Lisa Hirsch's Classical Music Blog.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
Berce mollement sur ton sein sublime
Ô puissante mer, l’enfant de Dindyme!
Saturday, November 30, 2024
SF Opera: 2025 Adler Fellows
SF Opera Pride Concert
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (November 15, 2024) — Monét X Change, the multi-hyphenate performer most well known for her appearances on RuPaul’s Drag Race, will emcee San Francisco Opera’s Pride Concert on Friday, June 27, 2025 at the War Memorial Opera House. Classically trained in opera and winner of the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, Monét X Change is among the artists headlining this celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. Expanding upon the Company’s annual Pride celebrations, the evening includes a special concert, immersive projections and more.
Mezzo-sopranos Jamie Barton and Nikola Printz and baritone Brian Mulligan will share the stage with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra conducted by Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim for a genre- and era-spanning program mixing classical arias with queer anthems and music showcasing LGBTQIA+ composers, librettists, songwriters and themes. The high-octane evening will be enhanced by digital artist Tal Rosner’s video projections. Complete program and event information will be announced at a later date.
SAN FRANCISCO OPERA PRIDE CONCERT
Friday, June 27, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, 94102
Monét X Change, emcee
Eun Sun Kim, conductor
Soloists: mezzo-sopranos Jamie Barton and Nikola Printz; baritone Brian Mulligan
San Francisco Opera Orchestra
Tal Rosner, video concept and direction
Complete program and event information will be announced at a later date. For information, visit sfopera.com/pride-concert.
Tickets are priced from $30–$225 and are available at sfopera.com, the San Francisco Opera Box Office at (415) 864-3330 and in-person at 301 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco.
I've never seen Monét X Change, but Barton, Printz, and Mulligan are all great artists and I think I will have to go, genre mixing or not. I wonder if there will be a trapeze for Printz.
Friday, November 29, 2024
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
San Francisco Symphony Program Update: Salonen/Wang
- Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments
- Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra
- Movements for Piano and Orchestra
- Ravel, Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
- Rautavaara, Piano Concerto No. 1
Monday, November 25, 2024
Saturday, November 23, 2024
Venue Accessibility
- Where wheelchair accessible entrances are
- Ideally, but I've never seen this, path of travel distance from regular and wheelchair accessible entrances to different seating areas. This is useful for ambulatory disabled people.
- Drop-off locations
- Elevator locations
- Locations of accessible toilets
- The types of accessible seating offered, which can include:
- Wheelchair spaces
- Companion space for patrons using wheelchairs
- Bariatric seats
- Seats without arms
- Seats where an armrest can be lifted
- Facilities and assistive devices for people who are deaf or have hearing impairments
- Facilities and assistive devices for people who are blind or have visual limitations
- Whether there are performances for neurodiverse people
- Whether there are performances for people bringing small children
Conor Hanick Plays Ustvolskaya
This was a few weeks back, but three of us got there. Simon Morrison's talk was excellent; Hanick was fabulous; Ustvolskaya was quite something as a human and as a composer.
- Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
- Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
- David Bratman, Kalimac's Corner
Even More Conductor Updates
I wasn't expecting another installment of this so soon, but needs must.
- Joseph Young to leave the Berkeley Symphony at the end of the 2024-25 season. The announcement didn't include anything about whether he has a new appointment.
- Martin Pearlman will be retiring from Boston Baroque, which he founded, at the end of the 2024-25 season. He founded the group 52 years ago.
- Adam Hickox becomes chief conductor of the Trondheim Symphony next year. He's the son of the late Richard Hickox. Did I mention children of conductors recently?
- Jaap van Zweden will be music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
- Jaap van Zweden lands another position, as artist in residence at the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.
- Philippe Jordan appointed chief conductor of the Orchestre National de France, succeeding Cristian Mačelaru. Did I mention children of conductors recently?
- Markus Poschner is the new music director of the Utah Symphony.
- Mark Wigglesworth recently began his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, succeeding Kirill Karabits. The appointment was announced some time ago, but apparently I missed it.
- Boston Baroque, when Martin Pearlman leaves.
- Berkeley Symphony, when Joseph Young leaves.
- Milwaukee Symphony, when Ken-David Masur leaves.
- New Jersey Symphony, when Xian Zhang leaves at the end of the 2027-28 season.
- Ulster Orchestra, when Daniele Rustioni leaves
- Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, when Daniel Harding leaves
- Oslo Philharmonic, when Klaus Makela moves on in 2027
- Orchestre de Paris, when Klaus Makela moves on in 2027
- Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, when Santu-Matias Rouvali leaves in 2025
- Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra because of the departure of Lorenzo Viotti in 2025
- Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, because of the departure of Lorenzo Viotti in 2025
- Dutch National Opera, because of the departure of Lorenzo Viotti in 2025
- English National Opera
- Bergen Philharmonic
- LA. Opera, at the end of 2025-26
- San Francisco Symphony, at the end of 2024-25
- Phoenix Symphony
- Cleveland Orchestra, as of June, 2027.
- Lahti Symphony, when Dalia Stasevka leaves.
- Antwerp Symphony, with the departure of Elim Chan.
- Paris Opera is currently without a music director.
- Nashville Symphony, when Giancarlo Guerrero leaves.
- Deutsche Oper Berlin, when Donald Runnicles leaves.
- Rottedam Philharmonic, when Lahav Shani leaves.
- Los Angeles Philharmonic, as of 2026-27, when Gustavo Dudamel leaves for NY.
- Teatro Regio Turin: Open now with departure of Gianandrea Noseda. The Teatro Regio has not named a new music director.
- Marin Symphony, at the end of 2022-23.
- Vienna Staatsoper, when Philippe Jordan leaves at the end of 2025.
Conductors looking for jobs (that is, as of the near future, or now, they do not have a posting). The big mystery, to me, is why an orchestra hasn't snapped up Susanna Mälkki. Slightly lesser mystery: Henrik Nanasi, whose superb Cosi fan tutte is still lingering in my ears.
- Ken-David Masur
- Marc Albrecht
- Markus Stenz
- Esa-Pekka Salonen, if he wants such a position again
- James Conlon, if he wants such a position again.
- Dalia Stasevska (though her contract at Lahti has been extended by a year)
- Elim Chan
- Kirill Karabits
- Tito Muñoz
- Andrey Boreyko
- Osmo Vänskä
- Susanna Mälkki, who left the Helsinki Philharmonic at the end of 2022-23.
- MGT (apparently does not want a full-time job, as of early 2022)
- Miguel Harth-Bedoya (seems settled in at Baylor)
- Sian Edwards
- Ingo Metzmacher
- Jac van Steen
- Ilan Volkov
- Aleksandr Markovic
- Lothar Koenigs
- Henrik Nanasi
- Philippe Jordan, eventually
- Franz Welser-Möst, if he wants such a job
And closed:
- Utah Symphony, with the appointment of Markus Poschner.
- Bournemouth Symphony appoints Mark Wigglesworth as Chief Conductor (some time ago).
- Colorado Symphony appoints Peter Oundjian, effective with the 2025-26 season.
- Pacific Symphony appoints Alexander Shelley to succeed Carl St. Clair, starting with the 2026-27 season.
- Milwaukee Symphony, when Ken-David Masur leaves at the end of 2025-26.
- Seattle Symphony, with the appointment of Xian Zhang as of the 2025-26 season.
- Edward Gardner starts as music director of Norwegian National Opera this season,
- Sarasota Orchestra: Giancarlo Guerrero has been named music director, as of 2025.
- Hong Kong Philharmonic: Tarmo Peltokoski becomes music director in 2026.
- Tokyo Symphony, with the appointment of Lorenzo Viotti.
- Oakland Symphony, where Kedrick Armstrong succeeds the late Michael Morgan.
- Minnesota Opera: closed with the appointment of Christopher Franklin.
- The Chicago Symphony Orchestra gets to share Klaus Mäkelä with the Concertgebouw.
- The Hallé Orchestra's next conductor will be Kahchun Wong.
- Marin Alsop becomes principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, I believe succeeding Nathalie Stutzmann.
- Simon Rattle becomes principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic.
- John Storgards will becomes chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic.
- Update and correction: San Francisco Chamber Orchestra was unable to hire Cosette Justo Valdés. Instead, Jory Fankuchen, a violinist in the orchestra, has been named Principal Conductor and will lead this season's programs.
- Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra: Cristian Mačelaru becomes music director in 2025.
- Indianapolis Symphony hires Jun Markel, effective September 1, 2024.
- Andris Nelsons renewed his contract with the Boston Symphony. He's now on an evergreen rolling contract, which will continue as long as he and the orchestra are happy with each other. MTT had one of these at SFS.
- Shanghai Symphony, with the appointment of Long Yu.
- Virginia Symphony, with the appointment of Eric Jacobsen.
- Warsaw Philharmonic, with the appointment of Krzysztof Urbański.
- Bern Symphony, with the appointment of Krzysztof Urbański.
- Berlin State Opera, with the appointment of Christian Thielemann.
- Dresden Philharmonic, with the appointment of Donald Runnicles.
- New York Philharmonic, with the appointment of Gustavo Dudamel. Note that Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024 and there will be a two-season gap before Dudamel arrives.
- Helsinki Philharmonic: Jukka-Pekka Saraste to succeed Susanna Mälkki.
- Staatskapelle Dresden, with the appointment of Daniele Gatti.
- Seoul Philharmonic appoints Jaap van Zweden.
- Royal Opera appoints Jakub Hrůša to succeed Antonio Pappano.
Carmen, San Francisco Opera
- Michael Zwiebach, SFCV and SF Chronicle
- Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
- Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
- Charlise Tiee, Opera Tattler
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
La Bohème, Opera San José
Opera San José's six-performance run of Puccini's evergreen La Bohème opened this past Saturday at the California Theatre in, of course, San José. It's the kind of opera that's so spectacularly well-written and so theatrical that, if well-directed, you'll come out of it weeping, and, well, I certainly teared up regularly during the performance.
Opera San José owns this production and has staged it before. It moves the action from the 1850s into the 1920s, but I can't say that this was very obvious, except in the French soldiers' uniforms in the second act. There are no telephones, biplanes, or automobiles to tip you off, no walking wounded from the recently-concluded Great War. The women's fashions aren't flapper-era, either. I don't see any gains from this temporal relocation, but neither did it do any harm.
More importantly, Michelle Cuizon's direction was suitably lively; funny or serious when required and always snappy. I particularly liked the end of act 3, where you get comedy and tragedy on stage at the same time, with Marcello and Musetta having it out on the left for probably the 20th time, while on the right Mimì and Rodolfo are weeping quietly together. Kim A. Tolman's realistic sets of a Parisian garret, Café Momus, and the Barrière d'Enfer look good and work well.
This run has two sopranos as Mimì, Kearstin Piper Brown, whom I saw on Saturday, and Mikayla Sager, whose work I know from when she was an Adler Fellow. I feel you can't go wrong with either of them! I'd seen and loved Brown last year in Opera Parallèle's The Shining; she has a beautiful voice with great control and lots of spin, making her an ideal Mimì. Sager has a darker, equally beautiful voice and, like Brown, is a wonderful artist. She was fabulous a couple of years ago in Desdemona's long scene at the end of Verdi's Otello. So, as I said, you can't go wrong withe either soprano.
Also really wonderful in this production is Kodon Choi as Marcello, Rodolfo the poet's painter sidekick, the on-and-off lover of Musetta. Choi has a gorgeous dark voice that sounds built for the big Verdi baritone roles. I wouldn't be surprised to see him as Rigoletto or Renato or one of those guys in his future appearances. WooYoung Yoon is an appealing Rodolfo, with a reedy voice and a tendency to go sharp when his voice is under pressure.
And there we get to a solvable problem in the production: the California Theatre is very small, seating around 1120 people, and Joseph Marcheso, Opera San José's music director, is conducting enthusiastically and, at times, rather too loudly. This affects Yoon a lot, when he's trying to make himself heard, and it's particularly a problem for the show's Musetta, Melissa Sondhi. She was a good Barbarina in the fabulous Marriage of Figaro a couple of seasons back, and she's a fine actress, but she has an unusually small voice for Musetta, and she's getting drowned out too often. My plus-one for the evening, a horn player who knows the score well, detected orchestral balance issues, too.
The rest of the cast is perfectly lovely and together they make a great ensemble cast: Jesús Vincente Murillo's Schaunard, Younggwang Park's Colline, and Philip Skinner's Benoit and Alcindoro are all good.
Four performances remain, on November 22 at 7:30 p.m., November 24 and 30 at 2:00 p.m., and December 1 at 2:00 p.m.
See also Joshua Kosman's review.
SF Symphony: Fujikura, Ravel, Fauré
- Rebecca Wishnia, SFCV and SF Chronicle; your bonus is that she's got some timely reporting about the SF Symphony Chorus contract.
- Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
- Janos Gereben reports on the Symphony Chorus situation in greater detail at SFCV. The administration and board can talk all they want about "transparency" and "financial challenges," but they haven't yet explained the alleged deficits, based on "internal accounting," in a way that I find transparent.
Monday, November 18, 2024
Adler Fellows Concert, 2024
- Lisa Hirsch, SF Chronicle and SFCV
- Michael Strickland, S.F. Civic Center
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Belated Museum Mondays (November 11, 2024)