Morris' Dance Version of Azeri Opera to Open Cal Season
Byron has called the story of Layla and Majnun "the Romeo and Juliet of the East"
When it comes to music, Mark Morris is among the most imaginative and daring choreographers, finding and putting to good use rare and usually wonderful scores. He is now getting ready for a choreographed version of the Azerbaijani-Persian opera Layla and Majnun, famous through the Middle East but little known in this country (except indirectly, see "Layla" below). It will open Cal Performances' 2016-17 season, running from Sept. 30 through Oct. 2, before touring internationally; venues include Sadler's Wells. Subscription tickets go on sale April 21.
The Arabic "Majnun Layla" ("Possessed by madness for Layla") also referred to as the Persian "Leyli o Majnun," "The Madman and Layla" in Persian) is a love story popularized by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi. The opera is by Azerbaijan's Uzeyir Hajibeyli. Howard Hodgkin is the set designer for the production.
Cherished by Persians, Arabs, Afghans, Turks, Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks, Indians, and Pakistanis, the story of Layla and Majnun has been told in a myriad variations across cultures and art forms, including even Eric Clapton, who plays the part of Majnun in his pleading classic, "Layla."
The tale is about Qays ibn al-Mulawwah, a young poet in the seventh century who fell in love with a woman named Layla and wrote poems expressing his desperate passion for her. Layla’s father, however, refused to let them marry and gave her hand to another man, whereupon Qays retreated to the wilderness, where he went mad and wasted away. He is remembered through time as Majnun, after an Arabic word meaning "crazy."
In Persian accounts, the hopeless lovers meet as schoolchildren and fall in love; however, like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, they are forbidden to marry. Grief-stricken, Majnun retreats to the desert, wild animals his only companions. Layla, in time, is married to a nobleman, but she remains devoted to Majnun, initiating several thwarted attempts to meet him. Eventually she dies of a broken heart, and her obsessed beloved follows her to the grave, dying as he mourns at her tomb. Imagine what Morris will do with the story...
From Algiers, the Italian Girl Is Heading to Livermore
Livermore Opera Cinderella principals - Bojan Kneževic, Emma McNairy, Marco Stefani, Daniel Cilli - will also sail along in Livermore's Italian Girl (Photo by Barbara Mallon)
Rossini's hilarious, melodious, too rarely performed The Italian Girl in Algiers ("L'italiana in Algeri") is coming to the Bankhead Theater March 12-20, staged by Bruce Donnell and conducted by Alex Katsman.
Rossini, who gave up writing opera in 1832 for full-time action as a gourmand and famous amateur chef until his death in 1868, wrote L'Italiana in 1813, at age 21, when music poured out of him as if from a broken dam - premiering in the same year: Il Signor Bruschino, Tancredi, Aureliano in Palmira, while he was at work on Il Turco in Italia, Sigismondo and the motet Quoniam among other works.
L'Italiana has all the halmarks of Rossini at his best, with irresistible crescendos, manic energy, grand melodies, and vocal fireworks such as in Isabella's arias, "Cruda Sorte" and "Pensa alla patria.".
The Livermore cast features singers well-known around the Bay: Kristen Choi as Isabella, Emma McNairy as Elvira:, Marco Stefani as Lindoro, Bojan Kneževic as Mustafa, Daniel Cilli as Taddeo, and Kirk Eichelberger as Haly.
"We are delighted to once again have Bruce Donnell as stage director," says LVO President Jim Schmidt. "Audiences loved his presentation of Cinderella with its comical flare, and we expect the same for The Italian Girl in Algiers"
Choi is making her Livermore debut. Katsman says he has been "following her progress since the time she studied at the San Francisco Conservatory where she earned a Masters of Music degree." The California native was among winners of the 2015 Metropolitan Opera National Council district auditions in San Diego. She served as an Emerging Artist with Virginia Opera and as an Apprentice Artist with the Sarasota Opera. Choi has performed with both Opera Parallèle and West Bay Opera.
CONCEPT18 Coming to the Veterans Building Green Room
Katerina Wong of RAWdance (Photo by Margo Moritz)
CONCEPT18, features RAWdance as well as five other dance companies. It is a salon-style, pay-what-you-can at the door event, in its 18th iteration. We serve popcorn and coffee and other goodies, just like you were in a living room.
These presentations began years ago in a small yoga studio, growing in scale through the years. We are excited to bring it into the Beaux-Arts grandeur of the Green Room, whose appearance recalls a time of fancy balls and swinging ballroom dancing.
The speaker, Jennifer Norris, is both a key San Francisco city official involved with the recent grand restoration of the Veterans Building (including the Green Room, Herbst Theater, and much else), and - in a private capacity - Board President of RAWdance.
Before getting to the event, on March 5 and 6, let's look at both RAWdance and CONCEPT18: the company is a modern dance company, "committed to driven, visceral movement, exploring the power and vulnerability of the human body, as envisioned by co-founders Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein."
Describing the event is more complicated: it involves dancers from six companies, with a variety of performances of many shades of contemporary movement. And liberal use of popcorn.
One description, by Heather Desaulniers, is "an appetizer menu for modern dance; a fun, casual and intimate program featuring an assortment of San Francisco contemporary performance." Participating artists include Katharine Hawthorne; Oakland-based Facing East Dance and Music, whose director Sue Li-Jue has been making dances in the Bay Area since 1986; Manuelito Biag, who uses personal narratives and movement; Angela Dice Nguyen with her new collaborative venture, The MoveMessenger(s); and Gregory Dawson, former dancer with LINES Ballet.
Hawthorne says she will perform excerpts from her full-length work Mainframe, with music by Matt Parker, "a UK-based composer who has combined recordings of archival computer sounds from Bletchley Park into musical soundscapes."
RAWdance coordinator Nichele Van Portfleet says many artists are sharing works-in-progress fresh from the studio. She quotes Li-Jue from Facing East Dance and Music that she is creating her own sound score, mixing babbling brook and Tibetan bells with a piece of music titled "Sokuthai Rain" by Jamie Sieber.
RAWdance is a resident company of ODC Theater, supported through residencies at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Zaccho Dance Theatre, Ucross, CounterPULSE, and Jon Sims Center. The company has performed in Singapore, China, Chicago, Providence, Williamstown, St. Louis, Washington D.C., and New York City.
Joi Chua in Royston Tan’s 3688
Music of the Asian American Film Festival
Before the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, now the Center for Asian American Media Festival (CAAMFest) alike feature music both as film scores and in live concerts. The upcoming festival, March 10-20, has a great variety of pop and rock musical genres, from Korean artists en route to SXSW, a new musical layer to Festival Social Club, and a collection of films detailing the importance, innovation, and heartbreak inspired by music.
For example:
• San Francisco’s Kollaboration joins forces with CAAMFest for the annual Social Club event on March 12, at Slate Bar in the heart of the Mission District. Performers include R&B soul group The Delivery, vocal soloist Jayne Rio, Korean American R&B singer Lawrence Park, and ambient eclectic duo AstraLogik.
• Mad Tiger, by Jonathan Yi’s and Michael Haertlein, on March 11 and 19, chronicles the relationship between two Japanese bandmates, Peelander-Yellow and Peelander-Red, as their friendship is tested and both seek greater meaning in their lives through their art and relationship with each other.
• In No Land's Song, on March 16, Iranian director Ayat Najafi portrays his sister Sara’s grim outlook on the fading presence of women in music and her journey in reviving the female voice in music and culture.
• CAAMFest alum Royston Tan’s new feature, 3688, on March 13 and 19, is a Singaporean musical dramedy following a woman honoring her dementia-ridden father by competing in a singing competition.
• Part of the shorts program The Out(er) Limits, Viet Le's Eclipse (Ruby) is a music video set on the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam War and joined by music from music pioneers Dai Lam Linh, and in Molten Tea, local multimedia artist Laura Kim dives into a rainbow of lo-fi Internet visual and pop music trends, accompanied by the music of San Francisco's Chris Corrente.
A personal postscript: Having followed the festival since its inception, I ask programmers year after year why the event is completely lacking in representation for the vast and rich Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Javanese classical and folk music - but there is no answer. Pop and rock certainly have their place in such a festival, but why do they have a monopoly, especially in the Bay Area where Asian classical music has a great tradition and therefore a "market"?
