Happy birthday, Jessye Norman, she turned sixty five yesterday. Last week, she showed no intent of cashing in the 401(k) at the Opening Night Gala of the SF Symphony, singing Copland's In the Beginning for a capella choir, and some Duke Ellington jazz standards. Those were book-ended by French pieces, Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture, in a somewhat approximate, not-yet-back-from-summer-break rendition, and a delicious, energetic Daphnis and Chloe suite by Maurice Ravel.

Michael Tilson-Thomas welcomed us back to Davies Symphony Hall for the new season, giving a few words of explanation about the Copland piece. MTT and Copland (who passed away only twenty years ago) were tight, and MTT explained how "Aaron"integrated church hymns, folk tunes, sea shanties, gospel, Latin rhythms, whale songs, the purrs of kitten and Kruder&Dorfmeister bass beats into his music. The first five he actually mentioned. Nevertheless, despite stirring all this in the pot, In the Beginning sounded like pretty bland incantations to us, despite Jessye's intensity. Her voice has been sliding into the mezzo range with time, and with some amplification, it was downright cavernous in the Duke Ellington standards.