Arts & Entertainment An Army of Philistines 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
Arts & Entertainment SF Symphony Opening Gala The SF Symphony Gala last Wednesday night, is one of the poshest events of the year -- a must-attend for anyone who’s anyone who has the right to live, breathe, receive adequate
Arts & Entertainment Tannhäuser We were wrong. Thank God. And the allusion to fedoras was not a dig at the previous general director (even though she indulged in them) but to last year’s LA opera production
Arts & Entertainment SF Symphony Season Preview The SF Symphony returned from its trip to Europe and kicks off its 2007-08 season tonight, with a sold out opening night gala featuring MTT and Renée Fleming. We find it ironic that
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera: Samson and Delilah On the other hand, Olga, how could we not recognize you! Sure, these six years have changed you, like all of us. Plus, last time we saw you, it was a comedy and
Arts & Entertainment MahTlerT In our haste on Tuesday, we forgot to mention that you could hear more MahTlerT (MTT and Mahler have become so imbricated that we had to create a shortcut) here (links to sound
Arts & Entertainment Das Klagende Lied Das klagende Lied is a three movement cantata, in which two brothers set out to find a flower that we'll allow one of them to marry a princess. The kind brother finds it,
Arts & Entertainment A Civil War Bridges the Two Americas. Inequality might be rising, but who’s to complain? There’s opera for everybody. Actually, aside from tonight’s opening gala, there are affordable tickets for all performances (and if history is our
Arts & Entertainment America's Next Opera Star To conclude the apprenticeship program’s 50th season, the Merola program gave its grand finale concert last Saturday at the War Memorial Opera House. The singers did not present a full fledged opera,
Arts & Entertainment The Gallant Pussycat. Well, we won’t spoil the story, but thanks to the performance of the Merola program apprentices, the light comedy did fire, and on all cylinders. We found it gutsy for these aspiring
Arts & Entertainment Boost Your IQ In our quest to make you smarter without listening to Yanni, we suggest you consider the Mid-Summer Mozart Festival. It’s wall-to-wall Mozart, and it starts tonight in San Jose, tomorrow at the
Arts & Entertainment Merola's Cenerentola Schwabacher sadly passed away in the middle of last year’s edition, but the new kids (mostly in their 20s), they are all right. His legacy is safe and secure. We saw last
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews James Gaffigan, SF Symphony Associate Conductor The Sunday concert features pianist Jeremy Denk in a Mozart piano concerto. Jeremy keeps an on-line diary, a blog as they call it, where he deconstructs the music, shining light on how the
Arts & Entertainment Iphigénie en Tauride This season was the last that Rosenberg planned (before her successor at the helm, SF Opera general director David Gockley tweaked it a bit), and the operas on display during the short summer
Arts & Entertainment Hitting More than the Right Notes A finely modulated musicality pervaded his interpretation whenever Prokofiev gave him the opportunity, but the concerto is mostly a showpiece to display a dazzling technique, and Bronfman was up to the task, hands
Arts & Entertainment Russian Prokofiev, Russian Preview. There will be a party on Thursday night after the performance to start the Russian festival, which you can join too (ticket info here). We would suggest showing the Big Lebowski on a
Arts & Entertainment Der Rosenkavalier If the set-up sounds French to you, don’t worry: it reminds us of La Chartreuse de Parme rewritten by Proust, complete with the blurred genders and the turn of the 20th century
Arts & Entertainment The Philistine: The Tyrant. Despite wearing the beret of a dictator, Duykers comes across as pretty innocuous as far as tyrant goes: he anguishes about writing a speech for the 20th anniversary of the coup that put
Arts & Entertainment The Philistine: Don Giovanni 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
Arts & Entertainment The Philistine Interview: There Has Got To Be A Twist, S'got Such A Supple Wrist. Still, he keeps coming back to his roots here in the Bay, and will perform this Friday, May 11 at 8pm at the Florence Gould theater and the day after, Saturday, May 12
Arts & Entertainment Arrivederci Hans, das war der letzte Tanz. Friday will be a farewell: it is the last "Friday 6.5 show" of the season, a last dance of sorts, if only to make sense of our title. The performance is at
Arts & Entertainment The Philistine Salivates on the Opera's Next Season. Gockley had made changes, some good like moving the subtitles back to the top; some great like the live videocast on the civic center plaza; some so-so, like the redesign of the visual
Arts & Entertainment The Philistine Goes Catholic Those of you who've been vociferously participating in our ongoing debates about Falun Gong, Mormonism, and Scientology will be pleased to hear that we spent tonight steeped in Mozart's Catholic Mass in C
Arts & Entertainment The Philistine: the First Emperor. Today’s performance was the First Emperor, a world premiere by Tan Dun, the composer of the music for movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or operas like the peony pavilion. We got
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Jennifer Koh. To drive the point home, SF Performances is inviting Jennifer Koh to perform this Saturday at Herbst theater. Jennifer Koh is an outstanding violinist who is totally committed to an exciting, modern, living
