Cal Performances 2012-13

I never did report on the upcoming Cal Performances season, which will feature some fantastic programs. I now have a long update from them, so here goes. (If you want to cut directly to the added events, go here.)

Esa-Pekka attended the Cal Performances season announcement by videoconference. Everybody at my table pulled out cellphones or cameras to take a few photos.

It is quite a season, with many, MANY great performances. At the top of my must-see list would be Einstein on the Beach, the three concerts that Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia will be giving, and Christian Tetzlaff's solo recital. Here are my personal highlights:

• Mariinsky Ballet in the complete Swan Lake 
• Einstein on the Beach
• Nancarrow 100 Celebration
• Salonen and the Philharmonia. The programs are Salonen's Helix, Beethoven's 7th, and the Symphonie Fantastique; a concert performance of Wozzeck (!!!); and Mahler's 9th. There are also a couple of extra-performance events associated with Salonen's visit, including a colloquium, E-SP conducting a rehearsal with the UC Symphony, and a symposium on Wozzeck.
• Mark Morris's The Hard Nut
• Nicolas Hodges, piano, in a recital that will include a Birtwistle commission/world premiere
• Christian Tetzlaff, my favorite living violinist, alone on stage
• Leonidis Kavakos, violin
• Nolan Gasser's The Secret Garden
• Brentano String Quartet (Purcell, Bartok 4, Beethoven Harp quartet)
• Jeffrey Kahane, piano
• Bejart Ballet, the program with Le marteau sans maitre and Le sacre du printemps. What a pairing! Wah. Bejart cancelled their tour.
• Nicola Luisotti and the SF Opera Orchestra in a pretty strange program, including Puccini, Rota, and Brahms
• Ojai North! curated by Mark Morris this year

SFS Program Updates

SFS just sent a press release about changes to the already-announced 2012-13 schedule. This information is important, whether you've ordered your tickets or not.

• Jorg Widmann's piano concerto is out, replaced by the "Emperor" Concerto, still with Yefim Bronfman. Also on the program, Symphonie Fantastique. Love the Berlioz, but that's one program that went from a yes to a no. Sorry, Fima!
• The visual accompaniment to the Missa Solemnis is by video artist Michael Tilson Thomas. Um.
• The Fleming residency will include Robin Holloway's arrangement...no, wait, I'll just quote this, because it is inscrutable: "a new SFS commission by Robin Holloway with soprano Renée Fleming, a re-imagining for orchestra of Debussy’s Ariettes oubliées, based on Paul Verlaine’s poems." By Robin Holloway with soprano Renée Fleming. You'll have to tell me how this one goes, given what I thought of her performance in Lucrezia Borgia.
• Matthias Goerne will be singing Wagner (Wotan's Farewell and "Die Frist is um") instead of orchestrations of Brahms songs. 
• The press release doesn't mention (and the web site still doesn't say) what will be on the concert honoring John Goldman.

Lastly, and to me perhaps most importantly, single tickets go on sale this Monday, July 23. That noise you hear will be me banging my head against the web site.

Update: I have asked SFS about the omission of the Symphony Chorus from the page that lists Les Noces as one of the works being performed. :) It's gotta be a mistake.

Season Announcement Season: Long Beach Opera

No press release yet, but via Tim Mangan, here's Long Beach Opera's 2013 season:

• Jan. 27, Feb. 2-3: “The Fall of the House of Usher” (Philip Glass)
• March 24, 30: “Unicamente La Verdad” (Gabriela Ortiz)
• May 11, 18-19: “The Tell-Tale Heart” (Stewart Copeland); “Van Gogh” (Michael Gordon)
• June 15, 22-23: “Macbeth” (Ernest Bloch)

I haven't heard any of those! Road trip(s)!

Season Announcement: Stanford Live

I spent the greater part of yesterday afternoon at Stanford, first attending the season announcement for what used to be Stanford Lively Arts, then touring the still-under-construction Bing Concert Hall.

Stanford Lively Arts has a new name: Stanford Live. I'm happy that there's no Yahoo!-like exclamation point at the end, unhappy about the change. Stanford Lively Arts means something. Stanford Live could be anything at all: a radio show, an online class, you name it. And its proximity to Bing Concert Hall made me put together some associations that are surely unintended:

Windows Live - Bing Search Engine
Stanford Live - Bing Concert Hall

Microsoft just killed the Windows Live brand. The Times article I link to says that nobody had any idea what it meant. Ditto Stanford Live. NOTE: Bing Concert Hall has nothing to do with Microsoft. It's named for the donors, Peter and Helen Bing.

The organization very kindly presented attendees with some nice schwag: a 2 GB thumb drive containing PDFs of the season brochure. Here's a photo (weird, I do not remember taking it upside down):

Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to plug thumb drives into my work laptop unless they're company-issued, so just now I don't have access to the season brochure, just to the press releases.

I am dismayed by the opening season: there's a smattering of new music and some interesting programs, but the season calling card is 14 programs focussed on...............Beethoven. Music professor Stephen Hinton listed a few benefits to the campus of this focus, saying that it will be a model of integrated programming. They will link to other events and classes:

•   Freshman seminar
•   Reactions to the Record 2014 
•   George Barth in the music dept will teach a related seminar
•   Continuging Ed class
•   Research Seminar: Enlightenment and Revolution; Heroism in the Age of Beethoven

During the Q&A period, I asked Stanford's personnel to elaborate on their ideas for new audience development, and also asked how the focus on Beethoven would further audience development. Stephen Hinton handed this off to Wiley Hausam, the recently-appointed managing director of Bing Concert Hall. His answer included "The integration of Beethoven into Stanford's curriculum, student-driven programming, getting students into a concert setting who may not have heard classical music in such a setting, friends and family of students, ongoing exploration; the awakening of those things we feel when we hear such masterpieces."

In the press release, Stanford Symphony conductor Jindong Cai is quoted saying   “The opening of Bing Concert Hall will change the landscape of music-making on the Stanford campus. In keeping with the magnitude of this change, the Beethoven Project will represent a signature endeavor for the Department of Music and the perfect series of events with which to begin our residency in the hall.” Color me skeptical. What this looks like from the outside is a play-it-safe season.

The inaugural program at Bing Hall has been announced, and there's no new work, though we will get to hear works by "maverick" composers John (Coolidge) Adams and Lou Harrison.

New music during the season will include works by Laurie Anderson, a John Luther Adams commission, the US premier of a work by Steve Reich (on an all-Reich program performed by the composer and alarm will sound), and two short operas by Stanford composer Jonathan Berger (to be performed by the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the male ensemble NY Polyphony, and others).

Kaiser Stanford?

Then we decamped for a visit to under-construction Bing Concert Hall. It's very much a construction site; the exterior glass is installed, but within you see mostly concrete and cinder block, with Romex all over the place and occasional wallboard. The sails and cloud, part of the hall's acoustical design, are installed, but not the interior wood, seats, stage, etc.

I am sure the hall will sound great, considering that the acoustics are designed by Yasuhisa Toyota of Walt Disney Concert Hall fame, and the interior design seems lovely. Excellent storage and practice spaces are provided, and fine amenities for performers as well as visitors. I sincerely hope that the seats will be roomy and comfortable.

The exterior is projected to look like this:

(Screen capture from Stanford Live's web site)

Here's what it currently looks like, from the rear of the building, in a photo I took yesterday:

The turquoise stuff will be gone, but the entire building is that uniform ochre color. I think it is ugly and monolithic, and makes the building look remarkably like a current-generation Kaiser Permanente medical office building. Perhaps there will be decorative elements breaking up the mass of light adobe; perhaps it will look better in different life. Perhaps it's intended to match older stone buildings on campus. Perhaps it will look better from other angles.

But...what counts most is how it sounds and how it functions as a concert hall. We'll find all of that out in January.

Game-Changer?

Stephen Hinton and Jenny Bilfield were extremely enthused about the effect on Stanford of having Bing Hall. I heard the phrase "game-changer" more than once. I heard about the "community, harmony, and intimacy" that would be created by the seating arrangement in the hall, with the audience arrayed around the stage and the "orchestra" section audience level with the stage.

Well - I'm not sure how Stanford is measuring the effects of Bing Hall to tell whether it develops community and changes the game. Certainly having a new facility with great rehearsal spaces can provide new opportunities to students and faculty alike. There was some mention of community organizations using the hall. I asked whether rental rates would be set to make use of Bing Hall affordable by community groups (remember the giant rental rate increases at the Legion of Honor, which chased a few groups out?), and got some hemming and hawing. They hope so, but they're thinking of community organizations working in collaboration with Stanford organizations and departments. That could be a way to exclude community organizations that don't meet the standard of "collaboration." I hope that's not the case.

Season Announcement Season: San Francisco Symphony

Yes, yes, I know that I am far behind in reporting on 2012-13 season announcements. Sorry! But the other week when I was home sick, I went through the prospectuses from some of the major presenters. In the process, I marked up a paper calendar with everything I'd like to see - excepting those choruses and new music ensembles that I watch - and oh, man, decisions, decisions.

That said, here's what's up with the San Francisco Symphony season.

Of course, it's not as great as 2011-12, the centennial season, which has been exceptional in the range of music offered. The most obvious lack is in the visiting orchestras. Instead of the American Orchestra series, we get the Russian National Orchestra - with Patrick Summers conducting! - and the Warsaw Phil. The second most obvious lack is in the new music area...but that's par for the course. On the down side, there's a focus on Beethoven...on the up side, at least it's early, rare, and unusual works, mostly. There's plenty to look forward to; I found a good 16 or 17 programs I'd go see, plus I have question marks on a bunch more.

Because of circumstances I can't recall, Semyon Bychkov conducts the first two subscription concerts; I'm passing on the first, but the Shostakovich 7th (Leningrad) is a do-not-miss in my book. A couple of weeks later, MTT has a program of Mahler 5, accompanied by a new work by Samuel Carl (Son-of-John-Coolidge) Adams. (Okay, yes, it has crossed my mind that of all the composers SFS could commission a new work from....it's tough being the composing child of a famous composer, because, yes, people will wonder about it if you land commissions from SFS, Carnegie Hall, and the New World Symphony. No, I have not heard a note of his compositions, so I have no basis for saying whether he is better or worse than any other under-30 composer getting commissions from major symphony orchestras.)

Vassily Petrenko returns with a program I'm hot and cold about: a work by Arvo Part and Bartok's Third Piano Concerto, paired with....Pines of Rome and Fountains of Rome. Um. Leave after the first half?

Vladimir Jurowski debuts with a program of the Rach Second Piano Concerto and an arrangement of Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible. Another debutant, Jaap van Zweden, has a Wagner/Mozart/Brahms program, which gets a maybe from me. MTT returns with hot and cold running Chinese pianists: Yuja Wang and Lang Lang swap in and out of a program that also has the Rachmaninov Second Symphony and assistant concertmaster Mark Volkert's Pandora, a world premier that I'm especially looking forward to. Then Yefim Bronfman is back with yet another new work, Jorg Widmann's piano concert, which is paired with Symphonie fantastique.

MTT then leads a gorgeous-looking French program that I'll just have to skip unless there's a last-minute substitute in the vocal department. Couldn't we have Sasha Cooke or Susan Graham for those songs instead of you-know-who? Charles Dutoit guests with two programs, of which the second, Poulenc and Berlioz, is the one I'll definitely see. Yan Pascal Tortelier, whom I loved the last time he was here, returns with a Debussy / Strauss / Mendelssohn program - maybe, maybe not, but how often will I get to hear the Strauss Oboe Concerto?

MTT conducts selections from Mozart's unfinished Zaide and Bruckner 7, then leads a Berio / Beethoven PC 4 (Yuja Wang) / Brahms 1 program, followed by Mahler 9. Herbert Blomstadt is here in April and both programs look good, though they're heavy on the Beethoven. Wagner/Lidholm/Beethoven and Beethoven/Nielsen. I suppose I can skip the Beethoven violin concerto if I want. Christoph Eschenbach leads a program of Schoenberg, Brahms, and Dvorak; it's a must-see because Matthias Goerne's presence on the first half.

Then we get the MTT weird-Beethoven concerts. First, a program of the Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, a Sonatina for Mandolin and Fortepiano (!), the Cantata on the Death of Joseph II, and the Second Symphony (a great and underrated work); second....well, weird stuff, my beloved Fourth Symphony, and a repeat of John Adams's Absolute Jest. I hated it the first time around and am curious to see what I'll think the second.

Lastly, MTT takes another crack at the Missa Solemnis. Good luck! It was a near train-wreck the first time around, in June 2011. It's a great lineup of soloists (Laura Claycomb, Sasha Cooke, Michael Fabiano, and Shenyang), and I seem to recall reading something about visual accompaniment, which gives me the fear. I'll be on hand anyway, giving the visuals the gimlet eye and burying my head in the score.

Marek Janowski returns with a program that I would ordinarily pass on, except that I've never heard the conductor live and I'd like to (Schumann and Brahms). David Robertson has a tasty program and great soloist; Carter's Variations for Orchestra, Ravel Concert for the Left Hand with mighty Marc-Andre Hamelin, Rhapsody in Blue, and La Valse. Juraj Valcuha brings Kodaly (Dances of Galanta), the Dvorak cello concerto (which, alas, I don't like much), and Bartok's Suite from The Wooden Prince, while Kiril Karabits conducts a don't-miss program of Honegger's Pacific 231, the Britten Double Concerto (Barantschik and Vinocour), and Silbelius First (didn't I just hear that? Yes, I did).

Roberto Abbado shoehorns one new work, by Ivan Fedele, among Schumann and Schubert, then MTT has two programs celebrating the hundredth birthday of Le Sacre du Printemps: Rite plus Agon and the Violin Concerto (Shaham) and Rite plus Renard, some songs, and Les Noces. Woo hoo!

The season closes with West Side Story.

Minor Update: Compose Your Own subscriptions go on sale June 19. I'm hoping this year will be less painful than last.

Season Announcement Season: Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra announced their 2012-13 season this week, and it's a wow. Manny Ax playing Beethoven 4....on a foretepiano! All-Purcell program! Handel's Teseo! And more. Who could resist?

Here are the details (and by the way, their upcoming Alexander's Feast looks great):

Wednesday 3 October          The Center for Performing Arts, Atherton (8 PM) Friday 5 October                  Herbst Theatre, San Francisco (8 PM) Saturday 6 October              First Congregational Church, Berkeley (8 PM) Sunday 7 October                 First Congregational Church, Berkeley (7:30 PM) Nicholas McGegan, conductor Philharmonia Chorale, Bruce Lamott, director Clifton Massey, countertenor Soloists from the Philharmonia Chorale PURCELL: Come Ye Sons of Art, Z. 323 PURCELL: Dioclesian, Z. 627 Pre-concert talk begins 45 minutes prior to each concert. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Wednesday 7 November       Mondavi Center, Davis (8 PM) Thursday 8 November          The Center for Performing Arts, Atherton (8 PM) Friday 9 November               Herbst Theatre, San Francisco (8 PM) Saturday 10 November         First Congregational Church, Berkeley (8 PM) Sunday 11 November           First Congregational Church, Berkeley (7:30 PM) Nicholas McGegan, conductor Emanuel Ax, fortepiano BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 BEETHOVEN: Twelve Contredanses for Orchestra, WoO 14 BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60 Pre-concert talk begins 45 minutes prior to each concert. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Saturday 8 December           First Congregational Church, Berkeley (7 PM) Masaaki Suzuki, conductor Sherezade Panthaki, soprano Fabiana González, mezzo-soprano Dann Coakwell, tenor Dashon Burton, bass-baritone Philharmonia Chorale, Bruce Lamott, Director HANDEL: Messiah Presented by Cal Performances Sunday 9 December             Green Music Center, Rohnert Park (3 PM) Masaaki Suzuki, conductor Sherezade Panthaki, soprano Fabiana González, mezzo-soprano Dann Coakwell, tenor Dashon Burton, bass-baritone Philharmonia Chorale, Bruce Lamott, Director HANDEL: Messiah Presented by Sonoma State University ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Thursday 13 December        The Center for Performing Arts, Atherton (8 PM) Friday 14 December             Herbst Theatre, San Francisco (8 PM) Saturday 15 December         First Congregational Church, Berkeley (8 PM) Sunday 16 December           First Congregational Church, Berkeley (7:30 PM) Masaaki Suzuki, conductor Soloists from Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music Sherezade Panthaki, soprano Fabiana González, mezzo-soprano Dann Coakwell, tenor Dashon Burton, bass-baritone Philharmonia Chorale, Bruce Lamott, Director BACH: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 BACH: Cantata No. 63 Christen, äzet diesen Tag, BWV 63 BACH: Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a Pre-concert talk begins 45 minutes prior to each concert. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Saturday 12 January                        MCASD Sherwood Auditorium, La Jolla (8 PM) Nicholas McGegan, conductor Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin CORELLI: Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 7 in D major PERGOLESI: Sinfonia in F major VIVALDI: Le quattro stagioni [The Four Seasons] LOCATELLI: Concerto Grosso Op. 7, No. 6 in E-flat major, “Il pianto d’Arianna” DURANTE: Concerto No. 5 in A major Presented by La Jolla Music Society Sunday 13 January                           Sunset Center, Carmel (8 PM) Nicholas McGegan, conductor Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin CORELLI: Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 7 in D major PERGOLESI: Sinfonia in F major VIVALDI: Le quattro stagioni [The Four Seasons] LOCATELLI: Concerto Grosso Op. 7, No. 6 in E-flat major, “Il pianto d’Arianna” DURANTE: Concerto No. 5 in A major Presented by Carmel Music Society Wednesday 16 January                       Bing Concert Hall, Stanford (8 PM) Nicholas McGegan, conductor Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin CORELLI: Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 7 in D major PERGOLESI: Sinfonia in F major VIVALDI: Le quattro stagioni [The Four Seasons] LOCATELLI: Concerto Grosso Op. 7, No. 6 in E-flat major, “Il pianto d’Arianna” DURANTE: Concerto No. 5 in A major Presented by Stanford University ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Wednesday 13 February      Bing Concert Hall, Stanford (8 PM) Friday 15 February              Herbst Theatre, San Francisco (8 PM) Saturday 16 February          First Congregational Church, Berkeley (8 PM) Sunday 17 February            First Congregational Church, Berkeley (7:30 PM) Nicholas McGegan, conductor Marc Schachman, oboe Danny Bond, bassoon HAYDN: Symphony No. 44 in E minor “Trauer” J.C. BACH: Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe and Bassoon in F major, T. 287/2 J.C. BACH: Symphony Op. 6, No. 6 in G minor, T. 265/7 MOZART: Symphony No. 29 in A Major, K. 201 Pre-concert talk begins 45 minutes prior to each concert. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Friday 15 March                   Herbst Theatre, San Francisco (8 PM) Saturday 16 March              First Congregational Church, Berkeley (8 PM) Sunday 17 March                 First Congregational Church, Berkeley (7:30 PM) Wednesday 20 March          Bing Concert Hall, Stanford (8 PM) Rachel Podger, violin and leader CORELLI: Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 1 in D major VIVALDI: Concerto for Violin Op. 9, No. 6 in A major “La cetra” MOSSI: Concerto for Four Violins Op. 4, No. 12 in G minor VIVALDI: Concerto for Two Violins Op. 3, No. 5 in A major, RV 519 PERGOLESI: Concerto for Violin in B-flat major LOCATELLI: Concerto for Four Violins in F major, Op. 4, No. 12 Pre-concert talk begins 45 minutes prior to each concert. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Wednesday 10 April             The Center for Performing Arts, Atherton (7:30 PM) Thursday 11 April                Herbst Theatre, San Francisco (7:30 PM) Saturday 13 April                 First Congregational Church, Berkeley (7:30 PM) Sunday 14 April                    First Congregational Church, Berkeley (4 PM) Nicholas McGegan, conductor Amanda Forsythe, soprano (Teseo) Dominique Labelle, soprano (Medea) Amy Freston, soprano (Agilea) Céline Ricci, soprano (Clizia) Robin Blaze, countertenor (Arcane) Drew Minter, countertenor (Egeo) HANDEL: Teseo Pre-concert talk begins 45 minutes prior to each concert.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Marketing

It's season announcement season, meaning it's time for orchestras and opera companies to make extravagant and entirely unsupported claims. As the press releases hit my inbox, hoo boy, the eye-rolling that ensues. In early February, here's what got me pounding the table, er, keyboard.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra: The Wagner Effect

I am not on the CSO's press list - must remedy that! - and so I didn't realize that they had announced the 2012-13 season until Patrick said something in email about a posting to opera-l that mentioned this series.  

"OMG! Muti is bringing the world's weirdest programs to SF next week, so maybe he's taking a look at the French Wagnerians! D'Indy! Magnard! Reyer!"

No such luck. The composers under consideration are....wait for it....

Liszt, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Mahler, Debussy, Berg, and Shostakovich.

Now, there's some good stuff included there: Mark Elder's programs include a couple of Dvorak tone poems, which are rarely heard in the States; Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Act II of Tristan (be still, my heart!).

Debussy is represented by the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, which I presume to be the most popular and played of his orchestral works. It's on an otherwise tasty program conducted by Le Maitre Boulez himself, and will surely be worth hearing, but buh? Clink that link and you'll see that it's likely this title was imposed as an afterthought, perhaps to take advantage of the Wagner bicentenary, rather than inspiring the programming.

The CSO has other big titles for groups of concerts, and, well, Rivers strikes me as just as artificial as The Wagner Effect.  Then there's the Solti Centenary. Take a look; what do you think?

Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra: Innovative

The LAPO has the nerve to call a concert or semi-staged Nozze di Figaro "part of an innovative series." No, there is nothing innovative about presenting opera in concert, especially when it's one of the most-performed works in the repertory. Get back to me, LAPO, when you're putting on Le Grand Macabre and The Cunning Little Vixen, or other genuine rarities.

San Francisco Symphony: What Makes a Maverick?

Here I'm going to cheat a little and beat up on my local orchestra's current season. As you can hardly have missed, SFS is reviving the American Mavericks concept from a decade or so back. Locally, we'll be seeing five programs, three orchestral and two chamber; the orchestra then takes the Festival on tour to NYC, where the adjunct programming is even better than here.


They're truly interesting programs of music that was mostly on-the-edge at the time it was composed. Still, Copland, a maverick?


John Adams was a maverick, but with commissions coming hard and fast from institutions like SFS, LAPO, and SFO, he's now establishment. And Mason Bates? His music was being performed at Cabrillo when he was still a grad student. (Cabrillo used to have more experimental music than it does now.) With advocates like MTT and Riccardo Muti, and writing in an orchestral style somewhere between Harbison and Lindberg, he's also establishment. I wish both these composers well, don't get me wrong, and I consider Adams a great composer. But mavericks they are not.

One more point: at American Mavericks, the mavericks are mostly dead and mostly male. The exceptions are Riley, Adams, Bates, Monk, Reich, Del Tredici. This shouldn't be a surprise, as that's the case with most orchestral programming at SFS and elsewhere in the upper echelons of the orchestral world.  Hint: there's lots of experimental music being written by living composers and even by women.


[I see that Josh Kosman addresses similar issues this week in the Chron. He's right; I'll just note that I wrote most of this on February 7. I'll add a couple of names to his list of American mavericks, er, experimental composers: La Monte Young and Gordon Mumma.]

Season Announcement Season: The Met

As I just noted elsewhere, the Met schedule for 2012-13 is mighty light on...well...a lot of things.

• Seven new productions, sixteen revivals.
• There are five operas written after 1900, but with one exception, they're as musically mainstream/conservative/popular as can be: La Rondine, Turandot, Francesca da Rimini, Dialogues of the Carmelites, The Tempest. Alex Ross put it differently: only two operas written since 1950.
• There are four operas written before 1800, and Mozart wrote three of them: Giulio Cesare, Don Giovanni, Nozze, Clemenza di Tito.
• We get more Ring cycles - without Bryn Terfel! - and Parsifal.
• There's a lot of Verdi but it's all popular middle/late Verdi: La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Don Carlo, Un  Ballo in Maschera, Aida, Otello. Um, the guy actually knew what he was doing before Rigoletto.
• No Britten. No Adams, no Glass.

Putting it another way, while there's some nice casting, there are only 4.5 (or 5.5) operas I've never seen. The half is Le Comte Ory, which I saw on HD broadcast. The 4 or 5 is because I'm not sure what I saw at Covent Garden in 1982. It might have been Clemenza. I've never seen Maria Stuarda, The Tempest, Francesca or Troyens.

If I lived in NYC, I'd be most excited by The Tempest and Les Troyens, which my regular readers could have guessed. I think had both of them in the first season of Fantasy Opera! Well, okay, I'd be excited by Jonas Kaufmann and Peter Mattei in Parsifal. And by Francesca, a score I like a whole lot. But the cast of Troyens....well, hmm. And although I am not a fan of Dialogues, I'd go for the cast.

Overall, not a season to get super excited about, and it seems a step backwards from the last couple of year's repertory.

Nooooooooo.

From the Metropolitan Opera season announcement, regarding Thomas Ades's The Tempest:

Robert Lepage’s innovative production recreates the interior of the La Scala opera house as the magical island venue for the otherworldly arts of Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan.

After the wretched mess of the new Ring, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? And, ah, what makes the interior of La Scala an appropriate analog to Prospero's island?


I'm still dissecting (and cringing periodically at) the press releases. You can read along at home:

• Here's the season brochure
• Here's the web site for the season

Can't find the web site of the HD broadcasts, but I have the press release, and it's a tasty season! They're broadcasting Elisir, Otello, The Tempest, Clemenza di Tito, Ballo, Aida, Les Troyens (!), Maria Stuarda, Rigoletto, Parsifal, Francesca da Rimini, and Giulio Cesare. 

Season Announcement Season: LA Opera Plays It Safe

LA Opera's season announcement was last week, and hoo boy:

• I Due Foscari
• Don Giovanni 
• Madama Butterfly
• The Flying Dutchman
• La Cenerentola
• Tosca

That's playing it incredibly safe. Yeah, nobody's ever seen I Due Foscari, and it has both Domingo-as-baritone and the controversial Poplavskaya. Other than that...the casting looks good or better for everything else, though it's a little odd to find Eric Owens singing Sharpless. 

But one wonders, what happened to the Britten celebration that was promised? Will Recovered Voices ever return?

For the Curious...

...and I know there are many of us: San Francisco Symphony's season announcement will be on March 6, 2012.

Can they, will they, equal this year's extraordinary feast?

LA Opera / LAPO

In advance of its season announcement, LA Opera is running a photo teaser series on its Facebook page.

The first photo is getting guesses as diverse as Parsifal, Rigoletto, and The Fly.

Meanwhile, LAPO has announced what looks like an incredible season. CKDH is all excited about the opening program, which will include a new work by Steven Stucky and Le sacre du printemps, but what I'm all excited about is a Lutoslawski centenary series conducted by one Esa-Pekka Salonen. More details after I study the announcement and season further.

Season Announcement Season: Lyric Opera of Chicago

H/T La Cieca; I'm not on LOC's press list:

• Elektra  (New production)  Christine Goerke, Jill Grove, Emily Magee, Alan Held  Sir Andrew Davis/cond., David McVicar/dir.
• Simon Boccanegra (Covent Garden production)  Thomas Hampson, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Krassimira Stoyanova, Frank Lopardo . Sir Andrew Davis/cond., Elijah Moshinsky/dir.
• Werther  (New production)  Matthew Polenzani, Sophie Koch, Kiri Deonarine, Craig Verm.  Sir Andrew Davis/cond., Francisco Negrin/dir.
• Don Pasquale  (Dallas Opera production – “new to Chicago”)  Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, Marlis Petersen, René Barbera, Corey Crider. Stephen Lord/cond., Sir Thomas Allen/dir.
• Hansel and Gretel  (LOC production)  Elizabeth DeShong, Maria Kanyova, Jill Grove.  Ward Stare/cond., Richard Jones/orig. prod.
• La bohème  (San Francisco Opera production – “new toChicago”)  Ana María Martínez/Anna Netrebko, Dimitri Pittas/Joseph Calleja, Elizabeth Futral. Emmanuel Villaume/cond., Louisa Muller/dir.
• Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg  (New production)  James Morris, Johan Botha, Amanda Majeski, Bo Skovhus.  Sir Andrew Davis/cond., David McVicar/orig. prod.
• Rigoletto (“New staging with Lyric sets/costumes”)  Andrzej Dobber/Željko Lucic, Albina Shagimuratova,  Giuseppe Filianoti, Andrea Silvestrelli.  Evan Rogister/cond., TBA/dir.
• A Streetcar Named Desire  (“Staged concert performance”)  Renée Fleming, Susanna Philips, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Anthony Dean Griffey.  Evan Rogister/cond., Brad Dalton/dir.

Thomas Hampson as Boccanegra? Well, if Placido could do it.....I am not a big Meistersingeri fan, and at this point in his career, Sachs seems a bit much for Morris. Elektra and Hansel look good, for sure.

Season Announcement Season: San Francisco Opera

Just the facts, and not all of them:

• Rigoletto; double-cast with 12 performances; Luisotti/Finzi; Lucic/Vratogna, Kurzak/Shagimuratova, Demuro/Lomeli
• I Capuleti e I Montecchi; Frizza; DiDonato, Cabell, Pirgu, Owens; co-production with Bavarian State Opera
• Moby-Dick (SF Opera co-commission); Summers; Costello, Heppner/Jay Hunter Morris, Smith, Lemalu, Trevigne, O'Neill, Orth
• Lohengrin; Luisotti; Jovanovich, Nylund, Lang, Grochowski, Sigmundsson, Mulligan
• Tosca; double-cast with 12 performances; Luisotti/Finzi, Georghiu/Racette, Massimo Giordano/Jagde, Frontali/Delavan
• The Secret Garden; SFO commission; cast & production team to be announced at a later time
• Tales of Hoffman; Fournillier; Dessay, Polenzani, Coote, Van Horn
• Cosi Fan Tutte; Luisotti/Dehn, Lotzsch, Stober, Demuro, Sly, Vinco
• The Gospel of Mary Magdalen; SFO Commission; Christie/Cooke, Kanyova, Burden, Gunn

Also announced: SFO commission to Tobias Picker for Dolores Claibourne, set for the fall of 2013; reliably rumored to star Dolora Zajick.

The season announcement and full details are on the SFO web site, which was updated earlier today to include the 2012-13 season.

Commentary:

I will skip Rigoletto (unless I think one of those sopranos can make me forget Swenson) and stand through Tosca (with Racette, of course  - why do you ask?). Those operas will be the season's cash cows, plus Rigoletto is a nod to the Verdi centenary even though it's early. The rest of the season looks good, and there's an attractive array of singers new and returning.

I'm particularly happy about Sasha Cooke's debut, based on having heard her live at SFS and on the Met HD Doctor Atomic. I might have considered skipping I Capuleti, which I saw 20 years ago when it last appeared here, but it would take wild horses to keep me away from JDD in pants. Moby-Dick has been well received; do I see it with Heppner or JHM?

Hoffman, sure; wouldn't miss Polenzani. Cosi, sure, because it does not come around every ten minutes. The surprise commission, sure; and of course I'm very much looking forward to Mary Magdalen, based on having loved Mark Adamo's Lysistrata.

From the Source

Over on Facebook, San Francisco Opera is having a teaser contest for the upcoming season, starting on January 8. I'm not planning to participate, but I note that they've let slip the news that the season will be nine operas. We can assume 6 in the fall, 3 in the summer.

Season Announcement Season: LAO Rumor & Gossip

Hoisted from the comments:

The LAO information I've heard so far is that the Britten opera will be Gloriana. D'Arcangelo has already confirmed in the press that he'll sing Don Giovanni here next season. They will likely present a Wagner opera and I've heard that it will be Parsifal. And one last tidbit, Angela Meade's press folks have confirmed she will be making a starring appearance in LA next year. Assuming it is not in one of the aforementioned operas, that could lead to a number of possibilities given what she sings

Season Announcement Season: Seattle Opera

Seattle Opera was actually first out of the gate, a couple of weeks ago. Their 2012-13 season, with the vague theme of varieties of love, will be:

• Turandot
• Fidelio
• La Cenerentola
• La Boheme
• Suor Angelica/La Voix Humaine

Lots of Puccini, with whom I guess opera companies feel they cannot go wrong; also, the summer of 2013 will include the last bring-up of the Wadsworth Ring, which of course is expensive. If I lived in Seattle, I'd be buying plane tickets instead of opera tickets....except for the Ring.

Season Announcement Season

It is early 2012, meaning we can expect season announcements to come fast and furious over the next several months. First up in the Bay Area will be San Francisco Opera, which announces the 2012-13 season on January 17. No press conference, no reception, just a press release. Opera Tattler's guesses about the season are here. I can't say I'm thrilled. Once around with I Capuleti was enough; I would happily skip Tosca for the next ten years even with La Racette; don't need to see Rigoletto again soon. That leaves me with Lohengrin, Moby Dick,  and The Gospel of Mary Magdalen, assuming OT is right.

I have one prediction about the upcoming announcements: we can expect lots of Verdi and Wagner to appear in calendar year 2013 during the bicentenary of the two composers' birth. I'm hoping that with Verdi we'll hear some of the rarities, not more of the usual.