Back soon, really

There's a system release going out on Tuesday - honestly, this has been an easy release cycle, the first in several years in which I haven't worked a weekend or two or stayed at work until 10 p.m. a few times. Still, I've mostly been thinking about shared library environment variables and full-text indexing in the last couple of weeks.

On the musical side, I picked up sale tickets to a few SFS concerts. Maybe LHL will show up for her scheduled appearance. The Mahler 8th is sold out (gnash, gnash).

And tonight, I'm seeing the Berkeley Opera's Falstaff. Jo Vincent Parks is singing the fat knight; I've liked him in everything I've seen him in, and I have high hopes. Review of sorts tomorrow, I'm sure.

I started a posting about Nilsson the week her death was announced, and I plan to wrap that one up soon, especially if I can get the DG Tristan recording back from friends who think they might want to see it in SF this coming fall.

San Francisco Opera, 2006-7

Janos Gereben, the fastest pen in the West, sent along the schedule, about which I must first say:

SEATTLE TRISTAN!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder how many of the performances I can get to.

Janos's full report is now up at SFCV. You may want to look at the new and more readable San Francisco Opera Web site as well. If you have sfopera.org bookmarked, that is not working, apparently. Use sfopera.com

It's a fairly juicy season. Okay, I could live without Carmen, Barber of Seville, and Don Giovanni. Christine Goerke is wasted in Fledermaus (which I can also live without), but Iphegenie en Tauride, Karita in Manon Lescaut - and that Tristan production - make up for a lot. Woo hoo!

Here's the whole thing:

San Francisco Opera 2006-'07 season

[*] San Francisco Opera Debut
[**] American Opera Debut

UN BALLO IN MASCHERA by Giuseppe Verdi
Florida Grand Opera production
September 8 (7 pm), 13 (7:30 pm), 17 (2 pm), 20 (7:30 pm), 23 (8 pm), 26
(7:30 pm), 29 (8 pm), 2006
Marco Armiliato/Gina Lapinski/Zack Brown
Amelia - Deborah Voigt
King Gustav III - Marcus Haddock*
Ankerström - Ambrogio Maestri*
Ulrica - Tichina Vaughn*
Oscar - Anna Christy

DIE FLEDERMAUS by Johann Strauss, Jr.
San Francisco Opera production
September 9 (7:30 pm), 12 (8 pm), 14 (7:30 pm), 16 (8 pm), October 4 (7:30
pm), 8 (2 pm), 13 (8 pm), 2006
Donald Runnicles/Lotfi Mansouri/Loren Meeker*/Wolfram Skalicki
Eisenstein - Wolfgang Brendel
Adele - Jennifer Welch-Babidge
Rosalinde - Christine Goerke*
Prince Orlofsky - Gerald Thompson

RIGOLETTO by Giuseppe Verdi
San Francisco Opera production
September 30 (8 pm); October 3 (8 pm), 6 (8 pm), 9 (7:30 pm), 12 (7:30 pm),
15 (2 pm), 21 (8 pm)†, (7:30 pm)†, 29 (2 pm)†, 2006
Stephen Lord* - Valery Alexejev†*/Harry Silverstein/Michael Yeargan
Rigoletto - Paolo Gavanelli
Gilda - Mary Dunleavy
The Duke - Giuseppe Gipali*
Count Monterone - Greer Grimsley

TRISTAN UND ISOLDE by Richard Wagner
Seattle Opera production
October 5 (7 pm), 10 (7 pm), 14 (7 pm), 18 (7 pm), 22 (1 pm), 27 (7 pm),
2006
Donald Runnicles/Francesca Zambello/Herbert Kellner*/Alison Chitty
Tristan - Thomas Moser
Isolde - Christine Brewer
King Marke - Kristinn Sigmundsson
Kurwenal - Boaz Daniel*
Brangäne - Jane Irwin**

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE by Gioacchino Rossini
San Francisco Opera production
October 31 (8 pm); November 2 (7:30 pm), 4 (8 pm), 7 (7:30 pm), 9 (7:30 pm),
12 (2 pm), 17 (8 pm), 26 (2 pm), 30 (7:30 pm), 2006
Maurizio Barbacini/Johannes Schaaf/Hans Dieter Schaal
Figaro - Nathan Gunn
Rosina - Allyson McHardy
Count Almaviva - John Osborn*
Doctor Bartolo - Bruno de Simone*
Don Basilio - Phillip Ens
Berta - Catherine Cook
Ambrogio - Ricardo Herrera

MANON LESCAUT by Giacomo Puccini
Lyric Opera of Chicago production
November 19 (2 pm), 22 (7:30 pm), 25 (8 pm), 28 (8 pm); December 1 (8 pm), 7
(7:30 pm), 10 (2 pm), 2006
Donald Runnicles/Olivier Tambosi*/Frank Phillip Schloessmann*
Manon Lescaut - Karita Mattila
Chevalier des Grieux - Misha Didyk
Lescaut - John Hancock
Geronte - Eric Halfvarson

CARMEN by Georges Bizet
San Francisco Opera production
November 21 (7:30 pm), 24 (7:30 pm), 25 (12 pm)†, 29 (7:30 pm); December 2
(7:30 pm)†, 3 (2:00 pm), 6 (7:30 pm), 8 (7:30 pm)†, 9 (7:30 pm), 2006
Sebastian Lang-Lessing/Jean-Pierre Ponnelle/Laurie Feldman
Carmen - Marina Domashenko / Hadar Halévy*†
Don José - Marco Berti* / Stuart Skelton†
Escamillo - Erwin Schrott* / TBA†
Micaëla - Ana María Martínez / TBA†
Zuniga - Ricardo Herrera

DON GIOVANNI by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
San Francisco Opera and Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie co-production
June 2 (8 pm), 5 (8 pm), 10 (2 pm), 13 (7:30 pm), 16 (8 pm), 22 (8 pm), 28
(7:30 pm), 30 (8 pm), 2007
Donald Runnicles/Leah Hausman*/John Macfarlane
Don Giovanni - Mariusz Kwiecien
Donna Anna - Hope Briggs
Donna Elvira - Twyla Robinson
Don Ottavio - Charles Castronovo
Leporello - Oren Gradus
Zerlina - Claudia Mahnke
Masetto - Luca Pisaroni*
Commendatore - Kristinn Sigmundsson

DER ROSENKAVALIER by Richard Strauss
San Francisco Opera production
June 9 (7:30 pm), 15 (7:30 pm), 19 (7:30 pm), 21 (7:30 pm)†, 24 (1:30 pm),
27 (7:30 pm); July 1 (1:30 pm)†, 2007
Donald Runnicles/Sandra Bernhard/Lotfi Mansouri/Thierry Bosquet
Octavian - Joyce DiDonato
Marschallin - Soile Isokoski* / Martina Serafin*†
Sophie - Miah Persson*
Baron Ochs - Kristinn Sigmundsson
Faninal - Jochen Schmeckenbecher
Annina - Catherine Cook
Valzacchi - David Cangelosi

IPHIGÉNIE EN TAURIDE by Christoph Willibald Gluck
San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago co-production
June 14 (7:30 pm), 17 (2 pm), 20 (7:30 pm), 23 (8 pm), 26 (8 pm), 29 (8 pm),
2007
Patrick Summers/Robert Carsen*/Tobias Hoheisel*
Iphigénie - Susan Graham
Orestes - Bo Skovhus
Pylades - Paul Groves

Updated Thursday, January 12.

Distorted Tunes Test

The distorted tunes test at the Web site of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders is fun! Patty at Oboeinsight is undoubtedly right that it's too easy in some way for musicians - to feel challenged or really tested, I expect we'd need something subtler, like a passage from a Mahler symphony or Strauss tone poem with a subtle change in harmony or orchestration. Anyone out there feel like concocting something tougher?

Still, the NIDCD test is interested to take - my skin crawled at some of the distortions - and it is very likely useful to checking musical memories and accuracy.

Doors Opening 2

In October, when I posted that I had started singing in Soli Deo Gloria, I was already sitting on some other pretty big news:

I am opening my own jujitsu dojo later this year.

This has been a long time coming and is something I've wanted to do essentially since I started practicing. I am a second-degree black belt in Dan Zan Ryu jujitsu (AJJF). I have practiced since 1982, first at The Dojo, then, when The Dojo closed, at Laurel Jujitsu, of which I was a founding member and where I've been an instructor since 1991.

I'm on a break of sorts from jujitsu, as I need to do some significant strengthening work (again) on my cranky back. I'll be practicing as I'm able with my senseis, Nancy and Matt Bigham, who teach at Kodai no Bushido in Santa Clara.

No name or location for the new dojo yet, but I plan to be teaching somewhere between El Cerrito and San Leandro, most likely in Oakland or Berkeley, and I hope to open the school some time between June and August. The curriculum will be pretty standard for an AJJF school:

• Dan Zan Ryu jujitsu for women and men (a big change after 23 years in a women's dojo!)


• Women's self-defense


• Rolling & falling. This is a class for people who don't want to spend years studying a martial art, but who do want to learn this very important self-protection skill.

No, I'm not quitting my day job. Very few people in this style or in the Bay Area are able to make a living teaching a martial art. I'll be happy to break even.

Watch this space for more news, including information on when & where, the grand opening demo (when my students know enough to give demonstrations, and very likely including guest martial artists and as many of my teachers and fellow jujitsuka as can be crammed into one room, and the schedule. You'll all invited to come take a class - first one's free. :-)

Come Sing with Us!

Soli Deo Gloria, with which I've been singing since September, 2005, is holding auditions on Sunday, January 8, 2006 for all voices. Our next concerts are the first weekend in March, and will feature music of Palestrina, Victoria, Guerrero, and Morales. Chad Runyon conducts this concert.

SDG sings sacred music written from the beginning of the Western classical tradition to yesterday, pretty much. We're a dedicated and very friendly group, companionable and lots of fun to sing with.

If you'd like to try out, email auditions@sdgloria.org, or call (888) 734-7664. Auditions will be held at the Trinity Lutheran Church, 1323 Central Ave., Alameda, which is where we rehearse. (I can tell you from personal experience that the auditions are very humane.) Rehearsals are Mondays, 7:15 p.m. to 9:45 p.m.

Amplification in the Opera House and Concert Hall

Excellent article by Anthony Tommasini in today's NY Times Arts & Leisure section, containing the dismaying confirmation that the orchestra for Doctor Atomic was amplified, as well as the singers, and discussing the long-term implications of amplifying classical music:

Pipe Down! We Can Hardly Hear You

WHEN "Doctor Atomic," the much-anticipated opera about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project by the dynamic American composer John Adams, had its premiere in October at the San Francisco Opera, the critical reaction was all over the place. But whatever one's take on the opera - I found it, over all, a courageous and musically haunting work - surprisingly little was made of one of the production's most unorthodox attributes: the sizeable orchestra had 30 microphones positioned among the players, and the singers wore body microphones.

The Standard Repertory

A couple of months ago, owing to illness, I missed a friend's party at which my name came up: there was a discussion of the standard operatic repertory and the question arose of what the most recently composed opera to enter the standard rep might be.

When I heard about the discussion, my first reaction was "It depends on how you define 'standard repertory,'" which was acknowledged as a fair question. The question has now arisen on Bill Burnett's blog Opera War Horses (which you can't access right now) and on Wellsung, where I'm linking to Jonathan's posting and the ensuing discussion in comments.

So just what is the "standard operatic repertory"? Operas the Met's core audience will sit still for? Anything with a melody? Opera War Horses is defining the standard repertory as "a body of operatic works, all of which were first produced in a 140-year period that begins with Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in 1786 and ends with the posthumous production of Puccini’s Turandot in 1926," according to Jonathan. I haven't seen the specific operas named by Mr. Burnett, so no comments there. Anything put on with some regularity at major U.S. and European houses?

For myself, I think 1786 to 1926 is much too limiting. The people at my friend's party came up with Wozzeck as the most recently-composed opera to enter the repertory. Unfortunately, it was completed by 1922, and so Turandot beats it by a few years. I have to wonder, also, whether the party-goers realized that Berg was still to compose, and not quite complete, Lulu, which I suspect is performed about as often as Wozzeck. (I am happy to be proven wrong on that suspicion, though I like Lulu better.)

Moreover, I came up with the following works off the top of my head that were written after Wozzeck and that I consider to have entered the standard repertory:

• Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk, Shostakovich, 1936


• Arabella, Strauss, 1933


• Capriccio, Strauss, 1942


• The Rake's Progress, Stravinsky, 1950? 52?


• All of the operas of Britten, of which I'd consider Peter Grimes (1945), Billy Budd (1951/60), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), and Death in Venice (1973) to be "standard repertory"

In my opinion, then, Death in Venice is very likely the most recently composed opera to become part of the standard repertory. (I would love to hear alternative opinions on this point.)

In addition to those works, though, I came up with a bunch of outliers that may or may not be standard repertory. They are mostly American: The Ballad of Baby Doe, Vanessa, and Susannah. I've seen only Baby Doe of that group, having missed Vanessa at Los Angeles and Susannah at Festival Opera in the recent past. Then there are works like Le Grand Macabre, Nixon in China, and even Doctor Atomic that may be standard repertory in another 20 years. I believe that Saint Francois is too esoteric (and too expensive to stage) to make it into the standard rep. There's no way to know now what the performance history will be of works by composers such as Ades and Sariaaho.

But another significant point in this discussion is that the standard repertory changes over time. Opera didn't start with Mozart, but in 1960 how many performances of Handel operas were given? You can hear Rodelinda at three American houses this year, and a couple more in Europe; his operas are seemingly being revived as fast as good performing editions can be produced.

For that matter, Cosi fan tutte didn't really become a standard until the last 40 years. Idomeneo, a great work, was probably not heard at all between the 1780s and the Glyndebourne productions of the 1950s. The only Mozart opera to be performed much from his death until the 20th century was, I believe, Don Giovanni.

I'd go as far as to push the standard repertory back to the operas of Monteverdi, particularly L'incoronazione di Poppea. Operabase reports that it's getting 62 performances in 16 separate productions in the 19 months from January 1, 2005 to July 31, 2006. That's quite a few more than Lulu is getting in the same period.

Of the 19th century operas now commonly performed, Don Carlo seems to have entered the standard repertory with the famous Convent Garden production of about 1958; La forza del destino was performed more from the 1920s through the 1960s than it is today, perhaps because of Don Carlo's increasing popularity. I think Simon Boccanegra is the last great undiscovered Verdi opera; I hope some day it will be performed as often as Don Carlo. La boheme and Madama Butterfly seem never to have left the standard repertory, but La fanciulla del West has yet to enter it.

I haven't said much about operas that were in the standard repertory in, say, 1900 or 1950 that are hardly performed now, but there are plenty, of course. A look through the Met annals or Rosenthal's Covent Garden book will give you an idea of what was then current in the English-speaking world, for example.

Moving forward - it took until the 1960s for Die Frau ohne Schatten to get much attention in the U.S. And Turandot, surely the 800-pound gorilla of all the operas I've listed, was hardly performed in the U.S. between the premieres in 1926-27 and the advent of Nilsson at the Met in 1961. It lived on through the 30s in Chicago, where creator Rosa Raisa lived, and where Eva Turner gave some of her few U.S. performances. Oh, and of course it got some performances in the 50s by San Francisco Opera, with Carla Martinis, Inge Borkh, and Leonie! Rysanek! in the title role. But I don't think any Americans would have considered it standard repertory in 1955; today you can hardly take a step without tripping over the Chinese Princess.

Finally Added to the Blogroll

Alex and Jonathan, the Wellsung Twins. Whatever took me so long???

Barriers

My partner is a doctoral student in public health, and we talk a lot about public health issues of various kinds. I have been saying off and on for a few years that the most revolutionary action the nations of the world could take would be to provide clean water, sanitation, vaccinations, and an education to everyone. Yes, it would be a huge undertaking, but the benefits would be staggering. And it's not money keeping this from happening: it's lack of political will.

Today's N.Y. Times has a story that left me enraged, because it shows how clearly clear water and decent sanitation are linked to poverty and the situation of women and girls in the third world. It's about how lack of sanitation keeps African girls from obtaining an education. That is in addition to the other enormous social barriers women and girls face in Africa.

Read it, and you, too, will be enraged.

Four Times Eight

Drew tossed me this one - which I was going to answer anyway. Note that I'm treating "four" rather loosely in a couple of places, for which no apologies whatsoever. I mean, naming only four favorite foods: insane.

Four jobs you've had in your life: office worker, flute teacher, insurance underwriter, technical writer

Four movies you could watch over and over: Casablanca, Moonstruck, Holiday, The Adventures of Robin Hood

Four places you've lived: Teaneck, NJ, Waltham, MA, Lake Grove, NY, Oakland, CA

Four TV shows you love to watch (not limited to shows in production): Star Trek: TNG & DSN; Mystery!, Six Feet Under, The West Wing

Four places you've been on vacation: Maritime Provinces of Canada, Orkney, Seattle, Paris

Four websites you visit daily: See my blogroll for the classical blogs, Dog of the Day, Astronomy Picture of the Day, Salon

Four of your favorite foods: Soon tofu soup at Pyong Chang in Oakland, steak frites, broccoli rabe, gingerbread (the best bribery material in the known universe), anything at Shalimar, roast chicken, salad

Four places you'd rather be: Hanalei Bay; just about any place with my partner; up to my elbows in grapes; London; attending an opera performance

Balances, Again and Again

It turns out the sound and balances in the orchestra of War Memorial Opera House really are, uh, interesting. It seems a difference of all of eight feet has a noticable impact on the sound quality.

For complicated reasons I'm not going to go into, I saw the entire Norma performance last month from orchestra rear Z-104, while my companion saw the first act from ZZ-101 (the very back row, where the seats can be moved around to make space for patrons who use wheelchairs or scooters and their friends) and the second act from Z-102. He later reported that he'd thought the sound slightly better from Z-102 - a little muffled in row ZZ, and less so in Z. He's not a musician, but he is a good listener and musical, with a good enough ear that he easily picked out the best of the singers (Mishura) and knew there wasn't significant competition for that title. I definitely trust what he said about the sound quality.

I had my own minor revelation when I reviewed Fidelio. I was in around row M, but just off the right-hand aisle - not the one by the wall. It was not difficult to hear the singers' voices expanding into the house, an effect you miss in orchestra rear, where I feel more as thought the voices are aimed directly at me. But there is a disconcerting sensation of being out of the line of fire when you're hard left or right, plus there can be a distracting sensation that the voices are echoing off the wall.

Breaking Up, Part 2

I posted last week about the breakup of the Audubon Quartet in a welter of court actions and bankruptcies.

That posting generated some comments, including the following from Michael Renardy, whose Web site includes documents relevant to the situation. Mr. Renardy wrote the following, to which I'm responding here because I have enough to say that I don't want to bury my remarks in the comments:

I see a lot of comments like these: Since Ehrlich now has the reputation that he is willing to sue his colleagues, has he really salvaged anything? Baloney, I say. At least outside the "genteel world of chamber music" there are worse things than willingness to sue a colleague. Embezzlement, for instance. Sexual harassment. And the manner in which Ehrlich was "dismissed" would have left people guessing about all of those.

Unless he fought back, that is.

First, the most important point in my original posting was the first one: the Audubon quartet did not have an appropriate business contract, one that would properly define acceptable behavior for all quartet members and that would provide a mechanism for member evaluation and other personnel matters, including when to mediate or arbitrate a dispute and, if necessary, an acceptable process for dismissing a member.

Second, to again repeat myself: I have seen nothing indicating that anyone in the quartet asked for mediation or arbitration, which, in my opinion, should always be used early enough in a problem to avoid resorting to the courts.

Both of these represent signifcant failings on the part of the Audubon to conduct themselves in a businesslike manner, where there's a degree of predictability about internal process and where there are clear bylaws for all to follow.

Regarding people guessing about sexual harrassment, embezzlement, and other possible problems: really? In the case of embezzlement, I'd definitely expect criminal proceedings against the perpetrator. I might expect civil proceedings in the case of sexual harrassment.

Needless to say, given the personality issues here, had proper procedures been in place, everybody could have come out of the situation looking better than they currently look. And even without, there are plenty of mechanisms whereby appropriate public statements from the Audubon would have clarified to situation sufficiently that no one would be wondering what had happened. "Fighting back" ought to have been unnecessary, and I fail to see how a lawsuit putting the other quartet members into bankruptcy was necessary or desirable. From where I sit, it looks like revenge.

Finally, I cannot for the life of me find on line a letter that ran in the NY Times Arts & Leisure section yesterday, but the writer, who is evidentally familiar with the economics of chamber music, opined that the judge who valued the Audubon at $1.6 million was setting an arbitrary value with no support in the real world. If he's correct, that would make the monetary award to Ehrlich insupportable.

Norma, San Francisco Opera

I started listening to opera seriously in 1994, and I think I picked up a recording or two of Norma early on. A friend dubbed me a copy of an Nth generation tape of the 1994 Seattle Opera broadcast with Jane Eaglen, and of course I had the requisite live Callas performance and eventually both her studio recordings. At the time, the opera seemed like an impossible rarity, one I'd never see live.

Somewhat to my surprise, here it is eleven years later and I've seen four Normas at three houses. Not one of them has been fully satisfactory, owing largely to the enormous demands of the title role and to various weaknesses in casting the piece (Richard Margison trying to stand up to the ear-splitting Eaglen and Dolora Zajick in the Act I trio: hopeless). Also to my surprise - and giving away a punchline in advance - of the three sopranos I've seen attempting the title role, Eaglen, in 1996, came closest to fulfilling its rquirements. By 2001, her voice had stiffened up from all that Wagner and she couldn't trill too well or sing the fioriture with the same facility as five years earlier. For example, on the tape from 1994, she nails the series of trills in "Adalgisa fia punita!" in Act II; I don't remember any such success in 2001.

In between the two Eaglen performances, there was a miserable Norma in San Francisco, with Carol Vaness disastrously overparted in the title role, Michael Sylvester's Pollione outsung by the Flavio of Gary Rideout (why, oh, WHY didn't they just swap roles?!), Anna Caterina Antonacci vivid but with a very short top as Adalgisa, and the forgettable Andrea Silvestrelli as Oroveso. The only saving grace was Patrick Summers's fabulous conducting. What a shame that Norma stands or falls on the strength of its singers; if I were judging only by the conducting, well, Summers was great, but that's just not enough.

The casting of the new SFO Norma gave me some hope, based on previous hearings of the singers: the wonderful Catherine Nagelstad gave every indication that she had the spirit and technique for the title role and Nancy Maultsby was a rich-voiced Erda in the 2001 Seattle Ring. I wondered about Zoran Todorovich's ability to sing Pollione adequately, but you must bear in mind that Giovanni Martinelli is the only Pollione, in my book. (Del Monaco? Bah!) I was aghast that Atilla Jun had been invited back to sing Oroveso after his godawful Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlo; he's only in his 30s and I guess he really can't sing, since he sounds about 70.

The reviews of the production weren't encouraging; this was of particular concern to me because I had an opera-novice friend in tow. The logistics of the day had not been easy to arrange, from picking a date to getting workable seats, and, really, you always want friends you drag to the opera to have a good time. In the end, he did (and I think he'll even go back to the opera with me), but I spent an awful lot of the performance with my head in my hands.

That started as soon as the curtain went up. What on earth were the Druids doing inside a stockade, and what about the body a bunch of the Druids were running through with spears? Um, where does the libretto say that there is a body on stage in the first scene?? Isn't there supposed to be a sacred grove - of trees, not fences - there someplace? Attila Jun's first phrases were grainy in tone and undistinguished in phrasing, and he didn't get any better during the course of the opera. At a time when the Symphony is hiring excellent basses like Tigran Martirossian, why does the Opera keep this guy around?

Zoran Todorovich's entrance left a good deal to be desired as well. He was loud enough, and he's almost handsome enough to persuade the audience that not one, but two virgin priestesses would break their vows for him. Alas - he sang with little or no dynamic inflection and no understanding of the style.

There was no improvement with Catherine Nagelstad's appearance, either. As in Rodelinda, it took her half an act or so to warm up enough to move her voice well enough in the fioriture. And it was clear from her first words that she was not going to do a good job with the enraged Norma, because her voice didn't sound good at forte. Matters didn't improve much during the course of the opera, either; she sounded raw at the top of her range and tremulous under pressure. The fioriture flowed better after "Ah! bello a me ritorna," but there was little ornamentation in the duets with Adalgisa. (In 1996, Eaglen and Suzanne Mentzer added a lot of ornaments!)

Really, the best singer, by a long shot, was Irina Mishura, a late - very late - substitute for the originally-announced Nancy Maultsby. She sang with the best tone and liveliest rhythmic sense, with a good sense of dynamics and a real feel for the line of the music. Her Adalgisa also sounded younger and more innocent than Norma, a point that goes right by productions that cast a heavy mezzo or contralto as Adalgisa. Her superiority was obvious enough that my opera-novice friend easily identified her as the best.

But, not a good sign: "Sì, fino all'ore," which routinely leaves me in tears, didn't in this case. Maybe it was the limp conducting (I've already blogged about my unhappiness with Sara Jobin), maybe it was the ugly production, maybe it was lack of chemistry between Nagelstad and Mishura, but it was certainly a sign of something amiss. I was somewhat moved by the very end of the opera, but not nearly to the extent I would have been in a better performance or with a more appropriate production.

Oh, well: it's one of those operas where I may or may not ever see an ideal performance, one with the right conductor and singers and a decent production. It is a difficult opera: it needs a Norma who can rage and float with equal facility, and who can sing all of those little notes that scared Birgit Nilsson away from the role (thank goodness!); an Adalgisa who can project sweet innocence and keep up vocally with Norma; a Pollione who sings like a god and looks good enough that you can believe in his remarkable romantic success; an Oroveso who projects leaderly fury and fatherly tenderness.

It's easy enough to create a historical dream cast: Callas or Ponselle as Norma; Stignani as Adalgisa; Martinelli or Tamagno or Lauri-Volpi as Pollione; Pinza or de Angelis as Oroveso. Conducting: Toscannini? de Sabata? Panizza?

But today? Oh, sigh. I had the odd thought after the 2001 Met performance that maybe Zajick should take a shot as Norma, with Deborah Voigt swapping in for Adalgisa. I'm not sure there is a tenor I want to hear as Pollione. I'll take Stephen Milling or Rene Pape as Oroveso, and put Patrick Summers on the podium.

Breaking Up

No, not me; this blog will continue and my partner and I are fine. No, I'm thinking about the sad breakup of the Audubon Quartet. Daniel J. Wakin has had a couple of excellent articles in the NY Times this week:

• The Broken Chord, in the Arts & Leisure section of Sunday, December 11


• Lost in Bitter Legal Battle: Chamber Players' Instruments, in today's paper

Personnel changes happen pretty often in chamber music groups; I'm sure they don't all happen amicably, but it's possible to avoid the kinds of issues that have plagued the Audubon. To start with, chamber groups need workable, written agreements - by-laws or contracts - agreed to by all, that govern personnel issues, from what's acceptable behavior to how to handle disagreements. Neither of Wakin's articles mentions whether or when mediators were brought in to help the Audubon with its problems; I myself have witnessed the kind of good that can be done by a skilled mediator. It seems there was no arbitration requirement in the event of an unresolvable conflict. It is clear that the Audubon did not properly keep up the legal end of their nonprofit corporation, however, which couldn't have helped.

This paragraph especially caught my eye, though; David Ehrlich is the former violinist who has sued the other three members of the quartet:

Mr. Ehrlich, who did not immediately respond to a phone message, has said that while he finds the loss of the instruments tragic, he needs the money for lawyers' fees. He said he was unfairly and summarily fired by three people who conspired against him, and that he had to sue to salvage his reputation.

I guess that had he not sued, Mr. Ehrlich would very likely have the reputation of being someone who is difficult to work with and who left the Audubon under a cloud. Having sued, he will have the reputation of being not only difficult to work with, but willing to sue former colleagues so that they lose their homes and instruments. Is that really an improvement? Has his reputation been salvaged by his actions?

At Berkeley Rep

This past weekend I had the rare opportunity to see four operas, all new to me, on two consecutive evenings: the Stravinsky double bill at San Francisco Symphony, which I reviewed for SFCV, and the Czech double bill at Berkeley Rep, consisting of Martinu's Comedy on the Bridge and Krása's Brundibar. Both of the latter were performed with new English librettos by playwright Tony Kushner; production designs (charming!) are by Maurice Sendak with Kris Stone.

They are both excellent pieces, well performed; if you're interested in Czech opera or music related to the Holocaust - Brundibar was famously performed many times at the Terezín concentration camp - I would encourage you to go see them.

However, there is a big warning that must be attached to the production:

AMPLIFICATION IN USE. Really bad amplification.

It was so distracting that I might well have walked out, but I had taken a friend as thanks for a great favor, and of course I did want to see the pieces.

I find the use of amplification almost completely incomprehensible:

• The Roda Theater seats all of 600.


• The theater is new, well-designed, and has good acoustics.


• The orchestra was amplified even though it's under the stage and consists of maybe a dozen instruments.


• All of the singers were amplified.

To me, this means that the production team doesn't trust the music to work (that is, has no faith in the composers' skill), doesn't trust the conductor to balance the singers and orchestra, doesn't believe they hired singers who can be heard in a tiny theater over a chamber orchestra, doesn't trust the audience to listen carefully. In my experience, every time there's been music in any Berkeley Rep production, it is amplified, even if it's a guy with a guitar. This is crazy: the amplification is distracting, unnatural, and flattens the dynamic range of the singers. I find amplified music much harder to listen to than unamplified music.

I understand amplifying children, if it's done carefully. It's hard to argue, for example, with the decision of the San Francisco Opera to put a microphone on the 8-year-old who sang Amore in L'incoronazione di Poppea in 1998 - but that was in the 3200 seat War Memorial Opera House, not the 600-seat Roda. But I don't want to go to the theater and hear the orchestra coming from speakers to my left and the soprano coming from a speaker over my head. I want to hear the orchestra coming from the pit and the singers' voices coming from the stage. I spoke to some friends the next day and they all felt the same. So, I'm sending a letter about this to Tony Taccone, in hopes that maybe Berkeley Rep will listen.

Where I've Been

Soli Deo Gloria's concerts in November went just fine, but I had a burn-my-candle-at-both-ends week leading up to and including that weekend. From Monday to Sunday, it went rehearsal, day at home, rehearsal, La Forza del Destino, performance, performance, performance.

On Saturday, November 19, I was sniffly; by Monday, I was home in bed and even spiked a fever for a couple of hours. We had Thanksgiving at home and on Friday of Thanksgiving week, I went to New Jersey to see my mother and attend a high school reunion. (You may guess what number.) That was a lot of fun. I'm not in regular touch with many of my classmates, but on the whole we've turned out really well, or at least the people who turned up for the reunion did. I've known some of these folks since I was 8 years old, and I suspect I would socialize with plenty of them if I still lived in New Jersey.

The highlight of the trip was certainly seeing Terry and the magnificent Teachout Museum. I'm in love with the Olitsky, as I told him at the time. And he seems to have gently lit a fire under me about getting back to work on my book, for which I am grateful. (If you read About Last Night - and you should - you know Terry's been ill. Yeah, I've been fretting myself and sending him best wishes for a swift recovery.)

I'm still not quite over this cold and for various reasons have been socializing more than usual in the last couple of weeks. I will resume blogging about music in the next day or so; I have a Norma review in the works, a couple of comments on the Stravinsky double bill at SFS, and comments - and a complaint - about the double bill at Berkeley Rep.

La Forza del Destino, San Francisco Opera

To Forza last night, where I was pleasantly surprised. I had thought the old warhorse not too stageworthy, based mostly on recordings, a video, that Kirov broadcast of the 1862 St. Petersburg version, the libretto, and the opera's reputation. Wrong, wrong, wrong. There's never been any doubt about the greatness of much of the music. and this production, at least, works quite well.

A major reason is the fantastic conducting of Nicola Luisotti, debuting at SFO, who led a taut, impassioned, nuanced, and completely idiomatic performance. The only Verdi conducting I've heard live that I thought approached this quality was Patrick Summers's Traviata last season. Luisotti was also a ton of fun to watch because sometimes he was conducting the phrase and didn't bother to beat time; his technique is extremely beautiful and interesting, while always being perfectly clear. (I had one of the aisle seats in orchestra rear row ZZ and could look straight down the center aisle at his back.) He got brilliant playing out of the orchestra and great singing out of the chorus. Special kudos to concertmaster Kay Stern and especially principal clarinetist Carey Bell for gorgeously-played solos.

I was talking with a friend the other week about this opera and he said it was strange that war was the main focus of the production - this before he saw it, I think, based on reviews. Well, I think war is not the main focus, not any more than the libretto calls for. The sets and costumes are effective and striking, except for the fact that Preziosilla looks as if she took a wrong turn on her way to a rehearsal of Le Grand Macabre. Poor Jill Grove!

I liked the scene at the inn a lot; some of the pilgrims were costumed in replicas of traditional pilgrim outfits, the ones that look shockingly like KKK outfits. Brrrr; very creepy to have them wandering across the stage, though I was puzzled by the light sabres they carried. What?? The monastery scene worked extremely well too, with the first half, outside the monastery, played on a bare stage with just a backdrop for the monastery wall; that wall went up to reveal the interior of the church, with a vaguely cosmological rear wall and a very simple circle of candles within which Leonora's hair was cut and she was robed as a monk.

The singing is somewhat variable, unsurprisingly, but it's all large-scale and sometimes very, very loud. Despite the intermittent vocal messiness, it's a pleasure to hear a performance that sounds uninhibited and has such a committed cast; I've heard more than one Verdi opera (Ernani at ENO last year, for example) sung decently without being especially memorable because the singers were just too polite and too controlled (too English?). Some of these operas need hell-for-leather singing to make the intended impact on the audience.

The vocal star of the show is probably Lucas Meacham, an Adler Fellow, as Melitone (one of the most annoying characters in all opera!). He just sings the best, and has quite a beautiful voice. Of the other principles, Vladimir Kuzmenko (Don Alvaro) was unsubtle and at his best when singing at the dynamic extremes. He sobbed a lot, probably more than he needed to, and did a good job of putting over the character's instability. Zeljko Lucic (Don Carlo) had the range, style, and musicianship and lacked mostly some ping at the top of his range, which sounded, not exactly constricted, but muffled. The audience laughed at him during Act II at one point, which shocked me; he wasn't singing anything funny at all. Maybe the notion of honor and revenge is too foreign to a 21st century audience; maybe if he'd been less dignified, more outraged, there wouldn't have been laughter.

Jill Grove sang accurately and with enormous spirit as Preziosilla but I wish she'd used fewer glottal attacks. I did not much like Orlin Anastossov's Guardiano; too Slavic a voice and too uninteresting in all ways next to Meacham.

And finally the Leonora, Andrea Gruber. She got a lot of publicity earlier this year when she went public about her past drug problems and resorting to gastric bypass surgery to deal with her weight. I'd heard her on a Met broadcast and in Nabucco here a few years back, thought her voice ugly and her singing undisciplined.

At the moment, her voice is under good control. She'll never match Leontyne Price for vocal beauty, but mostly she sounded decent. There are a couple of bad patches in her voice that are on the raw/ugly side. But she has the big upward and downward range required by the role, she has the loud and the soft and the in-between (unlike her tenor!), she has a decent legato, and she has the Verdi style down just fine. She is also a passionate and deeply involved actor. "Pace, pace" could have been better, and the stupid direction for that number may have been responsible for the problems she had, because she had to run up and down the set vertically a couple of times during the aria, but whatever. She was excellent in much of the rest of the opera.

Three performances remain (November 20, November 23, November 26), and if I could, I'd go to another.

Note: I've polished and republished this about five or six times today. Sorry!

Applauding the Scenery

My review of Fidelio at SFO is up at SFCV. It's a pan and largely in agreement with the reviews I've read by Joshua Kosman and Janos Gereben.

The second act of this opera starts out in a dungeon, and then moves to the courtyard of the prison of which the dungeon is the basement. If you know anything about this opera, you probably know that the first version was called Leonore and that Beethoven wrote four overtures at four different times for Fidelio. Conductors get to choose which one to play at the beginning of the opera.

There's a tradition that one of the other overtures gets played during act II. That's to cover the scene change from dungeon to courtyard.

SFO's set is very cleverly constructed. At the beginning of the act, you see the walls and towers of the prison audience left and right, with a walkway between the two towers. In the middle of the stage is the dungeon, with its ceiling vertiginously slanted up from the back to the front of the stage. Under the ceiling, there's a pit, and Florestan is lying in it audience left.

After "O namenlose Freude!", Christine Brewer (Leonore) and Thomas Moser (Florestan) glued themselves to each other and the middle of the pit, and the ceiling slowly lowered toward them. I thought "Uh-oh," remembering the injuries to Hildegard Behrens when a stagehand collapsed the Met's Gibichung Hall just a bit too soon during a performance of Goetterdaemmerung during the early '90s. But as the ceiling dropped, a trap opened in it, and by the time the slanted ceiling leveled out, revealing the prison courtyard, there was an opening big enough - just big enough - for the two singers, who got to stand there up to their knees in the set for a bit. As ceiling turned into the floor, the back of the set parted and a view of the countryside appeared. (I thought the mountain backdrop looked just a little too much like the Sangre de Christo backdrop in Doctor Atomic!)

And that's when the audience applauded the set.

What I didn't like:

• Scenery that leaves you worrying about the singers' safety


• Scenery that so calls attention to itself that the audience claps

I remember the SFO audience applauding the set when the curtain went up on the ballroom scene in the last act of Eugene Onegin - in the old production, the one that had an actual ballroom with actual moving humans in it. I couldn't figure out why. Sure, it was brightly lit and very very deep, but otherwise? There was nothing special about it. Still! (And now that I think about it, the audience applauded the new ballroom set for Eugene Onegin because of the damned exploding chandelier!!! What on earth were the designers thinking???) It's bad when the audience applauds the set. It means the set is distracting the audience from the story, the singers, and the music. Really, we don't go to the opera for the architecture.

I think the most beautiful thing I've ever seen on the operatic stage was the second act of the Seattle Opera's Tristan und Isolde. Through a combination of scenery and lighting effects, Ben Heppner and Jane Eaglen were set afloat in a deep blue night sky. It could not have been more perfect for the mood of the music; it was pure magic.

The love duet is overwhelming enough that the stage could be bare and you'd be moved. But this was the perfect accompaniment to the richness and passion of the opera, adding depth without ever distracting you from the music. And nobody applauded it.

Updated November 17, 2005. Bit of cleanup, plus added the comment about the new Eugene Onegin set. See Applauding the Scenery 2 for more on this topic.

Applauding the Scenery 2

Anthony Tomamsini reviewed the Met's new Roméo et Juliette in today's Times; he called out some issues with the set and staging that aren't far off what I said about the SFO Fidelio set:

Above the stage hangs an armillary sphere, a complex of orbs and globes used to teach astronomy in Renaissance Italy. Indeed, the production makes explicit the celestial metaphors that gush from the mouths of the impulsive young lovers in both Shakespeare and Gounod. As they sing of their ecstasy, the walls of the set part to reveal milky firmaments and galaxies. Call this production "Roméo and Juliette in the Cosmos." The celestial imagery culminates in the scene in which the secretly married young couple share their one night of wedded bliss. Against a starry expanse, Juliette's bed hovers in the air. As breezes waft through the silken white sheets that hang from its sides, the lovers rustle in each other's arms. The image produced applause and ah's from the audience.

In its Busby Berkeley-esque way, it was quite a sight, though you worried as the singers performed a long, difficult duet confined to a small bed suspended from wires.

The setting sounds a bit like the Seattle Tristan except that I never worried about Heppner and Eaglen taking a tumble during their even longer and more difficult duet (and the audience didn't applaud the scenery). Read the whole review here before it goes into the paid archive (if reviews go into the paid archive!).

Dear Sara:

(A full review of the Sunday, November 13, 2005 performance of Norma will follow, but in the meantime, a few words to conductor Sara Jobin.)

I saw your main-stage debut conducting Tosca last year, and thought, hmm, "soggy little shocker." I saw this week's Norma, and all I can say is:

BUTCH UP, girl!!

You are being much too deferential to the singers. You are following them when they should be following YOU. It is YOUR JOB to shape the performance as a whole, not theirs.

Yes, I understand that singers need to be supported. It is to your credit that you are so sensitive to them and listen so carefully to what's happening on stage. I also understand that some of the ridiculous tempos were just because the singers would not have been able to keep up if you'd been going much faster.

BUT STILL.

You are Tori when you're on the podium. You were letting Uke lead. I know what that means, and I know that you do too.

Take control! It's your job!

Yours,


Lisa
Nidan, AJJF (Dan Zan Ryu Jujitsu)

Anne Midgette on American Voices and Vocal Training

Anne Midgette has a provocative article in the Sunday NY Times Arts & Leisure section called "The End of the Great Big American Voice." There is an accompanying audio presentation on the Web, with Sylvia McNair contrasted with Dolora Zajick in interesting ways.

My only significant objection: why hold up Andrea Bocelli as an example of what's wrong with vocal training, and especially American vocal training??

He's an Italian pop singer whose original technique is oriented explicitly to the microphone. Now, maybe that is the point, since part of Midgette's thesis is that smaller, tamer voices record better than bigger, more unruly voices. (I agree with her that it's a problem in the business and an issue in how singers are trained.)

Still - Bocelli is attempting to sing opera today largely as a marketing and sales ploy, not because it's his natural arena or because he is the slightest bit suitable for opera. He was not quite laughed off the stage when he tried live opera on for size. He's not the best example for Midgette's article or the audio piece, I feel. Pick one of the half-voiced operatic tenors floating around out there instead, even if he's less famous than Bocelli.

Daniel J. Wakin on LHL

Ace N. Y. Times reporter Daniel J. Wakin tackles the unfortunate string of cancellations this year by the great Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Catch this article between November 9 and November 16, before it goes into the paid Times archive.

The Reviewer's Art

I wrote the lead article for this week's edition of San Francisco Classical Voice; I'd originally considered a blog posting on the advantages and disadvantages of preparing for a concert, after being sandbagged in August by a great performance of the Schubert String Quintet. But then I was asked if I'd like to write a feature for SFCV, and voila! This was the subject closest at hand and most on my mind.

Many thanks to Michelle Dulak Thomson, Alex Ross, and Joshua Kosman for talking with me about how they prepare!

Happy Birthdays All Around

vilaine fille was a year old on Halloween and (ahem) so was Iron Tongue of Midnight. Happy birthday to us both!

I had a different sort of birthday a couple of weeks ago; many thanks, and many hugs, to those of you who helped make it such an excellent one. You know who you are.

Fallout

The Standing Room reports on the last night

And so does Robert Gable.

Reviewers on Doctor Atomic:

• Anthony Tommasini in the N.Y. Times


• Joshua Kosman in the S. F. Chronicle


• Janos Gereben at San Diego Magazine On Line


• Allan Ulrich in SFCV


• Rich Scheinin's review in the San Jose Mercury News


• Rich Scheinin's preview article in the Mercury News


• Mark Swed in the L. A. Times


• Michelle Locke of the AP, I think or that is how the article appears at the Seattle Post Intelligencer, anyway.


• Pierre Ruhe in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution


• Tiger Hashimoto in the S. F. Examiner


• Scott Cantrell in the Dallas Morning News


• Timothy Mangan in the Orange County Register


• Justin Davidson in Newsday


• Stephanie von Buchau at Inside the Bay Area (review from the Oakland Tribune)


• Andrew Clark in the Financial Times


• Lawrence A. Johnson in the Sun-Sentinel


• Timothy Andres in the Yale Daily News


• Paul Liberatore in the Marin Independent Journal


• Steve Winn in the S. F. Chronicle


• Victoria Looseleaf in the Herald News Daily


• An anonymous editorial writer in the S. F. Chronicle


• An anonymous Reuters article in the Deccan Herald


• Allan Ulrich in The Guardian (UK)


• Wynne Delacoma in the Chicago Sun-Times


• Dennis Harvey in Variety


• Heidi Walseson in the Wall Street Journal


• Rupert Christiansen in the Telegraph (UK)


• David Patrick Stearns in the Philadelphia Inquirer, care of Andante


• Alan Rich in L. A. Weekly (love that headline!)


• Chloe Veltman in S. F. Weekly


• Science writer Dennis Overbye in the NY Times


• John Fleming in the St. Petersberg Times Floridian


• Karren Alenier at Scene4 Magazine says Doctor Atomic is Alive!


• Renate Stendahl at Scene4 Magazine says Doctor Atomic is Dead!


• Ben Mattison at Variety, not really a review, but there are photos of the production by Terrence McCarthy

And in the blogosphere:

• Alex Ross's Atomic Photojournal (His New Yorker article, in the October 3 issue, is not available on line.)


• A few post-premiere comments from Alex. My question: where were he and Tommasini sitting? From orchestra rear, seat X-5, the singer/orchestra balances were just fine.


• Alex comments on the commentary, which is all over the map.


• Heather Heise at Musewings


• Cedric at SFist


• Karren L. Alenier in Ionarts (not Charles Downey, as previously credited)


• Jay Dean at Bird's Eye View


• SF Mike on a preview by Sarah Cahill


• Brendonesq on the final dress, his first opera experience!


• Jon Anthony Carr at Sparkle, Neely, Sparkle


• The Standing Room, where there is a nice little discussion going


• Michael Kaulkin at About the Composer


• Lisa at Iron Tongue of Midnight

In the blogosphere, but from writers who haven't yet seen Doctor Atomic:

• Greg Sandow on relevance I'm not having any difficult imagining the relevance of an opera about science, politics, and conscience to today's world. Le Nozze di Figaro, an operatic comedy about droit du seigneur, manages to sell out theaters world over, too.


• Steve Hicken at Listen, with interesting comments about the effects of the attention surrounding any new work by John Adams.


• Tim Johnson on hype and relevance, plus there are comments worth reading by both Tim and a reader, Jim, who saw the premiere and was disappointed.

Final Update: Your best bet for tracking fallout in the blogosphere will be a new Google feature; it's in beta, but it works just fine as far as I can tell: Google blog search.

The Real Final Update, well, not quite: Additional opinions may be found at the Archives of Opera-l.

First posted on October 2; updated October 4, 6, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 23, and 24, 2005; November 1, 2005. You didn't really think I was done, did you?