UPDATE: S.F. Lyric Opera Suspends Operations
San Francisco Lyric Opera Artistic Director Barnaby Palmer announced on Thursday that the company is suspending operations, effective immediately, because of lack of funds. The first casualty of the decision is the planned production of an opera gala next month, itself a fund-raising event.For the past eight years, Lyric Opera created a niche for itself with much praised, low-priced productions of 25 fully staged works, first at the Legion of Honor and lately at Cowell Theater. A special mission of the company was to attract young people to opera, admitting children for free.
Palmer's announcement includes a plea for support so that the company may regroup by 2011 by "recruiting a slate of new, active board members, to obtain funding commitments from new donors and to seek out a leader."
Always a low-budget organization, Lyric Opera is looking for funding of $500,000 to enable it to budget for 16 performances of four operas annually.
Opera and Tea: It Takes a Village
There are many famous people backstage at the San Francisco Opera, but none more popular than Ann Rosenfeld. Not a singer or orchestra musician, she is "but a volunteer," who provides and serves before and during rehearsals and performances her often exotic, always first-class tea to a surprising number of people who prefer tea leaves to coffee beans.
There is more nitty-gritty to opera than is dreamt of in your philosophy.
Having done her tea service faithfully for almost a decade, Rosenfeld will be named the San Francisco Opera Guild's Volunteer of the Year this week. She is deeply appreciative of the honor, but instead of speaking about her contributions, she tells an amazing story about the Individual Coffee Service perhaps nobody outside the Opera knows about. Not until now anyway.
What the Coffee Service (including Rosenfeld's tea) does is pull together individual in-kind donations estimated by her to be between
$15,000 and $20,000 per season, feeding the orchestra, chorus, supers, and backstage personnel coming through the canteen. This is just a peripheral Guild activity, that organization adding about $800 a year to the Coffee Service. Although obviously this is not about money, the cost and trouble of a frequent commute from Sebastopol (in Rosenfeld's case) or from all over the Bay Area for the others are other factors to consider and appreciate.
Says Rosenfeld:
Since the food contribution is bought and brought by individual team members, the "menu" is different every day — we don't pool our money and buy food collectively. Some people come in once or twice a season, and bring a modest amount. Some people serve a couple of times each week, and spend at least $50 on food every time — this is why some members of the Coffee Service team are rather famous backstage, and come to be known by their regular contributions, such as "the tea lady" (me) and "the egg lady" (Roz Ow-Wing) ... and then there's Frances.Frances Escobar is 88 or 89 years of age, a native of Japan (despite her name), who lived through the Tokyo raids. She is totally sharp in mind and spirit, with the biggest of hearts. She is not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination; still works in the accounting department of the Fine Arts Museums, and also volunteers at the Opera in their accounting, in addition to doing coffee service often.
Member of the Guild, Amici di Merola, she has Series A balcony tickets, and also donates to Merola and to the Opera. She just got her driver license renewed for another 4 years! I refer to her sometimes as Mary Poppins, for she keeps pulling more and more food out of her bags until an army could stuff itself — and it's always good food, too, with lots of seasonal fruit from Asian groceries. She is the person I always try to emulate, for if I can become even a little more like Frances towards the end of my life, I will have achieved something very good.
Where Oh Where Is 'Our Flicka'?
Lisa Hirsch forwards a review of the joint "farewell tour" concert in Boston by Frederica von Stade and Kiri Te Kanawa, and points to Flicka's schedule with a few questions:
Where is Flicka's farewell concert in the Bay Area? In a proper world, San Francisco Opera would do some kind of gala for her, like the [Marilyn] Horne gala [in 1999, by then-General Director Lotfi Mansouri].I ventured to Houston myself for Gockley's production of Sondheim's A Little Night Music, with Flicka as Desirée. With both Gockley and Flicka being residents of Sondheim-crazy San Francisco, how about "A Weekend in the Country," this part of the country?Perhaps David Gockley is planning such a thing? She performed many times in Houston as well as here; I seriously considered a trip there a couple of years ago for a Poppea in which she was, I think, singing Ottavia.
Crowden Sundays Open With a Duo Called 'Two Pianists'
Dear old Crowden School goes for the obvious: It titles its concert series in the Music Center "Sundays@Four," yes, on Sundays at 4 p.m. And, this year's series will start on Oct. 11 (a Sunday) with a piano duo called, yes again, "Two Pianists." But now that we've had our (meager) fun, let's look at this serious attraction seriously: "Sundays@Four" presents outstanding artists in intimate concerts, offering audience members interaction with the artists, who speak about each work and composer, and mingle with the audience in free receptions after the concert.
The "Two Pianists" are husband-and-wife, Portuguese-South African Luis Magalhães and Nina Schumann, joined by Wei He of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Ming-Shiu Yo of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and Crowden faculty members Jory Fankuchen and Eugene Sor.
The program includes music by Brahms, Arensky, and Copland. Tickets are $15 general admission at the door, free to those under 18.
Futurism of the Past Is Here Today
"Futurism" is a specific, historic artistic movement, not just the description of forward-looking aesthetic. In fact, Futurism — a "movement obsessed with machines and mayhem" — is a century old, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is at the center of marking the event.
Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism's First 100 Years is a collaboration between SF-MoMA, the Italian Cultural Institute, PERFORMA '09, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and UC Berkeley.
Says SF-MoMA associate curator Frank Smigiel: "Futurism ushered into being a new generation working across disciplines and together, in design, film, painting, dance,
music, and theater."
Besides exhibits, lectures, and symposia by the participating organizations, there will be an unusual musical celebration of the centennial on Oct. 16, titled Music for 16 Futurist Noise Intoners.
The concert marking the 1909 publication of F.T. Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto will feature new compositions by Mike Patton, Text of Light, Blixa Bargeld, Carla Kihlstedt and Mattias Bossi, Elliott Sharp, Ulrich Krieger, Ellen Fullman, James Fei, Luciano Chessa, John Butcher and Gino Robair, Pablo Ortiz, Theresa Wong, and the sfSoundGroup.
Performers are members of the Magik*Magik Orchestra, playing original futurist sound artist Luigi Russolo's hand-cranked instruments "to realize an expanded field of orchestral sound." Called intonarumori (noise intoners), these instruments can produce noises — explosions, howls, buzzes, hisses — not employed in Western music. Instruments include Ululatori, Rombatori, and Crepitatori. For real.
Luciano Chessa, a Bay Area-based composer and Russolo scholar, has overseen the re-creation of 16 intonarumori and has curated this concert of original and newly commissioned scores.
Minna Choi, of Magik*Magik, encountered the instruments to be used in the concert for the first time last week, and found them "totally awesome and crazy ...
One is considered closest to a string instrument, although it sounds almost nothing like one. The tone is generated by rotating a crank at the back of the instrument. The faster you crank it, the louder the pitch gets. There is a lever that the player pulls towards the various pitches written on the handle which matches the tone.
San Domenico's Vivaldi Celebration
October brings "Vivaldi at San Domenico" to the San Anselmo school, in a unique series of concerts launched many years ago by Faith France, founder of the school's Virtuoso Program.
The 2009 edition is due on Oct. 18, Music Director George Thomson conducting the Orchestra da Camera in works by Vivaldi, Sibelius, and Dvořák. The soloist in the Sibelius is Shanshan Maggie Zeng (Class of 2010), a student of Wei He in the San Francisco Conservatory Preparatory Division.
'Voice of the Voiceless' Stilled
There is a state funeral in progress in Buenos Aires for Mercedes Sosa — an extraordinary recognition for a singer. The adjective is also a good description for the artist who died last week at the age of 74, and is now lying in state at the National Congress in the Argentine capital.
She had performed from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel to New York's Carnegie Hall, but her fame is based on being "the people's singer," "the voice of the voiceless."
Watch her recent performance of "Todo cambia" or a long-ago "Zamba para no morir."
Hampson Aggregating Music Aggregators
Thomas Hampson and representatives of the Library of Congress gave the first public glimpse into their joint online "Song of America Project" last week, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Hampson has been speaking about the project for a long time, including in a Classical Voice interview, but this was the first demonstration of it. The site is expected (hoped) to go beta in about 10 days. Hampson struggled manfully with a recalcitrant Apple, admitting that he is staying with Apple only because he "cannot cope with PCs." Poverito!
LoC participants were Susan H. Vita, chief of the music division; Loras John Schissel, senior musicologist; and Suzanne Hogan, special assistant to the Librarian of Congress (James H. Billington, who is an active partner in the Hampson project).
The site looks like an enormous collection of music, text, history, dissertations, all laid out on a time line. It would be huge enough by itself, but Hampson said it will be linked with RecMusic, ArkivMusic, Instant Encore, and other sites as well.
The future Hampson/LoC site will work with Hampson's own Web site, and the Library of Congress Performing Arts site, the latter reporting on and recording Hampson's Song of America tour.
The Young Keep Getting Younger, Even in Retrospect
Responding to a Classical Voice review that made reference to the youngest conductor in San Francisco Opera history, a message arrived from conductor William Lacey in Berlin:
Your article really piqued my interest to find out who was San Francisco Opera's youngest ever conductor of a subscription performance, and I am now pretty sure it was in fact me!The crown should belong to the late lamented Calvin Simmons, since conducting a student matinee is just as difficult as conducting a subscription performance. Thanks to Kori Lockhart's amazing records I was able to establish that:
- I was 26 and 4 months when I conducted La bohème in Jan 2000.
- Markus Stenz was 26 and 9 months when he conducted the Henze in 1991.
- Patrick Summers was 27 and 3 months when he conducted several performances of Die Fledermaus in 1990.
- Calvin Simmons and John Fiore were both 28 when they made their debuts (1978 and 1988).
So, in fact Cornelius Meister is only the sixth youngest conductor at SFO. I don't know who the oldest ever was, but I would love to find out!
P.S.: I am conducting Tamerlano in Los Angeles with Domingo this November.
Also From Berlin, the Runnicles Debut
While in touch with William Lacey (item above), I asked how former San Francisco Opera Music Director Donald Runnicles is doing in his new career in Berlin, and Lacey wrote:
Last month, Runnicles conducted his first performance as General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. This was a susbscription performance of Tannhäuser, in a 2008 production by intendant Kirsten Harms. Even with few rehearsals, the performance was very good, and Peter Seiffert gave a glorious account of the title role.The Deutsche Oper public love their Wagner, and since the departure of Christian Thielemann in 2004, they have lacked a music director who knows how to conduct it. They gave Runnicles a hero's welcome and seemed absolutely delighted to have a great Wagnerian back at the helm.
Kirsten Harms has announced that she will not be staying at the Deutsche Oper beyond 2011, and Berlin opera circles are now busily gossiping about who will become Runnicles's main collaborator and partner at this venerable Berlin institution.
Commanday Honored
Classical Voice founder Robert Commanday has been honored by the Music Critics Association of North America with a Life Membership in the organization for his "long, distinguished service to the profession." He was three-term president of MCANA in the 1980s.
Raves for Dudamel Debut
From The Los Angeles Times to The New York Times, there is extravagant praise for the Saturday debut of Gustavo Dudamel as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic:
From the hometown paper:
He goes by many names: Gustavo the Great. Gustavissimo. The Dude. Some have taken to referring to the new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic by his initials, thus: G*D.From the other coast:It’s all too much, we critics judiciously caution. But in his first return to the Hollywood Bowl since making his U.S. debut there in 2005, the Dude pulled it off. Joy reigned. On Saturday, Gustavo Dudamel concluded "¡Bienvenido Gustavo!" — the 28-year-old Venezuelan conductor’s first concert as the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s music director — with a Beethoven Ninth to be remembered.
This was not the Beethoven’s Ninth some might have expected from a young dynamo. The tempos were restrained. Even in the scherzo, he strove for an organic steady pace. The slow movement had breadth and quiet intensity. And the finale, the choristers fired with enthusiasm, was exhilarating. It was affecting to hear Schiller’s references to the “starry canopy” performed outdoors on this balmy night.After the prolonged ovation ... he repeated the last section of the finale, this time with fireworks. At one point his name appeared above the proscenium in marquee lights: a Hollywood touch. But in Hollywood, why not?
Age Shall Have No Dominion Over His Voice
No, I don't mean Plácido Domingo, although he is remarkable enough, turning 69 on Jan. 21, capping an improbably long career with a baritone role. The subject here is Pandit Jasraj, who turns 80 on Jan. 28. On Saturday, he gave a thrilling vocal performance under circumstances that make that feat virtually impossible.
Old, frail, and fighting a cold that would take any operatic superstar out of action for weeks, Jasraj sang gloriously for some three hours.
The more he sang — 30-minute ragas, each of which is really a nonstop aria — the more he gained strength, the more he dazzled with virtuosity and deeply spiritual artistry.
He first appeared on the stage of the Chabot College Performing Arts Center in Hayward supported on both sides, and when he began singing, he coughed and cleared his throat frequently.
And yet, during the course of "Raga Nat Narayan," which he described as "healing music," the voice cleared up and soared, with spellbinding harmonies in the complex music, and exhibiting Jasraj's unique ability to hold notes effortlessly "forever." Unlike young singers in the West, with water bottles at hand even for a brief appearance, Jasraj san for an hour and a half before taking a sip of water.
I have heard Magda Olivero sing opera at the very end of her long career, and seen the aged, blind Alicia Alonso dance Giselle. They were both magical, but mostly because of the memories of their younger selves. That was not the case here: there was only the present and excellence, stuff made not of nostalgia, but of performer and listener breathing with the music, together.
With "Raga Khamaj Bahar" (the link given here not nearly as superb as the live performance), the deep spirituality of the first raga yielded to the robust rhythmic sweep of Hindustan's Mewati Gharana, Jasraj singing long duets with Swapan Chaudhuri's magnificent tabla.
Here, and in "Raga Mishra Kafi", Jasraj disciples — and now notable artists on their own — Tripti Muhkerjee and Suman Ghosh sang with him, at times the blended harmonies of their voices bringing to mind the Rosenkavalier Final Trio.
Jasraj's range is secure from bass to high tenor, and at one point, he kept challenging Muhkerjee to repeat phrases, and the pitch finally got too high for her, so she laughed and gave up. At nearly 80, outdoing a splendid young high soprano is really something, but that was just a minor episode in an evening of vocal splendor.
If you're exploring Jasraj on the Web, don't miss his "Raga Bhairav" and "Shivastakam."
Opera as a Repository of Demographic
The Paris district of Belleville figures prominently in Puccini's Il Tabarro, part of Il Trittico, which just concluded a triumphant run in the War Memorial.
The doomed lovers sing nostalgically of their childhood home:
Belleville is our soil and our world...And then, last weekend, here was another, more contemporary, view of Belleville in The Financial Times:Shops are ablaze with light and attractions,
carriages crossing paths, noisy Sundays,
little excursions two by two
into the Bois de Boulogne!
Dancing under the sky, amorous affairs,
It’s difficult to describe it,
this anxiety, this strange nostalgia ...
Anyone wanting to understand the situation of Muslims in Europe should visit Belleville. The rundown Parisian neighbourhood just east of the city centre is packed with couscous restaurants, Islamic bookshops and French citizens of Arab origin. About 1.5 million nominal Muslims live in the Paris region, more than in any other European city.But the narrow streets of Belleville are also packed with people of Chinese, Jewish, sub-Saharan African, and middle-class French origin. A class of children pours out of a kindergarten: Toddlers of four different colours hold hands while their teachers issue commands in French.
The Moroccan novelist Abdellah Taïa lives in the Belleville building on whose steps, according to legend, Edith Piaf was born. (In truth, "The Little Sparrow" was born in a local hospital.) "I'm even overjoyed to go to McDonald’s," says Taïa, as he pours a version of Moroccan mint tea reinvented by a posh French tea house. "The servers are white, black, Arab, and Chinese. It’s almost too philosophical-existential an experience, to see this mélange." On Taïa’s street, the vagrants are French, Algerian, and Portuguese.
More About Racette's Trittico
Web sites and lists have been buzzing with praise for the San Francisco Opera production of Puccini's Il Trittico, which ended a well-attended run on Saturday. There was one
shattering
especially well-reasoned tribute to Trittico star Patricia Racette from veteran SFO audience member Max Paley, part of which is quoted here:
Last night I went back for a second time to what was the last performance of Il trittico. My impression of an overall excellent production and cast was confirmed. Beyond that, I think Patricia Racette (good as her Giorgetta and Lauretta were) has achieved one of the great operatic impersonations of our time as Suor Angelica. Every move, every gesture, every facial expression and every note was riveting, believable and shattering.It's an interesting voice whose sometimes tremulous and fragile and girlish sound has an often surprising amount of muscle behind it and power in reserve. She poured everything she had into the role and, given how full out she had sung and how emotionally involved she had been before, it clearly took every ounce of willpower and strength she had to produce that final climactic and tremendous high C, but she did it.
I have to say, she totally destroyed me. It's not just the "Kunst" of her acting (which was immense) but the sound of the voice itself and her feel for the shape of the music that just grabbed me by the throat.
The impact was immensely heightened by the austere and formidable power of rich-bitch dressed and mink-capped Ewa Podles with her magnificent (I almost want to say alarming) contralto. I've never seen a confrontation of two such powerful vocal and dramatic personae in this opera.