'Our People' Doing Well Everywhere
Excuse yet another rather provincial outburst of pride, but young artists from hereabouts are making strides around the world — not that it's something new, but there is an unusual cluster of such reports:Jose Maria Condemi
The Merola alumnus, who is likely to direct a San Francisco Butterfly in a year or two, has made his directorial debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago last week with Verdi's Ernani. His report:... a standing ovation from the audience and very good critical reception, despite an ailing cast that included two singers with the flu and the much publicized injuries sustained by Sondra Radvanovksy recently (hard to believe, given how gracefully she moved onstage). Here is a link to a short video clip of the production with commentary by Boaz Daniel (who sang King Charles) and myself.
Meredith Arwady
The Adler Fellow will sing the role of the Marquise de Berkenfield in the Metropolitan Opera's February La Fille du Regiment, replacing Felicity Palmer who has withdrawn from the production. Arwady, who was a great hit as the Marquise in the San Francisco La Fille last month, will alternate in the role with Ann Murray. Arwady was a winner of the 2004 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and made her Met debut last season as Pasqualita in John Adams'Doctor Atomic.Lise Lindstrom
She was the San Francisco Conservatory of Music alumna and the soloist in a much-talked-about 2007 San Francisco Symphony concert setting of the final scene from Salome, and last week brought her Turandot (from Holland, Berlin, San Diego, and more) to the Met.She was not scheduled to sing the title role until later in the season, but was pressed into service to replace Maria Guleghina. The result: a New York Times review, which opined:
Though Lindstrom may not have the biggest Turandot voice, she sang with chilling power and nailed the top notes. Her sound was impressively focused, with a vibrant vibrato on sustained tones and no wobble. The youthful shimmer of her singing was balanced by rich emotional maturity.
(Further down in the review, Anthony Tommassini took Lindstrom to task for breaking character as she was receiving "a lusty ovation ... clapping her hands with 'goody, goody' giddiness, looking like the California gal that, after all, she is." Dear me! A singer enjoying success — what may befall us next?)
Michele and Jason Detwiler
Both were highly regarded regulars for many years in San Jose, at West Bay Opera, Trinity Lyric Opera, and so on, and the latest from them came from Idaho, where they scored well in a Halloween night Faust.Speaking of Trinity Lyric Opera, that brave little company is hanging in there with an upcoming double-bill of Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors and David Conti's The Gift of the Magi — at their Castro Valley home on Dec. 20-21, then at the S.F. Conservatory on Dec. 22.
Parnassus or Otello?
The San Francisco Opera run of Verdi's Otello will begin with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday. At 3 p.m., in next-door Herbst Theatre, Stephen Paulson's Symphony Parnassus opens its 2009-2010 season with a concert featuring mezzo Lyutsina Kazachenko in a selection of Russian opera arias. What to do?
Must you choose one or the other? Not necessarily. You could take Act 1 of Otello, and still attend the entire Parnassus concert!
Here's what Paulson's band is up to: Kazachenko sings arias from operas by Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Dargomizhsky, Moussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky. The program opens with the world premiere of Concert Dances for Orchestra by S.F. Conservatory student composer Stefan Cwik, a work "in the style of Stravinsky." The program concludes with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F Minor.
Says volunteer, and crafty publicist Patty Murray: "Big group photos are usually rejected by the press so we are always trying to send out small group shots."
Looks like she's right — small is in.
These lovely ladies, forming a living painting, are getting ready for early holiday concerts, conducted by Artistic Director Martín Benvenuto: Dec. 5 at St. Mark's Church in Berkeley, and Dec. 9 at St. Mary's Chapel in Moraga.
The program: Britten's A Ceremony of Carols The program: Britten's A Ceremony of Carols (with Dan Levitan, harp); Christine Donkin's Magnificat, Hope for Resolution, a juxtaposition of a European chant melody and an anti-apartheid song from South Africa, arranged by Paul Caldwell and Sean Ivory; Debussy's Noel des Enfants, Emma Lu Diemer's Hope is the Thing With Feathers; and works by Andrew Carter and Ko Matsushita.
Free Berlin Web Cast
The Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, on their way to Davies Symphony Hall concerts on Nov. 20 and 21, will stream an all-Brahms concert (the Third and Fourth symphonies) on the Internet beginning at 5 p.m. PST, on Monday, Nov. 9, which happens to be the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.
Sponsored by Deutsche Bank, the concert will be streamed live, beginning at 5 p.m. PST. Free registration at the bank's Web site will allow logging in at the same address to see and hear the concert.
Meanwhile, the Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall season continues with live and archived concerts on the Philharmonic Web site.
Unlike the Nov. 9 Web cast, Digital Concert Hall programs are by subscription, ranging from individual works for $4.40 to the complete season for $220.The San Francisco concert on Nov. 20 will feature the Brahms First Symphony, and Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 (orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg); on Nov. 21, the Brahms Second Symphony, Wagner's Prelude to Die Meistersinger, and Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1. See a CD review of Brahms Symphonies by Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic here.
Terry Riley's Late-Night Concert
As part of "L@TE," new Berkeley Art Museum Friday night concert series, Terry Riley will perform in the atrium gallery at 9 p.m. on Nov. 6. The concert is expected to last through midnight, but if memory serves — and we are talking about long-term memory, considering that Riley's last concert in the museum took place in 1975 — the composer-pianist seldom watches the clock.
For the museum concert series, programmed by Sarah Cahill, see the museum Web site.
Salome's Last Dance
"Will she or won't she?" was the question before a surprisingly full house as the San Francisco Opera's run of Salome came to an end at the Sunday matinee. Under a blazing November sun, people thronged into the War Memorial House talking about the likelihood of Nadja Michael's singing the title role.
Because of a throat infection, she canceled at the Friday performance, and Molly Fillmore was brought in from Phoenix (where she will sing Salome later this month) — acquitting herself well by all reports.
At the 2 p.m. on Sunday, General Director David Gockley made an announcement from the stage that Michael still has a problem, but "after a little encouragement from us," she decided to go on.
I have no idea about the nature of the bug in Michael's throat, but I'd like to market it. She had the best performance yet in the run that began Oct. 18. Any time a soprano crosses the finish line in this opera, it's something in the win column, of course, but this was a performance far above standards of endurance. Michael — with fewer flat notes than on opening night — sang the hell out of the role, consistently cutting through the orchestra, gloriously, even Nilssonesquely at times.
There is another story there, about volume and balance. Unlike at previous performances, Nicola Luisotti unleashed an orgiastic Salome, leading the orchestra — in great form — in swirling storms of sound. The great ovation at the end of the performance, for the cast, Luisotti, and the orchestra, was all well-earned.
Above all, Michael, Luisotti and the orchestra took the lion's share honors for an outstanding performance. No kudos to the props department for marinating the head to excess, "blood" splashing in tsunami proportions.
As for the ovation, it came from all levels in the house (instead of the usual main source in the orchestra section), its intensity unmatched recently since Natalie Dessay's curtain call at the end of her first Lucia di Lammermoor.
Salome's Penultimate Dance
It was just a day before the next-to-last San Francisco Salome that Nadja Michael was diagnosed with a throat infection. (I rather suspect a sore throat from ... singing Salome.) Friday night, General Director David Gockley announced to a groaning audience that the star of the production had to cancel. He then announced who would sing the role, a name almost certainly unfamiliar to all but a handful in the War Memorial.
I had to search for information about Molly Fillmore, and the first thing I found was that she will sing the title role in the Arizona Opera Salome later this month, so the San Francisco appearance served her well as a kind of warm-up. In fact, she was in Phoenix, at rehearsals there, when the call came from SFO to "come and get it."
As official cover, she was on call, and spent Friday rehearsing, getting the nod only three hours before the opening curtain when Michael decided not to go on. It's remarkable under these stressful circumstances that the "unknown" gave an excellent performance in this most demanding, virtually impossible role.
Fillmore already had a career as a mezzo, moved into the dramatic soprano repertoire only recently, and proved herself well enough to be given understudy assignments in Met Wagner productions — and in Salome. She has also appeared with symphony orchestras in the U.S. and Europe.
She teaches voice at the Michigan State University College of Music, and was scheduled to make her San Francisco debut in next summer's Die Walküre; that will be now a "return engagement" after the Friday surprise.
Every Little Step: No Risk in Repeating Myself
It bears repeating because Every Little Step is such a gem, a documentary that looks into the very heart of artists and the creative process. My original review now becomes timely again with the release of the DVD. Don't miss it.
Berkeley Opera Leadership Change
Berkeley Opera has added Mark Streshinsky to its artistic team as artistic director. Streshinsky joins Jonathan Khuner, who has been artistic director since 1994, and remains as music director, in an artistic partnership as the company enters its fourth decade.
A native of Kensington, Streshinsky has been a member of the staging staffs of San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Dallas Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Seattle Opera. At Berkeley Opera, he was responsible for numerous productions, including Eugene Onegin, Handel's Acis and Galatea, and the American premiere of The Legend of the Ring.