Louisville Orchestra 2018-19 Season

Louisville is where SFS/MTT prodigy Teddy Abrams has been music director for a few years. He is a super-talented young man, clarinetist, composer, conductor. And his programming takes after MTT's, except that the two works composed by women are on a much shorter season.

AND one of the two, Cindy McTee's Double Play, is conducted by Mr. McTee, more commonly known as Leonard Slatkin. I liked this piece a lot when I heard it at Cabrillo last year. The other of the two is Bacewicz's Polish Overture, so we know it is a curtain-raiser.

There's one work by Abrams himself and MTT's Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind, which is also being done this season or next at SFS.  There are a couple of additional recent works and commissions, plus some standards.

I'm not going to summarize the rest of the season, which includes two bleeding-chunks programs, one of odd ends of Bernstein, for the obvious reason, and one called Art + Music that looks like an hour or more of bits and pieces, followed by the whole of Pictures at an Exhibition.

International Women's Day, 2018, a Bit Late; Includes SFS 2018-19 Season

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Seems like as good a day as any for the following:

1. Remembering that time when a blogger/consultant criticized a concert review of a program of art/concert/classical music by female composers as not really relevant, and pointed to a program of popular music love songs as more relevant, because, you know, everybody falls in love! Really! Because whether concert presenters spend two minutes thinking about what they program, and by whom, is just not important.

2. San Francisco Symphony, still referred to regularly as an "innovative" organization, continues to essentially ignore music composed by men and women of color and white women, with the exception of cringeworthy programs such as "Merry-achi" for the annual Latino-themed Christmas program. Here's what we've got next season that was composed by living composers of all sorts, with the program conductor in parens:

• Anna Clyne, Masquerade (Macelaru)
• Kevin Puts, Suite from Silent Night (Macelaru)
• MTT: From the Dairy of Anne Frank (MTT) 
• MTT: Street Song (MTT)
• Andrew Norman, Cello Concerto (Reif)
• Steven Mackey - new work commission & WP (MTT)
• Steve Reich, Music for Ensemble and Orchestra, (SFS Co-commission), (MTT)

So, we've got more works composed by the music director than by living women. I should note that there's also an overture by the great Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz, who has been dead for nearly 50 years, so we have two works by white women scheduled, none that I can find by women and men of color. 

The "comparatively recent music" score (music written within my lifetime) is really not very good either: a bit of Britten, the Bacewicz, works by Barber and Ligeti. Some newer music will undoubtedly emerge in SoudBox, but in Davies proper, what we've got is a lot of Stravinsky (because it's around 12 years since the last Stravinsky Festival! and because he's a composer we just never hear), Beethoven, Debussy, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Mahler, etc. etc. 

It's true that there's an attractive lineup of conductors and some visiting orchestras of note, but good grief, we've got the Czech Philharmonic, a great orchestra, and Semyon Bychkov, a great conductor, and they are playing the Dvorak Cello Concerto (zzzz) and Dvorak's Seventh Symphony. Couldn't they play Janacek? Or another interesting 20th or 21st c. composer?

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducts a program that includes some tasty Sibelius; Jane Glover has Messiah this year. The brilliant Elkanah Pulitzer directs Noye's Fludde, a work I've never seen and greatly look forward to.

Here's the conductor lineup:

Manfred Honeck                Oct 11–13, 2018

Pablo Heras-Casado           Oct 18–20, 2018
Cristian Măcelaru              Oct 25–27, 2018

Jakub Hrůša                       Nov 8–10, 2018

Jane Glover                        Dec 14–15, 2018

Jaap van Zweden               Jan 11–13, 2019

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla        Jan 18–20, 2019

Christian Reif                     Jan 24–26, 2019

Herbert Blomstedt              Jan 31 – Feb 2, 2019

András Schiff                     Feb 14–15 & 17, 2019

Daniel Harding                  Feb 22–24, 2019

Franҫois-Xavier Roth         Mar 7–9, 2019
Andrey Boreyko                Apr 11–12 & 14, 2019
Fabio Luisi                        Apr 18–20, 2019

James Gaffigan                  Apr 25–27, 2019
Marek Janowski                 May 2–4, 2019

Krzysztof Urbański            May 23–25, 2019
Juraj Valčuha                     May 30–Jun 1, 2019

Michael Tilson Thomas       Presumably everything else

As far as repertory goes, it is just more of the same.

Keeping Track 2018-19

I will update this post as orchestras and opera companies announce their seasons.

New Music Festivals

Alex Ross tweeted this site, which should embarrass the crap out of several of the festivals listed. Less than 1/3 music composed women? You're not paying attention to what's going on around you.

Orchestras

1. London Symphony Orchestra: approximately 118 works, 117 by men, 1 (one) by a woman. Reported on Twitter; not sure which season the report is for. 
2. Orpheus Chamber Ensemble: 19 works, an All-Male Season.
3. Houston Symphony, no works by women (total number of works not yet determined)
4. Detroit Symphony Orchestra: works by 5 women among 12 living composers (total number of works not yet determined)
5. Lafayette Symphony, Indiana: works by 2 women
6. Philadelphia Orchestra: an All-Male Season. 5 works by 4 living men, 3 white, one black; no works by women (and a very dull season altogether).  Two women conduct the orchestra, Nathalie Stutzmann and Emmanuelle Haim.
7. Chicago Symphony Orchestra: an All-Male Season. No works by women (and a very dull season altogether; have not counted works by the living yet).
8. Pittsburgh SO: an All-Male Season.
9. Los Angeles Philharmonic: 22 female composers (some white, some women of color); 27 composers of color (some male, some female). Enormous number of commissions and new works. Every other orchestra in the country should be embarrassed by the riches on the display here and the paucity of their own commitment to music of our time written by a diverse group of composers.
10. Pacific Symphony: an All-Male Season.
11. Seattle Symphony: works by 9 (nine) living women on the season, including the premiere of Caroline Shaw's piano concerto! Nice selection of works by living men as well, and a focus on French music that I like. I believe they've got an African American soloists and African American conductor on the season.

Opera Companies

1. San Francisco Opera: 9 operas, all by men
2. Houston Grand Opera: 6 operas, all by men
3. Seattle Opera: 5 operas, all by men
4. Los Angeles Opera: 9 operas, 8 by men, 1 by two women
5. Canadian Opera Company: 6 operas, all by men
6. Santa Fe Opera: 5 operas, all by men
7. Montreal Opera, 5 operas, 1 by a woman (Svadba (Wedding), which played in SF in 2016)
8. Washington National Opera: 5 MainStage operas, all by men. Three women conduct: Nicole Paiement (Silent Night, Puts); Keri-Lynn Wilson (Faust; let's hope she doesn't fall asleep at the podium); Speranza Scappucci (Tosca). Alternate stages has 2 operas, both by women: Jeanine Tesori's The Lion, the Unicorn, and Me and Kamala Sankaram's Taking Up Serpents, which is conducted by Lidya Yankovskaya.
9. Metropolitan Opera, All-Male Season of 27 operas (29 if you count Trittico as 3 rather than 1)

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Announces a Season of Male Composers

Sad!

ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall

“Gentle Giants”
Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 8:00 p.m.
Nobuyuki Tsujii, piano
Pärt: Fratres 
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21 for Piano & Strings 
Tchaikovsky: Chamber Symphony No. 1 in D Major (after String Quartet Op. 11) arr. Christopher Theofanidis (NY Premiere - Orpheus Commission)

“Stars Aligned”
Saturday, November 10, 2018 at 7:00 p.m.
Avi Avital, mandolin; Ksenija Sidorova, accordion
Waxman: Sinfonietta for Strings and Timpani (1955)
Bach: Double Concerto in C Minor, BWV 1060R (arr. Paul Chihara)
Benjamin Wallfisch: Concerto for Mandolin and Accordion (NY Premiere - Orpheus Commission)
Rota: Canzona (1935)
Rósza: Hungarian Serenade Op. 25 (1945) 

“Homeward Sound”
Saturday, January 12, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.
Javier Perianes, piano
James Matheson: New Work (NY Premiere - Orpheus Commission)
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major, K. 595
Dvořák: Bagatelles, Op. 47 (arr. Dennis Russell Davies) (NY Premiere)
Mozart: Symphony No. 33 in B-flat Major, K. 319

ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
92nd Street Y, Kaufmann Concert Hall

“Bleeding Hearts”
Sunday, December 9, 2018 at 3:00 p.m.
Steven Isserlis, cello
Rott: Symphony for String Orchestra in A-Flat Major
CPE Bach: Cello Concerto in A Major, H. 439
Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D. 810 “Death and the Maiden” (arr. Gustav Mahler)
 
“Merry Pranks”
Wednesday, May 8, 2019 at 7:30pm
Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord
Falla: Concerto for Harpsichord and Five Instruments
Mozart: Nonet after Quintet K. 452 (arr. Jean Françaix)
Martinů: Harpsichord Concerto G. 71
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks (arr. Brett Dean)

It's Called Don Carlo For a Reason

FFS, LA Opera's web page for next season's Don Carlo production is disgraceful.

Here's the graphic, which is of the guy playing Rodrigo....the way he looked about 25 years ago:

I guess that's Ramon Vargas in the lower-left-hand corner.

And the text is just as bad:

Yeah, we all know that former-tenor Domingo sells more tickets than Vargas, but wow. This is really insulting and a distortion of the opera.

LA Opera 2018-19

A good season, with a few things I'd like to see. Copy and pasted from press release, a few comments in brackets.

MAINSTAGE PRODUCTIONS(presented at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)

Don Carlo (Giuseppe Verdi)
September 22 through October 14, 2018; revivalJames Conlon conducts a cast led by Ramón Vargas in the title role, with Ana María Martínez as Elisabeth de Valois, Anna Smirnova as Princess Eboli, Ferruccio Furlanetto as King Philip II, and Plácido Domingo as Rodrigo. The production by Ian Judge returns to Los Angeles for the first time since 2006. [Not after the fab cast we had in 2016 in SF.]

Satyagraha (Philip Glass)
October 20 through November 11, 2018; company premiere
Following the extraordinary success of Einstein on the Beach (2013) and Akhnaten (2016), LA Opera completes the Philip Glass operatic trilogy about great thinkers who changed the world. Satyagraha (Sanskrit for “truth force”) is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s early years in South Africa, where he developed the radical new idea of nonviolent political resistance. Grant Gershon conducts a production created by Phelim McDermott (director of Akhnaten) for the Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera, starring Sean Panikkar as Gandhi. [YES.]

Hansel and Gretel (Engelbert Humperdinck)
November 17 through December 15, 2018; revival
James Conlon conducts a revival of Doug Fitch's dreamlike production, full of fantastical sets and elaborate special effects. Sasha Cooke and Liv Redpath sing the title roles, with diva extraordinaire Susan Graham as the uproariously wicked witch, eager to lure her young victims into a delicious trap. [YES YES YES. Can you tell that I love this opera? and the cast? Although....I favor a dramatic mezzo as the Witch.]

La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus) (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
March 2 through 24, 2019; company premiere; new production
James Conlon conducts La Clemenza di Tito,  Mozart's final opera seria, written simultaneously with The Magic Flute in the last months of the composer's life. The new production is directed and designed by Thaddeus Strassberger, who previously staged LA Opera productions of The Two Foscari (2012) and Nabucco (2017). Russell Thomas stars as the imperiled emperor whose generosity and compassion point the way to a brighter future. [YES YES YES so that I can finally say that yes, I have seen this.]

El Gato Montés: The Wildcat (Manuel Penella)
April 27 through May 19, 2019; production new to Los AngelesIn one of the greatest masterpieces of the Spanish lyrical theater, a beautiful gypsy (Ana María Martínez) unwittingly inspires a fatal rivalry between a renowned bullfighter (Arturo Chacón-Cruz) and a bandit on the run (Plácido Domingo). The quintessentially Spanish tale unfolds with passionate melodies, dazzling choreography and an atmospheric staging. Spanish conductor Jordi Bernàcer leads a production created by director José Carlos Plaza for Madrid's Teatro de la Zarzuela. [Probably, maybe.]

La Traviata (Giuseppe Verdi)
June 1 through 22, 2019; revival
James Conlon conducts a revival of Marta Domingo's popular Art Deco-inspired update of the Verdi classic. In the face of certain death, a beautiful courtesan dedicates her remaining time to decadent pleasures, dazzling parties and wealthy admirers. But she is transformed when a devoted suitor declares his true love, and demonstrates her great humanity with a heart-breaking sacrifice before her premature passing. Romanian soprano Adela Zaharai, the 2017 winner of Operalia, makes her company debut as the glamorous Violetta, with Rame Lahaj (a 2016 Operalia winner) and Charles Castronovo sharing the role of Alfredo. [So....who is singing Germont Pere? Dare I ask? The production is really not very good; it played in SF in 2009. Move Traviata into the 20s and what you have is...La Rondine, except she dies.]

OFF GRAND PRESENTATIONS
(presented in various venues)

 [All of these look VERY interesting, if I can take any of them in opposite a MainStage opera, I will.]

Vampyr (Joby Talbot)
October 27 through 31, 2018; world premiere
Our annual Halloween mash-up of opera and cinema returns to the spectacular Theatre at Ace Hotel with filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer’s surreal 1932 masterwork, underestimated for decades but now regarded as an important landmark of the horror genre. Composer Joby Talbot creates a compelling new score for chamber orchestra and singers, performed live with a rare screening of this cinematic gem, and conducted by Matthew Aucoin, LA Opera's Artist in Residence.
Presented at the Theatre at Ace Hotel (929 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, 90015)

Prism (Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins)
November 29 through December 2, 2018; world premiere
A mother and daughter lock themselves away from the world to protect themselves from the dangers lurking outside. Prism explores the viscosity of memory after trauma, and the lengths one will go to feel better—no matter the cost. Marking LA Opera's fifth season of collaborations with Beth Morrison Projects, the Los Angeles world premiere presentation of Prism will be followed by performances at the Prototype Festival in New York.
Presented at REDCAT (631 W. Second Street, Los Angeles, 90012)

the loser (David Lang)
February 22 and 23, 2019; West Coast premiereTwo piano prodigies at a master class encounter an even greater talent: the virtuoso Glenn Gould, on the cusp of superstardom. The devastating realization that they will never approach their new rival’s level of artistry changes their lives forever. A painful meditation on dreams forsaken and hopes unrealized unfolds, with Rod Gilfry starring in an intimate staging that incorporates multiple levels of the spectacular Theatre at Ace Hotel.

Presented at the Theatre at Ace Hotel (929 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, 90015)

For more information about LA Opera’s Off Grand initiative, visit LAOpera.org/OffGrand.

San Francisco Opera, 2018-19

The season is pretty much what I thought it would be. Orlando Furioso (Vivaldi) turned out to be Orlando (Handel), and I'm fine with that. I'd heard that Brian Jagde wouldn't be singing in SF next season, but no! There he is as Cavaradossi again (he was in the last two bring-ups, Gheorghiu/Racette /Moore and Haroutounian).

I am....sorta dubious about some of this. Matthew Polenzani as Don José? Um. Marco Berti as anything? He "withdrew for personal reasons" after two performances of the 2014-15 Norma, to be replaced by Russell Thomas for the remaining five and was pretty terrible in the last Trovatore, with Sondra Radvanovsky and the late Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

On the other hand, the winning trio of Radvanovsky, Jamie Barton, and Thomas is back for Roberto  Devereux, and they're joined by Artur Rucinski, whom everybody loved in last year's Traviata.

Nice to see Rusalka back, and of course not in the by-now-moth-eaten Schenk, though why McVicar? Well, we luv him here. I would have preferred to see a production that really digs into the problems with the story, and I bet this does not. Nice cast, though.

I have somehow managed to see repertory staple Cav & Pag only once, back in the 80s; I skipped the last SFO bring-up, which must have been 10 or 15 years ago. I might have to see Tosca owing to Carmen Giannattasio. The bit of the production that got flashed on screen during the ten-minute season announcement looked like....primary-colors Sant'Andrea della Valle.

I vaguely thought that Heidi Stober might be Zdenka, especially after Ellie Dehn was announced as Arabella, and yup. It's pretty nicely cast. Return of Richard Paul Fink!

Again, nice cast for It's a Wonderful Life, which, with its sentimental streak crossed with torturing poor George Bailey, is not exactly a favorite film of mine. I'll see William Burden in pretty much anything and likely he will give a nuanced performance. Sorry not to see Anthony Dean Griffey as Uncle Billy, looking forward to hearing Golda Schultz. (I will say that making the angel female rather than the sad sack incompetent in the movie....might work better.)

I might need someone to explain to me what, exactly, this means, about Carmen: "San Francisco Opera production, originally created by Opera Australia based on the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Norwegian National Opera co-production." We own the physical production but the intellectual property comes from the ROH and NNO via Opera Australia? I'm confused!

Of interest is the conductor lineup: absent a music director, we're getting eight conductors for the season, six of them new to SFO main stage. Patrick Summers (Wonderful Life) and Riccardo Frizza (Roberto Devereux) are the returnees. Bel canto is what Frizza does well, so fine. The debutants are Daniele Callegari (Cav & Pag), Leo Hussain (Tosca), Marc Albrecht (Arabella), James Gaffigan (Carmen), Christopher Moulds (Orlando), and Eun Sun Kim (Rusalka). Kim will be one of the few women to conduct at SFO (previously: Sara Jobin and....anyone else?). (Yes, Karen Kamensek conducted Susannah in 2014, as JSC says in comments. I would have sworn that Jane Glover conducted here, but I cannot find her in the archive.)

I'm going to note that Santa Fe Opera is one of the Arabella production's co-producers, so it will presumably meet their requirements: no traps, no flies. I saw their Albert Herring in LA a few years back, and it was weird to see all the scenery wheeled in from the wings.

Lastly, the season announcement had nothing about Opera Lab or the Wilsey Center and neither does the press release. I have made inquiries.

The whole lineup is after the jump.

Seattle Opera, 2018-19

Aaaaand season announcement season arrives with Seattle Opera's announcement:

• Porgy & Bess, Gershwin. August 11-25, 2018. John Demain; Alfred Walker/Kevin Short, Angel Blue/Elizabeth Llewellyn, Lester Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Williams, and others. Zambello production.
• The Turn of the Screw, Britten. October 13-17, 2018. Constantin Trinks; Elizabeth Caballero, Ben Bliss, Maria Zifchak, Marcy Stonikas, Soraya Mafi. No Miles announced.
• Il Trovatore, Verdi. January 12-26, 2019. Carlo Montanaro (not good news). Leonora Leah Crocetto (Jan. 12, 16, 20, & 25)/Angela Meade* (Jan. 13, 19, 23, & 26); Manrico Issachah Savage (Jan. 12, 16, 20, & 25) Martin Müehle* (Jan. 13, 19, 23, & 26) Azucena Elena Gabouri (Jan. 12, 16, 20, & 25) Nora Sourouzian* (Jan. 13, 19, 23, & 26) Di Luna Lester Lynch (Jan. 12, 16, 20, & 25) Michael Mayes* (Jan. 13, 19, 23, & 26) Ferrando Adam Lau Inez Nerys Jones* Ruiz John Marzano*
• The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, Bates. Feb. 23-March 9, 2019. Nicole Paiement (GOOD NEWS). Steve Jobs John Moore Laurene Powell Jobs Emily Fons* Steve Wozniak Garrett Sorenson* Kōbun Chino Otogawa Adam Lau Chrisann Brennan Madison Leonard* Paul Jobs Morgan Smith.
• Carmen, Bizet. May 4-18, 2019. Giacomo Sagriponti. Carmen Ginger Costa-Jackson (May 4, 8, 12, & 17) Zanda Švēde* (May 5, 11, 15, & 18) Don José Adam Smith* (May 5, 11, 15, & 18) Escamillo Rodion Pogossov Micaela Vanessa Goikoetxea* (May 4, 8, 12, & 17) Emily Dorn* (May 5, 11, 15, & 18) Le Remendado John Marzano Frasquita Madison Leonard Mercédès Sarah Coit