Expectations

What I expected:

• Kristin Sigmundsson to sound awful, based on June's Magic Flute
• Brian Mulligan to be a very good King's Herald
• Gerd Grochowski to know how the music should go but lack enough voice to do what he wanted to do with it
• Petra Lang to be a pretty good Ortrud, based on her Venus in 2007
• Camilla Nylund to be a good Elsa, based on reports from a friend
• Brandon Jovanovich to shout a lot, based on last year's Siegmund
• Nicola Luisotti to be dubious. I hated his Salome.

What I got:

• Sigmundsson was a completely respectable, at times much better than that, King Henry. Sure, he is audibly approaching retirement, but I have heard much, much worse, from him and other contemporaries.
• Yep,  Mulligan was a very good King's Herald. Okay, better than that: I'll take him up to excellent.
• Grochowski was exactly what I expected. He's a good singer, but Wagner? Not enough voice. His bio in the program says he is slated for some Wotans. No way, no how, unless they're in a 900 seat theater someplace.
• Lang absolutely sucked. Hooty, pushed, glottal attacks in about every other phrase, and just plain unpleasant to listen to most of the time. One of the worst performances in a major role that I have heard. Too bad!
• Nylund was good, not great; not as good as I thought she'd be, but definitely respectable. She had the requisite fragility and vulnerability, not much of the silvery float you hope for in Elsa.
• BJo hit the role out of the park, just a terrific performance. Okay, I'll cop to some crooning, or anyway a whole lot of head mixed into his usual tone, in that first entrance. But vocally it was extremely beautiful, with not a bit of shouting. He maintained a fine line throughout, high notes were easy, the middle and lower part beautiful. Impeccable, really, good enough that I'd consider a return trip.
• Except for a weirdly draggy first-act Prelude and a lack of urgency a couple of times further on (Elsa & Lohengrin's Act III duet, for instance), Luisotti was fine. I can't complain.

And the production? Sometimes quite good - the lightbox with flowers and garlands for their bedroom worked very well - sometimes failing a bit (why on earth was the crowd not looking at Lohengrin during his approach??) - mostly reasonably consistent and dramatic enough. The planned contrast between the uniformed forces and the partisans? resistance? didn't come off, but the production did not get in the way.

The orchestra played well; the brass was spectacular; the chorus absolutely heroic and gorgeous.

(Right. Lohengrin, San Francisco Opera, October 28, 2012.)

Einstein on the Beach

My SFCV review of Einstein on the Beach went up around 1 p.m. today, just as the Lohengrin prelude started. I think I did not quite succeed in putting over just how much I liked it; I was somewhat surprised by just how likable a work it is, and how engrossing. I seriously expected to be driven slightly mad by it - you might remember that I fled Davies 3/4 of the way through Music in Twelve Parts - and I can now confess that I had along a couple of squares of chocolate, two ginger cookies, a thermos of tea, and a flask of very good single malt Scotch. I did not have to resort to the Scotch. Well, okay, I took a sip on my personal intermission. And a couple of sections were loud enough that I'm extremely glad that Robert Rossney mentioned earplugs when we chatted Friday afternoon.

My personal intermission ended around when Philip Glass's started. I know this because he was sitting across the aisle from me; you bet that I regret not grabbing him while the lights were up and getting his autograph. I can also report that he came back from his break just after 9, and I know this because I saw the time when he checked his smartphone, which has a large and very bright screen. I think it was too darned big to be an iPhone, so, presumably: Android.

If you're at all interested in Einstein, try to see it on this tour. It's just not going to get done very often, between the intensity of rehearsal that it needs and the expense of the actors, dancers, singers, and musicians. And it is well worth seeing.

Hans Werner Henze

Composer Hans Werner Henze has died, age 86. Obituaries are starting to appear in English:

• Boulezian is currently writing about Henze, for a book on politics and music.
• Obituary at Schott
• Intermezzo
• The Telegraph

No Lysistrata

Jacques Desjardins writes to tell me that Opera Parallel felt that after producing The Great Gatsby, it would be premature to stage Lysistrata, which is postponed to a future time.

Separated at Birth?

Take a look at Thomas Deneuville's photos of Philip Glass and Steve Reich on the blog I Care If You Listen.

More of How We Do It

Google allowed a television crew onto the Lenoir data center floor, briefly and with a senior vice president as tour guide.

Ensemble > Opera Parallel

Ensemble Parallel has changed its name to Opera Parallel and announced a full season of opera:

• February 15, 16, and 17: Golijav's Ainadamar at YBCA
• April 26, 27, and 28: Barber's A Hand of Bridge and a re-orchestrated version of Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti at ZSpace
• June 7: a reading of Dante de Silva's Gesualdo, Prince of Darkness Madness at SF Conservatory of Music

Missing from the announcement is any mention of the previously-announced February, 2013 performances of Mark Adamo's Lysistrata. I have various inquiries out, but no responses yet.

Corporate Governance and the Return of James Levine

Last week, the Met released information about James Levine's long-awaited return to the podium; at the same time, the Times posted an exclusive story that included remarks from Levine himself about everything that's been going on. Responses have been pleased but also muted and skeptical; read Anne Midgette and Alex Ross's blog postings, and also my own. In a review of the Met Orchestra's concert this week, Anthony Tommasini mentioned reality checks.

The long silence, followed by news of the extent of Levine's injuries and confirmation that he has benign Parkinson's reminds me all too much of the period when Steve Jobs looked ill, but nobody at Apple was saying anything. Eventually, it came out that Jobs had liver cancer and had had a liver transplant. As we know, Jobs eventually died of his illness.

Apple is a publicly traded company and has a legal responsibility under securities law to make known material information that could affect its earnings. If it were not enormously profitable, with new and updated products rolling out over the last few years, you can bet that stockholders would have been asking questions about the company's failure to inform regulators and the public of the specifics of Jobs's illness. In the long run, his death will surely affect Apple; can anyone imagine him letting the new Apple Maps product out the door in its current condition?

As a non-profit arts organization, the Met has no such legal responsibilities, and Levine is not mortally ill, but the situation with him raises issues similar to those at Apple:

• Who takes Levine's responsibilities at the Met during his absence and recovery?
• What happens if Levine can't come back full time?
• What plans does the Met Board of Directors have for succession?

James Levine has been at the Met since 1971 and has been music director since 1976, a remarkable tenure by any measure. (I'm curious about conductors who've been with one institution for so long; please post numbers in the comments. Yes, there's Ozawa's 29 years at the BSO.) One can hardly exaggerate Levine's importance and influence - but (all current health issues aside) he's not going to live forever.

It's the Board's responsibility, first and foremost, to take care of the institution, but it looks as though their primary concern right now is taking care of James Levine. I understand their desire to have him as active as possible in an organization he has helped shape for so long. But their evident reluctance to contemplate life without Levine is a serious concern. It is not good for the Met to be so dependent on one individual.

Look at the schedule for his return: he is current attending to administrative and some musical duties, after being away for well over a year. He will conduct one concert in May, 2013, and appears scheduled for perhaps 20 performances in the 2013-14 season. This is appropriately cautious, considering the severity of his injuries and the uncertainties inherent in recovering from them. Still, for comparison, in the 1990-91 season, he appears to have conducted 57 performances, based on a search of the Met archive. When will he be able to take on a heavier workload? At the earliest, two seasons from now.

Even if he comes back as currently scheduled, he'll be 70 by next season. For how many more years does the board think a 70-year-old with a history of serious health problems can run an institution the size of the Met?  Levine is one fall (or car accident) away from another catastrophe. The Met's planning needs to include that as a possibility.

Alex Ross's blog posting, to which I linked above, noted that "...the Met seems lost without him." That points to a lack of leadership depth and poor planning on the Met's part. We know how well this works out by looking at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, now in its second season of guest conductors.

I believe that the Met is making a mistake by letting Levine's recovery and return drag out over such a long period of time. It is an enormous gamble. Except, perhaps, for Apple, no responsible for-profit corporation would let this kind of leadership vacuum develop.

For the sake of the Met, the board's best path might very well be naming Levine Music Director Emeritus, letting him conduct and work with singers as much as he's able, and naming a younger and healthier conductor to the post of Music Director. Who this might be remains to be seen. Fabio Luisi told the Times this week that he cannot cover for Levine next season, and it certainly doesn't sound as though he is in line to succeed Levine. I've seen only one rumor in the last year or so about a possible replacement ("former music director of a large US opera company," on Parterre Box some months ago). This week's article also says that the Met has "not yet addressed" who would cover for Levine in 2013-14.

Really? There is no guarantee that any performer will be on stage for any future commitment. Levine's recent history means the Met must have covers in place for those performances.

This year or last, during Levine's absence and recovery, would have made a good transition period. If he attempts to return and can't do it, it will be that much more difficult, unless the Met has a secret transition plan and secret music director candidate up its sleeve.

How We Do It

Today, Google is revealing more about our data centers than we ever have before. The Official Google Blog has the basic story, with links to a nifty web site that has gorgeous photos of a number of the data centers. Steven Levy's Wired article goes into some detail about the Lenoir data center, where I spent a couple of days myself in August. Here it is at night, viewed from a nearby hill, in fact:

And a Very Happy Birthday

The great composer Kaija Saariaho is 60 today, October 14, 2012. Here's her Fall, for harp and electronics.

Future Seasons

I've put up a Future Seasons page for San Francisco Opera: information found on the web, blabbed by singers, etc.

Tickets Offered (Not by Me)

A friend writes:

Speaking of Moby Dick, I have a ticket for the performance on the 30th, but won't be back by then. We'll be underway down the east coast then. It's for "Orchestra Premium E 106". I'd like to get some cash for it, but that's not essential. 

I also have Berkeley Rep and ACT tickets for that time frame. 

If you're interested, let me know and I'll put you in touch with Doug.

Now We Know

A press release from the Met announces some upcoming conducting engagements for Music Director James Levine, starting next spring. The details make it rather clear why the Met has been so closed-mouthed about Levine's health. That fall in August, 2011? It left him partially paralyzed.

He's scheduled to conduct:

• A Met Orchestra concert on May 19, 2013, at Carnegie
• Falstaff new production in 2013-14
• Cosi fan tutte revival in 2013-14
• Wozzeck revival in 2013-14

 Despite his condition, his doctors "expressed uniform optimism about his ability to resume conducting," but:

While his upper body strength has returned and he is progressing with his rehabilitation, the injuries have left him temporarily unable to walk. For the time being, he will conduct from a motorized wheelchair, which he also uses to move about. In anticipation of his return, the Met’s technical department is designing customized, elevating podiums that will be utilized on the Carnegie Hall stage and in the Met’s orchestra pit.

I saw a rumor at Parterre Box that Levine was seen in a wheelchair there recently. If he was there, well, yep.

Then there's this:

Dr. Stanley Fahn, the H. Houston Merritt Professor of Neurology at Columbia University, has been treating Levine for the disease in recent years. He said, “Since 1994, Maestro Levine has shown symptoms of Parkinson disease. They mainly affected his legs and also caused a mild tremor in his left hand. Fortunately, the symptoms have changed little over the years and have been suppressed with medication. This lack of progression indicates a benign form of Parkinson’s, rather than the more typical form, in which symptoms steadily worsen. In the past, Maestro Levine’s symptoms were aggravated by the stress of severe back pain. Now that he is pain-free, his mild Parkinsonism should have little impact on his quality of life and his return to conducting. His upper body strength and dexterity are quite remarkable.”

Hoo boy. I will admit to some skepticism about the extent of his involvement in the Met going forward. I suspect there's a photo of Otto Klemperer on his desk these days.

Dan Wakin interviewed Levine yesterday and has a story on the Times front page right now.

Full press release after the cut.

SFO Moby-Dick Video

Sigh.

SFO has a video posted on YouTube with excerpts from Moby-Dick. At the end of the video, you see the fully-lighted interior of the theater and see and hear a cheering crowd.

The implication: Moby-Dick is a great success! Everybody loves it!

The actuality: the show is opening tonight. No audiences have yet applauded Moby in San Francisco.

Please don't do this kind of thing. It's a form of lying to your audience.

San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music Lineup

SFS has announced their chamber music series for the 2012-13 season, and it's a first-class mix of the familiar and unfamiliar. Updating to put the schedule after the cut.

Separated at Birth?

On one side, we have I Capuleti at San Franciso Opera and the Bavarian State Opera, on the other side, Phantom of the Opera someplace or other. Which is which?

NCCO, Britten & Bartok

I had originally decided not to attend NCCO's first program, then had a change of plans and Patrick had an available ticket. So off to Herbst, where we were in the fourth row.

That's too close for me, and it created some problems. I don't like the music to go over my head, and I like some hall perspective. This didn't much affect Britten's Simple Symphony much (it is a charmer) or the Bartok Divertimento, which got a fine performance.

But I was way too close to soprano Melody Moore, who sang Britten's Les Illuminations, close enough to be annoyed by a couple of extra-musical and a couple of musical issues. She was dressed...vaguely informally, in a way I did not like: her jacket wasn't the same black as her pants, and her hair was informally disheveled. And during the performance, I thought there was an excessive amount of what amounted to nudge-nudge, wink-wink with NCCO's leader, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. There were so many knowing looks between them that it was like watching a bunch of in-jokes happening on stage.

So that was annoying. On the musical side - well, I was too close for much perspective, so I can't say much about balances and so on. I can say that when I reviewed Moore in this same music a few years back, with NCCO during Axel Strauss's audition concert, I complained about her French. I'm sorry to say that it hasn't improved, and boy, was that distracting. To the extent that I remember that program and this, I would also say that the orchestra in the earlier performance was crisper than it was this year.

MacArthur Fellows 2012

The fellowships have been announced! Several are musicians or closely connected to music:

• Claire Chase, brilliant flutist and founder of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)
• Benoit Rolland, bow maker
• Chris Thil, mandolinist

(The David Finkel who won a fellowship is not David Finckel the cellist.)

Leontyne Price Debut

So the SF Opera program has a long article on company history. It's got some mighty awkward writing, but that's not the primary thing I'm complaining about tonight. On a list of San Francisco Opera debuts, they've got this:

Leontyne Price, 1957*

The asterisk means "professional opera debut."

Now look. There's an awful lot of weaseling required to put Leontyne Price's professional opera debut in 1957. She was in a revival of Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts in 1952; the production ran for a couple of weeks on Broadway, then moved to Paris for a while. Then she sang for some time in a revival of Porgy and Bess.

Is anyone disputing the operatic status of either Four Saints or Porgy? I sure hope not.

Is anyone claiming that Price didn't get paid for those appearances? I bet she collected a paycheck.

Apparently what's really meant is that her 1957 debut at San Francisco Opera was her debut with a permanent opera company.

Capuleti Roundup

Read all about it:

• Janos Gereben (Opera West)
• Opera Tattler. Yeah, the scene changes! Man, they were tedious.
• Lisa Hirsch (and on this blog)
• Jason Vincent Serinus (SFCV). I don't know about the silvery coloratura sound. I mean, I've read a few eyewitness comments on Grisi, Pasta, and Malibran. Is that silvery sound a 20th c. convention or what Bellini would have expected? 
• Joshua Kosman and I saw the same show.
• Brian at Out West Arts is more positive about the production than I was.
• Richard Scheinin. Attractive hipster production is one way to look at it!
• SF Mike at Civic Center, positive on the music (as are we all) and rolling his eyes at the staging 
• John Marcher at A Beast in the Jungle is less down on the production than most of us. What, Norma the most preposterous?!

More as they come in.

Dumb and Dumber

But with some great singing: reviewing I Capuleti e i Montecchi at San Francisco Opera. If you don't believe me about Nicole Cabell "standing in a sink:"

Photo: Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

She spent most of the first scene up against one or the other of the walls. I really thought Lotfi Mansouri was back for minute; singers leaning on walls is one of his directorial tics, and not a good one.

Here are some of the Tim Burton escapees, surrounding Joyce DiDonato, who is doing a Fred Astaire imitation.

Photo: Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

I have nothing against Regietheater, and would love to see, for example, Stefan Herheim's Parsifal or Rusalka, which sound brilliant and illuminating. But maybe you need Germans or other northern Europeans for this; the French team responsible for Capuleti has no clue what they are doing.

The opera itself is in the second or maybe third tier of Bellini's operas; it sounds superficially like his greatest, Norma, but doesn't come close to that opera's power and impact. Don't go looking for Shakespeare, because it's based on different sources and misses the boat dramatically.

But you definitely should hear Joyce DiDonato, Nicole Cabell, and Riccardo Frizza. I know, I know, it's not exactly a conductor's opera, but Frizza is the real deal. If only SFO had had Cabell in last year's Lucrezia Borgia, and Michael Fabiano in Capuleti! Nicola Luisotti has a lock on the major Italian operas at SFO, but Frizza is so good in these second-rate operas that I would just love to hear him in one of the greater works by Donizetti, Bellini, or Verdi.

DiDonato is an interesting singer, which I mean in a good way. She isn't exactly beautiful - I think of her as appealing - and neither is her voice, but she is distinctive in a way that gets your attention. The voice is focused and penetrating rather than lush; I find the reediness and flicker vibrato truly arresting. She moves beautifully on stage and is hot hot hot because of the sexual ambiguity of her pants roles. (I find her a lot hotter than Susan Graham, who sings a similar repertory.) I loved her in Le Comte Ory, where her dramatic seriousness and focus played off so well against the froth and farce of Damrau and Florez.

Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur

Congratulation to Elliott Carter, who has been admitted to the Légion d’Honneur! Read the speech (not Carter's) here.

Metropolitan Opera, Maria Stuarda Cast Change

In the role of Leicester, Francesco Meli out, Matthew Polenzani in. Meli is no longer keeping this role in his repertory.

Steve Jobs is Rolling Over in His Grave (Or Coming Back From It)

Oh, Apple, I know you hate Google, but what a mistake.

Voter Suppression, 1960s and 2012 Style

Ta-Nehisi Coates has an important blog posting up today, The Long and Disreputable History of Repressing the Black Vote. He links to an article in The Atlantic and previously had linked to a Times article about True the Vote. Read 'em both.