Museum Monday 2025/46

 

detail of Boatmen on the Missouri by George Caleb Bingham, now at the de Young Museum

Friday Photo 2025/46

 

Winter branches

San Francisco Opera: the Ring is coming!

(from left to right: baritone Brian Mulligan, director Francesca Zambello, Music Director Eun Sun Kim, General Director Matthew Shilvock)

Yesterday afternoon in the Taube Atrium Theater, adjacent to the Opera House, San Francisco Opera made it official: Der Ring des Nibelungen is returning, with three full cycles in June 2028, along with stand-alone Rheingolds &  Walküres in preceding seasons. This announcement was not exactly a surprise, as the Verdi / Wagner project inaugurated when Eun Sun Kim was hired as Music Director implicitly would have to include the Ring, but there are now definite times, & at least some definite performers. What was a surprise, & almost a shock as far as I was concerned, was General Director Matthew Shilvock's statement that this would be the first full Ring cycle in the United States since the pandemic. But thinking for a moment about the dates, maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised, as it takes years to put together a Ring cycle (hence yesterday's announcement, years in advance of the performances) & the pandemic really wasn't that long ago: depending on how you calculate its end, maybe four years? And so much has happened since then, most of it ranging from bad to very very bad. (So I at least am grateful to have a Ring to look forward to.)

Kim of course will be the conductor, & this will be her first full Ring cycle. (During the Q&A after the presentation, Lisa Hirsch asked if Kim would be the first woman to conduct a full cycle in the United States, & it looks as if she probably will be.) Francesca Zambello's production will be revived (& probably, to some extent, revised, just because that's how these things go). Our principal singers were also announced: Brian Mulligan as Wotan (his first full Cycle in the role), Tamara Wilson as Brünnhilde (making her company debut), & Simon O'Neill as Siegfried. It's probably just me, but when they announced the "three" principals, I thought, "Wotan, Brünnhilde, & . . . who is the third lead?" Haha, so much for The Hero. (Personally, I might suggest Alberich as #3.)

Music director Eun Sun Kim

You can get such details as are currently available here on the Opera's website. Here are some highlights, or maybe odds & ends, from the presentation:

We were fed, which is always important at these things! Various sausages (beef, chicken, & vegan), cut in half  (not lengthwise, the other way), served on rolls, with mustard & sauerkraut available, very tasty, as well as thick pretzels, all very Bavarian, along with wine, beer, soft drinks, & sparkling water. Everything ran smoothly, on time, & was well coordinated (anyone who's been involved in any level in such presentations knows how impressive this is).

The large scene behind the panelists showed various logos (San Francisco Opera, the 2028 Ring logo) or various scenes from earlier productions, or shots of the performers. It was all appropriate & visually interesting, engaging enough to be useful but not obtrusive enough to be distracting.

Shilvock led a discussion with Kim, Zambello, & Mulligan. Each gave some highlights of her or his history with the Ring. Each mentioned, in their own ways, how different Wagner is from the rest of the repertory: a different level of engagement & intensity. Zambello noted that "obviously I love Verdi – look at my last name!" but directing Wagner is different. Both she & Kim noted that the musicians performing Wagner are ones who really want to be there. I was struck by the underlying theme (a leitmotif, if you will, & I guess we must) of the sheer physical difficulty of performing these lengthy & demanding works. Kim mentioned the shoulder strain of the musicians, Mulligan mentioned the daunting level of details involved in something like Wotan's Act 2 "soliloquy" to Brünnhilde in Walküre. Zambello mentioned at that point that that's where she & the conductor act as coaches, helping the singer break things down into less overwhelming segments of a few minutes each. Pacing yourself as for a marathon was repeatedly mentioned.

There was even some consideration of the physical demands on the audience: when asked what one, needed to attend a Ring, particularly for the first time, Kim immediately responded, "A good cushion." I was amused by the echo of Nilsson's advice for singing the big Wagner roles: "Wear comfortable shoes." Kim's remark came from her experience as an assistant conductor at Bayreuth, home of famously excellent acoustics & famously uncomfortable seating. Other than that, people (in the audience as well as on stage) offered varied perspectives on how much "homework" (reading the librettos or some sort of analysis of the Ring, studying the different leitmotifs) was helpful or even necessary. Some vouched for just jumping into the deep end (another sports metaphor).

Zambello was asked what moment in the Ring was most difficult to stage, & she immediately said, "the end of Götterdämmerung." The music is a lot to live up to. All panelists talked about how thoroughly the music guides one through the works, but also about how difficult it is to live up to the music. Shilvock asked the three which role they would ideally play. Kim didn't give an answer, but Mullligan immediately said Hagen, which I thought was an interesting choice, & Zambello said it would have to be Brünnhilde: she even has the name of Brünnhilde's horse on her car's license plate. When discussing her staging of the Ring, Zambello mentioned that it had been described as a "feminist" Ring, but, she pointed out, that's what Wagner wrote. I've also heard other Ring stagings described as "feminist" & I'm never clear what exactly that means in this context, as that interpretation is inherent in the material: no matter what you think of Siegfried, it really is Brünnhilde who is the key to the Cycle.

director Francesca Zambello & General Director Matthew Shilvock

There were some interesting questions from the audience; Joshua Kosman asked Mulligan about putting together the three Wotans: is there a development in the character, or do you approach each opera separately? Mulligan responded with his view of the arc of Wotan's development. I think it was then that he said Wotan's passionate outburst to Erda in Siegfried was one of his favorite moments in the role: the true love duet in the Ring.

Zambello had mentioned working through staging by way of character, which is how you turn moments from potentially mechanical exposition into something more dramatic. Scene 2 of Rheingold in particular was discussed as, in her terms, "a one-act play"; Mulligan mentioned the concentration necessary to keep up with all the overlapping exchanges of information in that scene. The Ring, for all its vastness, is often quite intimate (I was surprised by this initially, until I realized how much of it is based on Greek tragedy, which also mostly uses only a few individuals at a time in the dramatic scenes).

One questioner asked how many people had, like him, come to Wagner through Anna Russell. About ten had, but I noticed when he mentioned Russell, Kim looked puzzled & whispered something to Shilvock: time moves on, & it's been decades since Russell performed; it seemed likely to me that Kim had not heard of her. If she does look up the comedian's famous, or once famous, routine (in which she mostly just recites the plot of the Ring: "I'm not making this up, you know!") I wonder what she'll think of it. Unfortunately there was no follow-up question asking about What's Opera, Doc?

There were questions about the number of leitmotifs (someone in the audience offered I think it was 176 as the answer), & about how many musicians in the orchestra were new since the last Ring was done in 2018 (quite a few of them, apparently). Mention was naturally made of the great extra expense of putting on the Ring, which of course is one reason for announcing the performances years in advance, to allow for the necessary fund raising. And there was a question about the promised ancillary events: would they include some sort of partnership with our local WNBA team, the Valkyries? That too will be revealed as June 2028 draws closer.

Ring swag! Each attendee was given a branded tote bag.

Museum Monday 2025/45

 

Lovers in a Garden, a sixteenth-century stained glass work from the Netherlands, now at the Art Institute of Chicago

Friday Photo 2025/45

 

the Orpheum Theater, Market Street, San Francisco

San Francisco Opera: Parsifal

Where do you begin with Parsifal? Where can you end?

I was at the first performance of San Francisco Opera's current revival of Parsifal. As usual after one of the major Wagner works I reeled out afterwards, needing several days to adjust to what we so blithely, amusingly, & thoughtlessly call "reality". That's Parsifal, a work that has run like a leitmotiv through my inner life. I saw the Opera's previous staging, by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, a quarter of a century ago; my major memory is of Kundry at the end, wandering down the railroad tracks that were a prominent feature of the staging (intended as an echo of the Shoah, I think), heading towards . . . a life redeemed from the guilt that oppresses her? a death that relieves her of sin, sorrow, & regret? An ambiguity, among the work's other ambiguities, that can haunt the susceptible. It's the image that unwittingly stuck in my mind: Kundry, the conflicted, the wounded, the mocker & helper, finally free to wander off. That was several years before I started posting here, so I can link to no thoughts from the time. For other encounters with Parsifal, including  the famous Syberberg film & the notorious "bunny" staging at Bayreuth, I offer an early post of mine, which you can find here.

I guess I should just start by saying that the current San Francisco production is very fine, very rich, very thoughtful, & would repay repeated visits, but, at the risk of sounding like Mme Verdurin in Proust, I wasn't sure my life could take it. Eun Sun Kim, who conducted, is proving once again that hiring her is one of the best recent moves the Opera has made. Her continuing Verdi / Wagner project is a source of prospective joy & hope. She apparently is the one who insisted that even before the music begins the house lights be turned completely down so we, the audience, can sit for a moment in initiatory darkness. Unfortunately, there were a number of audience members who of course had to have their goddamn cell phones out & on until after the music had started, because we, as a culture, are shallow. That's not a strong enough word, but I'll let it go. The intention of darkness & silence was there, & it was a powerful one, again, to those susceptible.

The staging by Matthew Ozawa is elegant & evocative. It has a ritualistic feel & a fairy-tale look that suit the story & leaves what we're seeing open to ruminative & variant, even contradictory, interpretations. In the first & third acts, the arching Gothic columns turn into tree trunks & back with fluid ease; the colors are dark, with brighter splashes, including a trio of dancers in scarlet (Gabrielle Sprauve, Brett Conway, & Livanna Mailsen, with stately movements by Rena Butler; they added quite a bit to the ritualistic aura of the production). The Flower Maidens in the second act made a particularly lovely scene, in shades of green, teal, pale blue, & yellow, glowing softly against a midnight blue-velvet background; it looked like an illumination by Edmund Dulac.

It was such a striking moment that I regretted the failure in Act 3 to provide the contrasting field of Good Friday flowers; instead we were given the Act 1 set, a bit decayed like the Knighthood of the Grail, but glowing with the redemption offered by Parsifal, who takes up the Grail rituals – actually, in this production, offered by Parsifal with Kundry who stand together, united, both in flowing white robes. I know some who objected to this change to the libretto. I was fine with it. It's a union & liberation of anguished forces, a redemption offered regardless of sexuality. Kundry herself is such a fascinating figure. In Act 1, here, she wears an odd sort of feathered outfit that made her look like a misfit bird. (For some reason, the two young women seated in front of me found this cause for chuckling, which I did not understand. They disappeared during Act 2, but to my surprise they returned for Act 3.) It's an evocation of the natural world that flows into the potential meanings of this staging (a misfit bird, like the swan Parsifal shoots, though perhaps he is the one who is the misfit there). Kundry was performed with intensity by Tanja Ariane Baumgartner.

All the roles, though, were filled with intensity by an excellent cast. Gurnemanz, the garrulous gatekeeper, who, like many such insiders, speak with authority & even compassion but can't quite comprehend those who are outside his organization (hence his dismissal of the awkward & he thinks uncomprehending Parsifal at the end of Act 1) was powerfully presented by Kwangchul Youn. Falk Struckmann was a perversely forceful Klingsor; I'm always surprised by how short this role actually is, given his miasmic presence in the opera. The suffering of Amfortas, he of the unending wound, had searing intensity in the performance of Brian Mulligan. And Brandon Jovanovich as the holy fool . . . this may be the role he was born to play. He has a presence both authoritative & innocent; you can easily see him as both the heedless country bumpkin of Act 1, the swan-shooter, & Act 2's troubled, searching, ultimately compassionate man who rejects Kundry's sexual advances but still offers her a loving understanding, & Act 3's firmly focused & mature Knight. He sings with purity & piercing empathy.

Parsifal is an interesting revision of an earlier Wagner hero, sort of a Siegfried 2.0. It was Bernard Shaw who pointed out the shift in Wagner, from a hero who was a dragon-slayer to one who is rebuked for, & regrets, shooting a swan in flight. There is the same alienation from conventional society, the same pang in him because of that alienation, his ignorance of his background &, especially, of his mother, that source of life & knowledge. Parsifal, though, is without what often strikes us as Siegfried's thoughtless arrogance, those Ubermenschy qualities that ring unpleasantly in 21st century ears. Parsifal listens. He considers. He is open to others, which is how he frees both them & himself.

Personally, I've always thought of Parsifal as one of the great examinations of the odd inextricable mixture of the spiritual & the sexual, a search for a cathartic synthesis of animal & angel that might count as, if not redemption, at least peace. I think Amfortas's wound, the unending, unhealable wound, is sexual desire. That's why the crucial moment in the opera is when Parsifal rejects Kundry sexually but still is open to her with compassion, as a suffering being. (This is the moment, in Syberberg's film, when the young man playing Parsifal is replaced by a young woman: I see his intention, despite the dubious gender assumptions.) Klingsor, like the Church Father / heretic Origen, castrated himself (allegedly, in Origen's case); that's one way of trying to avoid the struggle of fitting sexuality into life, but ultimately not a satisfying one (I think of Cleopatra's conversation with the eunuch, in Shakespeare's play, where he confesses that desire remains: "I think of what Venus did with Mars"). Wagner was clearly a person for whom eroticism was a guiding  force (think of Tristan!); his music, with its sinuous, insinuating, opiate lines, argues for the inescapability of our urges. Did he solve it, in Parsifal? Did he dissolve the erotic in the religious & the ritualistically religious into the redemptive, in a five-hour dramatization of Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Avila, freeing us from our trammeling flesh? Is there even a possible answer to this question?

Perhaps the plenitude of Parsifal is to prompt questions, & offer nothing but suggestions of possible answers.

Benjamin Appl & James Bailieu: Homage to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Baritone Banjamin Appl & pianist James Bailieu recently made a return visit to Herbst Theater & San Francisco Performances with their latest program, For Dieter: The Past and the Future: Homage to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Appl was one of the great lieder singer's final pupils, & considers him a mentor, & he has put together a substantial & rewarding CD set to celebrate his centennial, filled with photographs & information about Fischer-Dieskau & including Appl's renditions of songs associated with different phases of the older baritone's often difficult life. The program at Herbst is similar to that on the recording, but with some differences in arrangement& repertory.

Usually the Herbst stage is, Steinway aside, bare for these recitals, but in this case there was the addition of a stand holding a copy of one of Fischer-Dieskau's self-portraits. Appl & Bailieu both came out, dressed with an unusual formality these days in white tie & tails (though Bailieu was also wearing some stylishly striped socks, though in muted colors). I wondered if the somewhat old-fashioned attire was part of the tribute to a giant of an earlier era.

Between the carefully selected songs, Appl & Bailieu gave us the basic facts of Fischer-Dieskau's life. As he came of age during the Second World War, we obviously start in tumultuous & troubled times; I did not know that he had a disabled brother who was murdered under the Nazi's eugenics policies. Fischer-Dieskau, always a musical child, began singing frequently when he was a prisoner of war in an American-run camp in Italy, after the collapse of the fascist regimes.

Fischer-Dieskau's musical achievements approach the legendary; though I never heard him sing live, his recordings of lieder & opera formed a basic part of my musical self-education. I can't even remember how or where I first heard of him; I just knew that his name on a recording was basically a seal of artistic integrity & therefore the disc would be worth buying & listening to repeatedly. These achievements were, it seems, not mostly mirrored in his private life, which seems to have been marked by depression, self-doubt, & other emotional struggles. He seems to have used such emotions as a spur to keep working & refining his art, though perhaps I should say his arts, as, in addition to singing, he produced an astonishing number of paintings. (Sometimes I think that good time management might be the key skill in life.)

Appl related several of his personal encounters with his mentor, including the last time the two met; I will quote Appl's words from the CD set: "The last time I visited Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in his house on Lake Starnberg was just a few weeks before his death on 18 May 2012; it was important to him to explore Schubert's Hafner-Lieder once again, The themes of these songs include a longing for death, isolation, and reproaches to the gods after a tragic life. He was depressed and his mood was dark; he often fell asleep briefly during the lessons or began to cry. I sensed that this was the last time I would be able to see him."

There were also less somber stories, including one about Appl arriving for a lesson & Fischer-Dieskau coming out to meet him & announcing that he & Julia [Varady, the soprano who was his final wife] had been discussing it at breakfast & they had decided that "Benjamin Appl" was too complicated a name for an international career, & he should now go by "Ben Appl". Appl told us he refrained from responding, "Very well, Mr Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau." What struck me as very amusing about this story was that Fischer-Dieskau's objection was to the younger man's first name, which is fairly common in the English-speaking world & in any case not very difficult, instead of to his last name, which computers struggles with, as it seems to lack the final e necessary for autocorrect's acceptance. People do get hung up on funny things.

Appl sang with a velvety warmth & an attention to meaning that would have given satisfaction to his mentor. The whole recital was clearly sincere & loving & deeply meaningful to the performers, emotions they conveyed to the audience (which thankfully refrained from unnecessary applause that would interrupt the flow of song & anecdote). Most of the pieces were in German, as you might expect, but as we neared the end there was one item in English, the mysterious & evocative setting by Fischer-Dieskau's friend Benjamin Britten of William Blake's Proverb III: "The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship." It's a sentiment that may give some insight into how Fischer-Dieskau managed through life, though the delicately suspenseful, even eerie, music undercuts any possible sense of hearty comradeship.

One interesting bit of information is that the most significant lieder set for the baritone was not Winterreise, as you might expect, but the Brahms Vier ernste Gesänge Opus 121 (Four Serious Songs), a meditative setting of Biblical texts from Ecclesiastes, Sirach, & First Corinthians. (We were given a lovely Der Lindenbaum from Winterreise earlier in the program.)

One significant different between the order of the night's program & that of the CD was the placement of Schubert's An die Musik; this act of profound thanksgiving for the "Blessed Art" opens the recording, but closed the concert. It was preceded by Schubert's Litanei auf das Fest Allerseelen (Litany for all Souls), a prayer for rest for the weary who have passed through life. Together the two songs acted as a summation of the often anguished, always dedicated musician whose art & life we had spent the evening exploring; these two last songs spread over the auditorium like a final benediction. I thought of Larkin's famous lines about the jazz trumpeter Sidney Bechet: "On me your voice falls as they say love should, / Like an enormous yes. . . ."

For the encore, Appl first read a long passage from the diaries of Fischer-Dieskau's wife about his first visit to San Francisco (I think this was in the 1950s), a narration of outward triumph but inward risk & uncertainty, as Fischer-Dieskau suffered a few vocal blips but nonetheless triumphed with critics & audience, though he was distressed & anxious enough to leave the theater while the German Consul was looking for him. The final song was another item in English, the folk song The Foggy, Foggy Dew (I assume in Britten's setting, as tribute to their association). Appl's English diction is remarkable, & his telling rendition of the song was both witty & mournful. I wondered if the choice of that particular piece as the encore was a tribute to the celebrated fogs of San Francisco.

San Francisco Opera: Beethoven & Falla

In recent seasons Music Director Eun Sun Kim has led the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in one-off concerts featuring the symphonic repertory; the most recent of these, featuring works by Manuel de Falla as well as the Beethoven 5, was the first of these I have attended. It was an enjoyable evening, & the Opera House was full & enthusiastic.

For the opener, mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack came out, looking exceedingly glam in a low-cut gown of a deep iridescent purple, with ruffles cascading down one side & her dark hair swept up, to perform de Falla's Siete canciones populares españolas (Seven Popular Songs). I don't know how many other members of the audience had these songs in the back of their minds, memories conjured up through Mack's warm, rich voice. Though they sound typically "Spanish", they also evoke different moods & modes, from the wistful regrets of El paño moruno (The Moorish Cloth), about a once-fine cloth for sale that goes for a lower price because it is stained (Ay!) – draw your own metaphorical conclusions – to the bitter edge of lost love in Canción (Song), but I found the loveliest to be Nana (Lullaby), a soothing & sad midpoint to the set.

I would happily have heard more of Mack, but after her seven songs she left the stage, & we were given a Suite from de Falla's ballet music for  El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat). Again, a piece evocative of an idealized Spain of an earlier time, a vaguely foreign world of swirling flamenco dancers, in its colors & rhythms. Kim shaped a lively performance. In the full ballet there is a witty quotation of the opening of Beethoven's Fifth, which she had worked back into this suite: a preview of coming attractions, as it were.

The opening of the Beethoven 5 is of course possibly the most famous moment in "classical" music, known to those who know nothing else, similar to "To be or not to be" for classic theater, a phrase similar in its stripped-down daring, its challenge to our existential being. I can't remember the last time I heard the Beethoven 5 played live! This is true of many of the "standards" – how often have we actually heard them live, & how recently? That's especially true if you're a long-time concert-goer, who probably, after many decades of attendance, & in the face of dwindling time, money, & energy, automatically avoids these standards. And then something happens, & we end up hearing them again, & we wonder why we don't listen to them all the time, as they have so much to give. If you keep house the way I do, you frequently have the experience of coming across something you only vaguely remembered that you owned, & finding in it, as if it were Christmas morning, the enchantments of new discovery. Revisiting the basic repertory is like that.

The performance struck me as vivid & full of tensile energy, fleet rather than ponderous. There was enthusiastic applause after the first two movements (I don't know if people were unaware of not clapping between movements, or if, in the style of our day, they didn't care about that convention); as the third movement moved right into the finale, there was no interruption then for applause, & we moved right into the blazing conclusion. Bits of this symphony have floated through my mind since I heard this performance. Through a developing struggle to some sort of breakthrough: it's an encouraging message for us, in our troubled times. I was very glad to hear this music again, played so beautifully, & I hope I never again take Beethoven or this symphony for granted.

Museum Monday 2025/44

 

detail of Triptych for Steven by Suzanne Jackson, seen at SFMOMA as part of the special exhibition Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love

Friday Photo 2025/44

 

San Leandro sidewalk: Godzilla on a skateboard