Festival Opera Marches Into 2012
Mercifully varying from the demise of Opera Boston, Walnut Creek’s Festival Opera is nevertheless dealing with a crisis, as reported in Music News last month. Before quoting from the company’s new announcement, here is a comment by former Festival Opera Artistic Director Olivia Stapp about points made by her successor, Michael Morgan, for the need “to transition into something more vital and sustainable.” Stapp is placing the onus on the community:
So many of us put thousands of hours of effort into creating a top quality, small professional opera company. It was an arduous task to raise it to the stature of a true cultural asset, and it would be like the labor of Sisyphus to try to do so again.None of the conventional re-positionings, such as modernizing repertoire, expensive ‘updating’ of productions, etc. will solve this particular crisis in my estimation. Every demographic is distinct, and requires an individual solution. The prosperous city of Walnut Creek needs to see its value, and support this cultural jewel in a more active way.
Executive Director Sara Nealy, on the job since March 2011, announced a “re-envisioning” of Festival Opera last weekend, in face of a budget shortfall. She spoke of beginning 2012 anew: ... with a combination of exploring and developing new community connections and experimenting with different scales of productions to bring opera to its East Bay audiences. The move is prompted by a need for a more sustainable model of business operations and also by a need to consider new and relevant ways to connect to the community.Nealy recounted how the company’s last two mainstage productions — Verdi’s La traviata and Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella — ‘resulted in disappointing ticket sales despite critical nods for artistry. Coupled with lower than anticipated grants and donations,’ she said, ‘continuing as the company has for many seasons is no longer viable.’
Specifics of the new season without a mainstage production include the free Opera in the Park and a benefit concert on July 14 at the Lesher Center for the Arts. In the fall, Festival Opera plans to present About Face, a program designed to raise awareness of a widespread but little-known medical condition: facial paralysis.
Structured around Henry Mollicone’s chamber opera, Face on the Barroom Floor, the production features the composer on piano with singers Eugene Brancoveanu and Heidi Moss, a soprano who is afflicted with a particularly severe form of Bell’s palsy.
Also planned is the Open Chorus Rehearsal, an educational event now in its third year, led by Chorus Master and Artistic Administrator James Toland. In the winter, Festival Opera plans to present Viktor Ullmann’s one-act opera Emperor of Atlantis, which originated in the Terezín concentration camp.
Nine-Year-Old Opera Veteran Looks Forward to Siegfried
Life is not easy for opera kids: “When I went to Dido and Aeneas and La vida breve, the seats were too low for me. I had to sit on my knees for two whole hours.” But Aiden Sagerman, age 9, persists: “The first time I heard opera was when my dad put a bit of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly on my iPod. I liked it as soon as I started listening to it. The second opera I heard — the first I saw — was Puccini’s La fanciulla del West. Then I saw four other operas, including Wagner’s Die Walküre. Now I’m waiting to see Siegfried at the Met.”
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Symphonic Secret Santa in Montana
Among Montana’s unofficial nicknames: “Big Sky Country” and “Treasure State.” The latter is well-justified by a story over the holidays that should inspire music fans everywhere.Santa arrived early for the Helena Symphony in the garb of anonymous donors. One paid off a $25,000 bill, the orchestra’s largest chunk of debt. Others stepped up to pay the symphony’s line of credit debt with a bank, according to symphony Executive Director Russ Martin.
“I’m starting to believe in miracles,” said Martin.
Will You See SFCV Writers on the Silver Screen
Charlie Kaufman — of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, et al. — told a London audience that his next project is a musical film about online writers.Tentatively named Frank or Francis, the film will feature a self-important writer/director, a comedian, and a film blogger who has built a cult following by writing scathing commentary from his bedroom in his parents’ house. The musical elements of the film seemingly appear when the characters sing what they are writing online. There is also “Robert” — a robot head that has mathematically worked out a formula for the perfect script.
Lest you dismiss the story, consider the casting: Nicholas Cage (blogger), Jack Black (comedian), and Steve Carell (director). The film is due for release in 2013.
Twelfth Night, Boar's Head to Put Official End to Holiday Period
The concert-and-feast events are taking place at 7:30 p.m., Jan. 7, at Seventh Avenue Performances in San Francisco; and at 4 p.m., Jan. 8, in the First Lutheran Church of Palo Alto.
Boar’s Head is the British way of marking Twelfth Night — the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, or Epiphany — bringing the Christmas period to an end.
The Boar’s Head Feast precedes Christianity, going back to ancient times when the boar was sovereign of the forest. Hunted as a public enemy, boar was the first dish served at banquets. As Christian beliefs overtook pagan customs, the presentation of a boar’s head at Christmas, beginning in the 14th century, came to symbolize the triumph of virtue over sin. (Note: The feast portion of the Renaissance Voices events will settle for roast pork — no endangered boar will be served.)
In addition to historical and religious aspects, the Twelfth Night presentation also has a practical consideration.
Katherine McKee, Renaissance Voices’ assistant music director and conductor, says the show gives the group the opportunity to introduce a 650-year-old tradition to prospective audience members who are busy in December. She says, “Now you can enjoy performances featuring traditional holiday music apart from the hectic pace of last month.”
With its usual multicultural approach to repertoire, Renaissance Voices — presenting music from China, India, and Turkey in addition to period music from Europe — is expanding the scope of the festivities. Celtic harpist Diana Rowan will present works for solo harp, including an ancient Byzantine chant called “Aghni Parthene” (O pure virgin) by St. Nectarios of Aegina, and “Sheep Beneath the Snow,” an old Manx lament.
Gudunas will sing French carols as well as songs set to texts from the English and French Renaissance, and will recite Shakespeare sonnets. Choral offerings draw from medieval and Renaissance repertoire, plus 20th-century music set to ancient texts.
Gutsy Solution to Baroque String Crisis
A recent report here told about European Union regulators’ planning to ban use of animal gut for strings.Fear of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, from infected animals, has threatened gut-string manufacturers, with potentially disastrous consequences for the “period orchestra” movement — including the Bay Area’s Philharmonia Baroque and American Bach Soloists — which aims to re-create every aspect of music as it was first performed in the 17th century.
A solution has just been found, as the Italian health, veterinary public health, and food safety agencies allowed importation of raw material required to produce gut strings.
Aquila Corde Armoniche is informing its customers that the restart of gut-string production will require probably three to four months, but all will be fine after that.
For lutes and guitars, the same company claims that Nylgut is the first synthetic material that can substitute for gut strings.
Calendar, Music, San Francisco
Considering all our preoccupation with the calendar at this time of year, let’s take a look back at this city’s amazing history: Even with a population explosion that went from 50 (yes, a head count of fifty) in 1844 to 5,000 in July 1849, and then to 25,000 in December of the same year (something about gold), San Francisco still had fewer than 60,000 residents in the 1850s, and yet:
- In 1851, music education was introduced in the public school system here and in Cleveland the first time in the U.S.; and Bellini’s La sonnambula became the first opera performed in the city by a troupe led by an Italian tenor.
- In 1852, the first Cantonese opera performed in the U.S. premiered in San Francisco, performed by the Hong Took Tong Chinese Dramatic Company. The Bostonian Eliza Biscaccianti and the Irish-born Catherine “Kate” Hayes are the first in a series of star singers to make the fledgling San Francisco opera tradition among the most prominent in the country. [11]
- In 1853, a local Italian opera company forms, performing 14 operas in the city’s first season, seven works by a promising, 40-year-old Italian composer, one Giuseppe Verdi.
- In 1854, the English singer Anna Thillon stars in a series of opera performances in San Francisco.
- In 1860, there were 145 opera performances in San Francisco, with an estimated 217,000 seats sold. Population: 56,802. Amazing.
Queen Elizabeth's 'I Like' List
Announced on Dec. 31, the New Year Honors list includes conductor/pianist Antonio Pappano, music director of the Royal Opera House, besides these service personnel:- Mrs. Victoria Frances Hartles, Assistant Chef, Household of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall
- Joseph MacLugash, Woods Foreman, Balmoral Estate
- Stephen Mark Niedojadlo, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Page
- Oh, and Helena Bonham Carter: “For services to Drama.” (She deserves it for The King’s Speech alone.)