Arts & Entertainment Boris Godunov at SF Opera Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov keeps with the un-official theme of the SF Opera's Fall season: Presidenting is hard work. Well, Godunov is not presidenting as much as Tsaring, but he comes on the
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Joshua Bell at the SF Symphony SF Symphony guest conductor Fabio Luisi did his best last week to steal the thunder of violin megastar Joshua Bell. He opened the program with a tone poem by Richard Strauss, Don Juan.
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera: Idomeneo The story goes like this: on his return from winning the Trojan war, the king of Crete, Idomeneo gets caught at sea in a storm. Neptune, God of the oceans, lets him go
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews: Leon Fleisher Political agendas aside, Leon Fleisher will tickle the keys, performing the Emperor concerto with the SF Symphony, and give a Master Class you can attend at the SF Conservatory. A San Francisco native,
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera: The Bonesetter's Daughter Last week, we heard some talking head comment that all Sarah Palin had to do to beat expectations was come out of her VP debate without losing a limb. That's how we felt
Arts & Entertainment Die Tote Stadt So we get this surrealist story: Paul is depressed as he lost his wife Marie; however, he ran into another woman, Marietta, in the streets of Bruges (the dead city the title refers
Arts & Entertainment Setting Up <i>The Bonesetter's Daughter</i> The Bonesetter's Daughter, which opens this Saturday at the War Memorial Opera House, is a big deal in the opera world. Or so we're told. Why? Because it's only the ninth world premiere
Arts & Entertainment Photos: Opening Night at the Symphony The Symphony Gala, which happening last Thursday night, succeeded in entertaining the elite masses who pretend to like classical music. Simply put, it was to a night to die for, darling. And if
Arts & Entertainment Opening Night at the Opera: Simon Boccanegra Yet, the performance still caught our attention, thanks to two amazing Slavic singers. Verdi's Simon Boccanegra is a story of curses, kidnappings and misplaced children. It mostly hinges on the love of Simon
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Katia Labeque Tomorrow, however, you can safely return to Davies Symphony hall: it's back to the regular, easy going atmosphere, where you can play dress up but you don't have to. Plus, it's a terrific
Arts & Entertainment The Merola's <i>Don Giovanni</i> The bad news: The Don Giovanni we witnessed last weekend seemed too big a task for the Merola program. Sure, the singing was stellar. And Donna Anna, Leporello, and the Don himself were
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Wine, Dine, Donate for the SF Food Bank It's one of the very few things that break our cold, cynical, dead heart: kids going hungry in SF. And while summer vacation is the golden months of the year for must young
Arts & Entertainment <i>Albert Herring</i> Britten's opera Albert Herring is so infrequently staged, which makes it an interesting evening regardless of how it's done well or not. The cherry on top of the cake, though, is the no-holds-barred
Arts & Entertainment Inon's Salon In a master class you took with piano legend Leon Fleisher, New-Yorker music critic Alex Ross reports Fleisher asked you to play notes to sound like 10 billion-year-old stars. How do you do
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Eat Local at the Ferry Building's Farmer's Market. Duh. While we find it ironic that they are coming from New-York to teach us about eating local -- SF invented eating local! -- the guys from Epicurious.com are coming with swag and
Arts & Entertainment Merola's Schwabacher Summer Concert Pictures courtesy of SF Opera/Kristen Locken; above Rene Barbera, Leah Crocetto, Ben Wager, David Pershall, Nathaniel Peake; below YoungJoo An
Arts & Entertainment Summer in the City Symphony Series The SF Symphony's Summer in the City is all about giving the audience easy aural pleasure. The program we attended included Dvořák's New World Symphony, a Beethoven piano concerto No. 5, and a
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Orli Shaham Who is Orli Shaham, you ask? Orli Shaham is the sublime pianist who'll play Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini with the SF Symphony at Stern Grove this Sunday. Rachmaninoff, Paganini: you
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera's Ariodante Oh, and all of these roles are sung by women. How appropriate. We attended a show later in the run, so here's a brief round-up of the other reviews: Unanimous agreement says that
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Magnus Lindberg Although Lindberg is accessible (he could even be your MySpace friend), he is often quoted as one of the prominent modern composers alive today. He just gave a recital under the auspices of
Arts & Entertainment Lucia di Lammermoor Get that moon metaphor out my face, says Juliet, and we totally understand the wisdom of it. A huge creamy moon hovers over most of the sets of Lucia di Lammermoor, a production
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera's Rheingold But! You can't predict whether this production will work, if the American angle will infuse the operatic sequence a juicy underlying story. Das Rheingold is a prequel of sorts. And insofar as opera
Arts & Entertainment B9 Or Be Square Our conductor and Music Director is Stephen Paulson, who by day is San Francisco Symphony's principal bassoonist Michael Tilson Thomas is an advisory board member, and occasionally attends our concerts We have a
misc How Good Was Your AIM? The eduction program is blowing twenty candles this year, so a slew of kids who went through it (22,000 a year!) must be now SFist commenters. Teachers, feel free to give us
Arts & Entertainment Brahms' ein deutsches Requiem And yet, we went, twice, and had a great time. We saw MTT lead a muscular piano concerto No. 2 with Leif-Ove Andsnes, a pianist who'd keep his cool in a pressure cooker.
