seems uncertain of its mission as a cultural hub. Its current renovation of Damrosch Park has been described to the lead sponsor as the creation of an “agora.” Have New Yorkers signed on to this shift? Perhaps they will take notice when a great artist raises a much-needed human voice.