Just found out about this:
On Sunday, 10 December, at 3:00 in the afternoon, organist Jonathan Dimmock will perform Messiaen's complete La Nativité du Seigneur at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland; there is no admission charge but a goodwill offering would be gratefully accepted.
detail of The Cumaean Sibyl by Donato Creti, now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
So we come to the end of another year, at least as far as the calendar is concerned; for most performance groups, it's nearing halfway through the season, & of course Time itself is an arbitrary construct. Philosophizing aside, there's a lot going on this month (especially among choruses & baroque music specialists; very few solo instrumentalists, though!), almost all of it linked to the holidays in some way; I started to put such things in a separate section but soon realized it would be easier to put the non-holiday events separately (I ended up not doing that either, though I did pull out Messiahs, meaning full performances not just excerpts, & Nutcrackers, meaning danced ones, though there are at least two performances this month of the Ellington / Strayhorn jazzed up suite). After all, holiday performances can be a liminal space, & a play or concert that isn't full-on Deck the Halls could be something festive that will lift your spirits, & I'm sure I'm not the only one who could use with some spirit-lifting this year.
Here's an unclassifiable event to help move on from this year & usher in the next: on New Year's Eve, The Asian Art Museum will host the 38th Annual Japanese New Year Bell-Ringing Ceremony; here's the description from their site (where you can also get a ticket if you'd like to ring the bell yourself): "Ring in the New Year by taking a swing at a 2,100-pound, 16th-century Japanese temple bell. Led by Reverend Gengo Akiba, this inspiring ceremony will include a purification ritual and chanting of the Buddhist Heart Sutra. Visitors will have an opportunity to ring the bell to leave behind any unfortunate experiences, regrettable deeds, or ill luck from the year. The bell will be struck 108 times to usher in the New Year and curb the 108 mortal desires (bonno) that, according to Buddhist belief, torment humankind."
Theatrical
Theater of Yugen presents two short kyōgen plays (in English), Fukuro Yamabushi (The Owl Mountain Priest), & Act 2 of Ben Jonson's Volpone, a new Kyogen adaptation by Lluís Valls (part of a full-length adaptation in development), on 1 - 3 December at NOHSpace.
New Conservatory Theater Center presents the musical Ruthless! (book & lyrics by Joel Paley, music by Marvin Laird, directed by Dyan McBride, musical direction by Joe Wicht, choreographed by Staci Arriaga), which sounds like a combination of All About Eve, The Bad Seed, & Macbeth, from 1 December through 7 January; for a perhaps more traditional holiday show, NCTC is presenting Katya, A Holiday Spectacular, featuring J Conrad Frank as Countess Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, from 20 to 22 December.
BroadwaySF presents Mamma Mia!, the ABBA musical, at the Golden Gate Theater from 5 to 10 December; I saw the movies a few years ago, & they were fun, though maybe not as much fun as I'd hoped.
ACT's annual production of A Christmas Carol, adapted by Carey Perloff & Paul Walsh & directed by Peter J Kuo, runs at the Toni Rembe Theater (formerly the Geary Theater) from 6 to 24 December.
BroadwaySF presents A Drag Queen Christmas at the Curran Theater on 9 December.
BroadwaySF brings Aaron Sorkin’s Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, directed by Bartlett Sher & starring Richard Thomas, to the Golden Gate Theater from 12 to 17 December.
Theater Rhinoceros presents Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, performed by Sandra Schlechter & directed by Rica Anderson, on 13 December.
The Lorraine Hansberry Theater presents Soulful Christmas, with musical direction by Yvonne Cobbs & stage direction by Margot Hall, at Fort Mason 14 to 17 December.
BroadwaySF presents Million Dollar Quartet Christmas, featuring 1950s rock, at the Curran Theater from 15 to 17 December.
The African-American Shakespeare Company presents its annual Cinderella, directed by Sherri Young, at Herbst Theater from 15 to 17 December.
Guys & Dolls will be running at San Francisco Playhouse through 13 January 2024.
Sex, Camp, Rock N' Roll, a "musical, cabaret fantasy" starring Ryan Patrick Welsh, will be presented by Shotgun Players at the Ashby Stage on 5, 18, & 19 December.
John Waters brings his annual one-man Christmas show, A John Waters Christmas - Let's Blow \It Up, to the Great American Music Hall on 30 November.
Operatic
Before the Nutcracker takes over the War Memorial Opera House, you can catch the last two performances of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore at the San Francisco Opera on 5 & 9 December (there is also a performance, sort of, on 1 December, billed as The Elixir of Love Encounter, in which only Act 1 of the opera is performed & then you're supposed to go to a party in the lobby; personally I don't really get the appeal, especially as the opera's most famous aria is in the second half. But then I am not really a Party Person. Maybe if they want detachable Act Ones, the Walkure Experience is coming our way?).
The Future Is Now, in which the current group of Adler Fellows will perform operatic arias & scenes, will take place on 2 December at Herbst Theater with Ramón Tebar conducting, but as with the Merola presentations this summer, & unlike the San Francisco Opera mainstage productions, the website does not allow you to choose your own seat, which I find inexplicable in 2023. I suppose if you're picky about where you sit (I am, very much so) you could call the Box Office at (415) 864-3330, or you could just do something else with your time & money because WHAT THE HELL IS THIS I DON'T NEED MORE COMPLICATIONS IN MY LIFE.
Philharmonia Baroque will perform Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, conducted by John Butt & featuring Nicole Heaston as Dido, Matthew Brook as Aeneas, Nardus Williams as Belinda, & Allison Cook as the Sorceress, on 2 December (two performances, afternoon & evening) at First Congregational in Berkeley.
On 5 December at the Berkeley City Club, Berkeley Chamber Performances presents the world premiere of Einstein at Princeton, a chamber opera by Allen Shearer & Claudia Stevens, with the Strata Trio & Trio Solano; the opera focuses on the women in Einstein's life during his final years at Princeton; in addition to the opera, the Strata Trio will also perform works by Mozart & Bartók.
Choral
Pacific Edge Voices will perform Canciones de Luz – Songs of Light, a holiday program concentrating on Spanish works, featuring "Argentinian, Basque and Mexican works in Spanish and Indigenous languages from across the Americas and beyond, and the music will include drums, guitar, harpsichord and more!"; that's 3 December at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco & 8 December at First Congregational in Berkeley.
The International Orange Chorale gives us Holidays with a Twist, its first-ever holiday concert, on 1 December at Christ Church in Berkeley, 2 December at Saint Matthew's Lutheran in San Francisco, & 10 December at the 222 in Healdsburg.
Sacred & Profane offers Reflections of Peace, featuring explorations of inner & outer peace from Josquin des Prez, Arvo Pärt, Trevor Weston, Amy Beach, Knut Nystedt, Fredrik Sixten, Martin Åsander, Ken Burton, Karin Rehnqvist, Nick Weininger, Sanford Dole, & Kirke Mechem, & that's 1 December at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley, 2 December at Saint John the Evangelist Episcopal in San Francisco, & 3 December at Church of the Incarnation in Santa Rosa.
New Chorus Director John Keene leads the San Francisco Opera Chorus in concert at the Taube Atrium Theater on 8 December (seating is general admission).
Old First Concerts presents Light and Love from the Ragazzi Boys Chorus, Silicon Valley, led by Kent Jue, on 10 December.
Valérie Sainte-Agathe leads the San Francisco Girls Chorus, with special guest Sam Reider, in folk songs of the world, on 11 December at Davies Hall.
The Golden Gate Men's Chorus offers Star of Wonder, featuring "shimmering winter anthems, joyful carols, and sentimental holiday classics" on 14, 16, 17, & 19 December at Saint Matthew's Lutheran in San Francisco (near Mission Dolores).
Old First Concerts presents the Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco, led by Matthew Otto, in their annual Carols by Candlelight concert on 15 December.
Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble performs its annual Wintersongs concerts on 15 - 16 December at Saint Paul's in Oakland & 17 December in San Francisco at Old First Church.
Chanticleer tours its annual Christmas concert around many local towns; they will be in the Bay Area on 17 December at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, 19 December at First Church in Berkeley, & 23 December at Saint Ignatius in San Francisco.
Cal Performances presents the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus Holiday Spectacular on 17 December in Zellerbach Hall.
Vocalists
On 3 December at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Catherine Cook & Rhoslyn Jones, with pianist Alex Katsman, give a faculty vocal recital including pieces by Copland, Handel, Heggie, Puccini, Rachmaninov, Richard Strauss, & others.
Lieder Alive! presents mezzo-soprano Alice Chung with pianist Peter Grünberg (& special guest Paul Yarbrough on viola) performing the Brahms Liebestreu, Sapphische Ode, Feldeinsamkeit, Zwei Gesänge, Opus 91, D’amour l’ardente flamme from Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust, & Mahler's Rückert-Lieder at the Noe Valley Ministry on 10 December.
Kiki & Herb (Justin Vivian Bond & Kenny Mellman) bring their Christmas cabaret to the Castro Theater on 15 December, as part of their national O Come Let Us Adore Them tour.
Messiah
Jonathan Cohen conducts the San Francisco Symphony in Messiah with soloists Joélle Harvey (soprano), Jennifer Johnson Cano (mezzo-soprano), Nicholas Phan (tenor), & Michael Sumuel (bass) on 8 - 9 December at Davies Hall.
Jeffrey Thomas leads the American Bach Soloists in their annual performance of Messiah at Grace Cathedral, featuring Mary Wilson (soprano), Eric Jurenas (countertenor), Steven Brennfleck (tenor), & Jesse Blumberg (baritone), on 14 - 15 December.
Urs Leonhardt Steiner leads the Golden Gate Symphony in their annual Sing It Yourself Messiah, with soloists Michelle Cipollone (soprano), Crystal Philippi (mezzo-soprano), Meté Tasin (tenor), & Bradley Kynard (baritone), on 17 December at the Clock Tower in Benecia & 18 December at Herbst Theater in San Francisco.
Orchestral
The San Francisco Symphony has its usual array of holiday-themed concerts (all programs at Davies Hall): Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser leads Deck the Hall, an eclectic array of classic & newish holiday music, including sing-alongs, on 3 December; Daniel Stewart leads the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra in Prokofiev's Peter & the Wolf, with narrator Tom Kenny, along with other popular Christmas pieces, on 10 December (matinee); Mariachi Sol de México® de José Hernández give us a Merry-achi Christmas on 10 December (evening); Gail Deadrick leads the Symphony & vocalists Oleta Adams, Peabo Bryson, Jennifer Holliday, Ruben Studdard, & the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir (directed by Terrance Kelly) in The Colors of Christmas on 13 - 14 December; Edwin Outwater is conductor & co-emcee, along with Peaches Christ (the other co-emcee), Bianca Del Rio (drag performer), Nikola Printz (mezzo-soprano & aerialist), Renée Lubin (vocalist), Sister Roma (drag performer), Dylan Mulvaney (vocalist), Rory Davies and Michael Phillis (from the cast of Baloney), & the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus in Holiday Gaiety on 15 December; Lawrence Loh guides A Charlie Brown Christmas – Live!, an enactment of the beloved Peanuts TV special, along with various other Christmas pieces, on 20 -23 December; & Edwin Outwater leads members of the Symphony in Holiday Brass on 21 December.
On 9 December at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Vinay Parameswaran leads the SFCM Orchestra in Rossini's Overture to Semiramide, Mary Kouyoumdjian's Walking With Ghosts (with Jeff Anderle, for whom the concerto was written, on bass clarinet), & the Beethoven 3, the Eroica.
Omid Zoufonoun conducts the Oakland Symphony in their annual Let Us Break Bread Together holiday concert, this year featuring songs associated with the late, great Tina Turner; & that's 10 December at the Paramount Theater.
New Century Chamber Orchestra, led by violinist Daniel Hope, joined by trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary (making her American debut) & Jesse Barrett on English horn, give us Christmas Ornaments, a program including Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #3, his Violin Concerto #1, Corelli's Concerto grosso in G minor, Opus 6, #8, Christmas, Johann B G Neruda's Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major, Aaron Copland's Quiet City, & a medley of traditional Christmas carols arranged by Paul Bateman, & that's 15 December at First Congregational in Berkeley, 16 December at Saint Stephen's Episcopal in Tiburon, & 17 December at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco.
One Found Sound offers Holiday Pop Rox, hosted by OFS member Jesse Barrett, who will be joined by drag performers Nicki J & Obsidienne Obsurd in a program of what they promise are our favorite holiday tunes, along with "immersive visual experiences" by filmmaker Max Savage, on 9 December at Little Boxes Theater in San Francisco.
Jory Fankuchen leads the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in the world premiere of Sumi Tonooka's Sketch at Seven, along with the Schumann Cello Concerto in A Minor (with soloist Sara Flexer) & the Schubert 9, The Great C Major, & that's 29 December at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, 31 December at First Congregational in Berkeley, & 1 January 2024 at First United Methodist in Palo Alto.
Chamber Music
The San Francisco Symphony has a chamber music concert, featuring Alexander Barantschik (violin), Peter Wyrick (cello), & Anton Nel (piano & harpsichord) playing pieces by Bach & Schubert on 3 December at the Legion of Honor.
On 5 December, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music hosts Chamber Music Tuesday with the Esmé Quartet; the quartet will be joined by Conservatory students to perform works by Mozart, Mendelssohn, & Tchaikovsky (Souvenirs of Florence).
On 7 December at the Uzay Gallery in San Francisco, the Friction Quartet will combine new & old in a program featuring music by Phillipe de Vitry, Tielman Susato, Pérotin, Trey Spruance, Arvo Pärt, & Ottorino Respighi.
Pianist Ian Scarfe joins with violinist Antoine van Dongen, violist Ben Simon, & cellist Samsun van Loon (all of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra) to play Beethoven's first String Trio & the Brahms Piano Quartet in C minor, & that's 4 December at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley.
On 17 December in Davies Hall, a chamber ensemble from the San Francisco Symphony will perform works by Mozart, Brahms, Arnold Bax, & Aleksey Igudesman.
Instrumentalists
San Francisco Performances presents the Beijing Guitar Duo, performing music by Franck, Debussy, Fauré, Granados, Albéniz, & Piazzolla at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco on 2 December.
Early / Baroque Music
Paul Flight, leader of the California Bach Society, has compiled a Christmas narrative from works by Johann Rosenmüller, & you can hear it 1 December at Saint Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco, 2 December at All Saints' Episcopal in Palo Alto, & 3 December at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley.
As part of its ongoing series on Jews & Music, Philharmonia Baroque, led by Francesco Spagnolo (Jews & Music Scholar in Residence), Richard Egarr (harpsichord & conductor), & Valérie Sainte-Agathe (choral director) will perform selections from Salamone Rossi's Hashirim Asher Li-Shlomo (The Songs of Solomon), along with music by Monteverdi, including the lament from L’Arianna, & that's 4 December at the Green Room of the Veterans Building in the War Memorial complex.
Philharmonia Baroque brings us Six Centuries of Christmas, led by Richard Egarr, with seasonal music from Sweelinck, Vivaldi, John Tavener & John Taverner, Johann Pachelbel, Theodore Pachelbel, Biber, Schmelzer, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Giovanni Gabrieli, & Andrea Gabrieli, along with a world premiere from Roderick Williams, & that's 7 December at Herbst Theater, 8 December at Bing Concert Hall at Stanford, & 9 December (matinee & evening) at First Congregational in Berkeley.
Jeffrey Thomas leads the American Bach Soloists in A Baroque Christmas, featuring the Christmas sections of Messiah as well as other pieces by Handel & Charpentier's Midnight Mass, with vocal quartet Mary Wilson (soprano), Eric Jurenas (countertenor), Steven Brennfleck (tenor), & Jesse Blumberg (baritone), on 13 December at Grace Cathedral.
Cal Performances brings us the Tallis Scholars with a Christmas program, While Shepherds Watched, centering on a mass by Clemens Non Papa, as well as pieces by Victoria, de Cristo, Croce, Obrecht, & Philips, at First Congregational in Berkeley on 13 December.
Voices of Music presents Entertainment for Elizabeth, "Renaissance music from the court of Elizabeth I, including music by William Byrd for his 400th anniversary", featuring Voices of the Viol & soprano Molly Netter, on 15 December at First United Methodist in Palo Alto, 16 December at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, & 17 December at First Congregational in Berkeley.
Jeffrey Thomas & his American Bach Soloists bring us a Baroque New Year's Eve at the Opera, with soprano Maya Kherani & bass-baritone Christian Pursell singing arias from operas by Handel, Graun, & Rameau, & that's, of course, 31 December, at Herbst Theater.
Jazz, Latin, Folk, Roots, & Blues
Bruce Cockburn appears at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 1 December.
Melba's Kitchen, "the all women big band celebrating Black musical geniuses Melba Liston, Mary Lou Williams, and their friends", will be joined by pianist Tammy Hall to perform a festive program at Freight & Salvage on 7 December; there will be swing-dance lessons before the performance, & the dance floor will be open.
Cal Performances presents keyboardist Matthew Whitaker at Zellerbach Playhouse on 8 December.
The Third Annual Black Women's Roots Festival, hosted by Viveca Hawkins & featuring The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol, Mary Stallings, Kito Kamili, Miko Marks, & Alecia Harger, will take place at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 10 December.
The band Mr Sun will perform their version (sometimes faithful, sometimes inspired by) the Ellington / Strayhorn Nutcracker Suite on 13 December at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley.
Old First Concerts presents Golden Bough (Margie Butler, Paul Espinoza & Kathy Sierra) performing Christmas in a Celtic Land on 16 December.
The Christmas Jug Band, featuring "musical holiday wackiness", will perform at Freight & Salvage on 19 December.
Violinist / composer Mads Tolling & The Mads Men are having a Cool Yule CD Release concert, featuring holiday tunes from Nordic & American pop traditions, on 20 December at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley.
Local Latin band Mario y su Timbeko will be hosting a Holiday Dance Party on 22 December at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley.
SF Jazz has a solid line-up of holiday-type shows: Pink Martini featuring China Forbes does its cosmopolitan Christmas thing from 28 November to 3 December; drummer Matt Wilson's Christmas Tree-O appears on 8 December; trumpeter Etienne Charles presents a Creole / Caribbean Christmas on 9 December; Los Angeles ensemble Tres Souls performs Latin-style holiday music on 9 December; trumpeter Jonathan Dely plays Wynton Marsalis's Crescent City Christmas Card on 14 December; the Klezmatics perform music from their album Happy Joyous Hanukkah on 14 December; singer Halie Loren performs songs from her album Many Times, Many Ways: A Holiday Collection on 15 December; the Spanish Harlem Orchestra offers "a night of holiday fun with a dash of salsa picante" on 15 December; pianist Adam Shulman, along with John Wiitala on bass & James Gallagher on drums, pay tribute to Vince Guaraldi's music for A Charlie Brown Christmas on 16 December (there's a family matinee in the morning with members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus as special guests & then matinee & evening performances); guitarist & singer George Cole & his trio performs music from Nat "King" Cole's The Magic of Christmas on 16 - 17 December; the Marcus Shelby New Orchestra, joined by vocalist Tiffany Austin, play the Duke Ellington / Billy Strayhorn jazz version of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, along with other holiday music & Black spirituals, on 17 December; & then ring in the new year from 28 to 31 December with Monsieur Periné's blend of Django Reinhardt's French jazz manouche style with Latin American dance rhythms.
Dance
Cal Performances presents the Urban Bush Women in the Bay Area premiere of Hair & Other Stories, choreographed & directed by co-artistic directors Chanon Judson & Mame Diarra Speis, a "full-length dance-theater work exploring race, identity, and concepts of beauty through the lens of Black women’s hair" & you can experience that 1 - 3 December at Zellerbach Playhouse.
ODC revives its annual holiday performances of The Velveteen Rabbit, directed & choreographed by KT Nelson, from 2 - 10 December at the Yerba Buena Center.
Kathy Mata Ballet's Winter Holiday Showcase will be held at the ODC Theater on 10 December.
Smuin Ballet revives The Christmas Ballet from 14 to 24 December at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco.
Nutcrackers
Ming Luke leads San Francisco Symphony in selections from the Nutcracker with dancing by Troupe Vertigo on 5 - 6 December at Davies Hall.
City Ballet San Francisco, headed by Galina Alexandrovna, presents The Nutcracker 9 - 10 December at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Ballet performs The Nutcracker, music by Tchaikovsky & choreography by Helgi Tomasson, at the Opera House from 13 to 30 December.
The Oakland Ballet presents Graham Lustig’s Nutcracker with live accompaniment from the Oakland Symphony & the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir at the Paramount Theater on 16 - 17 December.
BroadwaySF presents Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet, part of an international tour, at the Golden Gate Theater on 19 December.
The puppeteers of Oakland's Fairyland join with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra for Nutcracker Sweet, featuring highlights from the story, & you can see that 25 November at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco, 26 November at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, & 26 November at Mitchell Park in Palo Alto.
Art Means Painting
The Contemporary Jewish Museum has two shows opening this month, both on 7 December (running until 28 April 2024): First Light: Rituals of Glass and Neon Art "features artworks in neon, glass, and plasma, large-scale sculptures, and installations that invite you to learn about fascinating scientific processes, and inspire deeper contemplation of the role of light in our quest to understand our place in the universe" & Radiant Practices: Illuminating Jewish Traditions, a "collection of Jewish ritual objects, from menorahs to memorial candles, that offer insights into practices that draw on light to uplift Jewish holidays, lifecycle moments, and spiritual spaces."
BAM/PFA opens two MATRIX exhibits this month, both on 13 December: Gabriel Chaile: No hay nada que destruya el corazón como la pobreza explores the Argentinian's clay sculptures, & Sin Wai Kin: The Story Changing, a video installation using "makeup and costuming derived from both drag performance and Cantonese and Peking opera."
Two new exhibits are opening on 21 December at the Asian Art Museum this month: Japanese Ink Paintings, in which "Highlights from the collection illustrate how Japanese artists from the 15th to the early 17th century engaged with Chinese ink painting styles" & Japanese Tastes in Chinese Ceramics, in which "Exquisite Chinese and Chinese-influenced ceramics from the Kyoto National Museum demonstrate the importance of Chinese art to Japanese tea culture." In connection with their current exhibits, particularly The Heart of Zen, the Museum will host Life in a Zen Temple: Lecture, Zazen, and Tea with Abbot Kobori Geppo on 9 December & Zazen and Lecture on Life in a Zen Temple with Abbot Kobori Geppo on 10 December (Zazen is a method of meditation).
Cinematic
Special screenings at BAM/PFA this month include Snow and the Bear by director Selcen Ergun, Victims of Sin from Emilio Fernández (if you miss this one on 14 December at BAM/PFA, you can catch it at the Roxie in San Francisco on 16 December), & Werckmeister Harmonies from Béla Tarr; & an exciting new film series launches: Yasujiro Ozu: The Elegance of Simplicity, a "selected retrospective" starting on 3 December & running through 25 February 2024.
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival holds its annual Day of Silents on 2 December at the Castro Theater, with a terrific line-up (all accompanied by live music): a program of early cartoons, the Lubitsch / Pola Negri The Wildcat, Valentino in The Eagle, Anna May Wong in Pavement Butterfly, Harold Lloyd's iconic Safety Last!, & William Powell in Forgotten Faces (I feel I should issue a trigger warning about the Lloyd; if you have any sort of height anxiety, you're going to want to skip this one).
On 12 December the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco presents a restored version of the 1920 German film, The Golem: How He Came into the World (Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam), with live accompaniment by guitarist Gary Lucas, playing his original score for the film.
On into the new year. . . .
entrance to the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Rooms currently installed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
I was at the San Francisco Opera's second performance of Omar, the new & recently Pulitzer-Prize winning opera by Rhiannon Giddens & Michael Abels (my understanding is that Giddens, who is best known as a banjo/violin player of Roots music, brought Abel in to help her with orchestration & similar matters; so despite the two composers I believe Omar is very much driven by Giddens, who also wrote the libretto). I found it a very powerful work. But despite its resonant emotional power, there is also something distanced about it; though there are plenty of characters – Omar himself (the heroic Jamez McCorkle), his Mother Fatima (an authoritative Taylor Raven), an enslaved woman named Julie who befriends him (the warmly generous Brittany Renee), Omar's first, sadistic "owner" & his second, more considerately paternalistic "owner" (both played with finesse by Daniel Okulitch), as well as others – & plenty of action (capture, deportation through the Middle Passage, enslavement, escape) – the opera is not really driven by either character or narrative. It is instead a contemplation & a summoning.
Some of this quality is inherent in the material. The opera is based on what we know about Omar ibn Said, an Islamic scholar from what is now Senegal who was kidnapped & sold into slavery in 1807, ending up at a plantation in North Carolina, where he wrote an account of his life; because he wrote the account in Arabic, which of course most Americans can't read, it is one of the few such narratives not mediated through a white editor or amanuensis. The libretto sticks mostly to the fragmentary historical record; at the end of Act 1, we see Omar run off, but there are no dramatic incidents along the way (no Eliza-style leaping across the ice floes); when we see him at the beginning of Act 2, he is in jail in Fayetteville, where they're trying to figure out who this oddly literate but barely English-speaking man is. There is a suggestion that he & Julie are emotionally involved, but it doesn't proceed past a suggestion; there is no love duet or anything like that. There is a scrupulous respect throughout for what we can know about the past, particularly regarding people who were not much recorded or regarded in their own time. And though the arc of the material is upward, it's not quite as far upward as we might like – the enslaved Omar escapes the plantation of the sadistic Johnson, but ends his life still enslaved, only under the comparatively benign though condescending paternalism of Owen. (The difficulties of escaping to freedom are made clear; Julie, captured by Johnson, escapes only to make her way back to Owen; as she says to her friend, the enslaved woman Katie Ellen (a robust & down-to-earth Rehanna Thelwell), the danger of traveling all the way North, particularly as a woman alone, in danger of capture & rape, was too risky). Omar & Julie end up on a more kindly run plantation, so while they're better off than they were, this is still not exactly a happy ending. But that's the historical record.
But in addition to the limits of what we know about Omar's life, the distanced approach seems to be a deliberate choice. In addition to the unwillingness to speculate too widely away from the known facts, & perhaps ending up with conventional tropes that don't do justice to these vanished individuals, there is an aspect of ritual to much of the opera. The work begins with McCorkle walking on stage from the side of the orchestra, dressed in contemporary street clothes (shorts, sneakers, a graphic t-shirt); then he is draped in the long white robes & assumes the role of Omar, singing a prayer in Arabic to Allah the Merciful. This establishes him as a Muslim & a man of learning, but it's an extended sequence & does not really push the dramatic action forward; what it does do is frame the action in spiritual & philosophical terms: how can an all-Merciful & all-Powerful Deity allow what we are about to see? At the end of the opera, similar actions unfold in reverse: Omar sings a prayer calling on those around him to follow the tenets of their faith in God, only this time he sings in English, rather than Arabic: he is communicating directly to those around him, & also to us in the audience; then McCorkle disrobes, revealing his street gear, leaving his Omar a powerful memory. Again, this isn't about dramatic action or a rousing finale; it's a call to inward searching & acknowledgement of continuing, residual injustice & a meditation on the mutations of history.
Strengthening the ritualistic aspect is Giddens's use of rhyme in the libretto, which is mostly in rhyming couplets. This was a risky choice, as such couplets can sound forced or jingly, especially over the course of almost three hours, & rhyme in the English-speaking theater often sounds comic. I was initially concerned that the rhyming would make things seem "folk-opera-ish", but it works surprisingly well as an elevated & stylized form of speech.
Omar is clearly a specific person with an unusual story, but he is also a representative of the millions of kidnapped & enslaved Africans, about whom we generally know even less than we know of Omar. So the opera's focus often goes off Omar himself onto others: during the scene depicting the Middle Passage, individuals, some of them dead by the time they sing to us, give us their experiences or emotions or histories. The dead appear throughout the evening. Omar's mother Fatima, murdered in Africa, joins with Julie in Fayetteville to urge Omar to write down his life story; she also appears to him in a dream to urge him to flee Johnson's cruelty. Disrupted but persistent family connections, particularly with mothers, haunt the opera; disrupted but continuous strands between the previous lives of the enslaved & their current lives are emphasized throughout. Julie is drawn to Omar because her own father also wore a cap, a kufi, as Omar does; he also avoided some of the same foods; though Julie wasn't raised with a knowledge of Islam, she recognizes its signs. This is one of many threads snapped by enslavement that are rewoven in the new world. There is a dance (choreography by Kiara Benn) among the enslaved at Owen's plantation; there is a caller (Katie Ellen) as in barn dancing, & the elaborate figures & lines made by the groups are clearly reminiscent of dances from some ancestral homeland (the African-style drumming in the orchestra reinforces these associations, as does the presence of a heavily costumed & masked African dancer, performed by Jermaine McGhee, whom we see throughout the show). The dancing is a moment of joy (& hearkens back to the use of ballet interludes throughout the history of opera), a sign of individuals resisting the dehumanizing mechanism of slavery, but for Owen it only reinforces his superiority: he sees his enslaved workers as childlike people, given to singing & dancing, better off under his firm but kindly guidance than on their own. Ambiguity & dual perspectives haunt everything we see in this opera.
Well, almost everything. The white people don't come off very well (but then, how could they?) The essential similarity between the sadistic Johnson & the well-meaning Owen is emphasized by having the same singer play both. I did sometimes feel their portrayal verged a bit on caricature (but then, how could it not?) But I don't see any other way to handle them; you don't want to risk making excuses or, more to the point, shifting the focus; the opera is about the experience of the enslaved, not those who enslaved them. Perhaps I was simply feeling pangs of collective racial guilt. Owen's daughter Eliza (a charmingly bird-like Laura Krumm) is the one who in a sense rescues Omar; she sees the prayers in Arabic he has inscribed on the walls of his Fayetteville jail, & though she cannot read them, she is convinced this beautiful unknown script is how God would write, & she persuades her pious father to buy Omar. It is ironic that the Islamic prayers appealed to her, as her father, a firm Christian, is convinced that though Omar is clearly a knowledgeable man, he is following a false god. Owen later is sure that he has managed to convert Omar to Christianity. The historical record, & perhaps Omar himself, is unclear on this point. But Owen's Christian faith, co-existing with (& even reinforcing) his ownership of fellow human beings, connects with the prayers in the opening & closing of the opera & is part of the work's interrogation of religious beliefs compared to actual behavior. Late in Act 2 Omar gives a reading of & commentary on the 23rd Psalm that, again, resonates ambiguously; when he speaks of what the "Lord" has done, he might be referring to the deity, or his white overseers.
The brilliant production design (Christopher Myers, I assume in collaboration with director Kaneza Schaal) is suggestive & stylized. When we walk in, a giant photo of the actual Omar appears on the golden curtain. The first scene takes place in front of tall ambiguously domed pale tan cloth shapes: they look like the buildings of Omar's native city, but also suggest headstones, a reminder of time & impending tragedy & death. Banners & draperies, often covered with flowing Arabic script, are frequently used, as are ropes, shaped into suggestions of other forms: for example, towards the end, on the Owens plantation, there is a giant branching tree, made out of knotted ropes; this suggests not only the rigging of a Middle Passage ship, but also the long history of lynching, as well as the ropes used to hold the enslaved captive, or during their labor. During the Middle Passage scene, there is a projection of a woodcut showing how the captives are laid out tightly in the hold of a ship; the same image appears later printed on the fabric worn by some of the enslaved women. Other costumes are covered with Arabic script or other images. The silhouettes are period-appropriate, but, in keeping with the style of the work, they are stylized & layered with symbolism.
During the intermission the man beside me turned to me & after we both agreed we were impressed with the opera he said his ex-wife was attending it next week & he was trying to figure out how to describe the music to her. Well, music is notoriously difficult to convey in words. It is, like the rest of the production, richly layered: there are reminiscences of African drumming, Black spirituals (particularly in a mournful work song from those suffering at Johnson's plantation), American folk music, minimalism, & more, but all these influences, in a very American way, syncretically create something new & captivating. The music also flowed in a convincing way, rather than breaking down into discrete sections. I assume Giddens has never worked on this large scale before, but she brings it off, so credit to her (& also Michael Abels, & to her for realizing she could use his assistance, & also to conductor John Kennedy for leading the orchestra).
Omar formed a provocative contrast with the other new opera on SF Opera's fall schedule, Mason Bates's The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. Both center on a single man, but that's about as far as the resemblance goes. A friend of mine was surprised by my boredom at the Jobs opera, as the music is quite sprightly. But that opera is relentlessly focused on Jobs, in a mostly positive light, & to me the effect was like a lengthy commercial for a product I'm not interested in buying, & even if the jingle is extremely catchy, after a while that gets to be part of the problem. I also felt that the Jobs opera already felt a bit dated: hadn't the time passed when "we" looked up to our tech overlords, & admired rather than questioned their approach & methods? Haven't we heard enough from & about them? By contrast, Omar gives us a whole world previously barely hinted at in the Opera House, & despite or because of its ritualistic, somewhat withheld quality, this opera is profoundly moving in its exploration of the historically disappeared. Sometimes going backward is the way forward.
Hercules & Atlas, a seventeenth-century bronze by Michel Anguier, currently at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco
New Century Chamber Orchestra opened its season on Thursday last at First Church in Berkeley, with a wide-ranging & appropriately seasonal program titled Visitations, whose general theme was the intersection between spirit & mortal worlds, though some of the pieces dealt with people caught in other liminal spaces. The Church was moodily lit with masses of thick white candles flickering around the altar/performance space, with a lit candle at the center-aisle entrance to each row. The NCCO players entered through the back, down the center aisle; when they started playing, the eight-person chorus followed the same path, entering singing the first piece, Bogoroditse devo (Rejoice, O Virgin) from Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil; this was followed immediately by Fólk fær andlit (People Get Faces) by Hildur Guðnadóttir. The Rachmaninoff is based on Slavic church chants & the Guðnadóttir, though a contemporary piece, harks back to the hypnotic overlays of medieval chant, as the singers repeat the Icelandic words for Mercy & Forgive us for. . . . Although People Get Faces has a spooky sound, the composer wrote the piece in 2015 because two refugee families from Albania had been denied asylum in Iceland, so this is one of the liminal spaces mentioned above: people caught between countries, people invisible (ghost-like, perhaps) until our realization of their individuality gives them faces. & of course it's possible that refugees denied admission will end up sent to whatever spirit world there might be, if they are forced to return to their former homeland. (The protest against the denial, which this piece was part of, was successful& the families were admitted to Iceland & granted citizenship – so a small happy ending amid the tragedies of the many refugees in the world.)
So an effective mood was immediately set. It was then disrupted by talking from the stage, of which there was a lot. I am not a fan of this practice, preferring to let the music speak for itself & establish its own thoughts & moods (also: I read the program notes, so I've already heard most of what gets said from the stage), though I realize the tide is very much against me & this sort of stage chat is pretty much obligatory these days. But I wonder if it helps make the audience chattier than it should be; there were quite a few talkers during the music, & even people videotaping parts of the performance. I will never understand the value people put on a few seconds of shaky footage.
The next section featured mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor in three pieces; first up was the Ária (Cantilena) from Bachianas Brasileiras #5 by Villa-Lobos, an elegantly floating vocalise nicely sung by O'Connor. This was followed by Peter Lieberson's Amor mío, si muero y tú no mueres (My love, if I die and you don’t) from his Neruda Songs, which are of course indelibly associated with his wife, the great Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, though O'Connor made the song her own. & that was followed by Schubert's Erlkönig, in an arrangement for chamber orchestra (Hope did mention the arranger's name, but it's not in the program, which is an odd omission, as he did a number of the pieces on the program). O'Connor sang vividly & with intensity, but I felt she differentiated among the different characters in the song more with her body than her voice. The audience was very enthusiastic. It's easy to see how the Schubert fit into the program's theme, but the Villa-Lobos does have an otherworldly sound, & the selection from the Neruda Songs is about lovers eventually separated by Death & the on-going life of their Love, characterized as part of the earthly landscape, as a long river flowing onward past our vision (& of course this music reminds us of its dedicatee, who died shortly after she premiered this work by her husband). So though the program was eclectic in style, & used several different forces (orchestra alone, with chorus, with soloist), & involved a number of fairly short pieces, it all hung together in a convincing way.
The first half ended with a highlight, the world premiere of an NCCO commission, Doña Sebastiana (Lady Death) by Nicolás Lell Benavides. Before it began, the composer told us the folk tale on which it is based (taken from Cuentos: Tales from the Hispanic Southwest by Rudolfo A. Anaya): a very poor woodcutter is preparing his meager meal. A shadowy figure appears & asks to share it; it is Jesus, & the Woodcutter spurns him, as he doesn't do enough to help the poor. Another figure appears & asks to shaire it: it is the Virgin Mary, & he spurns her, as she doesn't make her son help the poor. A third figure appears & asks to share his meal: it is Lady Death, & he agrees to share with her, as she treats everyone equally. In thanks, she gives him the gift of healing, but warns him that if he sees her at the bedside of a sick person, that soul is hers & he must not save it. Time goes by, & eventually the Woodcutter, now a well-off healer, is called to the bedside of a very ill rich man, who promises him incredible wealth for a cure. Lady Death is at his bedside, but the Woodcutter cannot resist the lure of riches & gets her out of the way so that he can save the man. Later that day she reappears, takes him to a church & shows him two candles, one of which is almost sputtering out. She informs him that that was the rich man's life, but as the Woodcutter saved him & she still needs to collect a life, she will switch his light with the Woodcutter's, & thus ends his life & his access to the riches he was promised.
From this tale Benavides has shaped a rich orchestral piece, with the solo violin (Daniel Hope) portraying Doña Sebastiana while the others portray the changing moods & situation of the Woodcutter. Death is single, but the human personalities are varied & shifting (& sometimes shifty). Lady Death is brilliantly characterized by Benavides, & brilliant performed by Hope, with a sound that is distinct, firm, but never overly emphatic; with an edge of eerieness, a bit out of this world, but also a part of it, inescapably. There's nothing melodramatic about this Lady Death, but she's clearly a presence. I was reminded of Whitman's Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet. I hope I get an opportunity to take this piece in again, & soon.
In fact I would have been happy if they had opened the second half with a reprise, instead of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The adaptation for chamber orchestra (again, the name was omitted from the program) was fine & it's always a fun piece, but whenever it's played there's an elephant in the room in the shape of a mouse, specifically Mickey. As Hope mentioned, the piece is inerasably linked with its segment of Fantasia, & who can help seeing the Sorcerer's high hat & grim face as he stills the waters unloosed by his mischievous apprentice? Very amusing, but I would have preferred another hearing of the Benavides.
This was followed by two short pieces: first Carlos Simon's Elegy: A Cry from the Grave & then Arvo Pärt's Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten. As with the piece by Guðnadóttir, Simon's piece seems, based on its title, spooky, but like that piece has an urgent political meaning – Simon wrote it to memorialize Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, & Michael Brown, all black men murdered by police or vigilantes. The music is elegiac, lyrical but somber, rising up & rising above. The Pärt was inspired by his late discovery of Britten's music. As with the earlier pieces on the program, its hypnotic use of repetition & slight variation associated it with early Church music, an association strengthened by the reverberations of bells. That led us to the final piece, Ariel Ramirez's Misa Criolla (arranged for chamber orchestra by Paul Bateman, with Hope's solo violin taking one of the vocal lines), which featured Gabriel Navia on charango (a lute-like stringed instrument from the Andes) as well as our chorus, led by David Xiques. This is one of the "folk masses" that appeared after Vatican II allowed Mass to be said in the vernacular. It is vibrant music, filled with echoes of traditional Latin American & Hispanic folk sounds: again, a piece between two worlds, the formal tradition of the Mass & the folk sounds of the people. As usual NCCO plays with a rich & almost plush sound that belies its relatively small number. The chorus, assembled for these concerts, was excellent throughout. The whole program was thoughtfully assembled, a nice mix of the unfamiliar & the familiar done with a twist. But the Benavides was definitely the highlight.
The swans pulled Wagner's Lohengrin into the War Memorial Opera House this past month; I was at the first performance (only to be felled a few days later, in an unrelated (I think) development, with COVID). Many of the participants were new to the work: Music Director Eun Sun Kim was starting her annual exploration of Wagner for the company with this performance; Julie Adams was making a role debut as Elsa & Brian Mulligan as Telramund, Judit Kutasi was making company, American, & role debuts as Ortrud, Thomas Lehman made his company debut as the Herald. so that leaves Simon O'Neill as Lohengrin & Kristinn Sigmundsson as Kind Heinrich as the only experienced hands (I have been informed that Mulligan did play the Herald about ten years ago).. From the conviction, power, & intensity of the performances, however, you'd never know that this work was new to most of them. From the moments the first diaphanous suspensions of the Overture floated out above us to the thundering finale four & a half hours later, the performance was a musical triumph.
The production by David Alden, new to San Francisco but previously seen in London & Antwerp, left me less convinced. One extremely odd choice was the very low level of lighting on stage – everything seemed to take place at 4:00 in the morning (the original lighting designer was Adam Silverman, & the revival lighting designer was Simon Bennison; I assume their designs were suggested, coordinated, and/or approved by Alden). A few scenes were brighter, mostly through the use of spotlights from the sides, but they didn't really focus attention; sometimes a singer's lower half was brighter than her top. I had been told several times to watch the lower balcony on the left, in the box nearest the stage, at the end of the 2nd Act; by the time that rolled around I forgot to check & the lighting certainly didn't do anything to highlight that Ortrud was up there glaring (I was told later that that was what was going on). At the ending some of the action was simply invisible (& I had an excellent orchestra seat; I heard from a friend in the upper balcony that things were even less legible up there). I barely saw Elsa's brother appear, & that was mostly because I was looking for him; I have no idea how Ortrud ended. Four & a half hours is a long time to be plunged in twilight.
I guess it's not entirely unsuitable, practical questions of visibility aside, as the world of Lohengrin is very much a twilight world of liminal boundaries & shifting hopes & moods. The music is often questing & uncertain, & when it's definite, it is perhaps a bit overly definite, in the way of people trying to convince themselves as well as others. Brabant is between royal houses, between military alliances, threatened by outsiders but also by insiders, as Ortrud an adherent of the old gods, dragging Telramund (& I assume others) with her, struggles against the newish ways of Elsa & the mysterious nameless knight.
The idea here is that King Heinrich, using the Swan Knight to unify the kingdom, is building a military state. Given the tensions from the conflicts in Ukraine as well as Israel & Gaza, Company Director Matthew Shilvock felt the need to come out before the performance to warn us about the militaristic themes. But the theme of Heinrich's growing military power fit oddly onto the narrative> How many people are following the King's political & military machinations rather than the struggles of Ortrud, Telramund, Elsa, & the Knight?. & that sort of military ambition seems more likely to be the ambition of a much younger man than the veteran Sigmundsson. The look of the production was very much mid-century European, with overlays of Art Deco stylization on Triumph of the Will-style pageantry. The second act was dominated by what I have to say was a stunningly effective statue of a stylized swan on a pillar (though I did hear the swan was maybe too far back & too high up to be visible from the second balcony). At the finale there were gorgeous red, white, & black swan banners that came hurtling down when Lohengrin had to reveal his name & therefore his departure from the scene.
The portrayal of the Herald also was difficult to figure out in this production. He seemed to be a wounded veteran of some sort, with a prosthetic leg (if I was seeing the costume clearly, & I'm not sure I was – he seemed to have some touches of medieval armor over his more contemporary uniform). He almost shoots Elsa with a crossbow towards the end, though again it was a bit difficult to tell what exactly was going on & why. At one point he stands off to the side & pointlessly smokes a cigarette, which is just silly.
& the Swan Knight is supposed to be a force for Good, not a cover for rising fascism – right? But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe the production was saying something astute & I was the one missing the point. Perhaps Lohengrin's "goodness" is less definite than I had been assuming. The whole Cupid & Psyche "you must not ask my name" angle has, if I'm recollecting my Wagneriana correctly, always sat a bit uneasily among the Master's Acolytes: could the creator of Brunnhilde, Isolde, & other powerful women really think that Elsa should meekly accept such a strange & unexplained condition? Even though Elsa is a more ethereal, dreamier character than many other Wagnerian heroines (Julie Adams did a good job of making her a bit otherworldly without seeming like a simp), shouldn't she at least . . . know her husband's name? Once she forces the issue, misled (or guided) by Ortrud, her knight confesses what we in the audience have known all along: his name is Lohengrin. What none of us knew is that the Grail sends its knights forth, but they are not allowed to speak their names or missions; if they do, they must return. & the reason for that is . . . well, a continuing mystery. We are assuming that our tenor is a hero, & therefore on the side of Good. But we don't really know that, as we don't know where he's come from or who sent him. Perhaps such a messianic figure could indeed easily be appropriated for morally ambiguous political purposes. Perhaps the world of the Grail Knights is too "Good" for our world. Or perhaps our world has moved beyond the sort of redemption that can be offered by a singly heroic Grail Knight?
Boston's Lohengrin-inspired swan boats, from my 2017 visit.
