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Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Ravel and Schoenberg at San Francisco Symphony


Arnold Schoenberg, Erwartung
Mary Elizabeth Williams in the process of knocking everyone's socks off.
Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting SFS.
Photo: Kristen Loken, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony


An extraordinary evening at San Francisco Symphony, with Esa-Pekka Salonen leading Ravel's delightful Ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose) ballet, with rapturous choreography by Alonzo King, danced (of course) by Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and Arnold Schoenberg's harrowing Erwartung given an astounding performance by soprano Mary Elizabeth Williams, directed by Peter Sellars on his absolute best behavior. 

 

4 comments:

  1. We were closer up in the orchestra. The clomping distracted me for the first couple of minutes but then receded into the background.

    I was stunned to see Mary Elizabeth Williams singing some of her lines upstage(!) with no loss of clarity or balance. I don't think I've ever seen/heard that at Davies before.

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  2. She was superb all around. Not sure whether it was the orchestra's placement - which evidently changed a bit from Friday to Saturday - or some Salonen conducting magic that helped when she was singing upstage.

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  3. Yes she was. I was there on Saturday and the orchestra came out to its usual placement for Erwartung.

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  4. I did not love her in Santa Fe last year as the Foreign Princess in Rusalks ("Soprano Mary Elizabeth Williams wore that red dress well and acted up a storm, but vocally she was a disappointment, with a soft-grained middle range and tiny high notes disconnected from the rest of her voice."). No idea whether I caught her on a bad night, Erwartung works better for her, or she has gotten her vocal registers better connected. Regardless, these performances - apparently her first in the role! - were great.

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