Museum Monday 2024/40

 

detail of Saint George & the Dragon by Bernat Martorell, at the Art Institute of Chicago

Another Opening, Another Show: October 2024

Anyone likely to read this already knows that the San Francisco Symphony's performances of the Verdi Requiem were cancelled at the last minute, & is further aware of the larger issues surrounding the organization (basically, the efforts by the Symphony Board to fan the flames of the dumpster fire they created), so I would suggest extreme caution, & a willingness to put up with uncertainty & last-minute cancellations, if you're interested in buying SF Symphony tickets this month. Plenty of people have had plenty to say about this situation (check out the Song of the Lark blog entry here), so I don't feel much need to weigh in, as I am just a guy who sits in the dark listening, except to say how sad it all is, & how predictable. It's not just an arts organization thing; anyone who's spent time in a corporation has seen this situation play out many times: new management comes in, doesn't care about the star performer, no matter how brilliant, because he's not their guy, makes clucking noises about "fiscal responsibility" blah blah blah, meanwhile destroying everything that made the organization distinctive & worthwhile. The Board clearly doesn't care about art, or understand how it happens; they like, I assume, the social prestige that comes from an association with an established artistic organization, & they make the mistake of thinking that because they have money they also have a "vision" (because that's what executive are supposed to have ). Their egos are as bloated as their vision is occluded, & it's all, as I said, very sad & very predictable. Anyway, the actual artists associated with the Symphony are trying to continue doing good work, & good luck to them, but caveat emptor.

SF Music Day

I'll lead off the entries with this, since it doesn't really fit into any categories: InterMusic SF's annual SF Music Day will be 20 October at the War Memorial Complex in Civic Center; for this year's celebration of local music-making, guest curator Sid Chen has pulled together a line-up of over 80 artists & 19 groups; the event begins at noon & runs through 7:00 PM & is free; read all about it here.

Theatrical

On 4 - 6 October in Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances presents SLAM! an exploration of pro wrestling directed by Robert Lepage with his troupe Ex Machina & Cirque FLIP Fabrique.

Ray of Light Theater presents The Rocky Horror Show, music, lyrics, & book by Richard O'Brien, in an immersive performance at the Oasis Nightclub, from 4 October to 2 November. (See under Cinematic for a special screening of the movie.)

Golden Thread Productions presents 11Reflections: San Francisco, "part of a new national series of performance works, Eleven Reflections on the Nation, devised by Andrea Assaf", which examines the complexities of being Arabic/Muslim in a post 9/11 world; the performances are directed by Andrea Assaf & feature Syrian opera singer Lubana al Quntar & Turkish composer & violinist Eylem Basaldi, & that's 4  - 5 October at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco.

New Conservatory Theater Center has a Sunday matinee series of My Brother's Gift, adapted by Claudia Inglis Haas from the writings & memories of Eva Geiringer Schloss & the poetry & paintings of Heinz Geiringer, who was a neighbor & friend of Anne Frank; directed by Andrew Jordan Nance, the performances are on 6, 13, 20, & 27 October.

Theater of Yugen presents its Yuge no Kai Fall Season 2024 on 11 - 13 October at NOHSpace, featuring performances in English of the classic kyōgen plays Kazumo (Wrestling with a Mosquito) & Fukuro Yamabushi (The Owl Mountain Priest).

New Conservatory Theater Center offers The Gulf – An Elegy by Audrey Cefaly, directed by Tracy Ward, about two women, lovers out for an evening of fishing, who find their commitment to each other in crisis; the show runs 18 October to 24 November.

Aurora Theater in Berkeley presents Noël Coward's Fallen Angels, directed by Tom Ross, from 19 October through 17 November.

The San Leandro Players present Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, adapted by Maurice Valency & directed by Daniel Dickinson, from 26 October through 24 November.

Talking

On 7 October at the Henry J Kaiser Center for the Arts in Oakland, the Great American Music Hall presents An Intimate Evening with Lynn Goldsmith and Patti Smith in Conversation; they will be discussing the years between 1976 & 1979, when Goldsmith took the photos in her forthcoming book, Before Easter After, & when Smith recorded Easter, one of her most popular albums.

City Arts & Lectures has some interesting speakers lined up this month at the Sydney Goldstein Theater: on 10 October, you can spend An Evening with Yotam Ottolenghi, hosted by Samin Nosrat; on 23 October, Ta-Nehisi Coates will appear in conversation with Daniel Sokatch; on 25 October, poet/essayist Ross Gay will appear in conversation with Aracelis Girmay, & on 30 October Richard Powers will appear in conversation with Kim Stanley Robinson.

On 29 October in Zellerbach Hall,  UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy & Cal Performances host The Future of American Democracy: The 2024 Election and Beyond, with panelists Janet Napolitano, Robert Reich, Maria Echaveste, & Angela Glover Blackwell.

Operatic

San Francisco Opera continues its fall season with that majestic milestone of musical history, Wagner's Tristan & Isolde, conducted by Eun Sun Kim, directed by Paul Curran, with Simon O’Neill as Tristan, Anja Kampe as Isolde, Wolfgang Koch as Kurwenal, Annika Schlicht as Brangäne, Kwangchul Youn as King Marke, & Christopher Oglesby as a Sailor & a Shepherd; performances are 19, 23, 27 October & 1 & 5 November.

On 14 October, the Wagner Society of Northern California will present director Paul Curran on his current SFO production of Tristan und Isolde; the event will take place in the Green Room of the War Memorial Veteran’s Building & a reception will follow; then, on 28 October, the Society will present director Francesca Zambello on directing Wagner and her upcoming Tannhäuser at Houston Grand Opera; again, the event will take place in the Green Room of the War Memorial Veteran’s Building & a reception will follow.

Berkeley Rep presents The Matchbox Magic Flute, adapted & directed by Mary Zimmerman & based on Mozart's opera, using 10 singers & 5 musicians, & it runs from 18 October through 8 December.

Vocalists

On 6 October at the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Berkeley, Lieder Alive! presents mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich & pianist Jeffrey LaDeur performing Fauré's La Bonne Chanson & his Mélodies, along with solo piano selections.

San Francisco Performances presents a "modern musical traversal of the Silk Road ranging from the Middle Ages to the present" performed by tenor Karim Sulayman & guitarist Sean Shibe; the program, titled Broken Branches, includes music by Purcell, Dowland, Caccini, Monteverdi, traditional Sephardic music, Darwish, Rodrigo, Harvey, Takemitsu, Britten, & Mendez; this is part of SF Performance's new series at the Presidio Theater, & you can hear it on 12 October.

On 13 October in Hertz Hall, Cal Performances presents baritone Lester Lynch, with pianist Kevin Korth, performing selections from Schubert's Schwanengesang, Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge, Opus 121, Mussorgsky's Songs & Dances of Death, & songs by Charles Ives & Gordon Getty.

On 13 October, the SF Jazz Center presents Paula West Breathing Democracy, an exploration of American political music by Simon & Garfunkel, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, & Woody Guthrie.

Vocalist/trumpeter Benny Benack III, vocalist Stella Cole, & dancer Jabu Graybeal present Some Enchanted Evening, an exploration of the golden age of Broadway & the resulting "American Songbook", on 20 October at SF Jazz.

On 21 October at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Susanne Mentzer will give a recital along with members of the Guitar faculty, featuring Dominick Argento's Letters from Composers (David Tanenbaum, guitar), Fernando Sor's L’Encouragement, Opus 34 (Meng Su & Marc Teicholz, guitars), Joaquin Rodrigo's Aranjuez, ma pensée (Meng Su, guitar), &Mátyás Seiber's Four French Folk Songs (Marc Teicholz, guitar).

Festival Opera presents Nothing to Fear, a spooky season recital with contralto Sara Couden & pianist 

Derek Tam performing works by Schubert, Strauss, Wieck, Weill, Jordan Rutter-Covatto, Erika Oba, Chris Castro, & others; & that's 27 October at the Piedmont Center for the Arts.

Taste of Talent & Red Curtain Addict give us their annual spooky-season Death by Aria on 31 October in the Green Room of the War Memorial Complex in San Francisco; the repertory is not listed, though the mood is described ("step into our haunted house of music, where spellbinding arias and spine-chilling melodies weave through the shadows. Journey with us through the world of villains and vengeful spirits, dark magic, and mesmerizing performances. . . ") & there's an impressive line-up of performers: sopranos Olivia Smith & Arianna Rodriguez, tenor Sid Chand, mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz, baritone Edward Nelson, oboist & vocalist Jesse Rex Barrett, & pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg. There are also specialty cocktails.

Orchestral

Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the San Francisco Symphony in two programs this month: on 4 - 6 October, Shostakovich's Violin Concerto #1 (with soloist Sayaka Shoji) & the Brahms 4; & on 18 - 20 October, the first SF Symphony performances of his own Cello Concerto (with soloist Rainer Eudeikis), along with the Beethoven 6, the Pastoral, & Debussy's La Mer.

Robert Mollicone leads the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony at the SF Conservatory of Music on 5 October in Bernstein's Candide Overture, Puccini's Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut, Augusta Holmès' Andromède, &  the Mozart 41, Jupiter.

On 8 October, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music & Pentatone Music will celebrate Michael Tilson Thomas's 80th year with a reception & performance commemorating the release of GRACE, a collection of works composed by MTT over more than 50 years; the performance will feature MTT, Edwin Outwater, John Wilson, Demarre McGill, & others, including SFCM students; each ticket includes a copy of the 4-disc set & all proceeds will support brain cancer research at the UCSF Brain Tumor Center.

 

Kedrick Armstrong launches his time as the new Music Director of the Oakland Symphony on 18 October at the Paramount with Julia Perry's A Short Piece for Orchestra, a celebration of Living Jazz's 40 Year Anniversary with three jazz-rooted compositions by Allison Miller, John Santos, & Meklit, & the Nielsen 4, the Inextinguishable.

Jory Fankuchen leads the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in the world premiere of Shawn Okpebholo's Fractured Water (an SFCO commission), as well as Handel's Concerto Grosso Opus 6, #12, & the Beethoven 1, & you can hear it (for free! just RSVP on their site) on 18 October at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, 19 October at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Palo Alto, & 20 October at First Presbyterian in Berkeley.

Grete Pedersen leads Philharmonia Baroque in Dreams and Passions, a program including Saint Hildegard von Bingen's O Frondens Virga (arranged by Nikolai Matthews), Caroline Shaw's Entr’acte, the Haydn 49, La Passione, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major (featuring Thomas Carroll on basset clarinet), & Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, & that's 17 October at Herbst Theater in San Francisco, 18 October at First United Methodist in Palo Alto, & 19 October at First Congregational in Berkeley.

On 25 - 26 October, Thomas Wilkins leads the San Francisco Symphony in the Suite from Candide by Bernstein, Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin (with pianist Michelle Cann), Wood Notes by William Grant Still, & Porgy and Bess, A Symphonic Picture by Gershwin.

On 25 October at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the SFCM Wind Ensemble, led by Brad Hogarth, will perform the world premiere of a new arrangement by Ursula Kwong-Brown of her Cover the Walls (an SFCM commission), “inspired by Chinese poems that were carved into the walls of the detention center of Angel Island"; the concert also features Francis Johnson's Suite (arranged by Hogarth), Henri Tomasi's Concerto pour Trombone (arranged by Donald Patterson & featuring trombonist Austin Talbot), & David Maslanka's Symphony #4.

The San Francisco Opera will perform the Beethoven 9 on 26 October, conducted by Music Director Eun Sun Kim, with soprano Jennifer Holloway, mezzo-soprano Annika Schlicht, tenor Russell Thomas, & bass Kwangchul Youn as soloists.

Chamber Music

Here's what's happening at Noontime Concerts at Old Saint Mary's this month: on 1 October, flutist William Underwood III & pianist Carl Blake perform Poulenc's Sonate pour Flûte et Piano, Bach's Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1034, Enescu's Cantabile et Presto, & Charles-Marie Widor's Suite for flute and piano, Opus 34; on 8 October, the Broderick Quartet (Karen Shinozaki Sor & Kayo Miki, violins; Elizabeth Prior, viola; Tyler DeVigal, cello) will perform the Villa Lobos Quartet #1, Webern's Langsamer Satz, the Florence Price String Quartet #2 in A Minor, & Philip Glass's String Quartet #3, Mishima; on 15 October, the Aries Duo (flutist Rhonda Bradetich & pianist Katherine Lee) will perform Sonatas and Fantasies by František Benda, Poulenc, Eldin Burton, Johan Kvandal, & Alfredo Casella; on 22 October, pianist Pallavi Mahidhara will perform Couperin's Les baricades mistérieuses, Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, Reena Esmail's Rang de Basant, & Liszt's Grand Etudes after Paganini; & on 29 October, violinist Iris Stone & pianist Soojin Kim will perform selected preludes by Lera Auerbach/Dimitri Shostakovich, Debussy's Sonata for Violin and Piano, & Poulenc's Sonata for Violin and Piano.

San Francisco Performances opens its season on 4 October at Herbst Theater with a gala performance featuring composer Jake Heggie as pianist & tenor Nicholas Phan; I don't usually list gala or fund-raising performances, as I find the ratio of art to commerce is unfavorable, & the program hasn't been announced yet, which is also usually a no-go for me, but I trust San Francisco Performances & I trust these artists, & tickets are available at a reasonable price for the concert only.

The Friction Quartet (Otis Harriel & Kevin Rogers, violin; Mitso Floor, viola; & Doug Machiz, cello)  presents Song and Dance, featuring Canção Verdes Anos by Carlos Paredes (arranged by Osvaldo Golijov), Dvořák's Cypresses, Weezer's Say It Ain't So (arranged by Doug Machiz), Queen's Killer Queen (arranged by Mitso Floor), Kenji Bunch's Apocryphal Dances, Piazzolla's Four for Tango, & Franghiz Ali-Zadeh's Rəqs, & that's 10 October at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco & 11 October at the Berkeley Piano Club.

Chamber Music Sundaes, a long-running chamber-music ensemble (which, honestly, I've just heard about, & I have no idea if actual sundaes are involved) made up of varying configurations of musicians from the San Francisco Symphony, is now taking place at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, & their season opens on 13 October with violinist Florin Parvulescu, violist Jay Liu, cellist David Goldblatt, & pianist Gwendolyn Mok performing Florent Schmitt's Sonatine en Trio, D Major, Opus 85, Ervin Schulhoff's Duo for Violin and Cello, & Fauré's Piano Quartet #2, G minor, Opus 45.

The Ives Collective (Hrabba Atladottir, violin; Susan Freier, viola/violin; Stephen Harrison, cello; Keisuke Nakagoshi, piano) perform Bohuslav Martinů Piano Quartet #1, Fauré's Cello Sonata #2, Opus 117, & Dvořák's Piano Quartet in Eb-flat major, Opus 87 at Old First Concerts on 13 October.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music continues its Chamber Music Tuesday series, this time on 15 October with pianist Shai Wosner joining the Conservatory ensemble to perform Eleanor Alberga's No-Man’s-Land Lullaby, the Beethoven Piano Trio #6 in E-flat Major, & the Brahms Piano Quartet #3 in C Minor.

On 20 October in Hertz Hall, Cal Performances presents violinist Tessa Lark, cellist Joshua Roman, & double bassist Edgar Meyer performing Bach's Sonata for Viola da Gamba in G Major, BWV 1027 & Meyer's Trio 1986, Trio 1988, & the Bay Area premiere of an unnamed new work.

San Francisco Performances continues its Saturday morning lecture series, featuring musicologist Robert Greenberg & the Alexander String Quartet (which is disbanding after this season): the theme this season is The String Quartets of Papa Joe & Wolfgang, & the first concert, at Herbst Theater on 26 October, will feature Mozart's String Quartet #1 in G Major, K 80 & Haydn's String Quartet in D Major, Opus 17, #6 & his String Quartet in F Minor, Opus 20, #5.

San Francisco Performances presents the Esmé Quartet (Wonhee Bae & Yuna Ha, violins; Dimitri Murrath, viola; Ye-Eun Heo, cello) at Herbst Theater on 26 October, where they will play Mozart's String Quartet in D Major, K. 575, Ligeti's String Quartet #1, & Schubert's String Quartet in G Major, D 887.

Members of the San Francisco Symphony will play a chamber recital at the Legion of Honor's Gunn Theater on 27 October; the program includes Bach's Sonata in A major for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1015, his Sonata #3 in G minor for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, BWV 1029, & Schubert's Piano Trio #2 in E-flat major, D929.

Instrumental

On 6 October, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Brass Department presents Octubafest (program to be announced, & usually I don't list items when the program is TBA, but I can't resist the name).

On 7 October, as part of its faculty recital series, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music presents violinist Cordula Merks playing Tchaikovsky's Entr’acte from Sleeping Beauty, Janáček's Violin Sonata, Antonio Bazzini's La Ronde des Lutins, Opus 25, & the Brahms Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano, Opus 40 (with Kevin Rivard on horn & Britt Day on piano).

Berkeley Chamber Performances presents ZOFO (pianists Eva-Maria Zimmermann & Keisuke Nakagosh) on 22 October at the Berkeley City Club, where they will play a world premiere by Putu Septa, Godowsky's In the Kraton from Java Suite, Pemungkah, Gambangan & Tabuh Telu from Balinese Ceremonial Music transcribed by Colin McPhee, Ni Nyoman Srayamurtikanti's Speech delay, Brian Baumbusch's Penrose Prologue, Dylan Mattingly's Magnolia, Kenji Oh's Sacred Chichibu Peaks at Spring Dawn, Debussy's Sirènes (arranged by Nakagoshi), Eleanor Alberga's 3-Day mix, & David Biedenbender's Symmetry breaking.

Cal Performances presents pianist Eric Lu at Hertz Hall on 27 October, when he will play Handel's Suite in E major, HWV 430, Schubert's Impromptus, Opus 142, & Chopin's Waltz in C-sharp minor, Opus 64, #2, his Barcarolle in F-sharp major, Opus 60, & his Piano Sonata #2 in B-flat minor, Opus 35.

The San Francisco Symphony presents pianist Emanuel Ax in a solo recital in Davies Hall on 27 October, when he will perform the Piano Sonata #13, Opus 27, #1, Quasi una Fantasia, by Beethoven, the Fantasia on an Ostinato by John Corigliano, Beethoven's Piano Sonata #14, Opus 27, #2, the Moonlight, & Schumann's Arabeske in C major, Opus 18 & his Fantasy in C major, Opus 17.

Early / Baroque Music

On 12 October in Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances presents Jordi Savall with La Capella Reial de Catalunya & Hespèrion XXI in The Tears and the Fire of the Muses, a program including music by Samuel Scheidt, Monteverdi (including the Lamento d’Arianna & Tirsi e Clori as well as other pieces), Anthony Holborne, John Dowland, & Giacomo Gorzanis.

The San Francisco Bach Choir, led by Magen Solomon, presents Fruit from the Bach Family Tree on 20 October at Calvary Presbyterian in San Francisco (the specific program has not been released, but the title is pretty clear about what we'll get).

Jeffrey Thomas leads the American Bach Soloists in Baroque Extravagance, a program featuring violinists Tatiana Chulochnikova, Wilton Huang, Tomà Iliev, & Noah Strick  performing works by Schmelzer, Tartini, Biber, Telemann, & Bach; & you can hear it all 25 October at Saint Stephen's in Belvedere, 26 October at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley, 27 October at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, & 28 October at Davis Community Church in Davis.

The California Bach Society, led by interim Artistic Director Magen Solomon, will present Tesori Dorati (Golden Treasures): Diverse Voices from the Italian Baroque, a program consisting of madrigals by Monteverdi & Barbara Strozzi, psalm settings by Salamone Rossi, Vivaldi’s Magnificat & the Missa Encarnación by Domenico Zipoli (an Italian composer who lived & worked in South America), & you can hear it all 25 October at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, 26 October at First Congregational in Palo Alto, & 27 October at First Congregational in Berkeley.

Voices of Music gives us Seicento: Italian music of the 17th century, a program featuring soprano Sherezade Panthaki along with Isabelle Seula Lee & Manami Mizumoto on baroque violins, William Skeenon on baroque cello, Hanneke van Proosdij  on recorder & harpsichord, & David Tayler on archlute & baroque guitar, & they will be performing pieces by Isabelle Leonarda, Francesca & Giulio Caccini, Allesandro Scarlatti, & Barbara Strozzi on 25 October at First United Methodist in Palo Alto, 26 October at First Congregational in Berkeley, & 27 October at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Caroline Hume Concert Hall.

Modern / Contemporary Music

At Old First Concerts on 4 October, New Arts Collaboration presents pianist Ting Luo in a program of world premiere works accompanied by visuals; the program includes The Reef by Maria Kallionpää (visuals by Andre Veloux), Points Becoming by Mark Winges (visuals by Jody Zellen), Toy Phantasy by Vera Ivanova (visuals by Stagg), Choose by Aries Mond, Converse by Aries Mond, an improvisation by Yalan Chang with fixed media & an improvisation by Dilate Ensemble with fixed media.

On 14 October at the San Franciso Conservatory of Music (co-presenting the talk along with the Oakland Symphony & the American Musicological Society), new Oakland Symphony Music Director Kedrick Armstrong will discuss (with musical examples) The Music of Irene Britton Smith and Julia Perry: "Classical music has seen a recent surge of interest in performing works composed by Black women. The composers whose work has received the most attention in recent years (e.g., Margaret Bonds and Florence Price) compose music that often features Black folk and vernacular idioms: their most performed works are those that illustrate this trait. By contrast, composers Irene Britton Smith and Julia Perry composed music in a more modernist and even austere style and rarely cited Black vernacular material. Conductor Kedrick Armstrong will discuss how people today make choices about what music to perform, and how those choices combine knowledge of the past with preoccupations of the present day. Why have audiences and arts organizations gravitated towards the work of Bonds and Price, but given less attention to composers like Smith and Perry? In this presentation, Maestro Armstrong will introduce sonic and stylistic features of Smith’s and Perry’s music, driving the conversation to our 21st-century values: in an era preoccupied with identity, are we overlooking important music that does not carry obvious identity markers?"

The Handel Opera Project presents The Book of the Hanging Gardens by Arnold Schoenberg with contralto Sara Couden, along with Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, featuring the Oakland Civic Orchestra conducted by Martha Stoddard, & Job by William G Ludtke, directed by Olivia Freidenreich, on 20 October at the beautiful Maybeck-designed Christian Science Church in Berkeley.

Other Minds presents the complete piano sonatas of Galina Ustvolskaya, performed by Conor Hanick & preceded by a talk from musicologist Simon Morrison, at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 28 October.

Jazz / Latin

SF Jazz presents its annual birthday festival for Thelonious Monk: on 10 - 11 October, pianist Sullivan Fortner will perform solo concerts of Monk's music (the 11 October performances are sold out, but those on 10 October are still available); on 10 October, John Beasley returns with his big band MONK’estra to perform his arrangements of Monk's music; on 12 October, keyboardist Diego Gaeta presents his re-imagined versions of Monk's music; & on 13 October, pianist Marta Sánchez, with bassist Chris Tordini & drummer Savannah Harris, perform "decidedly adventurous takes on Monk’s music".

On 12 October at the Paramount in Oakland, SF Jazz presents Lila Downs' Día de los Muertos, incorporating music, dance, & projections.

BroadwaySF presents The Buena Vista Social Orchestra, featuring some of the original members of the Buena Vista Social Club, at the Curran Theater on 13 October.

Alto saxophonist & composer Nicole McCabe & her quartet play music from her new album, Mosaic, on 20 October at the SF Jazz Center.

On 24 - 27 October at the SF Jazz Center, the SFJAZZ Collective (music director / tenor saxophonist Chris Potter, tenor saxophonist David Sánchez, trumpeter Mike Rodriguez, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Edward Simon, bassist Matt Brewer, & drummer Kendrick Scott) perform new works by its members inspired by the de Young Museum's About Place exhibition.

Paying tribute to Wayne Shorter through interpretations of his music at the SF Jazz Center on 31 October - 1 November are Mark Turner (tenor & soprano saxophones), Danilo Pérez (piano), John Patitucci (bass), & Brian Blade( drums).

The Hot Club of San Francisco, which performs jazz in the tradition of  Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli’s Quintette du Hot Club de France, will perform at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 27 October.

The SF Jazz Center presents a lecture series from Terrence Brewer: Continuum of Courage, Afrofuturism Then and Now (Part 1); the schedule is: Class 1, 30 October: The Genius of Wayne Shorter with Marcus Stephens; Class 2, 6 November: An Afrofuturist Legacy of Literature with Dr Adam Ahmed; Class 3, 13 November: Black Identity: Gil Scott Heron, Sly Stone & Beyond with Martin Luther McCoy; & Class 4, 20 November, Transcendence: The Music of Afrofuturism with Allegra Bandy.

Dance

ODC has some dance events coming up this month: on 4 - 5 October, there's Game Time from the dance / circus world of Bay Area twins Aviva & Molly Rose-Williams; on 11 - 13 October, AXIS Dance, which centers "disabled, non-disabled and neurodiverse performers", presents Ecos, with special guest artists Post:ballet, in three world premieres: Nadia Adame's Piel de Luna, Dazaun Soleyn's Harmony of Souls, & Jorge Crecis' Blueprints of Being; on 11 October, as part of their Unplugged series ("a recurring platform offering a rare and candid look into the creative process of ODC's choreographers") Guest Choreographer Sidra Bell will present an "early behind-the-scenes look into her upcoming world premiere" for next April's Dance Downtown; on 24 - 27 October, RAWdance presents four world premieres as part of its 20th anniversary season: Co-Artistic Directors Ryan T Smith & Wendy Rein give us Escape (set "in a world of vintage beachwear"), & Social Circle (set in Victorian ballrooms), along with a quartet by Stacey Yuen & Nick Wagner & a duet by Kelly Del Rosario & Erin Yen.

BroadwaySF gives us World Ballet in Swan Lake at the Curran Theater on 6 October.

On 19 October at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Epiphany Dance Theater presents Dancing with Muni & Extravaganza Performance Dance Party, showcasing a feature-length film about 20 years of San Francisco Trolley Dances along with live performances, giveaways, & dancing to live music; the event is free if you RSVP.

Cal Performances presents the inventive Mummenschanz troupe at Zellerbach Hall on 26 - 27 October.

Art Means Painting

MOAD has several new exhibits opening on 2 October: ‍What We Carry to Set Ourselves Free is "a solo project by interdisciplinary artist Helina Metaferia . . .  which foregrounds the often-overlooked labor of BIPOC women and gender-marginalized people within activist histories, and their continued contributions within today's social justice movements. ‍The exhibition includes a hand made collage replicated as a large scale vinyl mural, a text based installation, a wearable sculpture, a video performance, and an interactive live performance at the museum on October 12" & that runs through 2 March 2025; Jessica Monette's Unveiling Histories: A Fabricated Archive is "a fabricated archive that documents a colonial and ancestral past reshaped by historical turbulence", including the Middle Passagee & Hurricane Katrina, & that runs through 15 December; & Liberatory Living: Protective Interiors and Radical Black Joy "features designs, artworks, and environments dedicated to the global necessity for Black people to cultivate domestic interiors not only as spaces of revolutionary action, but also of radical joy and revolutionary rest", & that runs through 2 March 2025.

Some powerhouse exhibits are opening this month at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco: at the Legion of Honor, Mary Cassatt at Work opens 5 October & runs through 26 January 2025; at the de Young, Tamara de Lempicka, the painter's first major museum retrospective in the United States, opens 12 October & runs through 9 February, & Art and War in the Renaissance: The Battle of Pavia Tapestries, the American debut for this suite of seven large tapestries, opens on 19 October & runs through 12 January 2025.

Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture opens at SFMOMA on 19 October & runs through 18 February 2025.

Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection, which focuses on work by women artists, will open on 27 October at BAM/PFA & run through 20 April 2025.

Cinematic

The Walt Disney Family Museum opens a new exhibit on 17 October, Directing at Disney, highlighting directors going back to the 1930s; the show will run through March 2025.

The Mill Valley Film Festival runs 3 - 13 October, & BAM/PFA will be one of their venues; for a list of the Berkeley showings, click here.

BroadwaySF presents the "49th Anniversary Spectacular Tour" of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, hosted by Patricia Quinn (better known to aficionados as Magenta); the evening includes a screening of the original film "with a live shadow cast and audience participation! Plus a costume contest, and more!", & that's at the Curran Theater on 9 October. (If you want to see the original stage musical, check Ray of Light's listing above, under Theatrical).

On 14 October, the Balboa Theater in San Francisco is showing Shakes the Clown, famously described by Betsy Sherman of the Boston Globe as "the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies".

If you want an early start on Halloween, on 19 October the Balboa is showing the Supernatural Film Fest (all-day passes available).

BAM/PFA launches two more film series this month: Hong Kong Cinema with Paul Fonoroff runs from 17 to 27 October, & Cuban Cinema without Borders runs from 23 October through 16 November.

Psycho will be shown at Davies Hall on 31 October, with Scott Terrell leading the San Francisco Symphony in a live performance of Bernard Herrmann's famous score.

And on 31 October, SF Jazz will present its annual seasonally appropriate silent film at Grace Cathedral, with Dorothy Papadakos on the organ; the movie this time is Hitchcock's' The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.

Friday Photo 2024/39

pumpkins

San Francisco Opera: Un Ballo in Maschera

I was at the opera house last night for the second-to-the-last performance of the San Francisco Opera's season opener, Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. I love this opera & the production was superb. Even with two intermissions & a couple of those disruptive pauses between scenes ("Please stay in your seats during this brief pause" but of course some people can't resist pulling out their phones, because . . . they're so very important that 30 minutes can't go by without checking for all those very important messages?), the three-hour performance time flew by, thanks to the vigorous cast & the propulsive yet sensitive conducting of Music Director Eun Sun Kim.

The production (directed by Leo Muscato, set design by Federica Parolini, costumes by Silvia Aymonino, & lighting by Alessandro Verazzi) is both gorgeous & psychologically apt. Without going full-on Fritz Lang, the stage & the shadowy, jagged lighting seem influenced by German Expressionism: the sets are often soaring yet cramped, pushing people close to the front of the stage (which has the additional musical charm of helping project their voices outward into the auditorium); the costumes are colorful & aristocratically elegant but the surroundings are dark; the second-act setting near the gallows spot, with black trees jutting irregularly across the stage, is made vivid by swirling mist in changing colors, some of which (red) are cued to the emotional moment, others of which are just strange & shifting (I loved the effect but will note that a friend of mine found it distracting).

The court world portrayed here is frivolous & shallow, though with dark currents of treachery & resentment simmering underneath; Gustavo/Riccardo seemed a close cousin to the charming & heedless Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto. When he, urged by his page Oscar, decides to check into the soothsayer Ulrica's trade personally before agreeing with the Chief Magistrate's degree of banishment, he suggests the party visit her with music that is irresistibly lively, & indeed most of the courtiers start bobbing up & down to the music, moving their arms in rhythm, ready to dance at what is clearly another goofy escapade in the light atmosphere of the court – except the conspirators don't dance along; they stand, a solid & noticeable mass, glowering off on one side of the stage. It was a wonderful moment, as the audience (OK, maybe just me) can hardly keep from dancing along in their seats to this music. Movement of the stage pictures is used well throughout; when we come to the climactic masked ball, the set rotates, startlingly, for the first time all evening, & the stage is suddenly much brighter & deeper than at any other time during the show. (The climactic masked ball, but hasn't the whole show been a masked ball? No one here is without disguise, or masked motives.)

It doesn't do this performance justice to say this is what we want in Italian opera; it's what we dream of: the passion, the precision, the wild strength. The main conspirators, Adam Lau as Samuel/Count Ribbing & Jongwon Han as Tom/Count Horn. are, beneath their murmuring, their suspicions & their suspiciousness, implacable in their pursuit of vengeance, the granite rocks on which the swells of the frivolous court smash & break. Mei Gui Zhang as Oscar is gorgeously attired in black & white, with stylish juxtapositions of various stripes & checks, & a hat with a very tall plume, like an exotic bird that is also a faithful reader of Vogue. His exquisitely spritely music embodies the surface light-heartedness of the court, floating beside, reflecting on but never quite comprehending the darker contrasting currents.

As Gustavo/Riccardo, Michael Fabiano is all strength & careless charm. You can see why the people say they love him, but also how he could have created some dangerous enemies. The silver spangles rain down on the ball-goers as he expires. (There were some extra-musical groans & exhalations during his death that I would have preferred not be there, but that's a matter of personal taste.) Lianna Haroutounian is a compelling & sympathetic Amelia, & Amartuvshin Enkhbat as Renato/Count Anckarström is powerful as a good man redirected into enmity by perceived betrayal; both he & Amelia seem so much more thoughtful & conscience-stricken than the king that you can see why they belong together. Gustavo/Riccardo ultimately does the noble, Brief Encounter-type thing, but it takes him a while to get there (& you can see why such insouciance has its appeal to Amelia).

Judit Kutasi, so memorable as Ortrud in last season's Lohengrin, is similarly towering in the somewhat similar role of Ulrica/Madame Arvidson, the fortune-teller in touch, or so she claims, & so some of the authorities believe, with Satanic powers. She brought an interesting theatricality to the role that made it seem that whether or not Ulrica was actually communicating with unearthly powers, she was certainly aware of how to impress upon her audience that she was well worth the money they gave her. (She makes a brief & striking appearance in the finale of the masked ball, once it is clear that her prophecies have all, in the way of stage prophecies, come true.) The smaller roles – Christopher Oglesby as the Chief Magistrate, Samuel Kidd as the vivid sailor whose questions to Ulrica about his ultimate rewards are instantly answered by the disguised king, & Thomas Kinch as Amelia's Servant – are all strong. (As you can tell from the character names, this production uses the Swedish rather than the colonial Boston setting, though honestly . . . to me it doesn't really matter much.)

As usual before the opera began, we heard the recorded voice of company director Matthew Shilvock welcoming all those people who are attending the opera for the first time. This always attracts a big round of applause; I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps it's a case of more rejoicing in Heaven over the one straying sheep that is rescued rather than the 99 that have been there grazing all along, but maybe some day he will also thank those of us who keep coming show after show.

The woman who checked her phone during the first pause (she & her husband also spoke a bit during the performance) left at the first intermission, which was fine with me (& also with the woman on the other side of them, who moved over into their vacated seats, to get a better view of the stage). Speaking of views from the stage (I was in Orchestra A1), I usually pay more attention to the stage than the pit, even in the front row, but it was wonderful to notice how much the harp adds to both the playful music associated with the Court & with Oscar in particular & also to what I'll call the heavenly apotheosis music as Riccardo lies dying (according to the program, Annabelle Taubl is the Acting Principal Harp, but I'm not sure she's the woman who was playing last night).

During the second act, a woman a few rows behind me started an endless rustling with some sort of plastic bag (I will never understand why people wait until the music starts to do things like that – take out what needs to be taken out during intermission, people!). The woman behind me swiftly & unobtrusively went over & whispered something & the noise (mostly) stopped. During the second intermission I thanked the woman for doing this. "Oh, I'm hardcore," she replied. "You know what the problem is? It's these stupid women with all of their shit. You can check it for free, I don't know what's going on! The woman behind me is doing the same thing" – & she turned around &, murder rising blood-red in her eyes, glared at the woman. I'm not sure the other woman noticed, but maybe the message got through. Such is life in Operaland.

Poem of the Week 2024/39

Swan, tell me your old story.

What country have you come from, swan, what shores are you flying to?

Where do you rest at night, and what are you looking for?

It's dawn, swan, wake up, soar to the air, follow me!

There is a land not governed by sadness and doubt, where the fear of death is unknown.

Spring forests bloom there and the wind is sweet with the flower He-Is-Myself.

The bee of the heart dives into it and wants no other joy.

– Kabir, translated by Czesław Miłosz and Robert Hass

Swans are such strangely resonant birds; they seem to be taken up culturally, wherever they live, as symbols of something larger than a mere part of the local fauna, though what they symbolize varies widely: grace, death (the swan song), beauty, royalty, wisdom . . . in this poem, the mystic Kabir addresses a swan, which seems here to be a conglomerate of all the meanings projected onto the bird – that is, it represents the grace & beauty of the world. The poet reaches out to the swan, acknowledging its mysterious life, a life separate from the poet's understanding: tell me your story. But not just your story: your old story, suggesting an attempt to hear the universal & historical history of not just this individual swan, but this swan as a representative of all swans, an archetype of the species, a long-lasting co-inhabitant of the earth. The swan, this beacon of grace & beauty, seems to be restless & rootless: where have you come from, where are you going, where do you rest, what do you seek? (Is there an easy place on earth for such beauty?)

Halfway through the poem, it takes a turn: the poet exhorts the swan to wake up, it's dawn (a general symbol of rebirth, new hope, new possibilities). Then, strangely, he adjures this water bird to leave its native element rise up into the air. Even more oddly, the poet further tells the bird to follow him – the mystic is already soaring into the empyrean. The suggestion is that the swan, this representative of what is gorgeous & graceful in the world, should join with the poet in the land he mentions, a place very unlike our earth, as it is not governed by sadness & doubt & fear & death. After telling us what this land is not, the poet tells us what the land is, & again he conjures up a sense of serene beauty by using the beautiful things of earth (what else do we have to compare things to?): not a bird such as the swan, this time, but springtime forests (spring, like dawn, is a symbol of revival & hope), blooms, sweet breezes carrying the scent of a flower – not an earthly flower, but a symbol of union with the divine (He seems to refer to God, & He-Is-Myself to union with God – though perhaps He is the flower, & the poet has become one with Nature, in the form of a flower).

To further suggest the on-going & active nature of this ecstatic union, the poet's heart has, or is, a bee (another lovely, useful creature, producing sweet honey & making nature fruitful through pollination) that – in an exuberant, active verb – dives into the flower. There's a sexual undercurrent to this ecstatic union, as there often is in poetry describing a mystic union with a deity. But though we are left with this final image of ecstatic union, has the poet truly achieved this celestial bliss? If he has, why is he calling on the swan, a figure of the beauties of this earth, to join him? Is he still longing for earthly beauty? Or is the poet rather calling on the beauties of the earth to purge themselves of doubt, sadness, fear, & death, & join him in seeking the transcendence of this ineffable joy?

I took this poem from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, edited by Stephen Mitchell. Unlike many anthologies of spiritual verse, this one eschews the poetry of doubt as well as of dogma, & concentrates on poetic attempts to capture & celebrate the soul's union with the divine.

Museum Monday 2024/39

 

Elephant Candelabrum Vase (Vase à Tête d’Eléphant), from the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory & now in the Art Institute of Chicago

San Francisco Opera: Innocence

(Catching up on last June's offerings at San Francisco Opera, part 3. . . .)

I was at San Francisco Opera for the American premiere of Innocence, Kaija Saariaho's final opera (libretto by Sofi Oksanen & Aleksi Barrière). I realized right away that I needed to see it again, so I was also at the final performance. I don't generally go to the same production twice, due to my preference for expensive seats & my low tolerance for audiences, but this performance was clearly something special, like seeing a modern classic emerging newborn but already complete, & it was worth seeing not only twice but multiple times; in a work as subtle & detailed as this one, each viewing brings you in deeper.

We begin at a wedding reception in Finland; the bride & groom met as students abroad. Strange things begin to emerge about the wedding – why is it so small? where are the family & friends? is the groom's father drinking maybe a little too much, & why are his mother's vocal lines so consistently in an almost hysterically high tessitura? We learn that the groom's brother, ten years before, shot up the town's International School. A waitress assigned to the reception at the last minute turns out to know the family, from the time before. Her daughter was one of the shooter's victims. As we move forward in time with the reception (will the bride be told the family secret? will the family finally pull together, or fly apart?) we also move backwards, through flashbacks, to the day of the shooting, what led up to it, & its ongoing repercussions.

It was an astute move setting this opera somewhere other than the homeland of school shootings, the United States. Setting it here would make the story inevitably about the sickness of American culture (guns & money over children's safety, every time) & a corrupt & ineffective political situation that bars the obviously essential reforms. Instead, it is a deeper examination of what humans anywhere & anytime do to each other.

The story is fragmented; initially we hear from many of the victims (not all of them still living); they speak in a Babel-like cloud of different languages, describing everyday things, like going for a run or meeting people in public, & how they now struggle with them. Gradually we realize they are describing the aftereffects of the decade-old shooting at their school. But about halfway through, the libretto takes a twist; we start to hear the background of the shooter, his emotional oddities, the early warning signs that were ignored, the ridicule of his classmates & even a horrifying example of a sexually humiliating incident they perpetrated on him. None of this excuses the murders, of course, but as we go in deeper we gradually realize the terrible irony of the title: no one here is innocent. Innocence may be a thing that simply doesn't exist among humans, though they pretend it does, mostly to excuse themselves & condemn others.

A particularly striking character in this regard is Marketa (Vilma Jää), the waitress' murdered daughter, a talented musician. She is a tall, attractive blonde. We first see her through her mourning mother's eyes, as a wonderful, talented person cruelly cut off from the life she might have led. And that remains true. But we also hear from the groom's mother that the wonderful Marketa had a cruel edge, & made up a song mocking the future shooter for his ugly frog face, which she sang to the students repeatedly, because they enjoyed it & it made them laugh. The phantom Marketa appears & mostly shrugs off the song & how it affected its object of ridicule. I wonder if she isn't in some way meant as an image of the Artist in the world, following her own path (her music is distinctly different, with a sort of Nordic folk-song sound that is striking & memorable) but also eager for applause & the spotlight, even at the cost of someone else's feelings: a creator, yes, but also a destroyer; an indifferent, & therefore morally compromised or compromisable, figure.

The shooter himself never appears on stage, though he dominates the proceedings, nor do we see violence so much as its emotionally violent after-effects. [A correction: my memory was faulty & the shooter does appear on stage in this production; see Lisa Hirsch's comment below.] We do meet the shooter's accomplices, though both dropped out before the actual shooting. One I won't mention, as it's one of the more startling revelations, but another is a young woman who befriends the shooter & has some problems of her own, including a creepy stepfather. It's a mark of the libretto's deft touch that his creepiness is presented only through her perceptions; there's something there, but how much? We are not given easy or obvious explanations. There is the family priest, but he does not have much comfort to dispense; instead, he is haunted by the sense that he should have acted on warning signs he noticed & by the inadequacy of any counseling or comfort he can offer. The opera closes with the phantom Marketa urging her mother to stop some of her obsessive mourning rituals; you could take this as some sort of healing or closure, or perhaps simply as time moving on, & memory moving on, though the sorrow is embedded soul-deep until one also passes away.

A summary does not do justice to the libretto, which struck me as comparable to late Ibsen in its psychological nuance & mythopoetic power. It could stand on its own without the music, though the music adds a richness, a depth & complexity, that only opera can achieve. Saariaho's score is muscular & crepuscular; the tension is sustained throughout & all handled with great subtlety. At my second performance, when I was seated in front of the brass & percussion – I was on the other side for my first performance – I noticed how skillfully certain lines were highlighted by a trumpet. (Much as I love Britten & Billy Budd, I wince every time Claggart snarls Let him crawl to that isn't-he-evil orchestration – there's none of that here). This score is a magnificent final addition to Saariaho's rich legacy. [a correction: this was Saariaho's last work for the stage, but there's a trumpet concerto she composed after it; see Lisa Hirsch's comment below]

Another reason I wanted to have a second experience of this magnificent work is that, even though it felt as if I were watching the emergence of a full-blown masterpiece, a piece that seemed both already set among the classics & yet also completely new, it also seemed like something that might not get revived that often: the unsparing vision that gives it force also makes it difficult, even at times horrifying, to experience. I heard a few people compare it to Elektra, but that has a big star role. There's none of that here. Innocence is very much an ensemble piece. There are no detachable arias. The emotions it gives rise to are complicated & haunting. I very much hope I'm wrong about this, as this opera deserves many revivals. New operas are always a risk, & San Francisco Opera deserves all praise for co-commissioning this bold work.

I feel I've just scratched the surface of what should be said here. But let me salute the ensemble: conductor Clément Mao-Takacs, Lilian Farahani as the Bride, Miles Mykkanen as the Groom, Rod Gilfry as his Father, Claire de Sévigné as his Mother, Ruxandra Donose as the substitute Waitress, Lucy Shelton as the Teacher, Kristinn Sigmundsson as the family Priest, Rowan Klevits as the Student Anton, Camilo Delgado Díaz as the Student Jeronimo, Beate Mordal as the Student Lily, Marina Dumont as the Student Alexia, Vilma Jää as the Student Marketa, Julie Hega as the Student Iris, & the actors Oksana Barrios, Jordan Covington, Victoria Fong, Sam Hannum, Jalen Justice, Rachael Richman, Brian Soutner, Kevin Walton.

If I ever pull together a list of the greatest opera performances I've ever seen, Innocence will have to be on that list.

San Francisco Opera: Partenope

(Catching up on last June's offerings at San Francisco Opera, part 2. . . .)

I hesitated before getting a ticket to San Francisco Opera's revival of Handel's Partenope, because I had not much liked the Christopher Alden production when it was first shown here ten years ago (I summed it up by saying I felt I should be having a lot more fun than I was actually having; you can read my post on that production here). Ultimately what led to my pulling out the credit card once again was a combination of my adoration of Handel & my strong desire to see more early operas staged. I would happily jettison the entire verismo school for more baroque operas, which strike me as actually more realistic: people come & go, talking about their feelings at length (beautiful length, thanks for the powers of music), confused about love & most other things . . . this is a lot more life-like, & more psychologically astute, than the so-called verismo of poisoned violets & other equally improbable & melodramatic revenges.

What do you know, I ended up enjoying this go-round of Partenope much more! The production was basically the same, though maybe some of the more egregious elements were toned down (I recalled much more toilet-paper play the first time around, as well as more gratuitous chair-handling). The surrealist elements seemed stronger this time, including the projection of some of Man Ray's experimental films. Many of the successful elements of the original – the Art Deco elegance, the references to the First World War, the avant-garde aura – were in place & still strong. No one sang an aria hanging from the staircase, but striking moments abounded.

And the cast was very strong, in particular Julie Fuchs as a dazzling Partenope, with a full & elegant & even swinging style. (In one of her da capo ornamentations, I swear she wittily threw in a bit of Sempre libera from Traviata – a similar high-society queen who came to a sadly different end.) My two favorite singers from the earlier iteration, Daniela Mack as Rosmira & Alek Shrader as Emilio, both returned in fine form, & Shrader ten years on is still able to sing his aria while doing complicated yoga moves, so good for you, Alek! Carlo Vistoli ws Arsace, Nicholas Tamagna Armindo, & Hadleigh Adams Ormonte, all of them excellent. Christopher Moulds led the excellent band, & why can't we have more of this kind of thing rather than yet another round of the Bohemians?

San Francisco Opera: The Magic Flute

(Catching up on last June's offerings at San Francisco Opera, part 1. . . .)

There's always something that pulls us back to operas we may think we've seen often enough; in the case of San Francisco Opera's Magic Flute, it was the celebrated production by Barrie Kosky, usually described as the "silent film" staging, which of course grabbed my interest.

Silent film is definitely a major influence, but the designers clearly also looked at graphic novels, anime, surrealist collages, & comic books; I've heard some people describe the constantly shifting projections as exhausting, but they could just as easily be seen as exhilarating. On the whole I enjoyed the production, but was surprised by some of its limitations.

It does some things extremely well; this is the first production I've seen in which the trials by fire & water carry some weight & seem like actual trials .The whole quest/fairy tale aspect comes out very strongly. The use of silent-film style intertitles relieves us from the generally tedious comedy of the spoken dialogue. (But this has the unfortunate effect of depriving Papagena of some of her most winning moments.)

On the debit side of the ledger, the actions of the singers are extremely circumscribed: one limb awry & the illusion from the seamless projections falls apart. Also, the singers are mostly isolated from each other, often perched midway up the stage & addressing someone down below or off to the side. This is not an opera in which psychological realism is paramount, of course, but it does have a warm human heart that beats a little less vigorously when everyone is physically so separated.

There are specific silent-film references made in the costuming, some of which work better than others. I have never seen a production in which I thought so much about Pamina's hair; she's given the iconic Louise Brooks bob, but . . . is Pamina really a Louise Brooks type? I pondered whether the character would be better off with the golden tresses of the ethereal Lillian Gish, or Mary Pickford's tighter, spunkier blonde sausage curls. Papageno has Buster Keaton's porkpie hat, but Keaton's deadpan but sensitive calibration of on-coming disaster isn't really a Papageno quality (would Chaplin's pleasure-seeking but poignant Tramp be a better fit?). Monostatos is made up like Murnau's Nosferatu, which neatly avoids the ugly racial aspect of the lustful villain. The Queen of the Night mostly appears as a giant spider, which is striking & effective (though, again with the quibbles, shouldn't she at least initially be more immediately appealing?).The racial remarks can be pruned, but the anti-female aspects are too baked in to the libretto to be expunged. My audience mostly reacted to the more egregiously misogynistic remarks with laughter, which seems like the most sensible response under the circumstances.

I think the constraints of the production, striking & memorable as the production is, affected the performers; all of them had moments when I thought they were excellent, & others when I thought they were a bit overwhelmed. (Amitai Pati was Tamino, Lauri Vasar the Papageno, Anna Siminska the Queen of the Night, Zhengyi Bai the Monostatos, Christina Gansch the Pamina, Kwangchul Youn the Sarastro, Arianna Rodriguez the Papagena, & Olivia Smith, Ashley Dixon, & Maire Theresa Carmack respectively the First, Second, & Thirdd Ladies). Eun Sun Kim led a sprightly & noble rendiiton.

I was very glad to have a chance to see this production, even if it struck me as a big more of a mixed bag than I had hoped. But even when I decide I've seen the Magic Flute often enough, I end up glad I went.

Friday Photo 2024/38

 

on the way to the Opera House, San Francisco

San Francisco Opera: The Handmaid's Tale

Last Saturday night, I was at the Opera House for the west coast premiere of The Handmaid's Tale, with music by Poul Ruders & libretto by Paul Bentley based, of course, on Margaret Atwood's famous novel. I was tired when I went in (these things do affect our perceptions; the physical weighs us down, which is one of the themes of the Handmaid's Tale), I was skeptical for several reasons of what I was about to see, but I found myself overpowered by a work I'm still processing several days later.

I don't need to go into why I was tired, but I will broadly sketch my skepticism. The idea felt maybe a bit too obvious, even hackneyed, given the political situation in the United States (the mere fact that anyone, let alone a substantial minority, could still think of voting for Trump tells you everything you need to know about how morally & intellectually & spiritually bankrupt this country is). And the way this material is usually described struck me as self-indulgent: women as perpetual victims, men as oppressors. It's well known that over half the white women who voted in 2016 voted for Trump, & most men I know (including myself, of course) are far from profiting from the current gendered set-up. We've all seen those memes that appeared post-Dobbs about how the wrath of women had been aroused, but all I can think when I see them is Where have they been for the past 45 years? Nothing, & I mean nothing, that has happened has been a surprise. The reactionaries have been announcing for decades to cheering crowds (which included many women, of course) that they were going to pack the courts & overturn Roe v Wade, which is exactly what they did. When Trump was elected, owing to the anti-democratic Electoral College, there was grand talk about "the Resistance", a word which was also highlighted in the publicity for this opera. I dislike the self-glorifying term; it makes it sound as if we're all wearing berets & blowing up supply trains under cover of darkness. Opposing Trump mostly calls for the same boring grind as any other political work, including talking to – &, more to the point, listening to – people who are, in the delicate & lovely euphemism of political writers, "low information".

I just deleted several lines there, because, you know, people care about my political opinions as little as I care about theirs & let's get to the opera. But, for this opera in particular, the political situation is relevant, & our self-deceptions & assumptions are relevant. This opera knows this, & no matter what you go in thinking – & this is the mark of a great political opera, like The Death of Klinghoffer – you will come out a bit shaken in your certainties.

I read Atwood's novel around the time it was published, 1985, & found it strong & convincing – Atwood, of course, is too clear-sighted & complex a writer to produce a simple tale of victimization, & I'm happy to say the adaptation respects that. There is ambiguity & complicity all over in the action & characterization. I did not re-read the novel before the opera (lack of time, mostly) but it came back to me as I watched. The action, which is complicated & not presented in a linear manner, can be followed even without having read the book. The story told in the novel itself is fragmentary, a journal kept irregularly by someone whose fate we never learn, but in the opera the story, until the end, seems less fragmentary than fractured: the pieces are there, just not in chronological order.

Both narrative & music have a lot to accomplish here, & mostly they both succeed brilliantly, though at times I did wish for the expansion possible in a novel – in particular, I wanted to hear more from & about Serena Joy, the wife of the Commander, & Aunt Lydia, the woman in charge of training the handmaidens in their beliefs & duties. They are true believers in Gilead (though I started to wonder about Serena Joy); what are they seeing in it or hoping for from it? But compression & omission are required to convey everything that needs to be conveyed: the violent founding & strictures of the Republic of Gilead, the sporadic concern & opposition before & during the founding, the environmental depredations that make fertility & healthy infants such prized commodities, what life is like under Gilead, & the life (both before & after Gilead) & the tentative moves towards liberation of Offred (the titular Handmaid; her Commander is named Fred, as she is now Of Fred, but also, of course there's the pun on Offered).

The spare, very brightly lit set (designed by Chloe Lamford) & the color-coded costumes (designed by Christina Cunninham) tell a clear story about the relentless surveillance & regimentation of Gilead, & its Spartan lack of softness or luxury, or any kind of sensuality or romance. The time is moved forward a bit from the novel, so it's now happening a few years from our present time (though the surprising amount of cigarette smoking made me think it was still set a few years after 1985). The scenes of life in Gilead are sharply drawn, full of confusion, suspicion, & disappointment. So why would anyone think such a place was a good idea? The music conveys that very well: whenever there's a hymn or prayer or some sort of religious ceremony, the music takes on a gentleness, a harmonious beauty, an ascendance, that is not found elsewhere in the score (in which even Amazing Grace comes across in frantic, fractured distortions). This quality is subtly done; these moments don't jump out from the score, but they do mark a difference in tone from the violent percussion of Gilead's enforcers & the agonizingly high tessiture of the corralled handmaidens. In those early scenes of the handmaidens especially, I was very reliant on the surtitles.

Every aspect of this production is strong: the agile conducting by Karen Kamensek, the sensitive direction by John Fulljames, &, especially, the powerhouse cast: just to mention some of the major roles, Sarah Cambidge as a commanding Aunt Lydia; Lindsay Ammann as the bitter wife, Serena Joy; John Relyea as the opaque Commander; Katrina Galka as Janine/Ofwarren, a friend & ally of Offred; Brenton Ryan as an ambiguous servant of, or enemy of, the Commander & Serena Joy; &, in particular, Irene Roberts as Offred. I realize it's part of the narrative strategy that Offred is not a particularly interesting character: she is a fairly average person, with average interests & concerns, trying to make sense of a horrible situation she is aught up in. Roberts makes her vivid & convincing.

Do you need a spoiler alert if the key plot revelation to be discussed is that there is nothing to reveal? The opera ends, as did the novel, with an abrupt disappearance from the historical record. We do not learn Offred's ultimate fate: freedom, capture, the Colonies? Life, death, imprisonment? Does she reunite with the daughter who was taken from her? The final notes ring out, but the narrative hangs suspended. The point, of course, is that we can try to write the ending for our own time, as best we may, insofar as we can.

Poem of the Week 2024/38

Where the wild woods and pathless forests frown,

    The darkling Pilgrim seeks his unknown way,

Till on the grass he throws him weary down,

    To wait in broken sleep the dawn of day:

Thro' boughs just waving in the silent air,

    With pale capricious light the Summer Moon

Chequers his humid couch; while Fancy there,

    That loves to wanton in the Night's deep noon,

Calls from the mossy roots and fountain edge

    Fair visionary Nymphs that haunt the shade,

Or Naiads rising from the whispering sedge;

    And, 'mid the beauteous group, his dear loved maid

Seems beckoning him with smiles to join the train:

Then, starting from his dream, he feels his woes again!

– Charlotte Smith

This sonnet, written shortly before the 18th turned into the 19th century, combines the threatening aspects of the wilderness with the enchanting. We are first shown the scene: wild woods, pathless forests, frowning, in a personified way. It's a foreboding sight. Only in the second line are we introduced to the human element in this scene: an intruder, a darkling Pilgrim on his unknown way. If he's a pilgrim, how can his way be unknown, unless his ultimate goal is not some specific religious shrine but some as-yet undefined sense of peace? He is propelled by the inchoate yearning the fuels the Romantic wanderer. Darkling is always a striking adjective. Given the frowning forests, it's no wonder he is in the dark, but the word also carries with it something more than merely "without light"; it suggests something mysterious, disquieting, a darkness spiritual as well as literal. (Most readers of poetry will hear an echo in this opening of Dante wandering lost in the forest at the opening the Divine Comedy, with the grand & sacred aura that memory carries with it).

Weary from his unsated searching, the Pilgrim throws himself on the grass to sleep – a broken sleep, of course. Sleep leads to that other ambiguous realm of freedom & fright, the echt-Romantic world of dreaming. Smith really creates the whole scene with such swift strokes – the Pilgrim, a word with a long tradition of spiritual seeking & growth, here applied to a restless soul clearly in turmoil: he strays through the darkness & the wild, as if any direction is the same; he throws himself on the grass, his sleep will not be deep or restful.

The physical situation is as deftly presented as the psychological, & the two are intermingled, with human emotions & moods applied to Nature, & the natural world reflecting the inner state of the Pilgrim: the silent air, the boughs barely swaying, the moonlight, pale & capricious: pale, suggesting a ghostly rather than robust presence; capricious, which in this context suggests something like dappled, or the varying light you get when clouds or swaying tree-limbs temporarily block the light. But capricious is usually applied to humans, & it's usually a gendered term, applied mostly to women who are seen as emotionally volatile or subject to sudden changes of mood (if applied to a man, there would be an implication of effeminacy, suggesting he is lacking in manly steadiness of purpose). Here it is applied to the moon, usually personified as a goddess, in particular Artemis/Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt, & of course the moon, with its regular cycles of waxing & waning, is a symbol of constant changing. A suggestion of a woman, a virgin uninterested in love, an element changeable & capricious, light that comes & goes: we may be getting a hint of the causes of the Pilgrim's underlying discontent.

The moonlight chequers (the British spelling of checkers; the poet is reinforcing the sense of spotty & irregular light) the humid couch: basically, the damp bank on which he's thrown himself. This is the sort of fancy diction that could be vaguely comic, but here it suggests to me that for the pilgrim the lines between civilization (a couch or proper bed) & the wilderness (a bank of soft grass, just as good!) are blurring. Is this the effect of exhaustion, dreaming, or despair?

Fancy appears; here, as in Shakespeare, the term means Imagination, particularly untrammeled imagination, a quality that emerges strongly in the night's deep noon, which is an inversion referring to midnight – again, a blurring of lines, this time between day & night. Fancy is personified as one who loves – a word that reinforces our sense of an erotic dilemma as what's lying at the heart of the poem – to wanton – a word that connects with capricious earlier &, again, reinforces a sense of erotic titillation & uncertainty underlying this Pilgrim's progress. Wanton meant something like to play or frolic, but already there was also an underlying sense of the meaning to be sexually unrestrained – again, this was a gendered term, applied in the sexual sense mostly to women.

Our pilgrim's sleep is broken: is he dreaming, or in a state of half-slumber in which his imagination (Fancy) is conjuring up an erotic vision? He seems to have some classical learning, to picture these women (naked, or nearly so, we can assume) as nymphs & naiads (nymphs are forest spirits, mostly associated with trees, while naiads are water spirits). It's a pretty picture, to him & to us; what sort of distancing is underway that compels him to see them not just as naked pretty women but as classical spirits? (It's like those academic paintings that displayed nudity freely as long as they could dress up the naked with a classical title.)

The scene is lovely but unreal, a bit otherworldly: the visionary nymphs . . . haunt the shade; visionary suggests religious ecstasy, but also something trance-like & unreal; haunt here means, basically, where they hang out, but it of course also carries ghostly overtones, & shade is a term that can refer to ghosts as well as the shadows cast by the forest. The whole scene is enticing, but illusory & possibly dangerous: there are dark powers at loose in the forest.

Right before we come to the final couplet, the implied but as-yet unseen other half of the hinted-at story appears: his dear loved maid. (Maid here means a young, virgin woman.) He loves her, but does she love him? In the concluding couplet, she seems to gesture to him to join them in their frolics, but just at that sweet moment his dream-world dissolves, & he remembers his unhappiness – presumably that he is not loved in return. We can see no ending, certainly not a happy one, to this pilgrimage, & part of the Pilgrim's grief is that he also sees no end in sight, at least in the actual world. Lovely dreams show up to entice, delude, & then torment him in the trackless forest.

I took this from The Poems of Charlotte Smith, edited by Stuart Curran.