Museum Mondays

Green glass vase

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

November, 2013

 

Friday Photo

Buildings, Downtown San Francisco

April, 2026

 

Another Amazing Recital from Claire Chase

Claire Chase

Photo by David Michalek

The post title says it all: flutist Claire Chase was here the other week, playing another group of works commissioned through Density 2036, and it was all amazing. The only musician I can think of who combines this level of virtuosity with her sheer physicality and theatricality is the great soprano Barbara Hannigan, but if you know of others who do what Chase does, please mention those folks in the comments.

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle

Previously:

• Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle (2017)
• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV (2017)
• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV, Pan

Cal Performances 2026-27

Cal Performances presents the West Coast premiere of William Kentridge’s The Head & the Load, an epic theater work that explores the stories of African soldiers in World War I, at the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts Arena in Oakland Nov 12–15, 2026.

Photo: Stella Oliver, courtesy of Cal Performances

Cal Performances just announced its 2026-27 season, and as usual it's full of great performers and likely great performances. Here are some of the goodies:

• Attacca Quartet is Ensemble in Residence for the season. They'll appear in one concert with composer Caroline Shaw, and play Adams and Beethoven in another.
• The West Coast premier of a new work by William Kentridge, the Head and the Load. I missed The Great Yes, The Great No, and I won't miss this one. Cal Performances also announced a five-year initiative presenting Kentridge's works.
• Tribute to those pioneering minimalist composers who have round-number birthdays this year or next: Steve Reich, 90, Philip Glass, 90, John Adams, 80. Alas, no Meredith Monk, who turns 84 this year.
• Yannick Nézet-Séguin brings the Vienna Phil for three concerts centered around Mahler. I heard YNS lead the Philadelphia Orchestra in Mahler 6 last year and it was good, so I'm there. Also, there will be a rare chance to hear mezzo Elina Garança, who has never appeared with SF Opera and probably never will. Also Yuja Wang plays a Prokofiev piano concerto, and sure, I will hear her in practically anything and regret missing the Mahler Chamber Orchestra the other day.
• Mark Morris world premiere
• Il Pomo d'Oro and Joyce DiDonato in Dido and Aeneas and Carrisimi's Jephtha.
• Takács Quartet and Jeremy Denk in works of Mendelssohn, Gabriela Lena Frank, and César Franck.
• Judy Collins
• Tenor Ben Bliss
• Countertenor Iestyn Davies
• Mezzo Ema Nikolovska with guitarist Sean Shibe in Orlando Variations, which takes off from Virginia Wollf's novel.
• Harpsichordist Jean Rondeau in French Baroque music
• Soprano Lise Davidsen
• Luna Lab@10, a celebration of Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid's Luna Composition Lab, which mentors a wide range of female, nonbinary, and/or gender-nonconforming composers ages 13 to 18. The performers include the Friction Quartet, Dutt & Campbell Duo, and The Living Earth Show. They'll play music by various young composers, Mazzoli, and Reid.
• Audra McDonald.
• The English Concert, Handel's Alessandro
• More string quartets, more pianists, more dance companies.
• Not enough music by women, pretty sure the performers are a substantial majority male.

Museum Mondays

Raphael

From "Raphael: Sublime Poetry," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

April, 2026

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an immense and magnificent exhibition dedicated to the artist Raphael. I saw it earlier this month; it is so big that to see it all, you really need to go more than once. So many drawings, all worthy of a careful look!

The curators could not bring the artist's Vatican frescos to NYC, so there was a room set up with projections of the frescos on the four walls. I took the above photo in that room. The figure above is in the fresco called The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple. I believe that he is one of the youths assisting a horseman in driving Heliodorus from the temple.

What caught my eye is the lightness of the figure and the sense that he is hurtling through the air, with neither of his feel touching the ground. 

Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas visits Google

November, 2008

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

(I took many photos that day, but most of them are a little blurry because MTT was perpetually in motion.)

Knowing this day would come did not make it any easier: Michael Tilson Thomas, universally known at MTT, died last night at his home in San Francisco, nearly five years after a diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme. I am tremendously saddened by his passing and especially by his illness. I'd hoped he would have a long and happy retirement, guest conducting, composing, and dreaming up all sorts of wonderful things.

I wrote an advance obituary for NPR, commissioned the week he announced he had a brain tumor and updated many times since owing to his amazing survival. (Huge thanks to Steve Smith for commissioning the piece.)

While researching the obit, I turned up some numbers numbers that describe his sheer impact on the San Francisco Symphony, of which he was music director from 1995 to 2020:

• He conducted around 1,800 concerts with SFS, from 1974 to 2025.
• His first concert showed the shape of things to come: it included Mahler's 9th.
• During his tenure, SFS presented 41 world or U.S. premieres.
• He appointed about 60 musicians, conductors, music librarians.
• He led festivals devoted to Beethoven, Bates, Stravinsky; Yiddish theater and its impact on Broadway and American music; the Barbary Coast; Mendelssohn and Ades; Schubert and Berg; Sofia Gubaidulina; George Benjamin; Leonard Bernstein; Russian music, and more.
• He conceived SFSoundBox and helped found SFS Media, the orchestra's own record label, which was among the first of any U.S. orchestra. (The Louisville Orchestra, I have learned, started its own label in 1950.)

In addition to all of that, he made more than 120 recordings with a number of orchestras and was awarded 12 Grammys. 

He and his late husband, Joshua Robison, were very much a part of San Francisco, and MTT was loved throughout the city. The block of Grove that runs between Davies Symphony Hall and the War Memorial Opera House was renamed MTT Way in honor of him.

Be sure to check out the amazing collection of photos of MTT, Joshua, their beloved dogs, and more at his website.

On KQED's Forum, Alexis Madrigal spoke with Mark Leno, former California state senator and longtime friend of MTT and Joshua Robison, classical music critic Joshua Kosman, composer John Adams, soprano Julia Bullock, and conductor Donato Cabrera about MTT. You can listen to the archived broadcast.

Obituaries and memorials:

• Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle obit (gift link)
• Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, a beautiful appreciation (gift link)
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
• Joshua Kosman, The Gramophone, originally published in 2024
• Tony Bravo, SF Chronicle, a beautiful appreciation of MTT's life as a gay man and what he and Joshua Robison meant to gay people in classical music (gift link)
• Lisa Hirsch, NPR
• Janos Gereben, SFCV
• Gabe Meline, KQED
• Emily Shugerman, S.F Standard
• David Bratman, Kalimac's Corner
• Mark Leno remember his friends MTT and Joshua Robison, SF Standard
• Various tributes to MTT, S.F. Chronicle
• San Francisco Symphony remembers MTT
• Mark Swed, LA Times (MTT as an Angeleno and California)
• Nardine Saad, LA Times
• Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise
• Elaine Fine, Musical Assumptions
• Tim Page, Washington Post (gift link)
• Anthony Tomassini, NY Times (gift link)
• P.J. Grisar, The Forward
• The Times, unsigned
• The Telegraph, unsigned
• Richard Fairman, Financial Times
• Amanda Rosa, Miami Herald
• Ronald Blum, AP
• Bachtrack, unsigned
• Leonard Slatkin
• Dave Hurwitz, Classics Today

Joshua Robison obituaries:

• Tony Bravo and Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chronicle, a heartfelt appreciation of MTT's husband, his partner of 50 years (gift link)
• Gabe Meline, KQED
• MTT's website

San Francisco Symphony 2026-27

Davies Symphony Hall

Home of the San Francisco Symphony

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Well, okay! San Francisco Symphony announced their 2026-27 season the other month – sorry, I am definitely behind in posting about recent events – and it is a good season, a return to the kind of adventurous programming we got used to during the long tenure of Michael Tilson Thomas (okay, there was a slump at the end, I know, I know) and the too-short tenure of Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Salonen will be back for what will be a fun program – it includes a new concerto for harp and percussion, by Rene Orth, to be played by principal percussionist Jacob Nissly and principal harp Katherine Siochi – and his influence is clear in a few other places during the season. That's because there are a bunch of big new works programmed or coming in the near future, and they absolutely must have been commissioned when he was music director. These include the Orth, a new violin concerto called How to Be a Bird, by the prodigiously gifted Gabriella Smith, and a future concerto for orchestra by Reena Esmail. 

There's plenty of good stuff in the season! In addition to works named above, I'm looking forward to seeing Metropolis with live orchestra on the very big screen at Davies.

The full season brochure can be downloaded as a PDF; you can also view or download the full season calendar.

• Lisa Hirsch, San Francisco Chronicle.
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
• Janos Gereben, SFCV

 

La Belle et la Bête at Opera Parallèle

Chea Kang as Beauty, Hadleigh Adams as the Beast

Photo: Stefan Cohen

Opera Parallèle, March, 2026

A spectacular presentation of Philip Glass's amalgam of film and opera.

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
• Lily Janiak, SF Chronicle
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
• Charlise Tiee, Opera Tattler
• Patrick Vaz, The Reverberate Hills
• Caroline Crawford, Bay City News

Season Announcement Season

It's that time of year, and I will try post at least some analysis of orchestral seasons across the country and how they are doing repertory-wise, that is, dead white guys versus the rest of the world.

A preliminary note that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Classical Series is a disgrace: the season has works by 8 9 living composers, mostly guys, mostly white. They are Michael Abels, Mason Bates, Tan Dun, Philip Glass, Magnus Lindberg, Arvo Pärt, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Roberto Sierra, and Julia Wolfe. The rest of the season is dead white men, except for a short work by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, which I missed the other day.

Karina Canellakis and Jane Glover are the only women who are conducting. 

You can see all of the details on the handy CSO season grid. I wish every orchestra published a document like this!

Major Openings

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

I'm months overdue on a big music director update, but last week's bombshell at the Boston Symphony reminded me that four of the big-budget U.S. orchestras now have music director openings:

• Boston Symphony, where there has been drama.
• Cleveland Orchestra, where there has not been drama. The orchestra announced in January, 2024, that Franz Welser-Möst would leave at the end of the 2026-27 season. Three years' notice, similar to MTT's three at SFS.
• SFS, where there has been drama, with Esa-Pekka Salonen deciding to part ways over differences with the board.
• LA Philharmonic, where there has not been drama. Gustavo Dudamel decided to move to the NY Philharmonic in February, 2023, and commences the new position with the 2026-27 season. Well, the return of Esa-Pekka Salonen in a non-music director position could be considered dramatic and could cause some conductors to rule out the appointment, because being music director when one of the best conductors in the world – who is also one of the best composers in the world – is in the office next door could be discouraging.

San Francisco Opera 2027-28

Postcard of the War Memorial Opera House in the 1930s or 1940s

Personal collection of Lisa Hirsch

Matthew Shilvock mentioned to me when I spoke with him last month that with the announcement of the 2026-27 season and the 2028 Ring at SF Opera, we know what the 2027-28 season looks like....mostly.

Fall, 2027:

• Die Walküre, Wagner; part of the Ring bring-up
• The Galloping Cure, Missy Mazzonli; SFO co-commission and U.S. premiere
• ???
• ???

Spring/Summer, 2028:

• Siegfried, Wagner, single performance as part of the Ring bring-up
• Götterdämmerung, Wagner, single performance as part of the Ring bring-up
• Der Ring des Nibelungen, Wagner, three performances of the four operas

So, there are two open slots in the fall season. Possible composers for those slots include Verdi, Janacek, Mozart, and Rossini. With fairly recent Tosca, Bohème, and Butterfly performances, I wouldn't expect Puccini. Given the weighty topics of the Ring operas and The Galloping Cure, which is about addiction, I hope that there will be a comedy. Or maybe something heavy that the company hasn't done in a long time: Lulu or Wozzeck? Pélleas et Mélisande? William Tell? Satyagraha? 

Or maybe composers they rarely or never do: something by Auber or Meyerbeer? Birtwistle? Ades or Benjamin? Something Russian? Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor? Offenbach that isn't Tales of Hoffman? Nielsen's Maskerade? 

 

I (Sort of) Called This One

Symphony Hall, Boston

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

April, 2025

Me to a friend, January, 2026:

I will say that when Chad Smith got that job [CEO of the Boston Symphony] and Salonen decided to leave SFS, I wondered whether Smith would try to recruit Salonen for the BSO. If he did, it didn't work, but I did notice that Nelsons is now on an annually-renewable contract. Smith can cut him loose any time he has someone in mind as a replacement.

And to a different friend in July, 2024:

I have been wondering whether Boston would make a play for Salonen. They can say good-bye to Nelsons easily, and Smith presumably has a good relationship with Salonen.

Earlier today, in the NY Times (gift link):

Boston Symphony Abruptly Ends Its Music Director’s Contract

The orchestra’s leadership announced on Friday that it and the conductor Andris Nelsons “were not aligned on future vision.”

The Boston Symphony Orchestra abruptly dismissed its music director, Andris Nelsons, on Friday, in a harsh public split between one of the nation’s leading orchestras and the man who has led it for 12 years. The orchestra said that it and Nelsons were “not aligned on future vision.”

His tenure with the Boston Symphony will end in summer 2027, at the end of its Tanglewood season. The announcement — in tone and timing — was startling in a world in which such personnel shifts are typically done delicately and over the course of a few years.

“The decision to not renew his contract was made by the B.S.O.’s board of trustees because, beyond our shared desire to ensure our orchestra continues to perform at the highest levels, the B.S.O. and Andris Nelsons were not aligned on future vision,” the board and Chad Smith, the orchestra’s president and chief executive, said in a letter to patrons. A similar note was sent to members of the orchestra.

"Not aligned on a future vision," hmm, where have I heard this before? Oh, right, Esa-Pekka Salonen about the relationship between him and the SFS Board of Directors.

We won't know for a while whether Smith has someone in mind. It's not likely to be Salonen, although, hmm, Salonen was just appointed to a position at Tanglewood, as director of the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in 2026."

Okay, even Salonen can't manage positions at three orchestras at once, so probably someone else will get the BSO job. 

Related:

• The Boston Musical Intelligencer reports on the story and includes Nelsons' letter to the BSO musicians.

Livermore Valley Opera's Così fan tutte

Samuel Kidd (Guglielmo), Courtney Miller (Despina), Megan Potter (Dorabella), Meryl Dominguez (Fiordiligi), Eugene Brancoveanu (Don Alfonso, on floor), Sid Chand (Ferrando)

Photo: Barbara Mallon, courtesy of Livermore Valley Opera

A mixed-bag of a Così fan tutte at Livermore Valley Opera, with lots of laughs but somehow missing on the more serious and heartbreaking emotions in the work.

• Lisa Hirsch, Parterre Box
• Charlise Tiee, Opera Tattler

Previously, the Opera San José Così:

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV

Back in 2025....

I published some articles last year that I never wrote about on the blog. It's never too late!

• Three Opera Singers on How They Built Their Careers, SFCV, May, 2025. If you've been attending the opera in the Bay Area for any length of time, you know Alex Boyer, Chung-Wai Soong, and Leandra Ramm, even if you're not sure you do. They've all sung roles of varying sizes with local companies; Soong and Ramm are both active in pro choruses here, including working as extra chorus at SF Opera. Boyer went on a couple of times last year as Brandon Jovanovich's cover at the Met in Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick. 
• Walking with Sister Helen, Opera Now, October, 2025. I spoke with Susan Graham, Joyce Di Donato, Jamie Barton, and Patricia Racette, who've all sung Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, and with Frederica von Stade, who created Mrs. Patrick De Rocher, the mother of the condemned man. It was a great honor to speak with these magnificent singers, all of whom I've admired over a long period.
• Second Acts: Musicians Leaving the Spotlight to Find Something New, SFCV, October, 2025. An article about three classical musicians who are no longer performing, for different reasons. Nicole Cash, former associate principal horn the San Francisco Symphony, became an audiobook narrator after focal dystonia meant she couldn't continue as a horn player. Tenor David Lomelí became a consultant to opera companies around the world after digestive issues affected his singing. Elizabeth Rowe, former principal flute of the Boston Symphony and a magnificent player, became a leadership and executive coach (the circumstances are too complicated to describe briefly). 

Musicians leave classical music at different times in their careers and for a wide variety of reasons. It is a very tough and competitive business and it is difficult to get a career going in such a competitive field. If you're curious about this subject, web search will turn up podcasts, personal testimonies, and articles about individuals musicians. Elizabeth Rowe's case is unusual in that she had the kind of position you can stay in for decades (the legendary Doriot Anthony Dwyer held the BSO principal flute chair for 38 years), but various circumstances led her to a career change.

Better Late Than Never

Mozart Requiem

Manfred Honeck, cond.

Photo: Kristen Loken, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

A couple of years ago, I saw Manfred Honeck, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, guest conduct at San Francisco Symphony. I am surprised to see that I never posted about it, because it was Not Good. Joshua Kosman reviewed the concert (gift link) and was not happy; as the headline says, Honeck was a speed demon and the speed served the music poorly.

When the 2025-26 SFS season was announced, I was skeptical about Honeck's program, a re-envisioning of Mozart's Requiem, a problem child of a work if ever there was one. Mozart died before finishing it; his friend and student Franz Xaver Süssmayr completed it and, well, to say the least he was no Mozart.

I sang the Requiem long ago and didn't particularly like it then; recordings I've heard along the way mostly didn't work for me. Too many conductors go at it like it's the Brahms, written in the 1860s, and no, that's not appropriate. I liked Christopher Hogwood's period instrument recording, which sounds like Mozart, but I haven't heard it in 20 years.

I probably would have gone to the final dress rehearsal of Honeck's program if I hadn't had a conflicting appointment, and wasn't really planning to go (demand pricing in action and I was not comfortable asking for a press ticket), but then a friend said it had been phenomenal, and, well, okay, a chance to hear the wonderful Ying Fang and Sasha Cooke, okay.

Well, it turns out that I will have to rethink both Manfred Honeck and the Mozart Requiem.

The Requiem wasn't the only thing on the program; the first half of the program was Beethoven's Coriolan Overture and Haydn's Symphony No. 93 in D major. The Beethoven got a sharp and appropriately dramatic reading in which I was particularly impressed by the energy of the conducting and how Honeck and the orchestra controlled the dynamics within each phrase. By energy, I do not mean speed. Honeck's tempo was just right, neither too fast nor too slow, but underlying every note was tremendous momentum and energy.

The same was true in the Haydn, which has a character quite different from the Beethoven. The cheery first movement was a lively delight. Kudos to the quartet of string players in the opening of the slow movement. (They included concertmaster Alexander Barantschik and principal viola Jonathan Vinocour; I couldn't quite see who was in the cello first seat. I think Chen Zhao was playing principal second violin.) I laughed out loud at the musical joke late in the movement, which was beautifully timed.

Honeck took a broad tempo for the minuet and it worked fabulously well in this bumptious music; the trio was appropriately more sober and delicate. The last movement bustled along nicely.

On to the Requiem.

During intermission, audience members were able to get an electric (I think) candle and place it on the edge of the stage in front of the orchestra, in memory of those no longer with us. The candles remained there until after the concert was over and created a beautiful look and mood for the Mozart.

Honeck contributed a program note, in which he says that we can't know how Mozart would have finished the Requiem, so "I have chosen to perform only the parts that he composed himself." A wise decision and I admire his integrity in making this choice. 

Honeck's conception of the Requiem places the work in the context of "elements that reflect Mozart's time and personal thoughts on death," creating a funeral liturgy around the Requiem. The performance included plainchant (sung by the St. Dominic’s Schola Cantorum), readings from the Book of Revelation, two poems by Nelly Sachs, an excerpt from a letter the composer wrote to his father, the "Masonic Funeral Music," K. 477, the "Laudate Dominum" from the Vespers, K. 399, and the motet "Ave Verum Corpus."

The performance opened and closed with three bell strokes, played by principal timpani Edward Stephan – the only time I've seen him play anything other than timpani. They were a solemn introduction and solemn close to a performance of gravity and majesty.

Honeck led the program with all the virtues of the first half – judicious tempos, crisp phrasing, superb dynamic control – and added a real sense of drama and style. The structure created some of the drama, and Honeck conducted with operatic grandeur and pacing.

Did I mention disliking Brahmsian performances of the Requiem? This performance looked back to the Baroque, emphasizing the counterpoint and antique elements of the work. Honeck used a reduced orchestra throughout the program; the players had more than enough power for the work. Even with the big chorus, the balances were excellent. The Symphony Chorus was a marvel throughout, wonderfully responsive and singing with a most beautiful sound.

Honeck gave special weight to the "Masonic Funeral Music" and the Confutatis of the Requiem.  I loved Adrian Roberts's eloquent readings. Soprano Ying Fang was glorious in the "Laudate Dominum" from the Vespers and so was bass Stephano Park in the "Tuba mirum" of the Requiem. Mezzo Sasha Cooke was, as always, a warmly beautiful presence. Tenor David Portillo was much as he was at Santa Fe Opera in 2024.

All in all, it was a a magnificent performance of a great work. 

These performances were dedicated to the memory Joshua Robison, Michael Tilson Thomas's husband and creative partner, who died earlier this week. Principal oboe Eugene Izotov read a moving personal memory of Robison and his place in the lives of MTT and SFS.

Elsewhere:

• Rebecca Wishnia, SF Chronicle and SFCV
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle (link to follow)
• DB at Kalimac's Corner

A note after reading Rebecca Wishnia and DB's reviews: I had no problems hearing the soloists from Upper Orchestra S-19. Their sound reflected off the wall at the back of the orchestra seating.

Canto Ostinato at Cal Performances

Canto Ostinato

Sandbox Percussion and AMOC* members Matthew Aucoin and Conor Hanick

Lincoln Center, NYC

June 25, 2025

Photo: Lawrence Sumulong, courtesy of Cal Performances

A great work and a glorious performance: Simeon ten Holt's Canto Ostinato at Cal Performances. Billed as a production of Sandbox Percussion and AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company), it was the four Sandbox percussionists, Matthew Aucoin, and Conor Hanick. They were magnificent.

If you want to hear this work, there are performances on YouTube with various instrumental combos. On April 3, there will be an LP release of the work that includes Sandbox Percussion. This might persuade me to finally set up my turntable.

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV and SF Chronicle
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle. He's got more analysis of what's going on technically in Canto Ostinato. I meant to say something about how very Spanish the work sounded at various points, but, well, intentions.

Sandbox Percussion

Photo: Tom Emerson, courtesy of Cal Performances

(This photo is from a performance of Andy Akiho's Seven Pillars, which Sandbox performed last year at PIVOT.)

Cav 'n Pag, Opera San José

Maria Natale (Santuzza), Delaney Ewert, and Jacob Hohn as villagers

Cavalleria Rusticana, Opera San José

Photo: David Allen, courtesy of Opera San José

Three enthusiastic reviews of Opera San José's verismo double bill:

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
• Eddie Reynolds, Theater Eddys

I'm the only one of the three who commented on how loud Cavalleria was, and so I am wondering whether it was an artifact of the set. There isn't a photo showing the entire stage and set, which was much more built out on the audience left stage, so it would have reflected the sound more. I was audience right, Joshua Kosman was audience left. But the orchestra – which was very loud – would not have been affected by that to the extend that the singers were.

The last time I saw this double bill was before the pandemic at San Francisco Opera, and my conclusion at the time was much like Joshua Kosman's: Cav is trash, Pag is a masterpiece. Curiously, I liked Cav better this time around than the last, though Pag is a much better work.

Happy birthday to Alma Deutscher, who turned 21 yesterday and thus shares a birthday with the great Hungarian composer György Kurtág, who turned 100.

Friday Photo

Snacks

Tokyo Fish Market, Berkeley

January, 2026

 

Museum Mondays

Square in a Square

Pieced by Kitty Gladys Jones

Quilted by Atleaver Jones

Routed West, BAMPFA 

Berkeley, CA

November, 2025

Click to enlarge

 

Davóne Tines and Ruckus: "What is Your Hand in This?"

Davóne Tines, Ruckus, Members of the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts Concert Choir

Photo by Michael Strickland

This recital was scheduled opposite Joyce DiDonato in Kevin Puts's new song cycle to poems of Emily Dickinson. One throws up one's hands at having had to make such a choice. I probably should have gone to JDD, whom I interviewed last fall for an article about portraying Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, but this was a wonderful concert.

• Michael Zwiebach, SFCV
• Lisa Hirsch, Parterre Box
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
• Patrick Vaz, The Reverberate Hills

Bicket, Schultz, and Mozart at San Francisco Symphony

Golda Schultz and Harry Bicket

Photo by Michael Strickland

Used with permission

I'm sorry that I didn't take a curtain call photo or to at Davies last Thursday, when I saw Harry Bicket's all-Mozart program at San Francisco Symphony, featuring two symphonies, a serenade, and soprano Golda Schultz in Mozart arias. SFS evidently didn't have a photographer in house for the concert, hence, Davies rather than a concert photo. (BUT my friend Michael Strickland to the rescue! And I've added him to the round-up below. Thank you so much!)

It wouldn't have been appropriate in my Chronicle / SFCV review to say that I've now seen Bicket in concert with SFS and conducting two full Mozart operas with Santa Fe Opera, his home theater in the United States. I think that he is a good, not great, Mozart conductor; solid, with good instincts, but without bringing out that last bit of rhythmic brilliance that mades Mozart performances great. 

(The best Mozart opera conducting I've heard? Cornelius Meister in the last SFO Abduction, Donald Runnicles in the McVicar Don Giovanni, and Henrik Nanasi in the most recent Così. The worst? Nicola Luisotti in the 2013 Così, which had the additional problem of being poorly cast, with a voiceless Don Alfonso and miscast Ellie Dehn, who was excellent in other appearances.)

I've also seen Bicket lead Orfeo (outstanding), Pélleas (eh), Alcina, and Radamisto, all at Santa Fe. No strong impressions remain of his conducting in the two Handel operas.

• Lisa Hirsch, S.F. Chronicle / SFCV
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle (link to follow)
• Harvey Steinman, Seen and Heard International
• Matthew Travisano, Parterre Box
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center

 

Suzannah Lessard

The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family

by Suzannah Lessard

Book cover

I don't have a personal photo of the distinguished author Suzannah Lessard, who died on January 29, and the photos of her on the web are very likely copyrighted, so I am going for the cover of one of her books as the header.

I didn't know Lessard, though I am reasonably sure I was aware of the existence of The Architect of Desire; probably I read a review of it in the NY Times when it was published in the 1990s. But reading the Times obituary (gift link) for her, I was rather unnerved. Here's what got me, all quotations from the obit:

Ms. Lessard, her five sisters and their parents lived in a 19th-century farmhouse known as the Red Cottage. It had sloping floors, patched plaster walls and a fraught atmosphere, largely created by her father, who required quiet for his work as a composer, as well as other, more brutal concessions from his daughters. 

...

Ms. Lessard’s memoir was decades in the making. It was the book she could not write, and yet felt compelled to write, and the writer’s block she suffered often compromised her other work; for much of the time she was struggling with it, she was a staff writer at The New Yorker.

...

 Ms. Lessard had never previously spoken about how her father had visited her in her bedroom when she was a child. Yet on New Year’s Day in 1989, one of her sisters called a meeting of the siblings and, one by one, each sister confided that she, too, had experienced sexual encounters with their father.

Over the years, each had tried to convince herself that the encounters weren’t abuse — that their childhoods had been safe and that their father’s behavior was somehow normal. Their memories, finally voiced, gave Ms. Lessard “a sense of something like the sound barrier breaking,” she wrote, “a psychic reverberation.”

She added: “With it, the world cracked open, and inside was the world.” 

...

 After the sisters’ revelations, the family entered therapy, but their father claimed not to remember the encounters they described. (The Lessards had divorced decades earlier.) Ms. Lessard said that exposing her father in her book was not an act of revenge but of survival.

Right. He could not remember sexually abusing his six daughters over goodness knows how many years.

When I looked him up, I realized I was slightly acquainted with her father. Suzannah Lessard's composer father John Lessard was on the faculty of SUNY/Stony Brook when I was a student there from 1980 to 1982. Once I knew that, I had no trouble conjuring up an accurate picture of him.

He was by then married to his second wife, Sarah Fuller, a musicologist who was also on the faculty. He was retired from the faculty by the time The Architect of Desire was published, and died seven years later, but you bet I am now wondering about whether and what kind of discussions he might have had about the book and his past with Prof. Fuller, and how she reacted to what he said. They remained married until his death in 2003.

Los Angeles Opera, 2026-27

Satyagraha, by Philip Glass

Curtain Call Photo

Los Angeles Opera

November, 2018

I don't have a photo of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion handy - there's a more photogenic building just across the street from it - so the above curtain call photo, one of the first I ever took, will have to do. It was a great performance, conducted by James Conlon and with an awesome assumption of the role of Gandhi by tenor Sean Panikkar.

Anyway, it's season announcement season, and LA Opera was one of three that announced this past Tuesday, along with Seattle and San Francisco. About all I can say about the main-stage season is "Oy vey." I don't know how much input Domingo Hindoyan had into the season, because when a music director is hired and when the announcement is made aren't necessarily the same thing. Season planning in the U.S. generally starts five years in advance, with casting done by three years before, so....

The Off-Grand series looks good and those are attractive concert. Highlights for me would be Carla Lucero's opera and Sidney Mancasola's Susannah in The Marriage of Figaro. She was terrific as Mélisande in Pelleas in 2023.

I'm going to post the cast, conductor, dates, and director, copy/pasted from email.

Domingo Hindoyan conducts a new production of Carmen

October 17, 25m, 29; November 1m, 4, 7, 2026 (m = matinee)

Composer: Georges Bizet

Librettists: Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy

World premiere: March 3, 1875 (Opéra-Comique, Paris)

 

Carmen: Rihab Chaieb

Don José: Joshua Guerrero ° ‡

Micaëla: Kathleen O'Mara ‡

Escamillo: Liam James Karai *

 

Conductor: Domingo Hindoyan

Director and Scenic Designer: Thaddeus Strassberger

Bernstein's around-the-world romp, Candide

November 21, 29m; December 2, 5, 10, 13m, 2026

Composer: Leonard Bernstein

Book: Hugh Wheeler, in a new version by John Caird

Lyrics: Richard Wilbur; additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John La Touche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker and Leonard Bernstein

World premiere: December 1, 1956 (Martin Beck Theatre, New York City)

 

Candide: Duke Kim

Cunegonde: Deanna Breiwick

Old Lady: Patti LuPone

 

Conductor: Lina González-Granados °

Director: Francesca Zambello

Nabucco, the opera that made Verdi famous

February 27; March 7m, 10, 13, 18, 21m, 2027

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi

Librettist: Temistocle Solera

World premiere: March 9, 1842 (Teatro alla Scala, Milan)

 

Nabucco: Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar *

Abigaille: Angela Meade

Zaccaria: Stephano Park *

Fenena: Meridian Prall

Ismaele: Nathan Bowles ‡

 

Conductor: Domingo Hindoyan

Director and Scenery Designer: Thaddeus Strassberger

Back by popular demand: Turandot

April 17, 24, 29; May 2m, 5, 9m, 2027

Composer: Giacomo Puccini

Librettists: Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni

World premiere: April 25, 1926 (Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy)

 

Turandot: Ewa Płonka *

Calaf: Arsen Soghomonyan *

Liù: Juliana Grigoryan *

Timur: Peixin Chen

 

Conductor: Diego Matheuz *

Director: Garnett Bruce

Scenic Designer: David Hockney

James Conlon conducts The Marriage of Figaro

May 29; June 6m, 9, 12, 14m, 17, 20m, 2027

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Librettist: Lorenzo Da Ponte

World premiere: May 1, 1786 (Burgtheater, Vienna)

 

Figaro: Michael Sumuel

Susanna: Sydney Mancasola

Count: Lucas Meachem (May 29 - June 14) / Jarrett Ott * (June 17-20)

Countess: Erica Petrocelli ° ‡

Cherubino: Kayleigh Decker *

Dr. Bartolo: Maurizio Muraro *

Marcellina: Hyona Kim

 

Conductor: James Conlon

Director: James Gray

Scenic Designer: Santo Loquasto

Campy, vampy Halloween fun—Hercules vs. Vampires

October 30, 31, 2026

Composer: Patrick Morganelli

Film Director: Mario Bava

Film premiere: November 16, 1961

Premiere of Morganelli's score: May 14, 2010 (Opera Theater Oregon, Hollywood Theatre, Portland)

 

Our smash hit from 2015 storms back just in time for Halloween. Muscle-bound heroics, supernatural mayhem, and cinematic excess abound as Reg Park’s Hercules faces off against the iconic Christopher Lee in Mario Bava’s cult fantasy Hercules in the Haunted World. While the deliriously stylish film blazes across the big screen, the LA Opera Orchestra and a fearless cast of singers unleash Patrick Morganelli’s operatic score live, synced to the action. Think sword-and-sandal spectacle, gothic fantasy, and Halloween chaos—all rolled into one gloriously unhinged night at the opera.

Presented at the United Theater on Broadway (929 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015)

 

Les Talens Lyriques: Two Venetians in Naples

March 2, 2027

Conductor/harpsichord/organ: Christophe Rousset

Soprano soloist: Apolline Raï-Westphal *

Soprano soloist: Thaïs Raï-Westphal *

 

 

Jamie Barton in Recital

November 15, 2026

 

Erin Morley and Lawrence Brownlee in Recital

April 22, 2027

 

Sondra Radvanovsky in Recital

May 8, 2027

The Old Man and the Sea

May 20, 21, 22, 23m, 2027

Composer: Paola Prestini

Librettist: Royce Vavrek

Conductor: Mila Henry *

Director: Karmina Šilec *

World premiere: November 4, 2023 (ASU Gammage, Tempe, Arizona)

Breathtakingly staged with eight pools of water enhanced with dynamic lighting, costumes and sound, our latest collaboration with the groundbreaking Beth Morrison Projects transforms Ernest Hemingway's Pulitzer-winning novella into a rumination on age, loss, nature, and what it means to be beautifully, stubbornly human.

* LA Opera debut

Presented at The Wallis (9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90210)

Community Opera at the Cathedral:

The Three Women of Jerusalem (Las tres mujeres de Jerusalén)

May 1, 2027 (two performances that day)

Composer and Librettist: Carla Lucero

Conductor: Lina González-Granados

Director: Eli Villanueva

World premiere: March 19, 2022 (Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles)

Livermore Valley Così fan tutte

Poster graphic courtesy of Livermore Valley Opera

I never got around to noting that this season presented opportunities to see Verdi's La traviata and Mozart's Così fan tutte twice each, because Livermore Valley Opera and Opera San José are staging them both. I reviewed both the LVO Traviata (with a vocally and dramatically splendid performance by Avery  Boettcher as Violetta) and the OSJ Così, and enjoyed them both a lot. (I will here note that Ricardo José Rivera, whom I loved as Papageno and Guglielmo at recent OSJ performances, stepped into the Met HD broadcast of I Puritani and performed magnificently. I suspect we might not be seeing him in the regional companies again.)

The LVO Così that's opening on Feb. 28 looks strongly cast; I've liked everyone I know who is in it. Meryl Dominguez was a good Donna Anna in LVO's Don Giovanni; Courtney Miller was excellent in the strongly-cast Pocket Tartuffe; Samuel Kidd was terrific in several SFO appearances during his Adler years; Eugene Brancoveanu is a wonderful singer who has been a mainstay of Bay Area companies for many years now.

I've seen most of LVO's productions in the last few years, and they've been reliably good to excellent, with a number of memorable individual performances, good production values, and vigorous conducting by Alexander Katsman. Consider, also, that the 500-seat Bankhead Theater has no bad seats and is a great place to see opera.

So consider this a vigorous plug for Così and the company. 

Seattle Opera 2026-27

Seattle

I haven't got a handy photo of McCaw Hall, home of the Seattle Opera, so the photo above, which certainly signals Seattle, will have to do.

Seattle Opera just announced its season on Tuesday, a couple of hours before SFO announced. It is a very short season; nonetheless, I'd buy tickets to most of these.

I see that Huang Ruo's The Wedding Banquet, which I believe is a co-commission with the Met, is moved to a future season. Based on how good The Monkey King was, I am looking forward to this.

• Salome, Richard Strauss. October 17-31. Brenda Rae (!) in the title role; she is a pretty light soprano, so we'll see how this goes. Chad Shelton as Herod, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano as Herodias, baritone Michael Kupfer-Radecky as Jochanaan, and tenor Joseph Tancredi as Narraboth. Benjamin Manis conducts.
• Jamie Barton in recital, Nov. 21. She is a great singer and a ton of fun.
• Anita Spritzer's gay Apparel, Dec. 11, 13, 19.
• El último sueño de Frida y Diego, Frank. January 16-30. Daniela Mack, Alfredo Daza, Mei Gui Zhang, Jake Ingbar. Production seen at SFO, conducted by Carolyn Kuan. I loved this opera in SF, where I saw a cast that included Mack, Daza, and Ingbar. Zhang will be good as La Catrina.
• Lakmé, Delibes, in concert, March 5 and 7. Aigul Khismatullina, David Portillo, Christian Purcell, Nicholas Newton, Hongni Wu. Daniela Candillari conducts. Not a fan of Portillo, like Purcell and Wu a lot, don't know the others.
• La Bohème, Puccini. May 8 to 23,  I didn't much care for this production, by Seattle's general director James Robinson, at Santa Fe last year, but of course it's a great opera. Double cast; not going to list all of the singers. Roberto Kalb, whom I've liked in a couple of operas, conducts.