Update on Closing SFS Program

The final repertory for the first half of the program and the cast for L'enfant et les sortilges:

The first half of the program features an eclectic mix of chamber works by Debussy, Ravel, and Fauré. Pianist John Wilson performs excerpts from Debussy’s playful Children’s Corner and the sensual La Plus que lente, joined by members of the San Francisco Symphony. This is followed by the Allegro molto movement from Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, featuring SFS musicians Helen Kim on violin, Matthew Young on viola, Sébastien Gingras on cello, and pianist Sayaka Tanikawa. Mezzo-soprano Ginger Costa-Jackson sings Debussy’s “Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maison” withPeter Grunberg on piano and, rounding out the first half, pianists Grunberg and Wilson perform Ravel’s The Enchanted Garden from Ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose), inspired by children’s stories from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French collections, especially Charles Perrault’s Contes de ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Tales, published in 1697). 

That's right, it's all chamber music, which has me scratching my head. They must really need the rehearsal time for the Ravel.

And here's the cast, not including conductor Martyn Brabbins.

Highly acclaimed for her “passionate intensity and remarkable vocal beauty,” mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard stars as The Child in these performances of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges—a role she recorded with Seiji Ozawa and the Saito Kinen Orchestra on the Decca Classics label, winning a 2016 Grammy Award® in the category of Best Opera Recording. Leonard made her SFS debut in 2013 and has been featured in several notable performances since then, including Tilson Thomas’ From the Diary of Anne Frankin November 2018, Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles in September 2017 and the semi-staged On the Town in May 2016, and Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole in June 2015. The accomplished cast also includes sopranos Anna Christy (The Fire, The Princess, The Nightingale), Nikki Einfeld (The Bat, A Country Lass), and Marnie Breckenridge (The Bergère, The Screech-owl); mezzo-sopranos Ginger Costa Jackson (A Herdsman, The Chinese Cup, The White Cat) and Jennifer Johnson-Cano (Mama, The Dragonfly, The Squirrel); tenor Ben Jones (The Little Old Man, The Tree Frog, The Teapot); baritoneKelly Markgraf (The Comtoise Clock, The Black Cat); and bass-baritone Michael Todd Simpson (The Armchair, A Tree).