Results tagged “terrencemccarthy”

Oh, those nifty New Yorkers; it's all about them. As usual. Why? Because David Gockley, General Director of the SF Opera, announced that the company will start producing HD broadcasts of performances for theaters all across the states. Lovely, right? But the NYT then turns it into some kind of pissing contest because they did it first. Hrumph.

Third opera in November, third reaction from the audience at curtain rise. After the enthusiastic applause for La Rondine's shiny marble sets after the bleak and silent shock of Macbeth's hole-in-the-wall sets, we got the giggles after catching sight of The Rake's Progress' opening oil field.

So foul and poor a play we haven't seen. At least, not during this San Francisco Opera season. That is, until now: behold, the vile production that is Macbeth.

Angela Gheorghiu, the diva, made her SF Opera debut on Wednesday evening, in Puccini's La Rondine. That she made it onstage was somewhat of an accomplishment; she just had been fired from a production in Chicago for missing rehearsals. She was attending her husband, French tenor Roberto Alagna, concert at the Met, it seems. (Alagna's claim to fame has been walking off the stage at La Scala in the middle of Aida, after being booed. His cover had to jump in, still sporting jeans, to keep the opera going.) Fittingly, they were dubbed the "Bonnie and Clyde" of the opera world before these exploits. The aforementioned are only the latest peccadilloes. (Visit the links above for more of their jaw-dropping behavior.)

This past Wednesday was New-Yorker night in Civic Center: the classical music critic, Alex Ross was promoting his new book at Herbst theater, and we attended the production of the Magic Flute designed by Gerald Scarfe, who regularly illustrates the magazine. Scarfe toned down his usually acidic satirical pen (see the sample from his website that we put after the jump) to cook up sets that are humorous, and respectful of Mozart’s intent.

Who better to compose an opera on the repetitive forces which govern human nature than Philip Glass! There is no better match to write about the immutability of the human soul, as the theme begs for an insistent ostinato in a minor key, of course. His score is one of the strong points of Appomattox, which had its premiere on Friday night: it is distinctly Glass-ian, but integrates elements and influence contemporary to the civil war. There is a substrate of minor third pedals and a restrained palette of rhythmic motifs in the orchestra, but this is the scaffolding which sustains a surprising variety of colors and sounds. The leading men have singing patterns which are close to speech, but Glass lets his hair down with the women, providing superb arias to moments of intimacy, or pettiness, or even, in the case of Mary Custis Lee, ugliness.

We got word that 27,000 people made a reservation to attend this Friday's Opera at the Ballpark. 27,000! And there are still tickets left! Tonight is the last day to see Barry at AT&T park, but plenty of other divas, plenty of other big guys with supernatural powers will be on stage in the stadium this Friday, as the SF Opera presents Samson and Delilah on a giant High Def video screen with a live simulcast of the performance from inside the opera house.

This settles it for now. Wagner's Tannhäuser, the first new production ordered by SF Opera general director David Gockley, opened last night, initially making us a bit nervous. Why? Well, Gockley had announced the end of the fedora, and the return of glamorous period productions. Since last year’s most compelling production was Iphigenie en Tauride, a timeless rendition in a naked black cell, we fretted: is this season going to be the return of kitsch?

While we expected a sense of deja vu at last Tuesday’s performance of Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah -- we had seen Olga Borodina in this very role, sung in that very set, on that very stage back in 2001 -- we didn't. Why? Because the set manages to be both impressive, and, well, forgettable. Sure, it has some striking features, like a giant mill wheel and statue of the God Dagon (or is the Dog Gadon), which resembles a 20-foot chihuahua. Still, it fits a McOpera period style that is appropriate, luxurious but kitsch and not particularly inventive. We did remember the spectacular final collapse of the temple (oops, we spoiled it, didn’t we?), and good thing we did. A curtain malfunction at our performance kept the spectacular effect from working.

We saw Iphigénie en Tauride last Wednesday, and the curtain fell not only on the last opening of this season, but on the Pamela Rosenberg era. There are still three more performances of Iphigénie to attend (including one tonight; plus three Rosenkavalier and two Don Giovanni), so it’s not yet time to look back.

Der Rosenkavalier opens with two women making out in bed, and the SF Opera did not even think of asking Miller Lite to sponsor the performance? Actually, one of the characters is only sung by a woman, and is supposed to be a precocious seventeen year old lad, Octavian, aka. Quinquin, taking advantage of the lessons and wisdom of an older woman, the Marschallin, aka. Princess Marie Thérèse von Werdenberg, aka. Bichette (litteraly, little doe).

A controversy was brewing, surrounding the dismissal of Hope Briggs, who was originally scheduled to sing Donna Anna, and her replacement with Elza Van Den Heever, in the new SF Opera production of Don Giovanni, which kicked off the summer season on Saturday night. The explanation for the switch from the upper floors of the opera house was rather laconic, which left the door open to wild speculations. Was it, as this Berkely Daily Planet op-ed conjectured, due to the new media suite, which will record every performance on high definition from this Don Giovanni on and thus will put some demand on the singers to look good, conjectures the writer?

The SF Opera wraps up its Fall season with two girls behaving badly, Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Bizet's Carmen. Manon is a young woman, who on her way to seclusion in a convent, elopes with a poor student, Des Grieux. It is not said what peccadillo she committed to earn a sentence of life as a nun, but her brother, instead of being dismayed at the news of her disappearance, calmly expects her to show up as a courtisan sooner than later. Which she does in Act II, taking residence with a filthy rich old lech named Geronte. When she realizes that, for all her jewelry, she is bored, undersexed and misses her hot stud of a student, and attempts to leave the gilded jail with both Des Grieux and the bling-bling, drama unfolds.

The SF Opera revived yesterday its 2003 production of the Barber of Seville, with Nathan Gunn returning in the role of Figaro. 2003, you say? Indeed, smack in the heart of the Rosenberg era, which means a re-invented version of the popular opera, set in some period best desribed as achronistic, rather than anachronistic: the set is the star of the show, a beautiful, white two story house which spins on its axis to reveal here a bedroom, here a balcony, or downstairs a music room, or a doctor’s office. The rotating set allows the opera to flow smoothly without a break for set change (there is a 25mn intermission still), and the doll house effect is breathtaking, despite a few blind angles here and there.

Donald Runnicles opened his tenure at the San Francisco Opera by conducting two ring cycles in 1990, which led to his appointment as musical director in 1992. His expiring contract won’t be renewed in 2009, yet he’ll still conduct the Ring currently in production for 2010-2011: he and Wagner go together.

The SF Opera advertises this new season as the first of a new era: an era of glamour and sophistication and respect for the traditions of the lyrical arts. Rigoletto, which opened last Saturday night, is thus a wink to the previous era; a proof that, while marketing material might promote swift shifts and clean breaks between eras, the actual production of the shows carries a lag, and transitions go through shades of grey. This Rigoletto production is more glamorous than, say, a Planet of the Apes version (and you must click on the link and check out the pictures of Gilda coming out of her space capsule, honest to goodness, just to witness what we have avoided), but the surrealist set inspired by Chirico are not exactly flamboyant: they are rather dry and minimalist, and have been seen on this stage a few times before, last in 2001.

The one good thing about missing the opening night Gala --and we'd have looked absolutely stunning in a tux-- is that we got to read the underwhelmed reports of the premiere of Verdi's Un Ballo en Maschera. We attended the performance last night with lowered expectation, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We will not second guess our estimable colleagues, since we did not see the same performance, and since we came in having integrated their feedback. In order for all of us to converge, we would have to visit the opera house a couple times, and adopt the same ethical reviewing guidelines as a food critic. And still, we'd find ways to disagree.

All serious writers who review Die Fledermaus make bad puns and comparisons: Johan Strauss ' operetta, which contains a few songs to "King Champagne," is like champagne, it is fizzy and bubbly and sparkly and easy to ingest and you come out inebriated. It also contains an aria called "Chacun à son gout," French for to each his own taste. Gosh, what a hook for a reviewer to hang his coat. Some will like it, some might not, chacun à son gout!

Today's the opening day of the new SF Symphony season, with a Gala at Davies Symphony Hall and a performance of Stravinsky's violin concerto with Christian Tetzlaff soloing, and Dvorak's Symphony No. 8, with of course MTT at the helm. Then, the orchestra abandons us to woo the European crowds in the neutral countries of Luxembourg and Switzerland. They come back in time for a free noon-time concert in the Yerba Buena Gardens on Sept. 22nd, with a re-run of the gala program: Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila and some excerpts of Dvorak's 8th. If you work downtown, you must pack your lunch and eat it on the lawn while enjoying the sun and MTT and the orchestra and a Beard Papa puff for dessert.

If a staged opera is a traditional meal, with an amuse-bouche of an overture, a few appetizers of introduction to set up the drama, some meaty bits in the middle and as a palate cleanser, a tragic ending, then the Merola Grand Finale is an all-you-can-eat buffet: the highest quality items, for sure, not a $7.99 Vegas buffet. But we were confronted to the same dilemma: which singers to pick to highlight in a review? Which arias did we like better? Our plate would be full before we could list half of them. Unlike in a regular opera, there were no less intense moments, no lower points to give more perspective to the high notes. All the arias were vehicles to display the singers's abilities (aka. hot dogging), and all of them were up to the task.

Visiting conductor James Conlon twice asked for a perfect silence from the SF Symphony audience in Davies Symphony Hall, during Saturday's performance of Verdi's Requiem. The first time was to shush the house before opening the concert with the softest pianissimo from the cellos, a whisper of a murmur leading to the hushed prayer from the Chorus: Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let everlasting light shine upon them.

The Marriage of Figaro is the sequel to The Barber of Seville. Not in the operatic world, where Mozart wrote the Marriage before Rossini did the Barber, but in the Beaumarchais plays upon which the two librettos were based. The two operas thus share the lead character, Figaro, a cunning servant quick on his feet and with his wits.

There is a monument in Rouen, France, in homage of St. Joan of Arc who was burned there on the sizzling stake in 1431, with a quote from André Malraux etched in the stone: "O Joan, without sepulchre, without portrait, you who knew that the tomb of heroes is the heart of the living." Malraux was right about the heart thing, but wrong about the rest: Dolora Zajick gave us a beautil portrait of the saint, from shy shepherdess devoted to God, to fierce warrior, to passionate lover, to resigned martyr, in the San Francisco Opera production of Tchaikovsky's Joan of Arc (The Maid of Orleans) which opened last Saturday.

This week, the San Francisco symphony was performing an all Russian program which will definitely be one of the highlights of its upcoming trip to China. However, the trip was momentarily on hold, as the renegotiation of the musicians contract was proving unsatisfactory. They just reached an agreement this Monday morning, which they should sign and disclose very soon. The main sticking point: musicians want a pay package in the middle of the zone defined by the contracts of the seven top orchestras in the country (New York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, LA, and SF) while the current offer from management stands at the bottom. Both sides of the negotiation we talked to offered reasonable and careful statements, acknowledging that talks are ongoing and hoping for a quick resolution.

The San Francisco Opera has been quite busy, with three shows running concurrently right now, each opening almost a week apart. Yesterday, Fidelio had its premiere with a quality production, as always in this opera season, but one which lacks a little oomph, a little something to make it great. The audience appeared to enjoy it nonetheless. Photos by Terrence McCarthy/SF Opera. Above, from left to right, Christine Brewer, Greta Feeney and Arthur Woodley

La Forza del Destino, the latest production of the SF Opera, opened yesterday in a wonderful new production. The Opera completely reinvented this classic, and came up with a fresh and polemic take which delighted us. And with the brilliant singing we enjoyed last night, no one will mind much of the liberties taken with the sets and costumes.

The SF Opera schedule makes it look like as if, when Dr Atomic reaches the pantheon of the opera repertoire, it will be greeted at the gate by Norma. Bellini's most famous opera opened yesterday at the War Memorial Opera House, bringing back the comfort of familiarity after the more adventurous world premiere of John Adams' composition, and we absolutely loved it. Norma is the ultimate bel canto opera, this beautiful singing style which places the emphasis on the lyricism and vocal agility of the singer. It is also an extremely powerful story, and yesterday's performance was so gut wrenching it would squeeze tears out of a rock. Norma is a high Druidess in Gaul who has been conducting a secret affair with Pollione, the proconsul for the Roman invaders. Unbeknownst to the other Gauls, they have had two kids, which says something about the value of togas for maternity wear. As the opera starts, Pollione, in a bout of mid-life crisis, has decided to leave Norma for a younger priestess, Adalgisa.