Dudamel, the New York Philharmonic’s incoming music and artistic director, stepped in after a guest conductor fell ill.

The opera-oratorio, an alternate Nativity story, featured a flurry of Met debuts, including the director Lileana Blain-Cruz and the conductor Marin Alsop.

In a program of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, a guest conductor coaxes a sumptuous sincerity from the orchestra’s musicians.

The tenor sang the role of Ruggero in a revival of Puccini’s opera that was performed with such restraint, it verged on overly careful.

On Friday, the pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the tenor Mark Padmore illuminated the bleakness of Schubert’s genre-defining song cycle at Zankel Hall.

Bartlett Sher’s middling production returned to the Metropolitan Opera, with a glorious Benjamin Bernheim and Nadine Sierra in the title roles.

For his latest Carnegie Hall appearance, Levit played solo piano transcriptions of symphonic works by Mahler and Beethoven.

In a revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s lavish production, the conductor Oksana Lyniv led a performance that transcended the gilded stage dressing.

In his debut on the main Carnegie stage, Olafsson gave a spectacular reading of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations.

Over consecutive evenings, the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra performed Mahler’s works on programs with star sopranos.