Master Teacher Ulloa: 'Guardian Angel of Singers'
Photo by Washburn Imagery
Among the San Francisco Conservatory of Music voice professor’s students: Angel Blue, Ji Young Yang, Nadine Sierra (started with Ulloa at age 14), Eleazar Rodriguez (he was 16), Julie Adams, Wendy Buzby, Julia Metzler, Robert Watson, David Lomelí (“imported” to San Francisco from Ulloa’s program in Mexico), Amanda Squitieri, Kate Allen, Diego Torre, Daveda Karanas...
The vital, essential work of voice teachers and coaches rarely gets publicity unless their students remember to sing their praises. In Ulloa’s case, that happens frequently. Last fall, he was honored at a dinner at Teatro de Bellas Artes Opera House in Mexico City for his work and career guidance with Mexican singers over the last 15 years. At about the same time, four of Ulloa’s students participated in the Los Angeles Regional Finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, while three of the San Francisco winners were his students.
Merola and Adler alumna Karanas, whose 2012 schedule includes Brangäne in the Canadian Opera’s Tristan und Isolde; Amneris in Arizona, Vancouver, and Glimmerglass productions of Aida; Judith in a Teatro del Maggio Musicale Bluebeard’s Castle; and others, says:
I am beyond grateful to David Gockley, San Francisco Opera, and the Opera Center for hiring César Ulloa to be a part of the esteemed music staff.I fondly call César the ‘Voice Whisperer.’ He is extremely attuned to the voice and all its possible capabilities. He is able to hear the smallest problem and immediately tries to figure out the best possible solution. His vocal exercises are specifically geared toward each individual voice and their corresponding repertoire. His exercises help strengthen, tone, shape, and build a better vocal instrument.
César is someone I trust 100 percent with my instrument and career decisions. I would not be where I am today without the guidance, teachings, honesty, and unconditional love of César. He is a dear friend and a gifted treasure to all his vocal students.
He has been holding a dizzying variety of jobs: professor of voice at the S.F. Conservatory of Music, master teacher with the S.F. Opera Center’s Adler and Merola programs; master teacher with Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Dramatic Voices, the Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program, and Sociedad Internacional de Valores de Arte Mexicano, the Young Artist Program in Mexico City.
Ulloa’s role in the explosive career of Lomelí is typical of his “total care” approach. He writes:
He came to audition for me in Mexico and I accepted him in SIVAM where I was teaching. Then brought him to Placido Domingo in New York to hear. Placido took him to the LA Opera’s Young Artist Program. After two years there, I brought him to San Francisco, where he further developed in the Merola and Adler programs.
Harms, Flicka Scaling the Heights of Parnassus
Borrowing the baton from Music Director Stephen Paulson is violinist Dawn Harms, of New Century Chamber Orchestra and Oakland East Bay Symphony, serving as guest conductor for a fascinating Sunday matinee she has programmed:
Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, a suite from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, the world premiere of Clarice Assad’s SCATTERED, and Hanson’s 1930 Symphony No. 2 (“Romantic”). Hansen’s great neoclassic work was used for the closing credits of Alien, without his permission, and served as a model for John Williams’ score for E.T..
Photo by Grant Leighton
Assad’s work is for scat singer, piano, and orchestra, featuring the composer as vocalist and pianist, as well as guest percussionist Keita Ogawa.
Unlike the usual all-orchestral Rosenkavalier suite, Harms and Parnassus are offering a rare treat with the participation of Frederica von Stade, Melody Moore, and Nadine Sierra (names carrying over from the top column item).
After many appearances as Octavian (such as at a 1973 concert, with Marilyn Horne and Reri Grist), Flicka has thought about the role of the Marschallin, possibly as a career-ending performance. As Martin Bernheimer once reported:
For a time she harbored one possibly unrealistic wish. After excelling in the ardent platitudes of the young Count Octavian in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, she flirted with the noble renunciation, and high tessitura, of the more mature Marschallin.Even now, at this potentially last opportunity to hear Flicka’s Marschallin, she is sticking with Octavian, as young Moore is taking the role of “die alte Frau, die alte Marchallin,” and Sierra sings Sophie.‘Every woman in the world wants to look in the Marschallin’s mirror,’ she says. ‘Every woman thinks about the passage of time.’ She actually might have tried out the soprano part if she could have done so without critical judgment and without a sophisticated audience. ‘Maybe in Podunk,’ she reflects. Of course there was no Podunk, no place to hide, for an artist of her stature.
The Marschallin was not to be. In retrospect that may have been just as well. ‘A pipe dream,’ she sighs, ‘is a pipe dream.’
Frederica von Stade always dealt in illusion, not delusion. And so of course did Flicka.
Meanwhile, Harms is considering putting in a cot and spending the night in the Conservatory after her concert there on the previous day. She will be the violin soloist in the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony’s concert, playing Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas.
Elizabeth Connell Is Gone
The soprano Elizabeth Connell was a personal favorite, consistently reliable and impressive as Leonore, Ortrud, Odabella, Elektra, and Isolde here, but I will yield to Helmut Fischer, who posted this love letter to Connell on Opera-L:
This morning soprano Elizabeth Connell passed away in her London home after a battle with lung cancer.She truly was the most wonderful human being, full of kindness, generosity, warmth and humour. The radiance of her personality always sparkled through her pure and crystal clear voice as well, which is why even at 65, after 40 years of singing the most demanding dramatic soprano (and before that mezzo) roles, she sounded about 40 years younger than her physical age.
Her last operatic performance was in February 2011 at the Prague State Opera as Turandot, and her last concert was in October at the Bad Urach Festival in Germany, at which she proved — despite of her cancer — her versatility and flexibility and the flawlessness of her singing.
Those who knew Liza and who were touched by her humanity and her art are left behind devastated and desperate — yet grateful for the invaluable gift that she has given to our lives.
'David Goliath' on CAS
Seen on Classical Arts Showcase: a good chunk of the 1940 Proud Valley, with Paul Robeson as David Goliath (really) — it's a silly movie, but musically fabulous!
And then later: several selections by a contralto in Robeson’s range and class: Eula Beal. I regret it was before my time that she sang at San Francisco Opera.
Classical Arts Showcase is such a treasure house.
We are lucky in the Bay Area to have frequent programming of it on several channels, including:
- Contra Costa: Seren Innovations, Digital Cable 208; The City Channel, Channel 26
- Cupertino: City Channel, Channels 15, 26; Cuppertino Community TV, Channel 15
- Los Gatos: KCAT, Channel 15
- Millbrae: MCTV, Channel 26
- Napa: Napa Valley TV, Comcast Channel 28, AT&T U-Verse Channel 99
- Oakland: KDOL, Channel 27; Peralta College TV, Channels 27, 28, 99
- San Francisco: S.F. Government TV, Channel 26; EATV/City College, Channel 75; Channel 32
- San Jose: Santa Clara County Office of Education, Channel 27
- San Rafael: Channel 42; Marin TV, Channels 26, 99
Girl of the Golden West, the Movie
A 75-minute-long film version of San Francisco Opera’s production of Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West is being presented in free family screenings in Herbst Theatre. Both on Feb. 25 and 26, screening times are 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. It is recommended for ages 8 and up.Free advance ticket registration is available on the Web. Resource materials, including story synopsis, biographies, slide shows of production photos, audio and video examples, are also available.
Cypress Quartet Program in a Special Venue
Cypress String Quartet, which has just lost its executive director, is presenting a program in the picturesque
Burlingame mansion, part of the Music at Kohl’s 29th season.
The classical/new-classical sandwich format calls for the Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 13; Kevin Puts’ Lento Assai; and Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132. The concert begins at 7 p.m. on Feb. 26, preceded by a master class at 5 p.m., in association with the Young Chamber Musicians, and a preconcert talk at 6 by musicologist Kai Christiansen. As usual, Music at Kohl offers a postconcert buffet reception with the musicians.
Lento Assai was commissioned by the Cypress Quartet (Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, violins; Ethan Filner, viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel, cello) for its “Call & Response” series.
During its current, 15th season, the Quartet is adding two new recordings to its 10-album discography. In November, it released The American Album. Next month, the Cypress completes its three-volume set of Beethoven’s late quartets, including Opus 132, which is on the program Sunday.
View from Chicago: 'West Won Over' by Muti, CSO
“The western stars were well-aligned for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first California tour in 25 years,” says a report in the Sun-Times:Music director Riccardo Muti appreciated the heavy American touring of his 12 years heading the Philadelphia Orchestra and has been eager to bring the CSO to new places around the country. The San Francisco Symphony is marking its centennial and invited Chicago to anchor its anniversary American Orchestras Series, following the ensembles of Los Angeles and Boston and preceding Cleveland and New York.President Barack Obama managed to schedule a Thursday night fund-raising stay at the same San Francisco hotel as the orchestra.
And even in a global-warming world, the musicians were happy to trade Chicago for five concerts last week in the Bay Area, the O.C., Palm Springs and Desert, and San Diego.
The only thing missing was a long-awaited debut by the CSO in the stunning Frank Gehry–designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Even though that city’s Philharmonic and its charismatic young leader Gustavo Dudamel were away on their own travels — to Dudamel’s native Venezuela — CSO Association President Deborah F. Rutter, an Angeleno herself and a Philharmonic management alum, could not come to a contractual agreement with her L.A. counterpart, Deborah Borda.
Shimabukuro Live and On-Screen
Hawaii’s famed ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro — performing with artists as diverse as Yo-Yo Ma, Bela Fleck, and Cyndi Lauper — is the subject of an eponymous documentary, scheduled for its world premiere in the Castro Theater on March 14.The event is part of the 30th annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, March 8–18. A live performance by Shimabukuro will follow Tadashi Nakamura’s film.
Behind the Scenes at Merola
Robert Commanday reports on a Merola Opera Program member event, a “behind the scenes glimpse into the inner workings of a key component of the program — the training of pianists as apprentice coaches”:
The master mentor of Merola, Mark Morash, made memorable the means of Merola’s music-making for its mavens on Thursday in Herbst Theatre. He introduced and interviewed two of the program’s coaches.After describing his training, audition for Merola and life on the job, Robert Mollicone capped his story with a percussive performance of Rachmaninov’s Prelude in G Minor, Op. 23, No. 5. David Hanlon, a freer, blithe spirit, followed his lively account by spinning off a fantasmagorical improvisation on My Funny Valentine.
Laura Krumm, a comely soprano, came on to sing Sister Helen’s aria from Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, affectingly, in a clear, fine voice. Hanlon coached her, with the score on the screen enabling the audience to track Hanlon’s focus on the rhythmic challenge of the singer’s first entrance, a fine but important point.
The baritone Ao Li sang Valentin’s Aria from Gounod’s Faust, Mollicone at the keyboard. Morash, using his laptop, switched the screen image between the piano-vocal and the orchestral scores. He pointed out the importance to the singer for Mollicone to play elements from the orchestral score that are missing in the piano reduction.
Similarly, as Krumm and Li sang the Guglielmo-Fiordiligi duet from Cosi fan tutte with the piano and orchestral scores projected on the screen, the audience had to be impressed by the coach’s facility in reading the music from the orchestral score.
Capping the event, as finale, the two men ripped through a large and brand-new four-hand composition of serious complexity and exciting energy, with Mollicone (primo) and Hanlon, the composer of the piece (secondo). The evening left no doubt that the Merola Program puts its singers in the hands of exceptional musicians doing very shrewd and important teaching, meanwhile moving up the career ladder themselves.