Another Opening, Another Show: July 2023

As is traditional, July is a slow month, though there are still plenty of exciting prospects, particularly for film or opera buffs.

Theatrical

The New Conservatory Theater gives us Drag Queen Storytime Gone Wild, featuring the Kinsey Sicks, from 5 to 16 July.

BroadwaySF presents Les Misérables at the Orpheum from 5 to 23 July.

The African-American Shakespeare Company, in collaboration with the Craft Institute, presents Echoes of Us, directed by Michele Shay, a series of monologues covering the African diaspora featuring Vanessa Bell Calloway, Anna Maria Horsford, L Peter Callender, Jason Dirden, Sola Bamis, & Desean Terry, at the Marines’ Memorial Theater from 15 to 17 July.

The Berkeley Playhouse presents Disney's Newsies, with book by Harvey Fierstein, music by Alan Menken, & lyrics by Jack Feldman, from 15 to 23 July.

As part of its Champagne Staged Reading Series, Shotgun Players at the Ashby Stage will perform Eric John Mayer's The Antelope Party, directed by Kieran Beccia, about a group of young men who are fans of My Little Pony & a paranoid "neighborhood watch" brigade, & that's on 17 & 18 July.

On 21 July at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, you can see UnRavelled, "the story of Dr. Anne Adams and her obsession with Ravel’s Bolero. How she, through her diagnosis of Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), developed as a painter and became a remarkable artist. Through her story the play also uncovers the mystery of Ravel’s similar diagnosis almost 100 years earlier"; the play is created & written by Jake Broder & directed by James Bonas, with Curt Pajer conducting the music.

Operatic

The Merola Opera Program presents Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, conducted by Judith Yan & directed by Jan Essinger, at Herbst Theater on 13 & 15 June, but it looks as if they don't let you choose your own seat, which is going to make this a non-starter for some of us.

Pocket Opera presents Tosca in a co-production with Cinnabar Theater, with music direction by Mary Chun & stage direction by Elly Lichenstein, with Michelle Drever in the title role, Alex Boyer as her ill-fated lover Cavaradossi, & Spencer Dodd as the villainous Scarpia, & that's on 16 July at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 23 July at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, & 30 July at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

On 22 July West Edge Opera launches its annual summer festival, which will once again be at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland, with Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea (conducted by Adam Pearl, directed by NJ Agwuna, starring Shawnette Sulker as Poppea), which will play on 22 & 30 July & 3 August; then comes Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face of the Moon), the "mariachi opera" composed by José “Pepe” Martínez to a libretto by Leonard Foglia (conducted by Sixto Montesinos, directed by Karina Gutierrez, starring baritone Efraín Solís (a memorable Golaud when West Edge performed Pelléas several years ago)), & that plays on 23 & 28 July & 5 August; then comes a double-bill of Stravinsky's Le Rossignol (The Nightingale) & Schoenberg's Erwartung (Expectation) (both conducted by Jonathan Khuner & directed by Giselle Ty, with Helen Zhibing Huang in the title role of the Stravinsky & Mary Evelyn Hangley in the Schoenberg), & those play on 29 July & 4 & 6 August.

In addition to their three main presentations, West Edge is offering a work-in-progress orchestra preview of Dolores, a work it has commissioned from Nicolás Lell Benavides (music) & Marella Martin Koch (libretto), based on the life of labor activist Dolores Huerta, & that's 13 August at the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco.

Vocalists

Enrico Lopez-Yañez leads the San Francisco Symphony in a program (details yet to be announced) featuring the "Queen of Mariachi," Aída Cuevas, on 15 July.

Orchestral

The San Francisco Symphony is in summer mode this month (popular classics, lots of film play-alongs), but you can also hear Joshua Weilerstein conducting Pavel Haas's Study for Strings, the Sibelius Violin Concerto (with soloists Alexi Kenney), & the Dvořák 9, From the New World, on 6 July; Anna Rakitina conducting the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2 (with soloist Denis Kozhukhin) & Elgar's Enigma Variations on 13 July; & on 22 July Edwin Outwater conducting musical highlights from The Golden Age of Cinema, featuring cellist Sterling Elliott & music by Elmer Bernstein, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Leonard Bernstein, Bernard Herrmann, Miklós Rózsa, & John Williams.

Sun Ra & his Arkestra will be in residence at the SF Jazz Center this month; on 20 - 21 July, they will focus on "the more experimental exploratory music from Sun Ra’s songbook" & on 22 - 23 July on his "music associated with the big band swing tradition".

Chamber Music

On 23 July, Old First Concerts presents cellist Sarah Hong & pianist Makiko Ooka in Le Due Muse: An Evening of Music by Latin American Composers, featuring works by Manuel M. Ponce, Heitor Villa Lobos, Alberto Ginastera, & Astor Piazzolla.

Early / Baroque Music

The Handel Opera Project will perform Psalms by Handel, Liszt, & Vivaldi, along with Purcell's Come, Ye Sons of Art, featuring Sara Couden, Angela Jarosz, Jennifer Mitchell, Reuben Zellman, & Bradley Kynard, on 16 July at the Maybeck-designed First Church of Christ Scientist on Dwight Way in Berkeley.

Jeffrey Thomas & the American Bach Soloists launch their annual summer festival this month, beginning on 27 July with music by John Blow, Vivaldi, Telemann, & Bach, along with the world premiere of Spring in San Francisco by José Daniel Vargas, the winner of the American Bach New Music for Period Instruments Competition; followed by Explorations: Bach Beyond Baroque on 28 July, featuring pianist Oliver Moore playing music by Bach & arrangements of Bach by Camille Saint-Saëns, Busoni, & Liszt (& of Handel by Brahms); an informal, immersive performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons on 29 July, featuring SFBaroque (Jacob Ashworth, Tatiana Chulochnikova, Tomà Iliev, & YuEun Gemma Kim); & on 30 July, ABS's annual performance of the Mass in B Minor, featuring soprano Hélène Brunet, mezzo-soprano Sarah Coit, contralto Agnes Vojtko, tenor Aaron Sheehan, & bass-baritone Christian Pursell.

Modern / Contemporary Music

On 1 July at the Center for New Music, you can hear Desert Magic performing Dance of the Planets, a "theatrical solar system sonification which involves paper-mache planet hats and guitar patterns mapped to the orbital speeds of the planets", as well as their current project, songs using Ursula K Le Guin’s version of the Tao Te Ching as text; the ensemble's current make-up is Alex Wand (viola da gamba, resonator guitar, voice), Steven Van Betten (electric guitar, voice), Logan Hone (drums, saxophone, voice), Heather Lockie (viola), Stuart Wheeler (voice, organ), Mustafa Walker (hurdy gurdy, lute), Jessica Hemingway (dance), & Brock Stuessi (upright bass).

Other Minds offers two concerts this month: on 13 July at the Dresher Ensemble Studio in Oakland, as part of The Nature of Music series, Wendy Reid will discuss and perform a set of her Tree Pieces, focusing on the Bird Collection, five works spanning four decades; & on 22 July at Saint John the Evangelist Episcopal in San Francisco, you can hear experimental ambient music from Joel St Julien, Christopher Robin Duncan, & CGRSM (Christopher Reid Martin &  Gabie Strong).

Dance

Savion Glover will be in residence at the SF Jazz Center with two different programs: on 13 - 14 July, he pays tribute to Gregory Hines & the Hoofers, & on 15 - 16 July, to Sun Ra & his Arkestra.

Art Means Painting

At the Oakland Museum of California, Into the Brightness: Artists from Creativity Explored, Creative Growth & NIAD is now on view, showcasing "myriad works from contemporary artists with developmental disabilities".

Bouke de Vries: Memories in Porcelain, in which the artist repurposes broken ceramics into new or recreated forms, opens at the Legion of Honor on 22 July & runs through 24 March 2024.

Crafting Radicality: Bay Area Artists from the Svane Gift opens at the de Young Museum on 22 July & runs through 31 December.

Hung Liu: Witness, featuring works by the late artist in SFMOMA's collection, opens at the museum on 30 June & runs through 10 December.

Cinematic

BAMPFA begins several interesting-looking film series this month: Luis Buñuel’s Magnificent Weapon surveys the surrealist filmmaker's work, beginning 7 July; Out of the Vault: The Enchanted Yuliya Solntseva begins on 21 July & showcases Solntseva as both actor & director (including collaborations with her husband, Oleksandr Dovzhenko. including possibly his best known film, Earth); & Preston Sturges: More Than Comedy begins on 27 July & highlights the brief but wild flourishing of actor-director Sturges.

The Roxie Theater in San Francisco presents Three in the Key of Tarr this month, starting 7 July with a new restoration of Werckmeister Harmonies, the seven-hour epic Sátántangó on 23 July, & Twilight (from regular Tarr collaborator György Fehér & never before released in the US) on 15 July.

The annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival will run at the Castro Theater from 12 to 16 July, & the usual riches will include a new restoration of Sessue Hayakawa's The Dragon Painter; you can see the full schedule here.

The Jewish Film Festival opens at the Castro Theater on 20 July with a tribute to Gene Wilder & ends on 30 July at the same venue with Bella!, a documentary about Bella Abzug; you can find the whole schedule here.