detail of a doorway, Oakland California
30 June 2023
26 June 2023
Museum Monday 2023/26
title & logo of the 10 February 1867 edition of the Parisian newspaper La Lune, seen as part of the exhibit Alexandre Dumas’s Afro: Blackness Caricatured, Erased, and Back Again at BAMPFA
25 June 2023
Another Opening, Another Show: July 2023
As is traditional, July is a slow month, though there are still plenty of exciting prospects, particularly for film or opera buffs.
Theatrical
The New Conservatory Theater gives us Drag Queen Storytime Gone Wild, featuring the Kinsey Sicks, from 5 to 16 July.
BroadwaySF presents Les Misérables at the Orpheum from 5 to 23 July.
The African-American Shakespeare Company, in collaboration with the Craft Institute, presents Echoes of Us, directed by Michele Shay, a series of monologues covering the African diaspora featuring Vanessa Bell Calloway, Anna Maria Horsford, L Peter Callender, Jason Dirden, Sola Bamis, & Desean Terry, at the Marines’ Memorial Theater from 15 to 17 July.
The Berkeley Playhouse presents Disney's Newsies, with book by Harvey Fierstein, music by Alan Menken, & lyrics by Jack Feldman, from 15 to 23 July.
As part of its Champagne Staged Reading Series, Shotgun Players at the Ashby Stage will perform Eric John Mayer's The Antelope Party, directed by Kieran Beccia, about a group of young men who are fans of My Little Pony & a paranoid "neighborhood watch" brigade, & that's on 17 & 18 July.
On 21 July at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, you can see UnRavelled, "the story of Dr. Anne Adams and her obsession with Ravel’s Bolero. How she, through her diagnosis of Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), developed as a painter and became a remarkable artist. Through her story the play also uncovers the mystery of Ravel’s similar diagnosis almost 100 years earlier"; the play is created & written by Jake Broder & directed by James Bonas, with Curt Pajer conducting the music.
Operatic
The Merola Opera Program presents Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, conducted by Judith Yan & directed by Jan Essinger, at Herbst Theater on 13 & 15 June, but it looks as if they don't let you choose your own seat, which is going to make this a non-starter for some of us.
Pocket Opera presents Tosca in a co-production with Cinnabar Theater, with music direction by Mary Chun & stage direction by Elly Lichenstein, with Michelle Drever in the title role, Alex Boyer as her ill-fated lover Cavaradossi, & Spencer Dodd as the villainous Scarpia, & that's on 16 July at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 23 July at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, & 30 July at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.
On 22 July West Edge Opera launches its annual summer festival, which will once again be at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland, with Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea (conducted by Adam Pearl, directed by NJ Agwuna, starring Shawnette Sulker as Poppea), which will play on 22 & 30 July & 3 August; then comes Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face of the Moon), the "mariachi opera" composed by José “Pepe” Martínez to a libretto by Leonard Foglia (conducted by Sixto Montesinos, directed by Karina Gutierrez, starring baritone Efraín Solís (a memorable Golaud when West Edge performed Pelléas several years ago)), & that plays on 23 & 28 July & 5 August; then comes a double-bill of Stravinsky's Le Rossignol (The Nightingale) & Schoenberg's Erwartung (Expectation) (both conducted by Jonathan Khuner & directed by Giselle Ty, with Helen Zhibing Huang in the title role of the Stravinsky & Mary Evelyn Hangley in the Schoenberg), & those play on 29 July & 4 & 6 August.
In addition to their three main presentations, West Edge is offering a work-in-progress orchestra preview of Dolores, a work it has commissioned from Nicolás Lell Benavides (music) & Marella Martin Koch (libretto), based on the life of labor activist Dolores Huerta, & that's 13 August at the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco.
Vocalists
Enrico Lopez-Yañez leads the San Francisco Symphony in a program (details yet to be announced) featuring the "Queen of Mariachi," Aída Cuevas, on 15 July.
Orchestral
The San Francisco Symphony is in summer mode this month (popular classics, lots of film play-alongs), but you can also hear Joshua Weilerstein conducting Pavel Haas's Study for Strings, the Sibelius Violin Concerto (with soloists Alexi Kenney), & the Dvořák 9, From the New World, on 6 July; Anna Rakitina conducting the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2 (with soloist Denis Kozhukhin) & Elgar's Enigma Variations on 13 July; & on 22 July Edwin Outwater conducting musical highlights from The Golden Age of Cinema, featuring cellist Sterling Elliott & music by Elmer Bernstein, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Leonard Bernstein, Bernard Herrmann, Miklós Rózsa, & John Williams.
Sun Ra & his Arkestra will be in residence at the SF Jazz Center this month; on 20 - 21 July, they will focus on "the more experimental exploratory music from Sun Ra’s songbook" & on 22 - 23 July on his "music associated with the big band swing tradition".
Chamber Music
On 23 July, Old First Concerts presents cellist Sarah Hong & pianist Makiko Ooka in Le Due Muse: An Evening of Music by Latin American Composers, featuring works by Manuel M. Ponce, Heitor Villa Lobos, Alberto Ginastera, & Astor Piazzolla.
Early / Baroque Music
The Handel Opera Project will perform Psalms by Handel, Liszt, & Vivaldi, along with Purcell's Come, Ye Sons of Art, featuring Sara Couden, Angela Jarosz, Jennifer Mitchell, Reuben Zellman, & Bradley Kynard, on 16 July at the Maybeck-designed First Church of Christ Scientist on Dwight Way in Berkeley.
Jeffrey Thomas & the American Bach Soloists launch their annual summer festival this month, beginning on 27 July with music by John Blow, Vivaldi, Telemann, & Bach, along with the world premiere of Spring in San Francisco by José Daniel Vargas, the winner of the American Bach New Music for Period Instruments Competition; followed by Explorations: Bach Beyond Baroque on 28 July, featuring pianist Oliver Moore playing music by Bach & arrangements of Bach by Camille Saint-Saëns, Busoni, & Liszt (& of Handel by Brahms); an informal, immersive performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons on 29 July, featuring SFBaroque (Jacob Ashworth, Tatiana Chulochnikova, Tomà Iliev, & YuEun Gemma Kim); & on 30 July, ABS's annual performance of the Mass in B Minor, featuring soprano Hélène Brunet, mezzo-soprano Sarah Coit, contralto Agnes Vojtko, tenor Aaron Sheehan, & bass-baritone Christian Pursell.
Modern / Contemporary Music
On 1 July at the Center for New Music, you can hear Desert Magic performing Dance of the Planets, a "theatrical solar system sonification which involves paper-mache planet hats and guitar patterns mapped to the orbital speeds of the planets", as well as their current project, songs using Ursula K Le Guin’s version of the Tao Te Ching as text; the ensemble's current make-up is Alex Wand (viola da gamba, resonator guitar, voice), Steven Van Betten (electric guitar, voice), Logan Hone (drums, saxophone, voice), Heather Lockie (viola), Stuart Wheeler (voice, organ), Mustafa Walker (hurdy gurdy, lute), Jessica Hemingway (dance), & Brock Stuessi (upright bass).
Other Minds offers two concerts this month: on 13 July at the Dresher Ensemble Studio in Oakland, as part of The Nature of Music series, Wendy Reid will discuss and perform a set of her Tree Pieces, focusing on the Bird Collection, five works spanning four decades; & on 22 July at Saint John the Evangelist Episcopal in San Francisco, you can hear experimental ambient music from Joel St Julien, Christopher Robin Duncan, & CGRSM (Christopher Reid Martin & Gabie Strong).
Dance
Savion Glover will be in residence at the SF Jazz Center with two different programs: on 13 - 14 July, he pays tribute to Gregory Hines & the Hoofers, & on 15 - 16 July, to Sun Ra & his Arkestra.
Art Means Painting
At the Oakland Museum of California, Into the Brightness: Artists from Creativity Explored, Creative Growth & NIAD is now on view, showcasing "myriad works from contemporary artists with developmental disabilities".
Bouke de Vries: Memories in Porcelain, in which the artist repurposes broken ceramics into new or recreated forms, opens at the Legion of Honor on 22 July & runs through 24 March 2024.
Crafting Radicality: Bay Area Artists from the Svane Gift opens at the de Young Museum on 22 July & runs through 31 December.
Hung Liu: Witness, featuring works by the late artist in SFMOMA's collection, opens at the museum on 30 June & runs through 10 December.
Cinematic
BAMPFA begins several interesting-looking film series this month: Luis Buñuel’s Magnificent Weapon surveys the surrealist filmmaker's work, beginning 7 July; Out of the Vault: The Enchanted Yuliya Solntseva begins on 21 July & showcases Solntseva as both actor & director (including collaborations with her husband, Oleksandr Dovzhenko. including possibly his best known film, Earth); & Preston Sturges: More Than Comedy begins on 27 July & highlights the brief but wild flourishing of actor-director Sturges.
The Roxie Theater in San Francisco presents Three in the Key of Tarr this month, starting 7 July with a new restoration of Werckmeister Harmonies, the seven-hour epic Sátántangó on 23 July, & Twilight (from regular Tarr collaborator György Fehér & never before released in the US) on 15 July.
The annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival will run at the Castro Theater from 12 to 16 July, & the usual riches will include a new restoration of Sessue Hayakawa's The Dragon Painter; you can see the full schedule here.
The Jewish Film Festival opens at the Castro Theater on 20 July with a tribute to Gene Wilder & ends on 30 July at the same venue with Bella!, a documentary about Bella Abzug; you can find the whole schedule here.
23 June 2023
19 June 2023
Museum Monday 2023/25
detail of Christian Martyr Tarcisius (El Hadji Malick Gueye) by Kehinde Wiley, from the special exhibit Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence now at the de Young Museum
16 June 2023
what we ask ourselves in childhood
. . . He has hidden his own name, a fair name, William, in the plays, a super here, a clown there, as a painter of old Italy set his face in a dark corner of his canvas. He has revealed it in the sonnets where there is Will in overplus. Like John O'Gaunt his name is dear to him, as dear as teh coat of arms he taodied for, on a bend sable a spear or steeled argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus, dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country. What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake rose at his birth. It shone by day in the heavens alone, brighter than Venus in the night, and by night it shone over delta in Cassiopeia, the recumbent constellation which is the signature of his initial among the stars. His eyes watched it, lowlying on the horizon, eastward of the bear, as he walked by the slumberous summer fields at midnight, returning from Shottery and from her arms.
Once again, happy Bloomsday to my mountain flowers.
12 June 2023
09 June 2023
San Francisco Symphony: Adriana Mater
Last night I was at Davies Hall to hear the San Francisco Symphony in the first of a three-performance stand of Adriana Mater, the 2005 opera about war-time tragedy with music by Kaija Saariaho & libretto by Amin Maalouf. Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, a longtime friend & associate of the composer, conducted & the work was staged, as part of his multi-year association with the Symphony, by Peter Sellars, who was instrumental in the work's creation & to whom it is dedicated. This run of concerts was clearly going to be a jewel in the season's crown even before the 2 June death of the beloved & much-missed composer. The performances are dedicated to her memory & music.
There are four characters: Adriana herself (performed by mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron), her sister Refka (soprano Axelle Fanyo), the alcoholic drifter Tsargo (baritone Christopher Purves), & Adriana's son, Yonas (tenor Nicholas Phan). The action took place on several platforms jutting out into the first rows of floor seats & one in the middle of the orchestra stage itself; the characters are often isolated on the individual platforms. The costumes mostly look like street wear & are suggestive of a contemporary setting. Despite some strange vocal effects that I assume came from amplification (or possibly the odd acoustics of the always unsatisfactory Davies Hall – & by the way I had forgotten how excruciatingly uncomfortable the seats there can be), such as the voices suddenly sounding very different when a singer faced a different direction, or even sounding altered (though possibly that was intentional), all four singers were dazzlingly impressive: fully present in their intense & difficult vocal lines & their characters, & even the use of I guess iPads with (again, I guess) the music didn't undercut their effectiveness.
The music is magnificent, like some great mysterious beast rising up from the depths. I've heard recordings of other works by Saariaho, including her first opera, L'Amour de Loin (Adriana is her second opera) but I had never heard anything from this piece before. It's a very rich, dense score & Salonen led the band in a gripping account. The opera is in seven tableau, which were presented in two parts of about an hour or so each. There is a small chorus, set off to the side, who provided ghostly effects, giving the action a resonance beyond the four characters we were shown.
But all this splendid artistry is in the service of a surprisingly simplistic melodrama. Shorn of its artsy dream-arias & poetic repetitions, Maalouf's libretto is crude & clumsy in its characterization & story-telling. The setting is an unnamed country, soon to be engaged in a civil war. Adriana, while returning to her house, speaks with Tsargo, a weak drunkard. It is clear that she is Good & he is Bad, though no real reasons for these judgments are given. He reminds her that they once danced together (the music turned, briefly but enchantingly, to a dreamlike lovers' atmosphere). She rebuffs him, in the polite way of women to men they aren't romantically interested in. Refka reproves her for even speaking to Tsargo, who is beneath them & seems dangerous; Refka is also Good, but more cautious. When war begins Tsargo returns, suddenly a soldier carrying a machine gun. He demands entry to Adriana's house so that he can monitor enemy forces in the street. She refuses. He forces his way in & there is a very powerful orchestral interlude, during which, according to the plot summary in the program, "we deduce that he rapes her". (The rape is not staged.) She decides to have the child, but wonders which parent he will resemble: "Cain or Abel?" is how she puts it. & the lights go up.
I assume the lack of any political, cultural, historic, or social aspect to the war is deliberate, to give it a timeless, almost mythic feeling. But this lack also flattens the characterizations: would a more specifically situated Adriana & Refka really have no side they supported? Their neutrality, which is clearly meant to be seen as a good quality, since War is bad, could look like cowardice or opportunism if the stakes were spelled out. Tsargo is weak & ineffectual until the war starts: but once it does, he is suddenly a powerful & much feared mercenary. This makes him a useful allegorical figure representing the damages & terrors of War, but is less effective as a description of an actual human being, particularly as he dwindles right back into decrepitude when the plot requires his weakness rather than his strength. (There is also apparently no PTSD for this former soldier.)
The second half begins with a scene between an angry Yonas & his mother; he is now a young man & he has just discovered that his father was not the hero who died defending them that his mother had always described, but instead someone whom he repeatedly refers to as "a monster". We don't know how he's learned about his father – his mother asks, but he dismisses the question. But if, as he also says, everyone else knew the facts & has been laughing at him, why is he only discovering them now? It seems unlikely that no one would have taunted him with this knowledge before. & wouldn't it be obvious, even to an upset youth, why his mother didn't tell him he was the product of rape? But this knowledge comes now, out of the blue, because the storyline needs it to happen now; any questions about this particular situation are dismissed or ignored. We are given the scene, but no sense of a real life behind it. Yonas tells his mother, despite her protests, that he needs to kill that monster, his father. During the whole scene he has been brandishing a machine gun, just as his father did earlier, so clearly his anger makes him potentially Bad, like his father. But is this rage typical for him, or not? We have no way of knowing. He meets his father, now alone & blind, & Yonas can't bring himself to kill him – no reasons are given, he just can't do it. His mother is glad that he has not murdered his father, telling him, "We are not avenged, but we are saved" (which is indeed an effective line). He, Adriana, & Refka join in a group hug. Tsargo will, presumably, eventually die in his gutter.
But the crucial thing about this scene is that Yonas has not made a conscious moral choice not to kill: he simply finds himself unable to. It's been suggested all along that the mother's "good blood" is warring in him against the father's "bad blood", though, as mentioned, we don't know enough about Yonas to have any sense of his personality outside of this immediate situation. (There is also no examination of what it means, in a country subject to deadly violence, for a man to be unwilling, or unable, to kill). The retrograde & frankly dangerous implication here is that there is "good blood" & "bad blood" that determines our personality & actions, & Yonas's failure or inability to kill his father is due to the mother's "good blood" winning out. You have to reach pretty far into "this is all metaphorical" territory not to see the eugenicist views underlying the action here, & sure, you can do that, but it seems to me disingenuous not to see them as a clear implication. The attempt to create a (relatively) timeless story strips out the specific details & situations that would lead to moral complexity & ambiguity. It's clear from the start which character is Bad & which ones are Good, there's no resistance or choice involved in the drama, & nothing that happens here is surprising or disturbing or discomfiting. As I said, the music is magnificent, & if a recording becomes available I would buy it in a minute. But I wouldn't read along in the libretto.
05 June 2023
Museum Monday 2023/23
detail of Two Women Dancing at the Asian Art Museum, currently part of the special exhibit Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art
02 June 2023
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