The Fall classical music season, or as we call it, the soundtrack to the election campaign, opened last night with the San Francisco Symphony. It's an odd duck opening, as the Real Thing, the high society gala, will happen on September 19th when MTT is back from his current tour of Germany with the LSO. Nevertheless, it was the Wednesday after Labor Day, Burners are back in town, so classical music came out of its summer slumber.

As an art form in the grasp of death with a long legacy, it likes to look back and celebrate anniversaries. We're hardly over the 100th anniversary of the SF Symphony that we're going to blow candles until we're out of lungs. Let's start by wishing a happy one to John Cage, he would have turned 100 yesterday. The SF Opera turns 90, and offers a very conservative opening to indeed please a nonagenarian: Rigoletto. The rest of the season picks up in excitement with The Capulets and the Montagues by Bellini. This rarely heard opera boasts an impressive cast, with Joyce Break-a-leg DiDonato and up-and-coming Saimur Pirgu. But it's the costumes which will make Dede Wilsey melt and cry and stump her feet until the De Young devote a show to their designer, Christian Lacroix.