London Friday Photo

Wilkes St., Spitalfields

London, May 2014

Hvorostovsky Withdraws from Met Trovatore Performances

From the Met:

Dmitri Hvorostovsky has withdrawn from his upcoming performances of Verdi’s Il Trovatore—February 3, 6, 9, and 13 matinee—due to his ongoing treatment for a brain tumor.

Juan Jesús Rodríguez will sing di Luna in these performances, making his Met debut. The Spanish baritone has sung the role at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; Teatro di San Carlo in Naples; Palacio de la Ópera in La Coruña, Spain; and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. This season, he also sings the title roles in Verdi’s Rigoletto at Madrid’s Teatro Real, Nabucco at the Las Palmas Opera, and Rodrigue in Verdi’s Don Carlos at the Palacio Euskalduna in Bilbao.

The February performances of Il Trovatore are conducted by Marco Armiliato and also star Angela Meade as Leonora, Dolora Zajick as Azucena, Marcello Giordani as Manrico, and Kwangchul Youn as Ferrando.

At the Met

The Met is staging Georges Bizet's The Pearl Fishers (Les Pecheurs des Perles) for the first time in approximately a century. The cast includes Diana Damrau, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, and Nicolas Teste.

That's a hell of a strong cast, and quite frankly, it is wasted on Pearl Fishers. I should know; I've seen it, and it is a work best presented as a ten-minute good-parts version, along with Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet and a few other works of that ilk.

Really, when a work drops from your company's repertory for a century, it's a good idea to think about why. It might be a forgotten or neglected masterpiece, or maybe it's just not very good. It's the latter where Pearl Fishers is concerned. It has one good aria, for Leila, one good tenor aria, and one beautiful and famous duet, a typical male-bonding duet.

The opera also has huge cultural-exoticism issues; here's a review of the first bring-up of the production at ENO that discusses this.

So, here's the Met, with a fine group of singers and conductor Gianandrea Noseda. What could they have staged instead?

Well, those four would make a good group in any number of mid-19th century works, but I would have sprung for King Roger, considering that just now Mariusz Kwiecien owns the title role. Polenzani showed more charisma in Tales of Hoffman in SF a few years back than I would have expected and he has a glorious voice, certainly better than that of Saimir Pirgu, who sang the Shepherd in London recently. Damrau might be able to manage Roxana, and there must be something for Teste to do.

Oh, well. Repertory choices, wish I were making them for the Met.

Event of the Year That I Will Be Missing

Matthias Goerne singing Winterreise in March, 2016, at the soon-to-open Taube Atrium Theater in the Wilsey Center for Opera, because at $125/seat, the price is more than I pay for my opera tickets.

There are surely good reasons for the sky-high pricing, such as the tiny theater (they'll sell 897 tickets to this over three performances), the fees to Goerne and his pianist, and whatever William Kentridge, the artist who designed the production, is being paid.

However, looking at my receipt, I paid under $60 to see Goerne and Leif Ove Andsnes give a stunning recital of Shostakovich and Mahler in 2012. I'm afraid that $125 is beyond my mental willingness to pay for a one-hour Lieder recital, even though there is no singer I'd rather hear in this than Goerne.

London Friday Photo

Princelet St., Spitalfields

London, May, 2014

Glimmerglass Opera 2016

Glimmerglass, almost first out of the gate, announced their summer 2016 season a while back. Here's what is planned for the main stage:

• La Boheme, with Michael Brandenburg, Raquel Gonzalez, and Dale Travis
• Sweeney Todd, with Greer Grimsley, Luretta Bybee, Patricia Schuman, and Peter Volpe
• The Crucible, with Jamie Barton, Jay Hunter Morris, Brian Mulligan, and David Pittsinger
• The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra), with Rachele Gilmore, Michele Angelini, Musa Ngqungwana, and Dale Travis

I've been curious about the Pulitzer-winning Crucible, by Robert Ward, for a long time, and that is one hell of a cast.

There's other fun in store, including a master class with Christine Goerke, an evening with Jay Hunter Morris, a recital by Jamie Barton, and a talk by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

That Was Fast.

Words to warm the heart of any concert presenter, found at the sfSoundBox site:

I received the concert announcement at 11:29 a.m. and bought a pair of tickets immediately. Good thing I did. If you didn't grab a ticket or two, keep an eye out for returns.

A Change of Voice

From the Met:

Andrey Nemzer will sing the role of Orlofsky in this evening’s performance of Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Die Fledermaus, replacing Susan Graham, who is ill.

A winner of the 2012 National Council Auditions, Nemzer made his Met debut in 2013 as the Guardian in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten. His other recent performances have included Don Alfonso and Il Sole in Cavalli’s Veremonda at the Spoleto Festival; Agnes the Digger in Tobias Picker’s Fantastic Mr. Fox at Opera San Antonio; and two Mozart roles, Ramiro in La Finta Giardiniera and Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte, with Opera Theatre of Pittsburgh.

 Tonight’s performance of Die Fledermaus, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine, also stars Susanna Phillips as Rosalinde, Lucy Crowe as Adele, Toby Spence as Eisenstein, Dimitri Pittas as Alfred, Paulo Szot as Dr. Falke, Alan Opie as Frank, and Christopher Fitzgerald as Frosch.

Some people are going to complain that Orlofsky has to be a mezzo, and I would have to say that while the role works best with a mezzo, I wouldn't pass up a chance to hear Andrey Nemzer in anything. (Okay, Aida, that wouldn't be so good.) He has an amazing voice, which I've heard only in Frau, where the Guardian of the Threshold of the Temple (to give the character his or her full name) is on stage for about five minutes in Act III.

Matthew Shilvock Appointed General Director of San Francisco Opera (Belated Commentary)

Matthew Shilvock

SFO/Scott Wall

Back in September, San Francisco Opera made the announcement that everyone who cares about the company had been waiting for: Matthew Shilvock, currently Associate General Director of SFO, will become General Director when David Gockley retires at the end of the season.

During the press conference at which this announcement was made, Steven Menzies, head of the search committee, went into some detail about the selection process. The committee made a list of some 70 potential candidates, consulted with numerous experts and people in opera, and winnowed the list down to around 20 plausible candidates, then did more winnowing. They wound up with 3 to 5 finalists, if I'm remembering this correctly. (I have notes from the press conference, but they are at home and I am not. And I'm not in a good position right now to watch the video of the press conference.) The finalists were then asked to make presentations discussing repertory, future plans of other sorts, and so on. Then the final selection was made.

There's no question about Shilvock's qualifications for the post. He has a master's degree in public administration, specializing in nonprofit administration; he worked at Houston Grand Opera from 2003 to 2005 and has been with San Francisco Opera since 2005, in a series of increasingly responsible roles. Putting it another way, he has had 12 years of working with David Gockley, who has had a sterling record in managing the business, labor, and other operations at both Houston and San Francisco. And at SFO, Shilvock has been in charge of crucial areas, including labor negotiations and media.

I'm confident that Shilvock will continue Gockley's superb financial and management record. He was extremely poised during the press conference, and he has worked successfully in a couple of the most potentially volatile areas for an opera company manager. 

I am less confident about matters of repertory. It's no secret that Gockley's programming has been more conservative, with more repetitions of a few standards, than many of us would like, including David Gockley. Here's what I wrote after the December, 2012 press conference announcing the 2013-14 season:

During his introductory remarks, Gockley was explicit about this: that the need to keep the company on a decent financial footing has been paramount during the ongoing recession. His priority has been to keep quality high while sacrificing repertory. He said that he is leaving repertory holes, and he knows it, that he hopes will be filled by his white knight successor. During the chit chat after the press conference, I told him that this had pre-emptively answered my planned question about whether we'd be seeing From the House of the Dead and Die Frau ohne Schatten, because....both are very expensive to stage and risky as far as ticket sales go.

At this point, the recession is essentially over in the Bay Area, where the economy is white-hot and unemployment is under 4%. (Not that many people aren't suffering, between long-term unemployment and the difficulty of finding a place to live.) And this year, the company has put on two very expensive productions, Les Troyens and Die Meistersinger.

During the press conference, which you can view on the SFO web site,  several of us tried to pin Shilvock down on his plans. I led off, with a very specific question that I had thought out with both hands:

The Royal Opera commissioned The Minotaur from Harrison Birtwistle, and the opera was popular enough that they were able to sell out two runs. Do you have plans to present this or any other opera by Birtwistle?

Okay, nobody is going to commit to such a thing during a press conference unless the journalist has somehow managed to read the GD's mind. So I did not get anything like a yes or a no. Joshua Kosman followed up with a different repertory question. Some time later, William from the Opera Warhorses blog also asked a rep question.

What we got in response was a lot of very polite bobbing and weaving, with no specifics, though there was some mention of Rameau (Shilvock's undergraduate speciality). I also understand that he has said that we are due for a Parsifal production, which is certainly true, but I can't recall whether this was at the press conference or on another occasion. We've now seen a bit about what is planned for the Wilsey Center's 299-seat theater.

A bit later in the press conference, I asked about concert and semi-staged opera, which is the most economical way for a company to put on large-scale, but risky, works, and where San Francisco Symphony has show just how well this can be done. (For example, the rehearsal period for last year's magnificent Peter Grimes was about 10 days, versus three weeks or more for a fully-staged production.) Shilvock didn't duck this one, but said that the expectations for the company are that it puts on fully-staged opera, and it might not meet expectations to present opera in concert.

Now, I am all about repertory. As much as I'd like to see Sonya Yoncheva in La Traviata, I would prefer to see almost anyone in an opera I've never seen before, whether staged, semi-staged, or strictly in concert. I realize that this puts me in a minority, but how many more performances of Butterfly, Rigoletto, Traviata, Boheme, Tosca, etc., etc. does the world need? SFO has some responsibility to persuade its audience of the value of the entire repertory, not just the opera warhorses, as it were.

And I'm just not very happy with some of what Shilvock said in his AP interview in September:

"We want people's first experience in the opera house to be resonant and to be exciting and to be to some degree comfortable, so that they will come back," Shilvock said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "So I think we have to treat the 'Traviatas' and 'Bohemes' very sensitively." 

 Unlike their European counterparts, U.S. companies have very little government assistance, which factors into decisions on operas and directors. 

[paragraph deleted] 

"Our patrons are also our investors, and because many of our core subscribers are also our most generous philanthropists, we need to make sure that our programming jibes with their expectations, what they'd like to see onstage," Shilvock said. "That doesn't mean that we have to be conservative. Many of them have very adventurous tastes and interests, but I think it does mean that we have to be careful about what happens on our stage."

We'll have to wait a year or two for Shilvock's programming interests to come to the fore, because Gockley was asked by the board to do at least some of the programming for the next couple of seasons (and that was necessary, given how far out you have to go to sign singers, directors, etc. and start designing new productions). I'm certainly hoping that Shilvock will be the repertory white knight that Gockley was hoping for in 2012. He's inheriting a company on a sound financial footing, with an endowment that David Gockley has done a superb job of building. Let's see what he can do with that.

Noted

In William Grimes's obituary for composer John Eaton:

“Opera has always been the place where composers have tried out the newest ideas,” he told Capital New York (now part of Politico) in 2010. “Composers today are writing lollipops for the audience.”

Information that Should Be Easy to Find

Here's a post guaranteed to get two thumbs up from Drew McManus: if you're a nonprofit organization - and how many US orchestras and opera company aren't? - your web site should include an easy-to-find list of all officers and trustees of your organization.

That's not particularly difficult to do, either, so I am rolling my eyes over the fact that I'm having to contact press offices to get my hands on a list of the trustees. Officers, easy to find; trustees, buried or not listed. Transparency, people, transparency!

Weilerstein and Barnaton Cancel February Concert

Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan

Courtesy Stanford Live

From Stanford Live comes a press release:

The cellist Alisa Weilerstein has canceled her upcoming Stanford Live recital with pianist Inon Barnatan on February 6 at Bing Concert Hall. The duo had planned to perform works by Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and a new composition from Joseph Hallman.  No rescheduled date has been announced. 

Ms. Weilerstein, a 2011 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” winner, has been forced to curtail her travel schedule due to personal circumstances. Because she will be in the final stages of her pregnancy, it has been deemed unwise that she make an overseas flight and so it is with deep regret that she must postpone her visit to Stanford. 

All current ticket holders will be given the option to use their credit for a future performance in the 2015–16 Stanford Live season or to request a refund. For more information, contact the Bing Concert Hall Ticket Office at 650-724-2464 (BING) or visit live.stanford.edu.

Nevermore.

Tower of London

May, 2014

Media round-up for SF Opera's double bill of Gordon Getty's Usher House and Robert Orledge's completion of Debussy's La chute de la maison Usher.

• Joshua Kosman, Chron. He has some intriguing remarks on the Debussy, but summarizes the production as "two misconceived creations side by side on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House in a dreary, dispiriting presentation." See further remarks below.
• Georgia Rowe, Mercury News. "Unspeakably dull." Of Getty, "Set to a meandering, repetitive score, it's musically bland and dramatically inert."
• Jeff Dunn, SFCV. Focuses less on the music than I would have expected.
• Opera Tattler. "The Fail of the House of Usher." "Kitch rules."
• Ilana Walder-Biesanz, Bachtrack. "Gripping."
• James Ambroff-Tahan, SF Examiner. There's almost no evaluation of the music in this review.
• Stephen Smoliar. Surprisingly positive, but I wish there were more about the music.

A few comments about Joshua Kosman's last paragraph, which addresses an issue that I am sure most of us have wondered about: the influence of Gordon Getty's support for the arts in getting his works performed. For example, decades ago, SF Symphony gave the first, concert, performances of Getty's Falstaff opera Plump Jack.

Here is Joshua's extremely judicious last paragraph:

Getty’s history as a benefactor for the Bay Area’s musical scene is long and exemplary; it’s no exaggeration to say that nothing in our musical life would be remotely the same without his attentive and munificent generosity. But not even well-merited gratitude can justify General Director David Gockley’s decision to put the company’s imprimatur on this sorry double bill.

I'll be the first to say that I wouldn't mind a peek at Getty's will, where there might be large bequests to any number of Bay Area musical organizations. Artistically, Joshua is surely right if the work is as bad as he says. (I have not seen it yet, but given the reviews I have read and friends' opinions, I bet I will agree with him.)

But it's also worth comparing the financial cost of putting on the double bill with the cost of, let's say, Mary Magdalene. That work was commissioned by SFO, meaning that the company bore the full cost of development: the commissioning fee to Mark Adamo, which must have been in the hundreds of thousands; the cost of the production and staging (sets, director fee, etc.); the fees paid to a large cast that included four leads, and the chorus, etc.

The Usher House production came from the Welsh National Opera, so I assume a rental fee and shipping costs were involved (plus any costs that might be associated with adapting the sets to the SFO stage, if the two houses are very different);

MY BAD. It's a co-production of SFO and (the other) WNO.

The assistant directors directed the revival staging; the cast is smaller and less expensive than the Mary Magdalene cost, and the production runs for only four performances.

I realize that taking a flyer on a commission and staging a work that is a known quantity involve very, very different degrees of risk to a company. But staging the Usher House double bill might have been a good financial decision by SFO in all kinds of ways, regardless of the reputational risks.

London Friday Photo

Cat

Wilks St., Spitalfields, London

May, 2014

A very friendly cat who looks a lot like my own cat, Cricket.

Philharmo, no, Avery Fi, no, David Geffen Renovations

Arrived in the email, a press release from Lincoln Center about the architecture and design firms that have been chosen to renovate that concert hall where the New York Philharmonic performs. I am going to put the whole thing after the cut, after noting a few things.

• I am not surprised by the corporate-PR blather in the press release, but I wish they'd been a little more earnest and up front about the goals. How about this?
• We'll fix the acoustics.
• We'll improve the audience amenities and comfort.
• We'll make it more useful for the NYPO for rehearsing and performing.
• We'll make it more accessible and usable for community events.
• I hope they get the acoustics right.
• The press release cites the involvement of Heatherwick Studios in designing the "master plan for Google's new campus in Silicon Valley." It does not mention that the City of Mountain View summarily refused to grant the development rights for the master plan. (I do have to admit, apparently the city council liked the design, but didn't want to grant rights to develop 2 million s.f. to Google. Instead, LinkedIn got more than a million s.f. of dev. rights and Google got around a half-million. I note for the record: I work for Google but I don't speak for the company in any way, shape, or form.)

Antonacci Cancels Recital Tour

If you have a ticket to Anna Caterina Antonacci's recital, scheduled for May 6, 2016, you now have a ticket to see the US recital debut of Italian soprano Rosa Feola. She replaced Antonacci, who has canceled her entire spring, 2016 US recital tour, citing family reasons. This would have been Antonacci's local recital debut.

Feola's program is:

MARTUCCI: Ciclo Op. 84 Tre pezzi     
LISZT: Tre Sonetti del Petrarca
TOSTI: Sogno; Non t’amo piu’; A vucchella                             
VERDI: Ad una stella; Stornello; Deh pietoso, oh addolorata; La zingara
DONIZETTI: A Mezzanotte; Eterno amore e fe; Ne ornera' la bruna chioma
ROSSINI: L'invito (Bolero); La promessa; La fioraia fiorentina

From the press release:

SFP Founder and President Ruth Felt noted, “While we are extremely disappointed with the cancellation of Anna Caterina Antonacci’s highly anticipated debut, we are thrilled to be able to introduce this talented young soprano to Bay Area audiences. To have Rosa Feola graciously step in to perform a wonderful Italian program on the date originally announced for Ms. Antonacci is a remarkable treat for our vocal series audiences. I look forward to sharing this exciting new talent.”

And also:

San Francisco Performances is contacting all ticket holders of the change of artist. SFP subscribers and single ticket holders for the May 6, 7:30pm, 2016 recital should use their tickets on the same date and time for Rosa Feola’s recital. For more information ticket holders can email tickets@sfperformances.org, or call (415) 677-0325. 

Ojai Music Festival 2016

As I'd previously discussed, Peter Sellars will be music director of next year's Ojai Music Festival. He is the first MD since I have been posting about Ojai to pay any significant attention to composers who are women.

Here's the planned schedule for the festival (after the cut), which will take place from June 9 to 12:

Women's Self-Defense Class, January, 2016

I'm planning a self-defense class for next month, in my beautiful location in El Cerrito!

When: Most likely 4 Sunday afternoons, 2 to 5 p.m., starting January 3 or 10.

Where: Mind-Body Dojo, 7512 Fairmount Ave, El Cerrito, CA. This is just a few blocks east of El Cerrito Plaza BART, and convenient to 80/580 (Central Avenue exit)

Cost: $150/student, open to all regardless of ability to pay

Who: All women age 16 and up. We are LGBTQ-welcoming. No athletic or martial arts experience necessary; techniques adaptable to suit your needs.

What. The curriculum includes:

• The foundations of self-protection: Alertness, awareness, & avoidance
• Use of the voice; use of common objects as weapons
• Basic strikes: hammer blow, heel of hand, elbow blows
• Basic kicks: front, side, rear
• Escapes from common attacks: chokes, bear hugs, hair pulls
• Defending yourself on the ground or against a wall
• How to deal with an attacker who has a weapon
• Securing your home
• Staying safe on the street, in your car, home, or workplace

How to enroll: email me (lhirsch@gmail.com), post here, or phone me at 510-842-NAGE (6243).

What else: Forward this information to women you know!

Questions? Ask in the comments.

The Cast Update in the Seraglio

An addition to the cast for the Met's upcoming performances of Die Entführung aus dem Serail:

American tenor Brenton Ryan will make his Met debut as Pedrillo in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail this spring. Ryan will sing all five performances of the opera, which opens on April 22 and continues on April 27, 30, May 3, and May 7 matinee.

Seating

Over the summer of 2015, after the last opera performance of the 2014-15 season, San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet started replacing the seats in the War Memorial Opera House.

Unless you sit in the balcony, you may not have noticed! On the other hand, you may have noticed the small ticket price increase - $1 or $2 per ticket - that is paying for the new seats.

For my second performance of Die Meistersinger, I got a seat in the Balcony, row K, because for the first performance, I was in Orchestra, Row M. That's an orchestra-friendly location, where the SFO orchestra sounds like the greatest orchestra in the world, on purely sonic terms. But singers tend to be somewhat covered there, hence my choice of a balcony seat, since the Balcony is on the singer-friendly side.

Well, the orchestra still sounded damn good up there, and I still had a little trouble hearing the singers as well as I would have liked. So I think that Mark Elder could have dialed the orchestral volume back by 15% with no harm done.

But, to get to the point, the new seats are fantastic. They are wide enough for my sizable backside; the lumbar support is superb; they are high enough off the ground. Nothing is going to fix the complete lack of leg room in the Balcony, but I can't wait for the seat upgrades elsewhere in the house, because after sitting for....a very long time....my back and other body parts felt fine.

Civic Center and San Francisco Opera

I just completed a survey from San Francisco Opera that arrived via the following email:

Dear Ms. Hirsch,  San Francisco Opera is committed to creating the best patron experience possible. Many opera patrons have told us it is a challenge getting to the War Memorial Opera House. We hope we can make a difference.  Please help us develop new transportation programs by taking this brief 2-minute survey.  We value your feedback and encourage you to complete the survey before it closes on Wednesday, December 16. Your responses will be kept strictly confidential and will not be linked to you personally in any way.  To thank you for your participation, all respondents who complete the survey will be entered to win one of five pairs of tickets to an opera of their choice in summer 2016.We are grateful for your help and support!  Sincerely,San Francisco Opera I opened the survey - I'm willing to play - and the questions started off by asking subscriber/single-ticket buyer, then went on to how the patron gets to the opera, then the kicker: how safe do you feel in Civic Center? And questions about whether you'd take a shuttle from Civic Center BART/MUNI or a shuttle from the East Bay. Well, okay. So this survey isn't really about transportation. It's really about the failure of San Francisco's city government to provide adequate housing and mental health care to homeless people living in the Civic Center area, and about the failure of BART to keep its station in decent condition, free of stink and with the escalators all working. The State of Utah has had great success in reducing homelessness.....by actually housing homeless people and offering them supportive services. San Francisco could do this. The disappearances of single room occupancy buildings, the disastrous turning-out of the mentally ill from hospitals without housing or group homes or support services, and the continuing shortage of housing for low-income people have all been major factors in the increase of people living on the street.  I'm sorry to say that the survey doesn't address this head-on, by, say, providing contact information so that people like me can write to individuals at San Francisco City Hall and BART to demand decent housing and services for homeless people. This country has the money to do this, and it's a matter of human decency to take better care of the homeless.

Amazons Come to San Francisco

Ars Minerva, the opera company that put on this year's wonderful La Cleopatra, has announced its next production:

Le Amazzoni nelle Isole Fortunate (The Amazons on the Fortunate Island)

Music by Carlo Pallavicino 

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piccioli (1679 - Teatro Contarini delle Vergini - Venezia)

May 21 and 22, 2016

Marines' Memorial Theater

609 Sutter St. at Mason

San Francisco, CA

This should be a lot of fun! And undoubtedly the music will be great.

Mystery Work

A friend of mine is trying to identify a work that used to be played from time to time on a now-defunct Tacoma-area classical music station. Here's what he knows and doesn't know about it:

• The station called it "The Bells."
• It is an orchestral work
• Bells are prominently featured.
• It is not Rachmaninoff's The Bells.
• It's not a variant of the Carol of the Bells.
• It's not August Read Thomas's Prayer Bells.
• It is a brighter-sounding piece than the Thomas.
• It's not Leroy Anderson's Song of the Bells.
• It doesn't seem to be one of the works on the IMSLP page of works featuring bells.
• It was probably written in the last 100 years.

Any thoughts on what this might be?

UPDATE: It turned out to be an orchestral version a band arrangement of a Byrd harpsichord piece,  The Bells.

Just a Bit Batty

Say the Met press office:

Mireille Asselin will sing the role of Adele in this evening’s season premiere performance of Johann Strauss, Jr.’sDie Fledermaus, replacing Lucy Crowe, who is ill.

London Friday Photo

Spitalfields Market

London, May, 2014