Honoring Flicka by Supporting Her Causes
Repeating the adjective on purpose: An extraordinary event is being planned on Dec. 3 in Herbst Theatre to honor the extraordinary mezzo and benefactor to young talent, especially in the Bay Area’s disadvantaged areas.
Five major organizations come together to celebrate Frederica von Stade — not only a singer beloved around the world, but San Francisco’s equivalent to José Antonio Abreu, a local El Sistema maestra.
The five organizations, each of which has benefitted from Flicka’s presence, participation, and support, are San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Performances, Cal Performances, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
The amazing list of participants, sure to grow and feature surprise appearances:
Sir Thomas Allen, baritone
Susannah Biller, soprano
Zheng Cao, mezzo-soprano
Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano
Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, soprano
Samuel Ramey, bass
Richard Stilwell, baritone
Oh, and also Frederica von Stade, mezzo-soprano, accompanied by Jake Heggie, John Churchwell, and Bryndon Hassman.
The program will include arias from Mozart, Strauss, Rossini, and Monteverdi; songs by Ravel, Mahler, Poulenc, and Berlioz; and even works by American musical theater composers as well as songs by Heggie.
With only 900 seats in Herbst, tickets should disappear soon. In the higher spread: Gala benefit tickets are priced at $500 for premium seats and a postevent reception. Not surprisingly, proceeds to two of organizations long supported by Flicka: UC Berkeley’s Young Musicians Program and the St. Martin de Porres Catholic School in Oakland.
Says YMP instructor James Meredith, a long-time collaborator with Flicka:
A great human being by any measure, who just happens to be a funny, intuitive, soulful, no nonsense, down-to-earth, brilliant, communicative singing artist doing her bit to support everybody on this planet.I’ve known and worked with her for over 20 years and I’ve never seen anything like her. I am — no, we are — blessed to have her in our lives.
List-Maker Redux: Favorite S.F. Opera Productions
This, Gentle Reader, is not The New York Times. One way you know that is the guaranteed absence of such foolish lists as “The Ten Greatest Composers.” Honestly now. Nor is this a marketing survey, ugh.
What we do have, unable to help making lists, are personal and humble enumerations of this, that, and the other. Today’s theme comes from an experience last weekend when I checked the recording of the 2008 San Francisco Die Tote Stadt, looking for something — forgotten during the process — and ended up listening to the entire opera, end to end. That was clearly one of my favorite productions in recent years, and I started thinking about the others.
A long-ago Peter Grimes came to mind, as did the most recent Tristan und Isolde, the 2010 Die Walküre, and the 2007 “Racette-Jovanovich Butterfly.”
Looking for more, I found the 2003 Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the 2004 Fliegende Holländer, the 2002 Ariadne auf Naxos (what a cast! Voigt, Claycomb, Mahnke, Moser, Baerg ...), Kát’a Kabanová, and — must cut the list off here — the 1992 Lohengrin, with Hofmann, Lorengar, and (blessed memory) Rysanek.
Something interesting about this list: All but Ariadne (with Jun Märkl) and Lohengrin (Heinrich Hollreiser) were conducted by Donald Runnicles. This, as they say in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, “means something.”
Lisa Hirsch, with her amazing memory, took me to task about favorites I had touted in the past but hadn’t included in the list:
Poppea with Lorraine Hunt? What about Mackerras’ appearances? How about that Temirkanov Onegin when you went to all of the performances? Jiri Belohlavek conducting Makropoulos last year? The young genius who conducted Abduction two seasons back? Luisotti’s incredible Forza? Etc.
Then, after much struggle, she came up with her own Top Ten (actually 11, tsk, tsk), and tried to sneak in lots more, but you have to go to her blog and discuss the overages with her there. Lisa’s (truncated) list, in chronological, not ranked, order (since ranking is impossible and neither requested nor advised):
- Summers, Poppea, 1998 (LHL, Daniels, Donose, Ulrich, Lloyd, et al.)
- Runnicles, Tristan, 1990s and 2000s
- Mackerras, Semele, 2000 (Swenson, Ainsley, Brandes, et al.)
- Kout, Jenufa, 2001 (Racette, JH Morris, Harries)
- Runnicles, Pikovaya Dama, 2005 (Dalayman, Didyk, Schwarz)
- Luisotti, Forza, 2005; best-conducted Verdi I have heard in person
- Runnicles, Butterfly, 2007 (Racette, Jovanovich, Cao, Powell)
- Summers, 2009, Il Trittico (Racette, Gavanelli, et al.)
- Runnicles, Die Walküre, 2010 (Stemme, Westbroek, Ventris, Delavan)
- Belohlavek, Vec Makropulos 2010 (Mattila)
Now it’s your turn, and Comments below is the place: Which ones among these were also your favorites? What others? To keep things manageable, let’s have a limit of 10, please.
To refresh your memory, the place to go is Kori Lockhart’s magnificent San Francisco Opera Performance Archive.
Our Young Ones Conquering Karlsruhe and Environs
“Who the hell is Heidi Melton?” asks an ignorant blogger. “A jawdropping Didon in all departments: Didon of the century, no less,” he recovers nicely.
In an unusual confluence of Merola/Adler veterans in the Karlsruhe Opera production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens (which San Francisco Opera was to have before the fiscal roof fell in a few years back), Katherine Tier and Heidi Melton share the role of Didon, and Eleazar Rodriguez sings the role of Iopas.
An unusual convergence, but not without reason. Former San Francisco Opera Head of Music Staff John Parr is assistant to the general director there, as well as senior coach and casting director.
Tier has just completed a 10-month engagement as a member of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (where Donald Runnicles is music director), and has a two-year engagement in Karlsruhe.
Melton is doing Götterdämmerung with Deutsche Oper Berlin, and will give a solo recital in Karlsruhe, with Parr as accompanist.
Rodriguez is also now a company member of the Badisches Staatstheater opera company.
Advantages of Working with Living Composers
“I practiced the Dutilleux piece with him when I learned it 10 years ago. I spent a lot of time with him in his studio in Paris,” says Renaud Capuçon about his relationship with 95-year-old composer Henry Dutilleux. The French violinist is making his San Francisco Symphony debut Oct. 27–29, as the soloist in Henri Dutilleux’s 1985 L’Arbre des songes ((The tree of dreams).
“He is the most sweet and humble man I have ever met,” Capuçon says of the composer. “When I recorded the concerto a few months later, he was there and followed every rehearsal with the orchestra and [conductor] Myung-Whun Chung. We are in close contact, and I am proud to be able to play his concerto. It was written for Isaac Stern in 1985, who played it then on the same Del Gesu violin of 1737 I play now!”
ABC Nightline has an unintentionally funny, tabloidish interview with the Capuçon brothers, with a clueless reporter trying to maintain control over what she excitedly identifies as “these French artists.”
The San Francisco concerts, conducted by New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert, also includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 and Haydn’s Symphony No. 99.
Dance of Death on His 200th Birthday, Other Liszt Events
Remember the “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Rye Bread” commercial from the last century? Some of that goes for Liszt — no need to be Hungarian to be a fan, but here are four to look out for ...
1. It’s a good time for Ferenc/Franz. He was born in Raiding, Sopron County — then Hungary, now Austria — on Oct. 22, 1811, and died July 31, 1886, in Bayreuth, now “Wagner Country.”
So, the young Hungarian pianist Péter Toth, already well-known in the Bay Area, will play Liszt’s Totentanz on Oct. 22, at the Palo Alto Philharmonic’s season-opening concert.
Music Director Thomas Shoebotham conducts the program, which also includes the Overture to Bernstein’s Candide and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6.
2. Tibor Szabó, proprietor of Salle Pianos and Events, is eminently Hungarian, and he too makes a big deal of the birthday.
Salle is at 1632-C Market Street, next to Zuni, once a trendy restaurant, and on Oct. 22, pianist William Fitzgerald — who may or may not be Irish-Hungarian, but is definitely an important Liszt specialist — will give a recital on “our 1933 Bosendofer Imperial, invented for Liszt,” says Szabó.
The 7 p.m. wine reception (Egri Bikavér? The splendid red is not what it used to be since Macy’s started selling it for $4) is followed by the concert, which gives way to — so help me — "a big goulash" [that should be gulyás], desserts, and more wine” (Tokaji Aszu? that’s still good).
For RSVP: [email protected] or (415) 240-2181.
3. Old First Church is one day late: At 2 p.m. on Oct. 23 (also the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution), Conservatory faculty member William Wellborn brings together pianists from the Bay Area for a concert of Liszt’s music: faculty members Heidi Hau, Machiko Kobialka, and Robert Schwartz; student Hanson Tam; and others.
4. Note also the free Medici.tv video of Kotaro Fukuma’s recital at the Annency Festival.
Philadelphia Orchestra Saved
On the opening day of the 2011–2012 season, the musicians and trustees of the Philadelphia Orchestra approved a tentative agreement preventing cancelation of the season. The bankruptcy court accepted the terms, which called for a reduction in both salary ($124,800 to $106,000 base minimum) and in size of the orchestra (105 to 95), plus moving the musicians’ pensions from a defined benefit plan, which guarantees a specific monthly benefit for the players, to a defined contribution plan, which does not. The national pension fund representing about 50,000 U.S. musicians has threatened a lawsuit over the change, maintaining that the orchestra owes it up to $35 million.
'Vivaldi at San Domenico'
San Domenico School’s three-time National Grand Champion Orchestra da Camera presents a free concert on Sunday, Oct. 23, at 3 p.m. in the School’s Hall of the Arts. On the program: Vivaldi’s Concerto in D Major, F. XI, No. 42; Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2, 1st movement; Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement; Dvořák’s American String Quartet, Finale; and Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for String Quartet and Orchestra. www.sandomenico.org/music.The emphasis is on chamber music (quartets) as well as on full string orchestra with rotating seating. The program focuses on stylistic variety and awareness, upholding the Vivaldi tradition. The event is free, but reservations should be made by calling (415) 258-1921.
Faith France founded the program in 1977. Ann Krinitsky is the school’s music director and conductor in residence.
Pelléas Without Debussy
Before Debussy’s opera, Pelléas et Mélisande was a play by Maurice Maeterlinck. Brave little Cutting Ball Theater is producing the play, and brave (undetermined size) Cliff Caruthers is writing music for it, never mind Debussy.The production features a new English translation by company Artistic Director Rob Melrose, choreography by Laura Arrington, and a video installation by Wesley Cabral.
Brave is also the audience approaching the EXIT Theater, at 277 Taylor in San Francisco; consider group attendance, both for financial ($18 group tickets) and Tenderloin security considerations. The run begins Oct. 21.
One Day, Two Conservatory Events
The renown accompanist Martin Katz is giving a master class in his craft at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on Nov. 9 (at 7:30), and on the same day the Conservatory Baroque Ensemble is giving a concert, beginning at 8.Both events are free, but for the master class reservations are required by calling the box office at (415) 503-6275.
MTT East
San Francisco Symphony is having a great season, having saved up well for the centennial year, but Michael Tilson Thomas’ other band, the New World Symphony in Miami, is doing its usual pioneering programming, which makes some folk on the increasingly traditional Left Coast a bit envious.While James Conlon graced Davies Symphony Hall with last week’s rave-making Shostakovich/Mussorgsky concerts and is conducting this week’s much-expected Verdi Requiem with a sensational cast, over there, MTT opened the Miami season last weekend.
Read David Fleshler’s review in the South Florida Classical Review, and ponder the world premiere of James Lee III’s Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula, “a work intended to evoke the spirit of the Jewish harvest festival and the arrival of the Messiah from the Orion constellation.”