As usual, there won't be a list of best or favorite recordings of 2023, because I don't make any kind of attempt to keep track of new releases - there are so many - or listen to some percentage of them. But it's been an interesting year, for sure.
As you can see from the page where I link to all of my music writing, this year I wrote 25 reviews, covering 16 operas, six orchestra concerts (including one of the SFSoundBox concerts), three string quartet concerts, a concert of new and old vocal music by Trio Medieval, and Pan, a theater piece by Marcos Balter for solo flute and community chorus, brilliantly played by Claire Chase. One of those reviews covered four of Santa Fe Opera's five operas. Weirdly, my first and last reviews of the year were of works based on the story of Dido and Aeneas.
In addition to the reviews, I wrote two news articles for SFCV, one in collaboration with Janos Gereben, about comings and goings in San Francisco Symphony, plus profiles of conductor JoAnn Falletta and tenor Arturo Chácon-Cruz, and an article about the film Tár.
Next year, I'm hoping to branch out with the reviewing: more chamber music and solo programs, more orchestra concerts. I am extremely sorry that Opera News is no more; perhaps I will pitch successfully to Opera.
For me, the single worst thing to happen this year was the death of composer Kaija Saariaho, in June at only 70. There were many tears a few days later when San Francisco Symphony performed her second opera, Adriana Mater. There will be many more when her last opera, Innocence, is performed in June at San Francisco Opera.
It's pretty easy, looking back at 2023, to pick out the biggest musical lowlight: Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic, of all things. Apparently the program the night before was a lot better, including what sounds like a splendid Strauss Alpine Symphony, and I can't comment on the last night, which included Bruckner, but holy moly, the Mendelssohn and Brahms program was the worst concert I have ever heard from such an illustrious conductor and orchestra.
The other big disappointment was Julia Wolfe's Her Story, which promised a lot and did not deliver. And while it's always good to hear Britten's War Requiem, last time around Semyon Bychkov conducted, and he was a lot better than Philippe Jordan.
The highlights of the year? Well, there were many!
- Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony. I liked almost every one of his concerts.The orchestra sounded awfully good for him and others, even with many, many substitutes in critical positions. I loved his Beethoven, his new clarinet concerto kínēma, which was on his first California Festival program, Gabriella Smith's mighty organ concerto Breathing Forests, and so much else.
- Die Frau ohne Schatten at San Francisco Opera. Donald Runnicles making magic with a strong cast.
- El último sueño de Frida y Diego, by Gabriela Lena Frank and Nilo Cruz. This wonderful new opera was a huge surprise, definitely my favorite among the new operas I heard this year.
- Rusalka at Santa Fe, a fabulous David Pountney production with great performances from Ailyn Pérez, James Creswell, and Raehann Bryce-Davis.
- Orfeo at Santa Fe, again, a great Yuval Sharon production with a terrific performance by Rolando Villazon in the title role and everyone else in the production.
- Pelléas et Melisande in Los Angeles; James Conlon conducted, magnificently, a fine McVicar production, with an explosive Golaud from Kyle Ketelsen and beautifully sung and acted performances by Will Liverman and Sydney Mancasola in the title roles.
- Osmo Vänskä's Sibelius at the LA Phil.
- Dalia Stasevska's Sibelius at SFS.
- Gabriel Kahane's emergency shelter intake form at SFS, on a program where Conrad Tao played Gershwin, brilliantly, as well.
- Falstaff at Opera San José. Yes, too too many fat jokes, but oh! what a lovely performance.
- Michel van der Aa's Blank Out, an opera with one character on video and the other live. A beautiful and moving work. I hope to hear more of his music in the future.
- Adriana Mater at SF Symphony.
- Pan, by Marcos Balter, performed by Claire Chase.
- JACK Quartet playing music of John Luther Adams.
- Thomas Conlin and the Vallejo Festival Orchestra in Sibelius. Some beautifully-sung songs and a fine 2nd Symphony made this a highlight, and it was particularly satisfying in the same week as the Thielemann/VPO program. Remember that there are treasures everywhere among the regional orchestras and opera companies.
- West Edge Opera's double bill of Stravinsky's Nightingale and Schoenberg's Erwartung, the latter featuring a knockout performance by Mary Evelyn Hangley.
- Gustavo Dudamel leaves the Paris Opera after only two seasons.
- Chad Smith leaves the LA Phil after many years, moving to Boston, where his former LA Phil colleague Gail Samuel lasted only 18 months as CEO.
- The CSO hasn't announced a new music director, despite the years of lead time Muti gave them and the plethora of talent.
- The Seattle Symphony hasn't announced a new music director nearly two years after Thomas Dausgaard's abrupt departure, possibly explained by the apparent administrative turmoil and a CEO, Krishna Thiagarajan, who seems difficult to work with.
3 comments:
Thank you, that's a great list! I especially like your lowlights, on which I'm 100% in agreement.
In years gone by, Chronicle year-end lists often called for a "Worst of the Year," which was fun for people like Mick Lasalle (who generally does a whole separate article on the Ten Worst Movies of the Year) but was always a drag for me. The bad things that happen on my beat are, like, a violin soloist made a disappointing debut. It's almost never a debacle, and it always felt thuggish to single out one such event.
But boy, if I'd been doing it this year I'd be right there with you. Thielemann and the VPO slaughtering Mendelssohn was a real horror show. (I skipped the Brahms.) And Jordan — I don't understand his career. Nepo baby I guess.
Thank you, Joshua!
The Brahms was just as bad as the Mendelssohn.
Jordan's career is puzzling in part because of the importance of the jobs he has had - Paris Opera, Vienna?! I will say that his particular brand of fussiness came across as appropriate meticulousness in a new opera I heard him conduct in Paris. The great production and cast helped him, of course.
I've got to recall my 2017 retrospective, which included this line:
Musically, I will forever remember 2017 as the year Mason Bates wrote a better opera than John Adams.
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