This Week at San Francisco Symphony.

Bassoonist Joshua Elmore, left; Percussionist Stan Muncy, right.

Photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

I reported on the appointment of Joshua Elmore as principal bassoon and Stan Muncy as section percussionist, as well as reviewing last night's banger of a program:

• S.F. Symphony appoints first Black principal in decades
• S.F. Symphony’s newly appointed principal Joshua Elmore solos in a thrilling performance
  

Various details that I could not fit into my review:

• Daniil Trifonov's encores were Samuel Barber, Mvt II from Piano Sonata, Op. 26, and Prokofiev, Gavotte from Cinderella, Op. 95 No. 2
• Xavier Muzik used a mirrorless Fujifilm X-Pro3 digital camera and a vintage Yashica Electro 35 film camera, mostly with Kodak Gold film, for the photos in the slideshow accompanying Strange Beasts. 
• There was a brief pause between Parts I and II of The Rite of Spring, planned by Esa-Pekka Salonen. The pause was also for principal trombone Timothy Higgins and guest associate principal trombone Gracie Potter to change places so that Higgins could play bass trumpet trombone.

Previously:

• Joshua Kosman on Salonen's first Rite of Spring performance with SFS. I completely agreed with him about the weirdly soft-focus Stravinsky on the program, which I didn't find effective.
• Joshua Kosman on timpanist Elayne Jones. As it happens, SFS had a Black player before Jones, bassist Charles Burrell. Subsequently, these Black musicians were members of the orchestra:
• Violist Basil Vendrys, now principal viola of the Colorado Symphony
• Bassoonist Rufus Olivier, now principal bassoon of the SF Opera and SF Ballet Orchestras
• Nicole Cash, former associate principal horn

 

Museum Mondays

Jogak Bo

Korean patchwork style

Museum of International Folk Art

Santa Fe, NM

August, 2024

 

Friday Photo

Great Blue Heron

Martin Luther King Jr. Recreational Shoreline

Oakland, CA

February, 2025

 

Bard Summerscape and Bard Music Festival 2025: MARTINŮ AND HIS WORLD

Fisher Center at Bard (photo-Peter Aaron '68/Esto)

Here's the schedule for Bard's summer festivities; note that getting this onto the blog meant that I lost most of the formatting and I have not restored all of it. For more information, see the Summerscape web site.

Pastoral
Fisher Center LAB Commission/World Premiere
 
Choreography by Pam Tanowitz
Décor by Sarah Crowner
Music by Caroline Shaw
Featuring Pam Tanowitz Dance
Inspired by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”
 
Friday, June 27 at 7 pm
Saturday, June 28 at 7 pm
Sunday, June 29 at 3 pm
Sosnoff Theater

Dalibor
by Bedřich Smetana
SummerScape Opera/New Production
 
Libretto by Josef Wenzig, Czech translation by Ervín Špindler
Directed by Jean-Romain Vesperini
American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein
Sung in Czech with English supertitles
 
Friday, July 25 at 6:30 pm
Sunday, July 27 at 2 pm
Wednesday, July 30 at 2 pm
Friday, August 1 at 4 pm
Sunday, August 3 at 2 pm
Sosnoff Theater

The 35th Bard Music Festival
Martinů and His World
 
Weekend One: A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century 
August 8–10
 
Weekend Two: Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century
August 14–17
Weekend One: A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century 
 
Program One: The Peripatetic Career
Friday, August 8
Sosnoff Theater
7 PM Performance with Commentary
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Double Concerto, H271 (1938)
Piano Quartet No. 1, H287 (1942)
Symphony No. 2, H295 (1943)
Fantasia, H301 (1944)
Petrklíč / Primrose, H348 (1954)
 
Panel One
Why Martinů: Understanding Classical Music, Past and Future
Saturday, August 9
Olin Hall 
10 AM – 12 noon
 
Free and open to the public.
 
Program Two: The Emigree in Paris
Saturday, August 9
Olin Hall
1 PM Preconcert Talk
1:30 PM Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
String Trio No. 1, H136 (1923)
Flute Sonata, H306 (1945)
Duo No. 1 for Violin and Cello, H157 (1927)
 
Josef Suk (1874–1935)
Piano Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 1 (1891)
 
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major (1927)
 
Works by Jaroslav Řídký (1897–1956) and Alexandre Tansman (1897–1986)
 
Program Three: Music and Freedom
Saturday, August 9
Sosnoff Theater
6 PM Preconcert Talk
7 PM Orchestral Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Memorial to Lidice, H296 (1943)
Symphony No. 6 (Fantaisies symphoniques), H343 (1951–53)
Piano Concerto No. 4, “Incantation,” H358 (1956)
 
Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942)
Symphony No. 2 (1932)
 
Rudolf Firkušný (1912–94)
Piano Concertino (1929)
 
Program Four: The Search for a Distinctive Voice
Sunday, August 10
Olin Hall
11 AM Performance with Commentary
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Les Rondes, H200 (1930)
String Quartet No. 7, “Concerto da camera,” H314 (1947)
The Fifth Day of the Fifth Moon, for piano, H318 (1948)
Variations on a Slovak Theme, H378 (1959)
 
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–40)
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 8 (1935)
 
Program Five: New Shores: Influences and Contexts
Sunday, August 10
Sosnoff Theater  
2 PM Preconcert Talk
3 PM Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
La revue de cuisine, H161 (1927)
Harpsichord Concerto, H246 (1935)
Tre ricercari, H267 (1938)
Piano Sonata No. 1, H350 (1954)
 
Arthur Honegger (1892–1955)
Concerto da Camera, H196 (1948)
 
Aaron Copland (1900–90)
Sextet (1937)
 
Weekend Two: Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century
 
Program Six: The Spiritual Quest
Thursday, August 14, at 7 PM
Friday, August 15 at 3 PM
Church of the Messiah, Rhinebeck 
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
The Mount of Three Lights, H349 (1954) 
Vigilie, H382 (1959)
 
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
From Mass in D Major, Op. 86 (1887)
 
Leoš Janáček (1854–1928)
Veni Sancte Spiritus (ca. 1903)
Constitues eos principes (1903)
Ave Maria (1904) 
Postludium, from Glagolitic Mass (1926)
 
Petr Eben (1929–2007)
Finale, from Musica dominicalis (Sunday Music) (1958)
 
Program Seven: Myth, Faith, and Folklore
Friday, August 15
Sosnoff Theater
6 PM Preconcert Talk
7 PM Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Mariken de Nimègue, H236/2 I (1933–34)
Field Mass, H279 (1946)
Brigand Songs, H361 (1957)
 
Panel Two: Music and Politics: From the Habsburg Empire to Contemporary Populism and Autocracy
Saturday, August 16
Olin Hall
10 AM – 12 noon
 
Free and open to the public.
 
Program Eight: Martinů and the Craft of Composition
Saturday, August 16
Olin Hall
1 PM Preconcert Talk
1:30 PM Performance 
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Duo No. 1, “Three Madrigals,” H313 (1947)
Cello Sonata No. 3, H340 (1952)
Nonet No. 2, H374 (1959)
 
David Diamond (1915–2005)
Quintet (1937)
 
Karel Husa (1921–2016)
Evocations de Slovaquie (1951)
 
Program Nine: Renewing the Public Power of Tradition
Saturday, August 16
Sosnoff Theater
6 PM Preconcert Talk
7 PM Orchestral Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Violin Concerto No. 2, H293 (1943)
The Epic of Gilgamesh, H351 (1955)
 
Jan Novák (1921–84)
Ignis pro Ioanne Palach (1969)
 
Program Ten: Martinů’s Legacy
Sunday, August 17
Olin Hall
11 AM Preconcert Talk
11:30 AM Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Three Czech Dances, H154 (1926)
Songs on One Page, H294 (1943)
Songs on Two Pages, H302 (1944)
 
Joan Tower (b. 1938)
Petroushskates (1980)
 
Kryštof Mařatka (b. 1972)
Báchorky, fables pastorales (2016)
 
Works by Jaroslav Ježek (1906–42), Frank Zappa (1940–93), and Iva Bittová (b. 1958)
 
Program Eleven: The Opera of Dreams: Martinů’s Julietta
Sunday, August 17
Sosnoff Theater 
2 PM Preconcert Talk
3 PM Semi-Staged Opera Performance
 
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Julietta, H253 (1937) (Martinů, after Georges Neveux)
 

Seattle Opera 2025-26

McCaw Hall Theater

Uncredited; courtesy of McCaw Hall web site

Like certain other opera companies –– ahem, probably all of them, but definitely San Francisco Opera –– Seattle Opera has announced a short, very short, season, consisting of one operetta, two fully staged operas, and concert performances of another opera. I'm cutting a lot of marketing prose from the below. For casting details, see the Seattle Opera web site.

The Pirates of Penzance

Music by Arthur Sullivan

Libretto by W.S. Gilbert

October 18–November 1, 2025

Daphne in Concert

Music by Richard Strauss

Libretto by Joseph Gregor

January 16 & 18, 2026

Fellow Travelers

Music by Gregory Spears

Libretto by Greg Pierce

February 21–March 1, 2026

Carmen

Music by Georges Bizet

Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy

May 2–17, 2026

(Sasha Cooke and J'nai Bridges are splitting the title role. I dunno, neither strikes me as the kind of alluring firebrand you ideally want in this role.)

Patricia Racette will also sing a cabaret evening. The company is offering some classes, in subjects like 21st c. opera and queerness in opera.

Oakland Symphony 2025-26

Highsmith, Carol M, photographer. Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California. United States Oakland California, 2013. May. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2013635154/.

Season announcement season is in full swing, and here's next year's schedule for the Oakland Symphony, under its new music director Kedrick Armstrong. As is typical of this orchestra and its music directors, there's a nice balance of standards and new/unusual music. Note that if you're still smoldering from the cancellation of the Verdi Requiem at the San Francisco Symphony, you can hear it in Oakland. For more details, see the Oakland Symphony web site.

Season Opening:

DAVE RAGLAND PREMIERE plus THE FIREBIRD!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2025 | 8:00PM

Paramount Theatre, Oakland

Kedrick Armstrong, conductor

Sara Davis Buechner, piano

ANNA CLYNE This Midnight Hour

MAURICE RAVEL Piano Concerto in G

DAVE RAGLAND Harmony of the Unheard

Oakland Symphony Commission World Premiere

IGOR STRAVINSKY The Firebird Suite (1919)

VERDI’S REQUIEM

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2025 | 8:00PM

Paramount Theatre, Oakland

Kedrick Armstrong, conductor

Tiffany Townsend, soprano

Raehann Bryce-Davis, mezzo-soprano

Robert Stahley, tenor

Reginald Smith Jr., baritone

Oakland Symphony Chorus

CAVA MENZIES Oakland Symphony Commission World Premiere

GIUSEPPE VERDI Requiem

LET US BREAK BREAD TOGETHER

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2025 | 4:00PM

Paramount Theatre, Oakland

Kedrick Armstrong, conductor

An “inspired, multifarious, musical bash!” raves San Francisco Classical Voice of the Oakland Symphony’s Let Us Break Bread Together. Kedrick Armstrong and the Orchestra are joined by the region’s top talent for this annual celebration, this year paying a special tribute to Whitney Houston.

ROUMAIN, MAHLER, ESMAIL & CHEN YI

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2026 | 8:00PM

Kedrick Armstrong, conductor

Tracy Silverman, violin

Oakland Symphony Chorus

CHEN YI Introduction, Andante, and Allegro

GUSTAV MAHLER Symphony No. 10, Adagio

REENA ESMAIL She Will Transform You

DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN (Artist-In-Residence)

America, To Us

HAMMOND ORGAN CONCERTO plus

SAINT-SAËNS THUNDERING ORGAN SYMPHONY

FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2026 | 8:00PM

Paramount theatre, Oakland

Kedrick Armstrong, conductor

Brian Nabors, organ

CLARICE ASSAD Baião N’ Blues

BRIAN RAPHAEL NABORS Hammond Organ Concerto

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS Symphony No. 3, “Organ”

Season Finale: SCHEHERAZADE!

FRIDAY, MAY 15, 2026 | 8:00PM

Paramount Theatre, Oakland

Kedrick Armstrong, conductor

Oakland Symphony Chorus

JASMINE BARNES Oakland Symphony Commission World Premiere

NICOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Scheherazade

Lise Davidsen in Recital

Lise Davidsen and Malcolm Martineau

Zellberbach Hall

Feb. 4, 2025

Photo: Katie Ravas for Drew Altizer Photography, courtesy of Cal Performances

Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen's first Bay Area appearance was last week. She was awesome. I don't just mean her gigantic voice, about which you've probably read. She is an artist and the recital was really something. As both Opera Tattler and Michael Anthonio note, she is warm and funny on stage.

Oh, yeah, she is really tall.

And pregnant, with twins. You couldn't tell in the flowing flowered dress she wore in the first half of the recital, but you could in the tubelike number in the second half. She will sing Leonore in the Met's Fidelio next month before taking a break until sometime next year. She is apparently still planning to be in the Met's Tristan und Isolde.  Between her role debut and Yuval Sharon's direction, you bet I'm planning a trip to NYC in March, 2026.

• Lisa Hirsch, SF Chronicle and SFCV. Yes, I burst into tears a measure or two into "Es gibt ein Reich," from Ariadne auf Naxos. It's time for SFO to revive this great and funny opera. Weirdly, I have a casting suggestion for them.
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle. "...the artistic results never really quicken the pulse the way one would wish — or at any rate, they don’t quicken my pulse."
• Opera Tattler. "Davidsen has a powerful voice, with beautiful low notes and pristine, completely effortless high ones." A person commenting anonymously on the post mentions bursting into tears elsewhere on the program.
• Michael Anthonio, Parterre Box. "...her take on “Tu che le vanità” completely blew my mind." (I haven't heard it sung better myself, just a stupendous vocal display.)

Last comment from me: I would have liked to hear her anywhere other than Zellerbach, which has a Meyer Sound Constellation system. This is a system that tunes the hall. I am sure that Zellerbach is acoustically dead without it - all that concrete - but even when it's set up well for the particular performance, it renders the sound a bit artificially, and that was the case last week. For more information, read Alex Ross's informative New Yorker essay about Meyer Sound from February, 2015.

Museum Mondays

Dance of the Devils Mask

Museum of International Folk Art

Santa Fe, NM

August, 2024

 

Adriana Mater

Cover art c/o Deutsche Grammophon

Black & white photo of Kaija Saariaho

Text on photo:

Kaija Saariaho

Adriana Mater

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Fleur Barron Axelle Fano Nicholas Phan  Christopher Purves

San Francisco Symphony    San Francisco Symphony Chorus

DG logo

The world premiere recording of Kaija Saariaho's Adriana Mater was released a few weeks ago by Deutsche Grammophon. It's drawn from performances at the San Francisco Symphony in June, 2023, just days after Saariaho's death from glioblastoma. The performers are listed above in my description of the artwork accompanying the release; I think that alt text doesn't actually work on Blogger.

The performances were a deeply emotional event for the performers and director Peter Sellars. Salonen and Saariaho had been friends since their school days and Sellars directed the premieres of her first two operas, L'amour de loin and Adriana. 

The recording is currently available only as a download, but physical media will become available next year.

UPDATE, February 8, 2025: This recording won a Grammy for Best Opera Recording. You can stream it on major platforms. I haven't seen anything yet about physical media; I'll buy the CDs if that format is available.

 

Diversity in Opera

It's a common stance among U.S. classical music and opera lovers to wish that state and federal support  for the arts reached the levels of such support in Europe. I've thought for a while that this would be a double-edged sword: a government that gives money can take away that money. We're seeing the depredations of Arts Council England in the UK, where subsidies for many important organizations has been cut back and the English National Opera is being forced to decamp from London, where they've been performing for the last 80 years, first as Sadler's Wells Opera, then as the ENO.

Not that private philanthropists can't do the same, plus there's generational change about what the rich give to: these days, what's popular is donating huge sums to medical research or hospitals rather than the arts.

Regardless, one good thing about lack of government support means that there's not much to take away and an organization that's dedicated to expanding their repertory past dead white European men and to casting people of color in leading roles can't be pressured by the government to stop doing these things. (Here I'll note that San Francisco Opera's excellent productions of Omar and El ultimo sueño de Frida y Diego sold very well, and making your audiences happy is good.)

I was thinking about how racism manifests itself in the performing arts. There are all sorts of ways: thinking you can't cast Black men as romantic heroes, assigning fewer solos in concerts to singers of color, failing to admit singers of color to important training programs, the economic inequality that makes it easier for people with money than people without money to pay for music or voice lessons and buy good instruments, treating students of color differently, and on and on. 

Other than in Porgy and Bess, I did not see a production with more than one Black singer on stage until 2017! I've now seen enough productions with one to many Black or Asian singers to know that it's absolutely not for lack of good singers of color. And there are some outstanding Black singers I've seen in the last few years who didn't have careers at major U.S. opera houses until they were approaching or past 50.  I expect that most people reading this are aware that star singers are usually established by age 35, so that's a lot of prime earning years lost. 

DEI works the same way in the arts as anywhere else: expanding the pool of talent means you have more choices about who to hire, and generally results in quality going up. Having fewer mediocre white people in the corner suite or on stage benefits us all.

Friday Photo

 

Tower of St. Lawrence Jewry, London

July, 2024

Ojai 2026

Photo: Minna Hatinen / San Francisco Symphony

The photo says it all: the Ojai Festival's 2026 music director will be by-then-former-SFS-music-director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The dates are June 11-14, 2026.

 

San Francisco Opera, 2025-26

Verdi, Rigoletto

Photo: Cory Weaver / San Francisco Symphony

The 2025-26 San Francisco Opera season was announced at 1 p.m. today. Like 2024-25, it's a short season, with six operas and several concerts. Here's what they're preforming:

• Rigoletto, Verdi. Sept. 5-27. Eun Sun Kim/Amartuvshin Enkhbat (Rigoletto), Giovanni Sala (Duke), Adela Zaharia (Gilda), J’Nai Bridges (Maddalena), Peixin Chen (Sparafucile)
• Dead Man Walking, Heggie. Sept. 14-28. Patrick Summers/Jamie Barton (Sister Helen Prejean), Ryan McKinny (Joseph De Rocher), Susan Graham (Mrs. De Rocher), Brittany Renee (Sister Rose). Graham, who created the role of Sister Helen Prejean, returns as Mrs. De Rocher, the mother of the condemned man.
• Parsifal, Wagner. Oct. 25-Nov.13. New SFO production. Eun Sun Kim/Brandon Jovanovich (Parisfal),  Kwangchul Youn (Gurnemanz), Brian Mulligan (Amfortas), Tanja Ariane Baumgartner (Kundry), Falk Struckmann (Klingsor). Matthew Ozawa directs.
• The Monkey King, Huang Ruo/Libretto by David Henry Hwang. Nov. 14-30. Carolyn Kuan/Kang Wang (Monkey King), Mei Gui Zhang (Guanyin), Konu Kim (Jade Emperor), Jusung Gabriel Park (Subhuti/Buddha), Peixin Chen (Supereme Lord Laozi), Joo Won Kang (Lord Erland/Ao Guang), Hongni Wu (Crab General/Venus Star). World premiere, SFO commission; Basil Twist directs.
• The Barber of Seville, Rossini. May 28-June 21, 2026. Benjamin Manis/Joshua Hopkins & Justin Austin (Figaro), Maria Kataeva & Hongni Wu (Rosina), Levy Sekgapane & Jack Swanson (Count Almaviva), Renato Girolami & Patrick Carfizzi (Dr. Bartolo).
• Elektra, R. Strauss. June 7-27. Eun Sun Kim/Elena Pankratova (Elektra), Elza van den Heever (Chrysothemis), Michaela Schuster (Klytämnestra). Keith Warner production seen here in 2017.

There are also concerts: Orchestra concert, chorus concert, Adler Fellows Concert, Pride concert. 

Media:

• Lisa Hirsch, S.F. Chronicle
• Janos Gereben, SFCV
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle. Note that SFO had up to 12 operas/year as recently as the 90s and the first few years of this century.
• Opera Tattler
• Parterre Box

, 
 

Museum Mondays

Recreation of presumed altar

London Mithraeum

Bloomberg Building

July, 2024

 

Words That Should Not Have Been Spoken

Heard on KDFC, said by different announcers:

• ".....the McGill boys," following a performance featuring the distinguished musicians Anthony McGill, principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic, and his brother Demarre McGill, principal flute of the Seattle Symphony. They are both great players, if I haven't already made that clear. If you're not aware of it, the McGills are Black men. Apply the word "boy" to adult Black men was something done by white people to dehumanize and disrespect Black men during the period of slavery, during the Jim Crow/segregation period, and at other times. Don't do this, ever. And remember, it would have been easy to refer to "the McGill brothers," which is factual and neutral. 
• "Celebrate Esa-Pekka Salonen's last season as music director of the San Francisco Symphony." COME ON. Somebody at KDFC should be paying attention enough to know that Salonen's last season is nothing to celebrate. It's an institutional disaster and a huge mistake. We should have been celebrating the extension of his contract, but no. I mean...maybe this was part of a paid ad. Maybe KDFC should have refused the money.

Friday Photo

Interior of St. Lawrence Jewry, London

July, 2024

 

Where Has Mark Elder Been All Our Lives?

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

The literal answer is that Mark Elder spent the last 25 years, from 2000 to 2024, as the music director of the renowned Hallé Orchestra, in Manchester, England, UK. His career in the United States has been sparse, as far as I can tell: he conducted Die Meistersinger at SF Opera in 2015; he led 14 performances between 2004 and 2024 at the Boston Symphony; he didn't conduct the NY Philharmonic at all, and he conducted 79 performances at the Metropolitan Opera between 1988 and 2019.

He made his San Francisco Symphony debut last week in a concert that was absolutely sensational, one of the most exciting of the current season.

On paper, it was a distinctly odd-looking program:

• Berlioz, Overture to Les francs-juges
• Debussy, Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un faune
• Berlioz, Overture to Le Roi Lear
• R. Strauss, Also sprach Zarathustra
• Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine

And...it all worked, even that bit where there was a four-minute piece following the evening's biggest work.

I was not real happy when Elder picked up a microphone as soon as he got on the podium; I've seen too many conductors who, well, blathered or just repeated what was in the program. But Elder kept it brief and was dryly humorous. He talked about the really weird items on the program, that is, the two Berlioz overtures. The last time Les francs-juges was heard at Davies was in 1988. The King Lear overture had never been played here before.

It was good to hear them –– they are slightly oddball, because they are Berlioz –– and they both got shapely performances. In between came a truly magnificent performance of the Debussy, which was last played by SFS in 2023 with MTT conducting.

Reader, I'm here to tell you: this was better than MTT's performance of it and right up there with the best Debussy I have heard. That Yubeen Kim, the orchestra's fabulous principal flute, was playing, made a big difference, of course. His gorgeous sound, and his personal and insightful phrasing, went a long way toward making the performance stand out from all others, but there was still more. The performance was scaled so that you felt you were listening to chamber music, and the interplay among the various instruments in the orchestra –– the two harps and the oboe in particular –– rounded out that sensation. The sheer sound of the orchestra was rich and yet transparent, a hard balance to achieve. 

Honestly, I should have known how good this would be from a purely sonic perspective. Elder's Meistersinger was also something special. It was amazingly slow, coming in at 5 hours and 45 minutes, which must be some kind of record. And yet, and yet, it never lost shape or momentum, and the sound? Well, I have never heard the SF Opera Orchestra sound better. As good, yes, but never better.

Now, Also sprach Zarathustra is by no means my favorite Strauss and not my favorite of Strauss's tone poems. But this performance was something special. The last time I heard it at Davies, Esa-Pekka Salonen was conducting, and –– I can only half believe that I'm saying this –– this was better than that performance.

It was coherent, which is tough to do in a work that opens like the sun rising and eventually becomes Viennese frippery, where you're sure you've been dropped into uncredited outtakes from Der Rosenkavalier, which, of course, wouldn't be composed for some years. But the orchestra played like it was the greatest piece of music ever written, and you know, that kind of fervor isn't common and isn't easy to elicit, even from a great group like SFS. Even I was convinced that I was hearing the greatest piece of music ever composed, and I know perfectly well that it is not. 

And it sounded fantastic. Elder didn't overload the hall; even at its loudest, there was no bombast or blaring or bad taste. (I'm imagining certain conductors in Also sprach and....there would have been a lot of bombast and bad taste.) The orchestra was in perfect balance and so beautifully layered. I mean, Strauss gives you the ingredients, right? He was a consummately great orchestrator! But not every conductor can make his music sound this good.

The audience applauded wildly; lots of people got solo bows; Elder left the stage when the applause was still going on. He came back on, picked up the microphone again, and said something like "I've always felt that some works need a bit of a chaser after them. We've just drunk four big steins of German beer, and here is the chaser." He then led a banger of an account of Short Ride, and you know what? He was absolutely right that it was a great end to the evening.

Two final comments: first, it was a bit like the old days, when MTT would pull an orchestral encore out of his hat at the end of an already-satisfying concert. I miss those days, I really do. Second, if I weren't a reasonably responsible adult, I would have bagged the concert I reviewed Saturday night and come back to hear this one a second time.

Elsewhere:

• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle. Comes down on Rebecca's side rather more than mine. Probably I'm wrong or missed problems in the performances.
• Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV and SF Chronicle. The review is rather the opposite of mine.
• Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio

 

Museum Mondays

Virgin and Child Enthroaned

Rosselli di Jacapo Franchi

1376-1457

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

July, 2024

 

We Saw What We Saw

I'm not going to embed any videos, because I don't want to inadvertently upset or traumatize anyone who would be hurt, upset, or traumatized from seeing a Nazi salute, but: if you saw what Elon Musk did during the inauguration and think it was a Nazi salute, you are complete right. You saw what you saw and interpreted it correctly. Neo-Nazis seeing it thought it was a nod to Naziism and Hitler. Germans, who have some experience with this, thought it was a Nazi salute. 

For anyone who might want to see the evidence, I will link to videos of Musk and of Hitler himself demonstrating this gesture. I suggest turning down the sound.

• Musk at the inauguration
• Hitler on May 1, 1936. This video contains many swastikas, film of Hitler, and film of crowds saluting him. Hitler's salute is about 35 seconds in.

Note that Musk is also playing footsie with Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany; AfD), the farthest-right of Germany's current political parties, so far right that it's Nazi-adjacent.

I've got a conclusion about Musk, myself. He's not hiding his Nazi sympathies from us. The United States and its allies fought a long and bloody war to rid Europe of Nazis. Naziism is anti-American and completely antithetical to the ideals, still not realized, of the United States, as expressed in our foundational documents. And this is the kind of person that the 47th president is associating himself with.

Friday Photo

 

Houseboats

Lake Union, Seattle

September, 2016

Opera Omaha Season Announcement

Opera Omaha, located in Omaha, Nebraska, has a short but mighty season coming up in 2025-26:

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

Friday, October 24 | 7:30 PM
Sunday, October 26 | 2:00 PM
Orpheum Theater

Figaro | Alexander Birch Elliot

Rosina | Daniela Mack*

Count Almaviva | Minghao Liu*

Conductor | Gary Thor Wedow
Director | Stephen Lawless*

SUSANNAH

Friday, January 30 | 7:30 PM
Sunday, February 1 | 2:00 PM

Orpheum Theater
Music and Libretto by Carlisle Floyd

Susannah | Caitlin Lynch*

Olin Blitch | Andrew Potter
Little Bat | Christian Sanders*
Sam | Robert Stahley*

Principal Guest Conductor | Steven White
Director | Patricia Racette*

HERCULES

Friday, March 13 | 7:30 PM

Orpheum Theater
Composed by George Frideric Handel
Libretto by Thomas Broughton

Presented by The English Concert

Dejanira | Ann Hallenberg*
Hercules | William Guanbo Su*
Iole | Hilary Cronin*
Lichas | Hugh Cutting*

Conductor | Harry Bicket

BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE

Friday, April 24 | 7:30PM
Saturday, April 25 | 7:30PM
Holland Performing Arts Center

Composed by Béla Bartók/ Libretto by Béla Balázs

A co-production of Opera Omaha and the Omaha Symphony

Bluebeard | Ryan McKinny*
Judith | Michelle DeYoung*

Conductor | Lidiya Yankovskaya*

Projection Design | David Murakami*

UNSHAKEABLE

Friday, June 5 | 7:00PM
Saturday, June 6 | 2:00PM
Saturday, June 6 | 7:00PM
Sunday, June 7 | 2:00PM

Hoff Family Arts & Culture Center

Composed by Joseph Illick / Libretto by Andrea Fellows Fineberg

* Opera Omaha Mainstage Debut

Season tickets for Opera Omaha’s 25/26 Season are available now at www.TicketOmaha.com or by calling Opera Omaha at (402) 34OPERA (346-7372).

Adams and (Shudder) Orff at SFS

David Robertson, John Adams, and Víkingur Ólafsson

Davies Symphony Hall

January 16, 2025

Photo: Brandon Patoc, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

I reviewed San Francisco Symphony, with David Robertson conducting, in the world premiere of John Adams's beautiful new piano concerto, After the Fall, and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. Yes, believe me, I had questions about the pairing, which I suppose I could have directed to SFS, but I had no particular hope of getting an honest answer about this pairing. When you've got David Robertson on board, why would you program Carmina to go with an Adams premiere? This was the ninth Adams premiere that SFS has performed and I'd be surprised if they haven't performed all of his major works. The last big local premiere was Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?, with Ólafsson and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Were there a lot of empty seats? I do recall a number of performances in 2021-22 and since then with shockingly low attendence.

I did discover that it wasn't the first time Robertson conducted the thing with SFS. I wasn't at that performance, because singing Carmina once, when I was in graduate school, and hearing an amateur chorus sing it once, were more than enough for me. It is admittedly much more impressive with the 125-voice SF Symphony Chorus and SFS itself than when performed with two pianos and percussion, but "impressive" is not the same as "good." Robertson is a terrific conductor and I'm sure that he made Carmina sound about as good as it can sound, but hey - he's done great Messiaen and great Carter here, so why ask him to do Carmina again?

Media round-up (updated on 1/23 to include Gabe Meline's review):

• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle, writes beautifully about After the Fall and then savages the Orff. He calls the Adams "spectacularly beautiful and ingratiating," then goes on to question the programming decision that put Carmina on the same program. In addition, he says that "Carmina burana taints everything it touches. It’s a ghastly piece of music — repetitive, simple-minded, and resolutely scornful of anything approaching harmonic or contrapuntal substance. We could bring in the piece’s other sins as well, including its fraught history with the Nazi regime and its pilferings from Stravinsky’s Les Noces." 100%, as they say on social media.
• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV and SF Chronicle. Note that I could not squeeze in that the harp parts look beautiful, but I could not hear them very well from my seats at the dress rehearsal and first performance. A friend seated closer and in the center of Davies reports that she could hear them loud and clear at the Saturday performance.
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
• Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio. "After the Fall came across as little more than a weak shadow of what Adams had been doing some forty-odd years ago."
• DB at Kalimac's Corner. "Led by guest conductor David Robertson, this was a pretty dull run-through if you've heard Carmina as often as I have." And he liked After the Fall better than Must the Devil Have all the Good Tunes?
• Gabe Meline, KQED. On the Adams: "After opening with cascading notes on harp and celeste reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo score, Thursday’s world premiere at Davies Symphony Hall of After the Fall presented blissful, clustered melodies on the piano, and the type of sharp jabs that Ellington once delivered on his piano from the brass and woodwinds." On Carmina: "People either love or hate Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. I am in the latter camp, but had never before heard it live. It was performed very well, and I now dislike it more."
• Opera Tattler. "The music swirled and buzzed, and I had the very weird sensation of pinpricks in my ribcage from the various sounds."
• Previously: Media round-up for Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?

On Blue Sky Social, Michael Good had the following to say:

Here's my take on Carmina Burana, in stark contrast to @joshuakosman.bsky.social and @lisairontongue.bsky.social. It's a visionary piece that anticipates rock and roll by nearly 20 years. It elevates rhythm, melody, lyrics, and repetition over harmonic complexity. Its popularity is well deserved.

If what we're looking for is elevating rhythm, melody, lyrics, and repetition over harmonic complexity, let me mention the works of one Igor Stravinsky, who did all of that between 1913 and 1923, long before Orff, in Le Sacre du Printemps and Les Noces, and, not incidentally, did it all much, much better than Orff. Okay, Stravinsky is much more harmonically complex than Orff, but I'm sure you get the point I'm making here.

(Belated) Museum Mondays

 From La Cartonería Mexicana, an exhibit of Mexican paper and paste art

Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NM

August, 2024

Friday Photo

Moon and Jupiter over a tree outside Grace Cathedral

San Francisco

January, 2025

 

The Fires

Oakland, CA

September 9, 2020

I took the photo above in September, 2020. It's a view up the street from my house, showing a couple of rooftops, some trees, and the sky, which is eerily orange, turned that color by smoke from the fires then burning to north of us. The great city of Los Angeles, 350 miles to the south of me, has now been suffering for a week from major fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, and smaller fires in other locations. Fire warnings for tomorrow, at levels from elevated to extreme, have been issued for everywhere in the huge geographic triangle bounded by San Diego, Bakersfield, and Santa Maria. (Gift link; scroll down to find the map with that area.)

The losses so far, in human life, in homes, in art and music, in community and the built environment, are incalculable, and I fear they will only worsen. Alex Ross, who has an abiding love for the architecture of Los Angeles and the city's deep cultural history, has posts about lost architectural sites and about Villa Aurora, which still stood as of Saturday, January 11.

The fires are a consequence of global warming and the failure of governments worldwide to take action soon enough and with sufficient vigor. The risks have been known to some for fifty years or more, yet preserving the Earth and its people has taken a back seat to profit. One of this country's major parties acts as though climate change isn't real, though its leaders must know differently. They have managed to persuade numerous U.S. citizens that it's not real.

If you're writing about the fires and about the losses, I encourage careful fact-checking. A couple of days ago, the destruction of Belmont Music, housed in a building at Larry Schoenberg's home in Pacific Palisades, led to fears that the manuscripts of Verklärte Nacht and Pierrot Lunaire had been lost. The former manuscript is in the collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. and the latter is in the Morgan Library, New York City. 

According to the NY Times (gift link), Belmont Music lost its entire inventory of performing materials for Arnold Schoenberg's works, as well as digital backups that were housed on site, plus letters, memorabilia, and related material. It is a tremendous loss for the family, for performers, and for all who care about the composer. It is likely to affect performances for some time, as Mr. Schoenberg rebuilds the collection –– but the composer's original manuscripts are safe in archives and libraries around the world. The Arnold Schoenberg Center has a helpful online database of the composer's compositions and the locations of the manuscripts.

The effects of the fires will be felt for years and likely decades, owing to the scope of the destructions, the number of people affected, and the economic and cultural importance of Los Angeles. I recently started listening to the podcast Not Built for This, which is about United States infrastructure and climate change. The second episode is about the ripple effects of the Camp Fire (Paradise, CA) and its impact on those who lost homes and the city of Chico. The podcast is sobering and frankly terrifying, well worth listening to regardless of where you're located.