Museum Monday 2024/42

 

detail of Woman Arranging Her Veil, a pastel by Mary Cassatt, seen at the Legion of Honor as part of the special exhibit Mary Cassatt at Work

Friday Photo 2024/41

 

on the Embarcadero, San Francisco, morning

Poem of the Week 2024/41

Life and Death

Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet

    To shut our eyes and die:

Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by

    With flitting butterfly;

Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet,

Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high,

Nor sigh that spring is fleet and summer fleet,

    Nor mark the waxing wheat,

Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.

Life is not good. One day it will be good

    To die, then live again;

To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane

Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,

Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,

Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood

    Rich ranks of golden grain

Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain:

Asleep from risk, asleep from pain.

– Christina Rossetti

This sensuous lyric is disturbing; its elegant formal form is a vessel for bleak thoughts. Each stanza begins with a blanket denial of a positive view of life: life is not sweet, nor is it good. Sweetness & goodness will only follow death; in the first stanza, it is specifically losing sight of the world, followed by death, that will lead to sweetness. What follows then is a loving list of things worth seeing, things that would seem to make the world & life in it sweet: wild flowers, birds & butterflies flitting past, the happy lark (that recurring symbol in English poetry of a joyful dawn breaking afresh), the fields of wheat growing. These are not things obviously calculated to convince us that death is preferable to life, even though some of the details point us towards understanding the poet's distress: the grass is growing long, but above our heads & feet (we are buried beneath it, in other words), we are sighing at the brevity of the sunny, burgeoning & fruitful seasons (even the flitting butterflies can be read as a sign of transitoriness), someone else (a friend, a rival, some new person unknown to us) has taken our usual place with our friends. We are given a list of beautiful things, but all of them pass from us. Rather than enjoying them while they last, or seeing their passing as part of their beauty, the poet, despite her obvious admiration of these things, her loving cataloguing of natural abundance, rejects them (though perhaps with some residual longing).

The second stanza maintains the inventiveness & formal perfection of the first (each of them uses only two rhymes throughout, a wonderful thing to achieve without visible strain in famously rhyme-poor English), though it does darken the picture: this time the catalogue of nature moves from the spring & summer of the first stanza to fall & winter, times of bleakness & decay: the dead leaves are dropping, the sea lashes the coast, the harvest (the bean & wheat fields) are blackened & filled with stubble. (The waxing of the wheat in the first stanza is balanced & undercut in the second by the waning of the shrunk leaves). Again the narrator denies that goodness can have a part in this on-going cycle: what is good is to die. But then she adds, almost parenthetically, then live again.

Perhaps as we read this stanza's list of decaying nature, we are keeping in mind the first stanza's springtime, & its usual return after the time of fallen leaves & fields emptied after the harvest. This thought does not seem to be enough for the poet, though; it seems to be the endless cycling that troubles her. So what is the living again that would be as good as death? Given Rossetti's strong Christian beliefs, it is presumably life after death, the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgment, when the world will be purged into a new & perfected entity.

It is the feeling of decay, the sighing over the fleetness of beauty, that leaves the poet stricken; at the end, she longs to be Asleep from risk, asleep from pain. It is stasis she longs for, respite from the constant shifting of the world, something solid to stand on, some beauty that isn't passing away before our eyes. We are, at least at this cultural moment, so cued to embrace & celebrate risk & change (often in ways that seem designed to make us accept unacceptable & avoidable social, political, or economic states) that it's kind of breathtaking & refreshing to read someone who rejects the premise, even as she balances it with what is clearly a sense of the sweet & good things in life.

But it's also disturbing to hear someone say such things, because life is unavoidably filled with risk, & loss, & pain, & so rejecting them is rejecting existence. If a friend expressed these sentiments, one might suggest counseling, or even medication for deep depression. (Though no work of art, particularly one as gorgeously wrought as this, can be truly despairing; a true, devastating belief in worthlessness & futility wouldn't see the point, or have the strength, of creation). Or one might admire the strength of her philosophy, an unflinching Christian stoicism that, while it may cut her off from some pleasures, also helps shield her from some pain (though, given the agonized divergence between how lovingly she notes the world & how bleakly she considers it, the reader might question how much pain she is really protecting herself from).

Perhaps it is significant that the poem's title is Life and Death, not Life or Death: there is no choice forced between the two; life & death are balanced. It's not that unusual for someone in the midst of life to realize we are in death: media vita in morte sumus, as the Gregorian chant has it, a phrase also translated into the Book of Common Prayer, & so surely well known to Rossetti. And it's not unusual to have that realization, & to turn from it in horror, or pain, & to long for some good thing unchanging. But then we counterbalance that with the realities of life, including the beauty of much of it (or at least of the natural world; it's significant that all of Rossetti's examples come from nature; humanity is only implied in things like the accustomed seat or the harvested fields or, of course, the grave). I can see someone having very different reactions to this poem depending on their faith tradition & personal beliefs or their life experience or just their current mood: one person might have very different reactions at different times. In this world, even our reading of a single poem is constantly shifting, changing, uncertain.

I took this from the Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti.

Museum Monday 2024/41

 

four tiles with a figural scene, now at the Art Institute of Chicago

Live from the Met: Les Contes d'Hoffmann

This morning (west coast time) was the first Met livecast of the season, featuring one of my favorite operas, Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. When you really love a work there are two directions you can go in: either you find problems with every production, or you find something to love, love, love in every production (the same person can take either path, depending on the work & one's mood). In this case, I found much to love, love, love.

I had seen the Bartlett Sher production at the Met when it was new in 2009. I had to pay a "new production" premium on my ticket, which I wasn't expecting, but OK, if you're traveling to that expensive metropolis in the first place, you're in an extravagant mood. Perched in my parterre box (it was the closest I could get to the stage), I liked the production very much. Seeing it again, I liked it even more. It teeters in a sweet spot between sumptuous & seedy; its lyric flights & swoony, fantastical darkness (even the students' drinking song at the opening blithely suggest violence & mayhem, before veering off into paeans to wine & beer), even its rich, deep colors shading into darkness, convincingly convey the spirit of the titular poet.

The stage opens in darkness, with a shabby desk & an old typewriter in the lower right corner; Hoffmann is also there, & if not drunk, then distraught. Pages flutter down from overhead. His muse enters, vows to save him, & disguises herself as his friend Nicklausse. The scene expands to the tavern, & then segues to the first act, Olympia, the mechanical doll that Hoffmann thinks is real, & is his ideal. This act has a George Grosz feel, full of dark energy & louche members of the demimonde. It also shares the aesthetic of the circus, not the slick, streamlined circuses of today, but the tawdry, sweaty glamour of the late nineteenth century circus (an inspiration for artists from Dickens to Picasso). The walls are striped, like a tent. There is a freak-show ambiance. Lulu-haircuts parade past leering clowns. Limbs festoon the walls, the eyeballs in Coppelius's bin drip viscously. Olympia is a vivid slash of pink with a cartoonishly high golden crown on. She is multiplied by dancers, as is the rose-bespectacled & besotted Hoffmann. It all goes to smash over a money dispute, & the circus leaves town.

The Antonia act comes next in this version. The setting is more stripped down but just as dreamlike: against a twilight blue, silhouettes of trees in varying shades of gray hang behind the mostly bare stage. There is a piano in the foreground, covered with music which mostly gets ignored or shoved aside. Dr Miracle arrives in a playful sort of horse-drawn buggy which also manages to suggest Sjöström's film The Phantom Carriage. Antonia's father, in a richly brocaded robe, broods over her mother's fate, & hers. He is not fond of Hoffmann. Antonia, encouraged by Dr Miracle, sings herself to death, & another of Hoffmann's loves expires. The more restrained staging of this intimate, more domestic act is a buffer between the more lavish, more social setting of the first & final acts.

That final act, in Venice, is suitably, lavishly carnivalesque. There are the Venetian signifiers: a dark red gondola, & a prancing, comically menacing Punchinello, straight out of Tiepolo. An increasingly desperate & cynical Hoffmann (even the tenor's hair is picturesquely askew) is now hopelessly entangled with an outright courtesan, Giuletta. She, seduced by a glittering diamond, seduces him, stealing even his reflection. The desperate Hoffmann murders a rival for a woman he longs for but also loathes. This act, possibly the darkest & most cynical in the work, opens with the lilting loveliness of the famous barcarolle. Death in Venice indeed, & we return to the tavern, where the half-mad Hoffmann, drunkenly hallucinating these tales, loses his chance at the actual woman he is in love with. As in Proust, the lover creates the loved one, only to discover that his invention does not quite overlay the actual person. But as he collapses in a drunken haze of despair, his Muse steps out of her Nicklausse drag (retaining the elegant top hat) & leads him to sit down at his neglected typewriter. This lovely & savage opera, teetering on the edge of full-blown tragedy, ends on a hopeful note: as the choral voices soar behind him, his fingers curl above the keyboard, & (again as in Proust) he begins to turn the grit & irritants (or the outright devastations) of his life into the nacreous splendor of his art.

Tenor Ben Bliss was our affable livecast host. It's always a bit jarring, though, to have the fourth wall so immediately dismantled; right after an act's finale, the singers, with professional aplomb, come right out & discuss their roles in the trajectory of their careers or other such matters, while the audience (some of us, anyway) are still swirling in the dreams they created. This was conductor Marco Armiliato's 500th performance at the Met; as you might expect from that record, he does a very good job, though he made some odd remarks about ranking Hoffmann slightly below the greatest operas, like Parsifal. (But it's pointless to compare anything to Parsifal, even (in the spirit of Cary Grant saying he wished that he, too, were Cary Grant) Parsifal itself.) What's the point of ranking things like that? (Maybe the maestro wasn't conveying his thoughts well in what was obviously not his mother language?)

Ever since I saw him in the livecast of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette (my thoughts here), I have been looking forward to Benjamin Bernheim as Hoffmann, & he was splendid in this long & challenging role. Hoffmann is what Romeo might perhaps have turned into if he had survived Rosaline, & Juliet, & some post-Capulet woman; as with all ardent romantics, after a certain amount of experience his idealism has edged towards cynicism & even despair. The slightly frayed elegance of his demeanor is nicely contrasted with the looming solidity of his impressive rival, as embodied by Christian Van Horn, the one's passionate & soaring tenor outcries sabotaged by the other's amused bass-baritone undercuts. The woman are also dazzling: Erin Morley is wittily precise but also strangely moving as the robot love Olympia; Pretty Yende is warm & captivating as Antonia & appealing as Stella, the "real-life" diva Hoffmann loves; Clémentine Margaine is a juicy Giuletta. Vasilisa Berzhanskaya was a forthright & faithful Muse/Nicklausse. I hope they release this splendid performance on Blu-Ray. I would love to watch it late into the night.

Afterwards I went across the street to a brewpub, having consumed nothing all day but a latte & some lozenges. Perhaps foolishly I downed most of my first pumpkin ale before my pizza arrived, leaving me in a Hoffmannesque haze. One of the baseball playoff games was on a screen near me, so I'd glance up from time to time for the comforting familiarity of the autumnal scenes: the pitcher leaning forward, shaking off the catcher; the hitter swinging &, most of the time, missing, the crowd bedecked in team colors, milling around. . . . Then I saw something I usually manage to avoid: not only a political ad, but one for Trump. After warning me that illegal aliens were being given transgender operations (seriously, though this sounds like some sort of fascist-swamp fever dream Mad Libs), the ad assured me that "President Trump was on my side". If he's on my side, I'm switching sides. As I pondered this into my second pumpkin ale, I decided that I hope aliens really are being given transgender operations: why not give the wretched of the earth something besides more misery? I'd much rather have my tax money spent on that than on making billionaires into squillionaires, or whatever the next step in their deification is. During the livecast interviews, the set & costume designers (Michael Yeargen & Catherine Zuber, respectively) had mentioned the "Kafkaesque" atmosphere they were trying for. I personally was leaning more towards Weimar, but we all agreed on touches of the surreal & the dreamlike. But then I leave the theater & find myself in a world in which a vicious clown like Trump is actually a serious contender for President, & I have to ask, what does Kafkaesque or surreal really mean these days? What is a dream? If this is a dream, when will we wake?

Friday Photo 2024/40

 

a seagull at the Ferry Building, San Francisco

Poem of the Week 2024/40

Grand Slam

Dreams brimming over,

childhood stretched out in legs,

this is the moment replayed on winter days

when frost covers the field,

when age steals away wishes.

Glorious sleep that seeps back there

to the glory of our baseball days.

– Marjorie Maddox

Here is another baseball poem, as we head into the playoffs.

Other sports inspire poets (wrestling & boxing poems go back to the classical Greeks, & Pindar is best known for his odes to athletes in the original Olympics) but baseball is the pre-eminent sport of American poetry, partly because the professional leagues stretch back to the nineteenth century &, until recent decades when football & basketball matched if not surpassed it in popularity, it was, if not the only game in town, the only one that really mattered to the majority of Americans. The season's steady unfolding, from spring through summer to fall, mirrored the year's cycle of planting, growth, & harvest; the green field, the slow but steady pace, the way fanship for the local nine was often passed from parent to child, the ever-lengthening history & lore of the game, & maybe above all, the very high rate of defeat & loss among even the greatest players made the sport irresistible to a certain cast of poetic mind, whether the mind belonged to a practicing poet or not.

Nothing in my description above is wrong, but of course there was more, mostly a sad & even sordid story of underpaid & overworked players, economic chicanery, & embedded racism (when it was revealed that Barry Bonds broke the home run record while taking performance-enhancing drugs, there was much talk of putting an asterisk by his record; but every player who preceded Jackie Robinson's entry into the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 should also have an asterisk by his name, for playing in segregated leagues). For all the talk of fan love & loyalty, was that ever, in the eyes of the owners, more than a marketing strategy? Just last week, our East Bay team played its final game in its long-time home, before decamping to what its owner hopes will be the more lucrative location of Las Vegas.

But the dreams are as real as the more brutal facts of what is usually considered reality (usually, in fact, "harsh reality"); for some people, ascending into the dreams & ignoring the sordid aspects of reality is what poetry is.

It's only in the title of this poem that we find out what's happened: someone has hit a grand slam (for those who don't know, a grand slam is when the three bases are loaded & the hitter at bat hits a home run, meaning the team scores four runs – a sizeable leap forward in a baseball score). The very first word of the poem, other than the title, is dreams, which cues us into the tone here: a burst of action, possibly (probably?) meaning victory, with an immediate segue to dreams, dreams in the sense of imagination, fantasy, wishful thinking. These players are young, as we can infer from the reference in the next line to childhood – perhaps they think this moment of glory is what life, or at least their lives, will be like. It's a very active scene: the dreams brim over, the legs stretch out (I take this to refer to the players running as they round the bases). Childhood stretched out in legs is a peculiar way to phrase the action, though: it must be more than literally stretching the legs to run; their childhood itself is being stretched out, lengthened by this memorable moment in the sun, with the suggestion that childhood is an innocent & carefree time (of course, as with baseball, the reality of childhood is often much tougher & more troubled & more troubling).

But after this brief moment of success, presented not through the scoreboard or cheers but as perceived, in their fructifying imaginations, by the players – or by the viewers; the poem could be read either way – things immediately turns reflective; taking this moment & enshrining it as a moment, as a spot of time outside of the usual. It becomes a memory played over & over during winter, the only season when baseball isn't being played. Winter, of course, also connotes aging, shivering cold, & death (or at least the end of something significant).

After the turn of this line, we have two lines dwelling on winter: frost covers the field (most obviously, the baseball diamond, but the field could be any place where crops are raised, or children play). Cold takes over, the greenery dies. Age steals away wishes: just as a runner in baseball can steal a base that he hasn't "earned" through a teammate's hit, so age can take us unawares, advancing us towards the end. Age steals away wishes: not only do we suffer physical decline, but there is a narrowing of our vision & our hopes. After the two lines in the beginning that imply a wonderful athletic feat, the rest of the poem is a poignant description of how memory sustains us through life's diminishments.

What is left? Glorious sleep, the state in which we dream, though these are not the hopeful dreams of a youth who has hit a grand slam, or someone who's watching him round the bases; these are the dreams that come to us, their passive recipients, during the night. The sleep seeps back there – to the back of our mind? back to the time when we had our moment of glory? Seeps obviously echoes, with a labile diminution, sleep; it also is a slower, less active image than the brimming over of the first line, reflecting the loss that age & winter have brought on us. Glory in the final line echoes the glorious of the preceding line; the sleep is glorious, the glory belongs to our (past) baseball days: glorious & glory describe our memories, our past, our past hopes; glory & glorious do not describe us, though their memory may help sustain us until new players take the field.

When I was a boy, I was completely unathletic; it wasn't until I moved to Boston as a young man that I was caught up in the Red Sox fandom, which was not only intense, but year-round (this was long before Tom Brady made the Patriots much-watched football champions). Even in winter, the sports page (we all bought daily newspapers then) was centered on the Sox. When the ball went through Bill Buckner's legs in 1986, & yet another World Series slipped away, we heard about companies that hired grief counselors to help their employees cope with this latest devastation (& I thought to myself, after this I do not want to hear one more joke about touchy-feely Californians). I moved back west long before the Red Sox finally won a world series in 2004, but I still followed them from a distance & went to see them when they played in this area. But after 2004 & its moment of historic exhilaration, my interest declined. The romance (of striking loss, when victory seemed possible) had gone out of it. And more & more games went on expensive cable stations I didn't get, & I gradually stopped following teams in any coherent way. Harsher realities took over, as is their wont (there's the long-running story about the Curse of the Bambino, but it's more like the curse of Jackie Robinson; the Red Sox were the last major league team to integrate, & as a result they missed out on some game-changing players). But – well, how do I end this paragraph? Maybe I'll just leave it there, teetering uneasily between memory & reality, loss & nostalgia & longing.

I took this poem from Heart of the Order: Baseball Poems, edited by Gabriel Fried.

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

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