detail of Untitled (Cross and Circles), pieced by Warren Wise & quilted by Willia Ete Graham, currently on display at BAM/PFA as part of Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California
30 June 2025
27 June 2025
25 June 2025
Orinda Theater Classic Movie Matinee: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T
The Castro Theater renovations are stretching on, so when the SF Silent Film Festival announced that this year's edition, slated for November, will be at the Orinda Theater, I went to check it out.
Last year's substitute location, the Palace of Fine Arts, though lovely, was in a tricky location for most people, particularly non-drivers (I realized I couldn't go to the first or last movies of the day, as getting to & from the venue took so much time). There were also very few food options, though the Festival did bring in some food trucks. The Orinda Theater, it turns out, is a very brief & convenient walk from the Orinda BART station; you don't even have to cross a street! (I have to change trains to get there from where I live, & it's supposed to be a timed transfer but hahaha, I usually have to wait ten to fifteen minutes for the transfer train but it's still easier than the Palace) There's food available in the theater itself, & their popcorn is like what we used to get at the Castro, before the new owners wrecked the snack bar, & there are lots of different restaurants immediately around the theater, with the usual options (Indian, Japanese, Vietnamese, bistro, Greek, pizza, hamburgers). The main auditorium of the theater is quite large, & the whole building is period-appropriate Art Deco-ish. I think it's a good choice. My one concern is about the restrooms. I felt that at the Castro they should have stuck some port-a-potties outside, & they'll need to do the same here. That's one thing I'll give the Palace of Fine Arts – the interior of their theater is pretty non-descript, but they had generous restroom arrangements.
When I took my little field trip to scout the theater, I was only able to walk around outside & in the general vicinity. But I learned they have a Classic Movie Matinee the last Tuesday of every month. The selection for June was The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T, which I had never seen. I had a vague sense that Dr Seuss was connected to it. Indeed he was! He came up with the story, wrote the script, & wrote the lyrics (it's a musical). It was such a box-office bomb that he turned his back on Hollywood, & vice versa. But in the way of such things, what the movie-going public of 1953 couldn't stomach was very much to the taste of a smaller but vociferous group of fans who came across it on TV, & a cult was born.
The movie was produced by Stanley Kramer, & the combination of Stanley Kramer & Dr Seuss is not even the most improbable thing about this movie. It concerns a boy, Bartholomew Collins, who takes piano lessons from the acerbic Dr Terwilliger, who berates him for not practicing enough. There's also the boy's widowed mother, & a friendly plumber. The boy falls asleep & most of the movie is an Oz-like (referring to the 1939 film, not the books) dream that reflects the boy's life & worries back in distorted (but maybe basically accurate) form.
Before we saw the movie, though, we were treated to selected short subjects, old-school-movie-going-style. There was a newsreel from the 1960s (President Johnson was calling for a national day of prayers & recollection over America's racial strife – the never-ending story). There were some astutely chosen cartoons: a Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies adaptation of Seuss's Horton Hatches the Egg, a Puppetoons short of Seuss's The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, &, to tie in with the piano theme, a short of a very young Liberace (billed as "Walter Liberace") playing the Tiger Rag while the camera occasionally cut to two young women standing around the piano, grinning at us vacantly & bopping uneasily. Then film critic & program curator Matías Bombal came out, wearing a dazzling robe that turned out to be one of the original costumes for Dr Terwilliger, to introduce the film. His comments were pleasantly chatty but to the point, giving us a brief history of the film & its troubles & eventual emergence into the select company of cult classics. He also told us that we were about to see a new restoration, with the Technicolor at its most resplendent.
The movie is indeed fantastic to look at, & utterly bizarre. Hollywood gets slated a lot for its lack of originality, but sometimes it produces something so strange you have to wonder what they were thinking (well, what the money people were thinking; the creative people were just being creative). Dr Terwilliger hates all musical instruments that aren't pianos, & has a dungeon in which he keeps them & their players, leading to an extended & wonderful musical number, with many Seussian-style instruments played by greenish, mostly shirtless male dancers, that seems like a collaboration between Busby Berkeley & Bosch. The Doctor has invented a gigantic piano that will be played simultaneously by Bartholomew & 499 other boys (500 boys, ten fingers each, hence Dr T's 5,000 fingers). This musical triumph will somehow ensure the success of Dr Terwilliger's "happy fingers" institute as well as the continued devotion to the doctor of Bart's widowed mother. I'll stop the plot summary there, because while the plot is entertaining enough, the look of the film is what really grabs the attention.
The colors are saturated & glowing. I recollect lots of dark purples, golden shades of orange, teetering skyscrapers, curved scarlet ladders that go nowhere, pickle juice that sparkles in its pale green. The musical numbers are quite delightful; it's too bad that after the initial previews the studio cut several of them (if you're making a crazy musical, there's no point in trimming it back to half crazy). Seuss's lyrics are, as you might expect, clever & witty, & the music by Frederick Hollander & Morris Stoloff is catchy & charming (despite its financial failure, the movie was remembered at Oscar time with a nomination for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture; it lost to Alfred Newman for Call Me Madam).
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The movie is also very well cast. Tommy Rettig as Bartholomew manages the tricky task of representing what is supposed to be a "typical American boy" while not being repulsive (usually that type, particularly from the mid-century – think of any Disney live-action show from the 1950s or 1960s – just creeps me out, but Rettig is very appealing). Hans Conried is menacing but amusing, even a bit endearing, as Dr Terwilliger. Peter Lind Hayes is both dry & warm as the plumber, Mr Zabladowski, & Mary Healy is winsome as the widowed mother. But it's the whole look of the film, the wildness of its conceptions, the wit of its performance, that really carry the day.
A friend of mine who had seen the movie many years ago & was less entertained than I was texted to me, "Aren't you supposed to be able to read all sorts of Freudian & Cold War subtext into it?" Yes indeed, I can certainly see that. There's a lot of mid-century-movie-Freudianism about the boy & his mother (who is pretty much the only woman in the entire film) & his search for a father figure (the plumber rather than Dr Terwilliger). I have to say, for 1950s Hollywood Freud the handling is fairly light, certainly when compared to some of Hitchcock's films. And for the Cold War, there is the fight against a somewhat ludicrous but genuinely threatening authoritarian, one who stifles dissent & insists on having his rules obeyed endlessly & automatically, as well as a device that switches the balance of power & which gets referred to as "atomic". But I would be surprised if there weren't also theories about a queer (male) subtext: the dreams of our all-American lad seem to involve more partly nude men than you usually see in a 1950s musical, he seems very determined to have his mother marry the plumber, mostly so he & his new Dad can have a homosocial relationship (fishing together, like something out of The Wind in the Willows), &, as mentioned, the only female around is the boy's mother. And of course the whole impetus of the film is about expressing your individuality in the face of a repressive, conformist, & unaccepting authority.
I'm not thrilled that the rebellion takes the form of refusing to practice the piano. The value of music is too obvious to need my insistence, & you get there by practicing. The suggestion that "normal" children, particularly boys, don't like practicing piano is a toxic cliché. But I can look past that annoyance, which is sort of the key that unlocks the wildness of the film. I'm ready to join the cult.
Next up, on 29 July, is The Asphalt Jungle, which I also have never seen.
23 June 2025
Another Opening, Another Show: July 2025
July is typically a slow month for performances, but this July seems particularly slow, not that there isn't more than enough listed below to take you out of your residence & yourself for an evening or two. I'll take this opportunity to reiterate that this list is, to use a recently overused word, curated; basically, something needs to be something I could or would, given world enough & time, go to experience. This means certain things don't get listed: anything too rock/rap/pop oriented, anything too electronica, anything that promises us a DJ (a promise meaning there will be bad music played much too loudly). We need more space in this culture for the obscure, the recondite, the artsy, the offbeat, the niche, the so-called unpopular. Go & seek these things out!
There are some terrific on-going things not listed below, as they started in earlier months: the Ruth Asawa exhibit at SFMOMA, the Wayne Thiebaud exhibit at the Legion of Honor, & the African-American Quilt show at BAM/PFA are three that are worth visiting & re-visiting.
And best wishes to all of us as we try to get through the worst of all holidays, the Fourth of July. Explosions. Fire danger. Patriotism. How toxic, & how typically American that the day features that most disgusting & even immoral of competitions, the eating contest. Thank God & hops for beer, which might help us float through to August, which promises to be more exciting (which is a way of saying it promises to be more promising).
Theatrical
San Francisco Playhouse presents My Fair Lady, opening 3 July & running through 13 September.
The SF Mime Troupe presents Disruption: A Musical Farce at various outdoor venues from 4 July to 3 August; check here for specific locations & dates.
Actors Ensemble of Berkeley presents Cymbeline, directed by Glenn Havlan & Gaby Schneider, from 4 to 20 July at the John Hinkel Park Amphitheater.
New Conservatory Theater Center brings back its production of the musical Ride the Cyclone, with book, music, & lyrics by Jacob Richmond & Brooke Maxwell, directed & choreographed by Stephanie Temple, with musical direction by Ben Prince, from 11 July to 15 August.
The Oakland Theater Project presents Lorraine Hansberry's final play, Les Blancs, adapted by Robert Nemiroff & directed by James Mercer II, from 11 to 27 July.
Aurora Theater presents Jane Wagner's one-person show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, directed by Jennifer King, with Marga Gomez in the role originated by Lily Tomlin, & that runs from 12 July to 10 August.
At the Marsh San Francisco, Koorosh Ostowari’s Grandma’s Million-Dollar Scheme: A Comedy-Drama written & performed by Ostowari (directed by David Ford), a one-person show about a mostly true encounter between his younger get-rich-quick-in-real-estate self & a scheming grandmother, plays Saturdays starting on 12 July through 23 August; also at the Marsh San Francisco, Pearl Ong’s Night Driver, written & performed by Ong (& also directed by David Ford), asking the question "What’s a Hong Kong princess doing driving a cab in San Francisco? And what does her very proper mother make of it?", also plays Saturdays (at an earlier time from Ostowari's show), starting 19 July through 23 August.
Shotgun Players presents The Magnolia Ballet by Terry Guest, directed by AeJay Antonis Marquis, a poetic look at four Black men in the American South, from 12 July to 10 August.
The Marsh Berkeley presents Candace Johnson’s Scat-ter Brain: The Music of ADHD, written & performed by Johnson, a one-person semi-autobiographical musical about receiving a diagnosis of ADHD as a 40+ adult; the show starts 19 July & runs on Saturdays through 13 September (no show on 30 August).
The San Leandro Players present Agatha Christie's The Hollow, directed by Amy Cook, from 19 July through 17 August.
Garrison Keillor Tonight, a one-person show featuring the writer & radio host, will take place at the Presidio Theater on 20 July (despite the title, the show is actually a matinee)..
Operatic
Pocket Opera presents its version of Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne, with music direction by Paul Schrage & stage direction by Phil Lowery, on 13 July at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, 20 July at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, & 27 July at the Gunn Theater in the Legion of Honor, San Francisco.
Vocalists
San Francisco Opera's Merola Program presents the Schwabacher Summer Concert: It’s Complicated – Love & Opera, conducted by William Long & directed by Omer Ben Seadia & Elio Bucky, featuring the Merolini in extended scenes from operas by Donizetti, Puccini, & Gounod, & that's 10 & 12 July at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
On 27 July at the Piedmont Center for the Arts, Festival Opera's Salon Series presents Baroque Queens, a program featuring mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz, with Joshua Mikus-Mahoney on cello, Jon Mendle on theorbo & baroque guitar, & Zachary Gordin on harpsichord, sizzling through an array of "legendary heroines, sorceresses, and queens from the past".
Orchestral
Stephanie Childress leads the San Francisco Symphony in what they're calling a Tchaikovsky Spectacular, featuring selection from Sleeping Beauty, the Violin Concerto (with soloist Blake Pouliot), the Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture, & the 1812 Overture, & that's 10 July at the Frost Amphitheater at Stanford & 11 July at Davies Hall.
On 12 - 13 July, Sunny Xia leads TwoSet Violin (Brett Yang & Eddy Chen) along with the San Francisco Symphony in "a night of Sacrilegious Games!" (details of the program have not yet been announced).
On 23 July at Davies Hall, Robert Moody leads the Time for Three string trio (Ranaan Meyer, double bass & vocals; Nicolas Kendall, violin & vocals; & Charles Yang, violin & vocals) along with the San Francisco Symphony in Christopher Theofanidis's Rainbow Body, Mason Bates's Silicon Hymnal, & Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Instrumental
Pianists Rachel Breen & Sergey Belyavsky perform Carnivals: from Schumann to Strauss to Stravinsky, featuring Schumann's Carnaval Opus 9, Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka, Moritz Rosenthal's Carnaval de Vienne, & more, at the Piedmont Piano Company on 26 July.
Pianist Alex Stabile will perform works by Bach & Ravel as well as selections from Rachmaninoff’s Études-Tableaux Opus 39 at the Piedmont Piano Company on 27 July.
Early / Baroque Music
The San Francisco Early Music Society celebrates the legacy of William Byrd, a Catholic in Protestant Elizabethan England, with the presentation at Grace Cathedral on 17 - 18 July of Secret Byrd, an immersive concert featuring The Gesualdo Six from the UK & our the local Wildcat Viols in collaboration with Concert Theatre Works.
Jazz, Blues, Folk
Monsieur Periné brings their fusion of the "jazz manouche style of Django Reinhardt with dance-inspiring Latin American rhythms" to the SF Jazz Center from 17 to 20 July.
On 19, 21, & 22 July, Paul Simon (yes, that Paul Simon) will perform his new album Seven Psalms, "along with new arrangements of familiar favorites"; though the website says he is performing "in intimate venues with pristine acoustics", the concerts are nonetheless in Davies Hall.
This seems like a bit of an oddity, as orchestras are collective & the blues seems like an individualist art form, but Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, featuring "cinematic narration" by Freeman as well as an in-person appearance, surveys the Delta Blues with performances by musicians from the Ground Zero Blues Club as well as the San Francisco Symphony, & that's at Davies Hall on 25 July.
Ravi Coltrane visits the SF Jazz Center for a week as Resident Artistic Director, with a Listening Party on 23 July, his group Coltraxx (Coltrane on tenor & soprano saxophones, David Virelles on keyboards, Dezron Douglas on bass, Johnathan Blake on drums) on 24 - 25 July, & the Ravi Coltrane Quintet (Coltrane on tenor & soprano saxophone, Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet, Robin Eubanks on trombone, Gadi Lehavi on keyboards, & Elé Howell on drums) on 26 - 27 July.
Dance
ODC Dance presents Summer Sampler, featuring the world premieres of Nothing’s Going to Make Sense (choreography by KT Nelson) & Theories of Time (choreography by Mia J Chong), as well as 10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making (choreography by Catherine Galasso), & that's 17 - 20 July at the ODC Theater.
Art Means Painting
The Minnesota Street Project Foundation presents the 2025 San Francisco Art Book Fair, featuring an "exhibition and celebration of printed material from independent publishers, artists, designers, collectors, and enthusiasts from around the world", & that's from 11 to 13 July.
Black Spaces: Reclaim & Remain opens at the Oakland Museum of California on 18 July.
Ferlinghetti for San Francisco, featuring artworks on paper created by the renowned poet & publisher, opens at the Legion of Honor on 19 July.
Cinematic
Some film series launch this month at BAM/PFA: Mikio Naruse: The Auteur as Salaryman, exploring the works of the great Japanese filmmaker, begins 3 July, with movies screening through 21 December; & Smiles of a Summer Night: Swedish Auteurs, featuring works by Ingmar Bergman & other Swedish filmmakers, opens 11 July, with movies screening through 29 August.
The second Fraenkel Film Festival, sponsored by the Fraenkel Gallery & featuring films chosen by visual artists, runs at the Roxie Theater from 9 to 19 July (all proceeds will benefit the Roxie); there's a terrific line-up of movies, & some that caught my eye are Chaplin's The Great Dictator, Dorothy Arzner's Merrily We Go to Hell, & The Wizard of Oz.
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival opens 17 July & runs through 3 August; check here for films & locations.
On 19 July, as part of the Legion of Honor's centennial celebration, the museum will host a free showing of Hitchcock's Vertigo, which includes several scenes shot on location at the Legion.
Godzilla Fest 2025 plays at the Balboa Theater from 18 to 20 July; check out the schedule here. If only Godzilla was the worst monster we faced these days. . .
Museum Monday 2025/25
detail of The Legend of Brutus and Portia by Jacopo del Sellaio, now at the Legion of Honor
20 June 2025
18 June 2025
San Francisco Opera: Idomeneo
For some time now I have been saying to anyone who wants to listen, as well as to many who do not, that Idomeneo is the one Mozart opera I have never really connected with (to forestall the question, I love Clemenza di Tito, as well as all baroque opera, so this is not an objection to opera seria or stylized music drama in general). Yet I persist in trying! On Tuesday night I was at the second performance of San Francisco Opera's latest production of the piece. Idomeneo & I remain unconnected.
Not that I don't see things to admire in it: mostly musical things. Eun Sun Kim led a crisp ensemble in music that was powerful & tender. San Francisco Opera had assembled a sterling cast – Matthew Polenzani in the title tole; Daniela Mack as his son Idamante; Ying Fang as Ilia, a Trojan princess loved by Idamante; Elza van den Heever as the volatile Elettra, in unrequited love with Idamante; Alek Shrader as the counselor Arbace – who all sang with beautiful sound, but beauty used to expressive purposes; the vocal fireworks were explosive, the yearning & sorrow genuine. (I have to give a special mention to Mack, who was singing despite some unannounced vocal cord issues; she could not continue singing during Act 3 & instead mimed the role while Laura Krumm sang offstage – kudos to both of them for doing so beautifully under physically difficult circumstances. During the curtain calls company director Matthew Shilvock explained the situation & introduced Krumm.)
Ying Fang was making her San Francisco Opera debut & her tender & lively performance as the conflicted Ilia confirmed advanced word of her extremely beautiful voice & skillful acting. There were also excellent contributions from some current Adler Fellows: Georgiana Adams & Mary Hoskins as Cretan Women, Samuel White & Olivier Zerouali as Trojan Men, Samuel White as the High Priest of Neptune, & particularly Jongwon Han as the Voice of the Oracel.
It was an excellent performance of early prime Mozart, musically speaking. I know someone who was there last night after also hearing Saturday's opening, & he is currently planning a third & maybe fourth visit. But all he cares about is singing. He doesn't care about staging, or the drama, & he sits in the last row of the second balcony, a spot from which you can barely see what's going on way down on the stage anyway.
For people like me, who prefer the front row of the orchestra & consider opera a theatrical form, the production by Lindy Hume was less satisfying. I will say whatever role she may have had in helping the singers shape their characters & their interactions paid off; the performers were all convincing – though there were some oddities; for example, when Elettra, thinking she & Idamante are being sent off together, sings that although he loves another, she is going to turn that around & make him love her – when she sings that, surely Idamante shouldn't be standing there, directly addressed by her? What is he supposed to do with that? We don't know, because Mozart & his librettist Giambattista Varesco didn't give him any response. He just looks noble & stricken. But how could an honorable young man like Idamante not protest immediately that he loves Ilia, even if (he thinks) she doesn't return his love, & how could he proceed with the trip as if Elettra hadn't announced to him that she was going to seduce him?
The staging struck me as mostly Modernizing Update 101: there is a unit set, a large boxy room with large doors on the back & on the sides. Everything is overwhelmingly white, black, or gray (with the exception of a red cloth that gets carried around by Idomeneo when he is trying to sacrifice to Neptune in Act 3, & some green branches – inevitably, the rebirth of hope – carried by the chorus at the very end. But after 3 and a half hours, these bits of color didn't do much, at least for one exhausted viewer. There are projections against the walls of the room: some effective shots of the sea (some color here; lots of deep blues) at the beginning of the opera. During emotional moments, abstract blotches swirl around the walls, to match the inner tumult, a device that might have been more effective if it had been used less often. During emotional moments (Idomeneo's Fuor del mar, Elettra's D'Oreste, d'Ajace) characters will, naturally, tear off their outer garments. There are, of course, many chairs on stage. They get moved, re-arranged, sometimes thrown, occasionally sat in.
The costumes are mostly contemporary, with some odd touches: a couple of the guards, as well as some of the higher aristocracy, wear uniforms or suits surmounted by a shoulder cape of shiny black feathers. When Elettra & Idamanta are supposed to leave on their voyage, their outfits have odd golden filigree added to the back & shoulders. The clothes are almost all black, & struck me as drab & ugly. At the beginning of the opera, when the Trojan prisoners are being freed, they line up, sort of, & go up to a table where some guards give them envelopes, which, when opened, have a paper in them. I am unclear on what was supposed to be happening there. I assume it was meant to represent some sort of sign that they were now free (maybe the papers were new legal ID?) but it struck me as mostly the theatrical equivalent of busy-work, the kind of thing you do when you feel something needs to be happening on stage other than someone standing there singing, no matter how beautifully, a noble though perhaps slightly repetitious sentiment.
So the production wasn't helping things, in my view, but I have some issues with the opera itself. I have speculated to some that the reason I don't connect with Idomeneo is that we're promised a sea monster but he only shows up offstage. I'm only half-kidding about this, because the thing is, most opportunities for drama in this story are, like the sea monster, shoved offstage. The crux of the drama is that Idomeneo, returning to his kingdom of Crete after the fall of Troy, is caught in a huge & deadly storm &, apparently not having read as many fairy tales as I have, tries to placate Neptune by promising to sacrifice to him the first living creature he sees on land, which of course turns out to be his son. (Think of the dramatic fireworks Handel made out of a similar vow & a similar dilemma in Jephtha, & you'll see what's missing here.) In his sorrow Idomeneo, apparently not having read as much Greek mythology as I have, thinks he can outwit the god's anger by just sending Idamante away on a long trip. This doesn't work, of course, & the even angrier Neptune, deprived of his human sacrifice, sends a rampaging sea monster to attack the king's city.
Idomeneo doesn't tell his son, until the very end, about the vow. He just shuns him, orders him away, & generally rejects him. Presumably this is done to protect Idamante, who seems like the type to offer himself as a sacrifice if honor commands, but Idomeneo's evasive ways cause his son probably more pain than a straightforward explanation would have. What we end up with is hours of the father being abrupt & inexplicably (in the eyes of Idamante) unloving, while the son wonders unhappily what he did wrong. There isn't a lot of development there, mostly restatement. Some of the articles in the program-book note that Mozart's troubled relationship with his own father (or other father-figures) entered into his work here. On the one hand, sure, but on the other, so what? The only reason we have any interest in the troubled relationship of these long-dead men is that one of them created art that keeps our interest. And the art has to continue to hold our interest & to stand on its own apart from any psychobiography of the artist.
The motor of this drama is the anger of Neptune, but the drama's handling of it is fundamentally incoherent. Everything is driven by the sea god's implacable anger: the deadly storms, Idomeneo's vow, his attempt to evade fulfilling that vow, the attack of the sea monster. . . There is a daring & challenging indictment being drawn up about the cruelty of the gods &, by implication, the religion that surrounds them. And then, abruptly, near the end of the opera, the sting is removed: Neptune, having apparently checked a calendar to see what year it is & realizing that the alternative is to become nothing more than a fancy fountain ornament, decides he'd better get on board with the Enlightenment. So he announces that Love & Reason are Everything, & that his commands, which called pretty clearly for a human sacrifice or else, had been completely misunderstood & instead what he obviously meant was that Idomeneo should step aside as King & let Idamante take over after he marries Ilia. Elettra gets her big number & goes offstage, presumably to kill herself, thereby removing the last obstacle to a happy ending, if not for her then at least for everyone else. Well, not quite everyone: I guess it's too bad about those hundreds of people killed by the rampaging sea monster! Maybe the sea monster also misunderstood what Neptune wanted. (I am reminded of Jane Campion's The Piano, in which a sincerely meant but barely plausible happy ending is tacked on to the story, completely undercutting everything we've just spent hours watching.)
So I remain unconvinced by Idomeneo. But if you want to hear some glorious music, sure, go up to the balcony, sit back, & bask in the sonic splendors. But you may want to keep your eyes closed. Check here for remaining performances.
16 June 2025
Kunoichi Productions: Pacific Overtures
Here's my odd confession about Stephen Sondheim: when I first discovered Sweeney Todd, I was so dazzled by it, so overwhelmed by how close it came to artistic perfection, so struck by its completeness, that it took me quite a while to explore & appreciate the rest of Sondheim. (I am still surprised when I meet people who have some other favorite Sondheim musical, or even some other favorite musical, or who can't sing, however poorly, the entire score). I did make one exception, though: Pacific Overtures, a work I also loved immediately & have wanted to see on stage for years, though I'm also aware of the dangers of such wishes; after wanting for many years to see one of Federico Garcia Lorca's plays on stage, I went to Yerma at Shotgun Players a couple of years ago, & I'm still reeling from their clueless travesty (my entry on it is here).
So I was both excited & filled with my standard anxiety when I was wandering down Haight Street one day last month & saw a poster advertising a production of Pacific Overtures, by Kunoichi Productions. I had never heard of them before, which is why I had to find out about the show from a poster, which is yet another reason it's good to wander. It turns out Kunoichi Productions is a new local group, dedicated to "bold, innovative multidisciplinary theater with Japanese aesthetics, blending the ancient and the modern, using both comedy and philosophy while fusing Eastern and Western theatrical elements"; kunoichi means female ninja; & you can find that information & more at their website here.
I ended up making it to the show's final performance, which was yesterday afternoon, & I am glad I did not skip it, as it turned out to be a very good production, really impressively good, considering the challenges of putting on this complicated work & what I assume are the group's limited resources (as we all know, these are difficult times even for established arts groups, let along scrappy start-ups, so, again, kudos to them for taking on & rising to such a big challenge).
Given Kunoichi's interests, staging Pacific Overtures as their first full production was an astute yet bold choice, as the piece straddles & explores different worlds & power structures, showing how they interact, intersect & clash, & how their inhabitants change or refuse to change during cross-cultural confrontation. Despite all it has to offer, this show isn't done that often, I'm not sure why. I assume the need for an all or mostly Asian cast hinders some, but certainly in this area there's no lack of qualified talent. As I've mentioned, it's a complicated show, but that comes with being a Sondheim show, & his is a name that is now a draw for a sizable group (I can't speak to the rest of the run, of course, but yesterday the house was almost full, & very attentive & enthusiastic).
Pacific Overtures has some of my favorite Sondheim numbers, such as the exquisite There is no other way & one of my all-time favorites, Chrysanthemum Tea, a song which manages to be both witty & tragic, as well as advancing the plot, giving us some history & cultural context, & revealing the personalities of all involved, which makes it, obviously, a triumph of the musical-comedy stage. ("Musical comedy" is a term used only for convenience here, as this show's subject, the opening of Japan by Commodore Perry & his American warships, is not a topic that would suggest, to most people, the makings of a Broadway musical.) The score also contains the song Sondheim once said was his personal favorite, Someone in a Tree, a complicated, multi-voiced narrative about . . . well, many things, but not quite grasping what we supposedly witness is a major part of it.
First I am going to complain about something, but this is my complaint every time I see a musical: the entire show was amplified. Given the relatively small performance space (La Brava Theater, which I had not been to before, despite many years of theater-going; it turned out to be a welcoming space, with the shabby-chic Art-Deco elegance of a former movie palace, which it is), one that an actor's voice should be able to fill, it was a shame that they didn't take advantage of the possibilities for intimacy & subtlety that come with a natural speaking voice. Amplification flattens & distorts tones, removes lower-volume possibilities, & in some ways reduces the audience's attention, as they don't have to listen as carefully. And the little microphones taped to the performers' faces are ugly & distracting. I say all this knowing full well that the use of amplification is going to continue, of course. I just wish it were not so automatic when singing is involved.
Taped-on face mikes aside, this was a very attractive production. The costumes were especially impressive, & astutely done: when the brothel-keeper comes out with her gaggle of crude farm girls, half of whom were comically played by men, to perform Welcome to Kanagawa, the countrified geishas' outfits were notably more garish than anyone else's, done in overly bright shades of pink & green & other electric colors. (This comic scene is balanced later in the drama by one in which three British sailors approach a young girl they think is a geisha, leading to unwanted advances from them that end in the killing of one of the sailors by the girl's father, a scene performed in this production with great delicacy & menace.) The more aristocratic Japanese were in refined dark blues & browns. Commodore Perry, done up like something approaching a Kabuki demon, wore a glistening jacket of stars & stripes, accompanied by two American sailors with grotesque "white people" masks, making them look both swinish & babylike.
There was a lot of movement, clearly based in Japanese theatrical traditions, which the performers seemed quite expert in (in other words, their movements looked natural & expressive, & not like something they had studied just for the occasion), as well as several choreographed dance numbers, all handled with aplomb. Clever use was made of the single set, a multi-level Japanese-style house, & of the auditorium itself, as characters entered or exited through the aisles (causing those of us in the front row to be cautious about extending our legs out!).
It was fascinating to see, finally, something I've been so familiar with through recordings, because of course most recordings don't give you the full show – there are narrative bits, expository bits done with dialogue, that reveals important context for the familiar songs. I have a bad habit of listening to recordings & not necessarily reading all the liner notes, or the plot summaries, so it sometimes takes a while for me to understand exactly what's happening (and in the recording of the original Broadway cast, as part of the work's incorporation of traditional Japanese theatrical techniques, the women's parts are played by men, which further complicates things if you're not reading along; in the recording of the Broadway revival, women play the women's roles, & in this production they did as well, though there's also some cross-gender casting, as mentioned earlier).
Parts of the story, particularly towards the end, were clearer to me than they ever had been before. There were also moments when I wasn't sure if I picked up on something because it was clear, or because at some level I already knew what was going on; for example, during Someone in a Tree, one of the narrators is an old man, one whose mind is possibly starting to slip, who tries to recall what he heard & saw on that long-ago day, when he climbed up a tree & saw into the treaty-house – he's very chatty, & very repetitious, but the important details elude him. The actor in this role skillfully conveyed the character's age, but was it that I was already aware enough of it to pick up on his rather subtle indications? (I have this same situation with Shakespeare productions, especially heavily cut ones: does the story still make sense as they tell it, or do I just know the material so well I'm supplying the lacunae?) (And for the record, the other narrators in Someone in a Tree are the old man's younger self (much younger, as they keep reminding us), a warrior who had been hidden under the floorboards of the treaty house, & the Reciter, our guide through the evening & the history.)
The big comedy number, Say Hello, in which representatives from foreign powers keep showing up, each bearing gifts & menace, & each characterized with musical cleverness by Sondheim (the British representative patters à la Gilbert & Sullivan, the French diplomat is filigreed with a bit of Offenbach), was very cleverly done by the group. As you'd expect with Sondheim, there's a lot of cleverness (the wordplay doesn't stop with the title). And as you'd also expect with Sondheim, if you know his work rather than his reputation (or at least his former reputation), there's a deep reservoir of emotion being drawn on. Some of the characters make only brief appearances (the wife of the low-level samurai at the beginning, for instance) & some have major arcs (the fisherman who, capsized at sea, ended up spending time in Massachusetts, who later returned to warn the Japanese about Perry's ships) that end up in surprising places, but their sorrows, their anger & confusion, provide the human spine to the history, all well conveyed by these players.
The final song, Next, Next, an urgent, on-rushing, speedy look at the changes in Japan after the Meiji Emperor decides to assert his supremacy & lead his country victoriously into the modern world, was astutely updated. There was a flash at one moment that I took to be a reference to the dropping of the atomic bomb. One of the performers at the very end was dressed in an anime-cosplay style, which is certainly a huge part of Japan's current influence but not something that would have been noted, certainly not noted as a major cultural marker for the USA, when the musical premiered in this mid-1970s.
There were no printed programs handed out, & I understand the cost-savings there, but I wish they had at least given us a single sheet. There was a QR code you could scan, but I'm just not going to do that. But Kunoichi Productions's website did give the credits, so here they are, though unfortunately I don't see listings for the set, lighting, & costume designers:
Lawrence-Michael C. Arias as Abe
Faustino Cadiz III as Swing
Keiko Shimosato Carreiro as the Reciter
Edward Im as the Boy
Sarah Jiang as Tamate
Stephen Kanaski as the Warrior
Ryan Marchand as Perry
Eiko Moon-Yamamoto as the Shogun's Mother
Nick Nakashima as Kayama
Vinh G. Nguyen as Manjiro
Mayadevi Ross as the Madame
Julia Wright as Swing
Directed by Nick Ishimaru
Music Direction by Diana Lee
Choreography by Megan and Shannon Kurashige of Sharp & Fine
Cultural Advising by Ken Kanesaka
Dramaturgy by Ai Ebashi
Good job all, & I look forward to seeing what Kunoichi Productions comes up with next.
Do you see that straw? That's a straw.
– There's the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There he is sitting there The man that got away James Stephens. The champion of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your best throw, citizen?
– Na bacleis, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There was a time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow.
– Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better.
– Is that really a fact? says Alf.
– Yes, says Bloom. That's well known. Do you not know that?
So off they started about Irish sport and shoneen games the like of the lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil and building up a nation once again and all of that. And of course Bloom had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower's heart violent exercise was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw? That's a straw. Declare to my aunt he'd talk about it for an hour so he would and talk steady.
A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of Brian O'Ciarnain's in Sraid na Bretaine Bheag, under the auspices of Sluagh na h-Eireann, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and the importance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and ancient Rome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. The venerable president of this noble order was in the chair and the attendance was of large dimensions. After an instructive discourse by the chairman, a magnificent oration eloquently and forcibly expressed, a most interesting and instructive discussion of the usual high standard of excellence ensued as to the desirability of the revivability of the ancient games and sports of our ancient panceltic forefathers. . . .
Once again, happy Bloomsday to my mountain flowers.
13 June 2025
Salonen's Last Stand, Mahler's Resurrection
Last night I was back at Davies Hall for the first in departing Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen's final run of performances, a three-concert run of Mahler's Second Symphony, the Resurrection. I was there once again courtesy of Lisa Hirsch, & I am particularly grateful as the Symphony's Uber-style surge pricing means single tickets for these concerts are going for astronomical sums, which is not surprising given this might be our last chance to hear what one of the great conductors of our time can do with our orchestra..
The Resurrection, a massive work, an emotional landmark for many symphony-goers, is always a special occasion, though of course as Salonen's last stand, these performances are particularly fraught. I assume the repertory was set before Symphony management made the unexplained & inexplicable decision to let their prize music director go, but the circumstances made the choice both ironic & hopeful.
The hall was packed & the audience vociferous in its applause & cheers for Salonen & Co every chance they got (not that there wasn't some of the usual bad behavior – very loud coughs, items dropped, & one man down front who had to be cautioned about his cell phone use during the performance by an usher with a sign; people are going to people, no matter how special the occasion). And this was a special occasion. The applause for the conductor's entry were in support; the applause & cheers for his final bows were in tribute. This was a stupendous performance on everyone's part: the orchestra, the chorus & their director (Jenny Wong), the soloists (soprano Heidi Stober & mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke), as well as Salonen. Given what I'll keep calling the circumstances, & despite or perhaps really because of the magnificent artistic achievement of all the musicians concerned, it was difficult not to feel that the performance was at some level the musical equivalent of the fuck-you dress.
As you can probably tell from my attempts to marshal praise-words into some sort of coherent form, this performance – strong, supple, soaring in its clarity & emotion – was a glowing one. I've been to other powerful Mahler performances that, while memorable, also left me feeling bludgeoned, not lifted up as this one did. This symphony is a tricky ship to sail! To switch metaphors, it was like seeing a familiar Old Master painting after a scrupulous cleaning, revealing shades of color & swathes of details that had been hidden under wax & varnish, waiting to be revealed. Particular instruments (the harps, the organ, the timpani) spoke with an invigorating clarity & force, but also with a tenderness, I hadn't recalled. The slow still entry of the chorus was like the first rays of sunlight after a stormy (picturesque, but stormy) night. Cooke, whom I believe I once described as "reliably radiant", came through as usual, with a voice like the warmth of a tender embrace. Stober soared along with the sinuous musical lines. The chorus ascended as one, & brought us with them. Requiems often try to duplicate the trumpets of the Last Judgment, but this was the thunderous opening of the final ascension. And this transitory & electric cathedral, with its vast perspective of arching architecture, its colors & pillars, &, this being Mahler, its gargoyles, had been summoned from the score as by a magician's wand by the conductor's baton, floating over us, suspended, giving us the usual dilemma: what do you do after hearing such a revelation?
I've read through what I've written a couple of times, wondering if I should tone it down, tamp down the extravagance, prune a few adjectives. But why? Ultimately, we go to live performances to have an evening like this, one that will live in memory as a justification for the time & money we spend on this strange hobby of going to sit in the dark, listening to sounds that will pass away just as we (often barely) comprehend them. So let my babbling stand as a monument to the why & wherefore of a concert-going life.
Enough of my raving. Re-entry has, as usual, been difficult. This was a great evening, & as for what happens to the Symphony after this, well, resurrection is always the hope.
09 June 2025
08 June 2025
Penultimate Salonen: Strauss, Sibelius, & Smith at the San Francisco Symphony
Thursday night I was at Symphony Hall for Esa-Pekka Salonen's penultimate stand as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony. (I was there courtesy of Lisa Hirsch; check here for her review of this concert.) He was conducting a meaty program bookended by two Richard Strauss tone poems (Don Juan & Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks); in between came Sibelius's 7th Symphony to close the first half & then, after the intermission, the world premiere of a Symphony commission, Rewilding by local composer Gabriella Smith.
As locals are all too well aware, Symphony management made the boneheaded decision, for reasons never really stated beyond the usual "different artistic visions", to let their prize Music Director go. Overt demonstrations are not allowed, but the audience showed its support for Salonen with on-going applause & cheers for him every chance they got – as he walked on, as he bowed after a piece, as he walked off; when the concert ended, the applause extended well beyond the usual.
In recent years I've sort of lost my taste for Richard Strauss, but Thursday's performance made me wonder why, as the lush, dizzying strains of Don Juan unfolded (sounding occasionally like outtakes from Rosenkavalier, suitably enough given the eroticism pervading both works), with just enough of a zing of danger & a shot of the eerie to make it clear this was not just any lover's rhapsody but the story of a specific lover, the obsessive, haunted, & hunted Don Juan. Well, as they say, that's why they play the games. It's always good to give what we think we know a reality check.
That was followed by the Sibelius 7, a relatively compact piece. A few weeks ago at the Symphony, Dalia Stasevska closed her concert with a vigorous Sibelius 5, a work that rises majestically on muscular wings; the 7th, by contrast, seems rooted monumentally in place, like a vast granite mountain, undecorated by frivolous little flowers & suchlike; what chips & fragments skitter away from it come from the same substantial source.
That was a lot to mull over during intermission, with more to come – in fact, with a highlight to come, as a world premiere always strikes me as the highlight, or maybe I should say potential highlight, of a concert. But before we could hear the piece, the composer was brought out to talk.
As I've often said, I dislike such talks from the stage, & though there is a Romantic interest in hearing an artist discussing his or her creation, their comments are as often as not partial, pale, even a bit misleading (pushing us to look for one element over other, potentially to us more interesting, elements). After all, if a piece could be summed up in words, why write the piece? If you're a composer, you must feel that music conveys things words cannot, & this would be true even if you were a composer also gifted in writing & speaking (& not all are, of course; the "talk to the audience" is a bit of outreach, like using social media, that gets foisted on all composers these days, regardless of their level of interest & skill in these tasks, which are tangential to their main interest, which is writing music). And most of the material given in these speeches is usually available in the program anyway, so it's a twice-told tale for me.
Smith started with a gracious thank-you to Salonen & the orchestra; as a local composer, she grew up hearing the San Francisco Symphony, so it was a particular thrill, she said, for her to work with them. For the rest of her speech, she rather brilliantly evaded any discussion of the music (which needs to speak for itself) by telling us what rewilding is. But – I already know what it is. And I'm all in favor of it! (In fact I wondered if I was more of a purist than Smith, who went on about bicycling, as bicyclists do, whereas I feel bikes are industrial products, mostly requiring paved roads, that, while not as bad as cars, are not as good as walking.) So all in favor, & that's all the more reason I don't need to hear about it when I'm in the cramped & uncomfortable seats of Davies Hall, feeling tired, & having already sat long enough so that my joints are hurting. And it's not Smith's problem that some words she emphasized (like "joy" & "community"), while important & powerful, are also trendy PR-ready buzzwords that set my teeth on edge.
Am I the only one who felt this way? Very likely. Is it a bit ridiculous that it took a while for me to let the music, once it started, get past my mild irritation with the speech? Again, very likely. But there it is. These things affect us, just as much as whether the seats are comfortable or how we're feeling physically. And though Smith did talk about a rewilding project she had recently worked on (converting an old airport runway up in Seattle – information which was also available in the program), she did not explain how the concept of rewilding affected the piece or her conception of it. I heard nature in the music, but not nature being reborn, or wilderness coming out of humanity's wreckage.
Not that that really matters. An arbitrary title can direct you for only so long before one's own reactions to the music take over. And once I got past my usual irritation at the talk, & my irritation that I was irritated, I loved the piece, a rich, striking profusion of sounds new & compelling. There is much frittering percussion, & then great swoops of sound, like a rushing strong wind, or maybe a warning siren. Some of the sounds are unusual – a percussionist was snapping twigs at some points. This made a noticeable number of audience members laugh – not in a derisive way, but in a way that still puzzled me. Snapping a twig doesn't seem particularly comical to me, though apparently it did to some in the context of a symphony orchestra, but haven't we learned from John Cage & Co that any sound from any source could be incorporated into performance?
According to the program, Rewilding is (this is very precise) 23 minutes long, making it the longest of the evening's four selections. The time flew by, as did the rich & redolent sounds. Though a made object involving an incredible degree of skill on the parts of both composer & performers, & sophisticated "technology" (in the form of musical instruments), the piece conveyed a refreshing sense of being out in nature, aware, taking in the nature-made sounds around us. Perhaps Rewilding isn't such an arbitrary title; maybe it refers to what happens in the soul of the listener.
Rewilding is exactly the sort of thing – a new, substantial, thoughtful, & gorgeous piece designed for a large orchestra – that I fear we will see much less of after Salonen goes, being swept aside by lush orchestrations of pop hits & live performances of film scores to currently popular movies that already have perfectly fine recorded soundtracks.
After Smith's powerful piece, it seemed like another of Till Eulenspiegel's pranks to detain us longer with his antics, but there it was, & it turned out to be giddy, zingy fun, kind of like (& I mean this as a compliment) the score of the most luxe Warner Brothers cartoon ever.
06 June 2025
02 June 2025
30 May 2025
Friday Photo 2025/22
detail of a stained glass window at Saint Matthew's Lutheran Church in San Francisco
26 May 2025
Another Opening, Another Show: June 2025
If you're reading this, you have undoubtedly bought performance tickets from one to dozens of organizations in the past, which means you will receive frequent emails from one to dozens of performance groups, no matter how long ago you bought from them, & so you have probably heard already that the NEA, guided by the current Republican administration's usual unholy trinity of cruelty, incompetence, & smug stupidity, has slashed grant money (including money already promised for works already underway) to most arts groups. If you can afford to donate – well, you know what to do. And at this point, buying tickets is not just entertainment or self-enrichment or whatever live performance provides to you: it is a vital way of supporting the arts & fighting back against the fascists. So pick your battles from the enticing list below:
Theatrical
From 17 to 22 June, Berkeley Rep hosts Who’s With Me?, written & performed by W Kamau Bell; this revival of his show is a special benefit series of performances to help Bay Area arts organizations hit by the recent NEA fund pull-backs & cuts, including the American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Crowded Fire Theater, Dance Brigade/Dancers Mission Theater, Magic Theatre, Marin Shakespeare Company, New Conservatory Theatre Center, Oakland Children’s Fairyland, Oakland Theater Project, San Francisco Youth Theatre, Theatre Bay Area, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, & Zaccho Dance Theatre.
For three weekends in June, the New Conservatory Theatre Center, in association with Martuni’s, presents three different Pride Cabarets: on 6 - 7 June, it's How I Became the Countess, with J Conrad Frank accompanied by Russell Deason; on 13 - 14 June, it's Dusty Pörn, with pianist Joe Wicht, in These Pumps Are Made for Walkin’; & on 20 - 21 June, it's Cantos De Mi Tierra in ORGULLO!, "honoring Spanish-speaking LGBTQ+ icons".
Kunoichi Productions in association with Theater of Yugen presents Pacific Overtures, the Sondheim musical about the opening of Japan to the Western powers, directed by Nick Ishimaru, from 30 May to 15 June at La Brava Theater.
Ray of Light presents Next to Normal, the musical by Tom Kitt (music) & Brian Yorkey (book & lyrics), from 30 May to 21 June at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco.
Theater Rhinoceros presents Doodler, a true-crime story from the 1970s about a series of unsolved murders of gay men in the Castro, a one-person show with John Fisher as everything, including running lights & sound & selling concessions; the show will be at The Marsh San Francisco, rather than Theater Rhinoceros, & runs from 31 May to 6 July.
ACT presents a "World Premiere Hip-Hop Musical", Co-Founders, by Ryan Nicole Austin, Beau Lewis, & Adesha Adefela, with a music team led by Victoria Theodore, directed by Jamil Jude, from 29 May through 6 July at the Strand.
Berkeley Rep presents The Big Reveal Live Show!, written & performed by Sasha Velour, from 4 to 15 June.
On 7 - 8 June at the Potrero Stage, Golden Thread Productions presents, as part of their New Threads Staged Reading Series, Oriental, or 1001 Ways to Tie Yourself in Knots by Evren Odcikin, directed by Elizabeth Carter.
Before I Forget, written & performed by Adam Strauss, plays at The Marsh Berkeley from 7 to 21 June.
From 12 to 22 June, the Great Star Theater in San Francisco's Chinatown presents Au Room by Pink Puma, & when you recall that "Au" is the elemental abbreviation for gold, you will be prepared for a shimmering, gold-covered aerialist cabaret.
David Henry Hwang's Yellowface continues at Shotgun Players until 14 June, but on 9 - 10 June their Champagne Staged Reading Series presents A Black-Billed Cuckoo by Mat Smart, directed by Mary Ann Rdogers, & on 19 June they present the San-Francisco Neo-Futurists in Blackest Wrench, "a one-night-only Juneteenth edition of The Infinite Wrench! Featuring an all-Black cast".
BARD Theater presents Coriolanus, featuring "the political subterfuge and brutality of Ancient Rome by way of 2012 American politics, complete with an emo soundtrack, homoerotic frenemies, and the mother of all toxic boy-moms…" from 13 to 28 June at the Eclectic Box Theater in San Francisco.
Word for Word and Z Space present Lauren Groff's Annunciation, directed by Joel Mullennix, from 18 June through 13 July; on 9 July only, there will be an author's talkback after the show with Lauren Groff.
The Magic Theater presents the world premiere of Aztlán by Luis Alfaro, directed By Kinan Valdez, a "contemporary California story about the search for the resonance of the cultural, mythical, and political remnants of Aztlán in our modern world", & that runs from 25 June to 13 July.
Talking
City Arts & Lectures presents Michael Pollan & Gül Dölen, in conversation with Indre Viskontas, on the Future of Psychedelics (Co-produced with the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics), & that's 5 June at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco.
Operatic
Opera Parallèle presents a revised version of Harvey Milk, the opera by Stewart Wallace (music) & Michael Korie (words), from 31 May to 7 June at the Yerba Buena Center.
Urs Leonhardt Steiner leads the Golden Gate Symphony & Chorus in a selection of arias & choruses from popular operas, & that's on 7 June at the Clock Tower in Benicia & 8 June at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
San Francisco Opera presents a double-cast run of Puccini's ever popular La Bohème, conducted by Ramón Tebar: on 3, 7, 10, 12, 15, & 19 June, Rodolfo is Pene Pati, Mimì is Karen Chia-Ling Ho, Marcello is Lucas Meachem, & Musetta is Andrea Carroll; on 13, 18, & 21 June, Rodolfo is Evan LeRoy Johnson, Mimì is Nicole Car, Marcello is Will Liverman, & Musetta is Brittany Renee. (The Opera is also presenting a free touring abridgement of this opera, Bohème Out of the Box; check here for dates & locations.)
San Francisco Opera presents Mozart's Idomeneo on 14, 17, 20, 22, & 25 March, conducted by Eun Sun Kim & directed by Lindy Hume, featuring Matthew Polenzani in the title role, Daniela Mack as Idamante, Ying Fang as Ilia, Elza van den Heever as Elettra, & Alek Shrader as Arbace.
Pocket Opera presents Kirke Mecham's operatic version of Molière's Tartuffe, with music direction by Kyle Naig & stage direction by Nicolas A Garcia, on 15 June at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, 22 June at the Gunn Theater at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, & 29 June at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.
Festival Opera presents Pagliacci in the Park, a free outdoor version of Leoncavallo's opera, on 26 June at Orinda Community Park & on 29 June at Civic Park in Walnut Creek.
On 7 June at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, the Wagner Society of Northern California presents The Quest for the Grail: Parsifal by the Bay with Kip Cranna.
Cole Thomason-Redus of the San Francisco Opera will give a lecture on Black Voices in American Opera on 7 & 14 June; the lecture on the 7th is at the Ocean View Branch of the SF Public Library & the one on the 14th is at the Potrero Branch.
Choral
Robert Geary leads Volti in The Guardians of Yggdrasil, a new work by Mark Winges based on Norse mythology (with a libretto by Lisa Delan), as well as Caroline Shaw‘s Ochre, on 6 - 8 June at Z Space in San Francisco.
On 7 June at Calvary Presbyterian, the San Francisco Boys Chorus, joined by special guests from Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble, will present Build Me A World, a program featuring works by Vivaldi, Mozart, Duruflé, & others, along with traditional folk tunes.
Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble offers an "evening of Balkan, Baltic, Slavic, and Caucasian songs for the Summer Solstice" at Old First Concerts on 14 June.
San Francisco Choral Artists present Welcome to the Zoo!, a survey of animal-centered works from the Renaissance up to world premieres (by Bryce McCandless, Zoe Yost, & Patricia Julien), & the performances are 8 June at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, 14 June at All Saints' Episcopal in Palo Alto, & 15 June at Saint Paul's Episcopal in Oakland.
Chanticleer presents Chanticleer and the Fox: An Evening of Renaissance Theater Music, based on the children's book Chanticleer and the Fox, illustrated by Barbara Cooney; for this family-friendly program, the group offers free admission for children 12 & under (children must be accompanied by a ticketed adult); you can hear the performance on 7 June (two performances) at Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco, 8 June at Saint John's Lutheran in Sacramento, 10 June at Mission Santa Clara, 12 June at Mount Tamalpais United Methodist, & 13 June at First Church in Berkeley.
Slavyanka Chorus, led by Irina Shachneva, performs Songs of the Soul, featuring spiritual music of Russia from the 17th century to our own time, with performances on 14 June at the Church of the Redeemer in Los Altos & 15 June at Star of the Sea in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus presents a Pride Concert at the Curran Theater on 21 June.
Vocalists
Randy Rainbow brings his National Freakin’ Treasure tour to the Palace of Fine Arts Theater on 5 June, & if you don't know his anti-Trump parody videos, do yourself a favor & go to YouTube to check them out.
On 14 June, the Berkeley Hillside Club presents vocalist Sarah Cabral performing Música do Brasil, accompanied by Ian Faquini (acoustic guitar), Eva Scow (mandolin), & Alex Calatayud (percussion).
Merola presents A Grand Night for Singing – An American Songfest on 26 June at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, featuring the Merolini in a celebration of American song chosen by Ronny Michael Greenberg.
San Francisco Opera presents a Pride Concert, conducted by Eun Sun Kim & Robert Mollicone, with videos by Tal Rosner, hosted by Monét X Change & featuring vocalists Jamie Barton, Brian Mulligan, & Nikola Printz, at the Opera House on 27 June.
Orchestral
On 1 June in Zellerbach Hall, Joseph Young leads the Berkeley Symphony in Methuselah (In Chains of Time) by Gity Razaz, Piazzolla's Aconcagua, Concerto for Bandoneon, String Orchestra and Percussion (featuring accordion soloist Hanzhi Wang), & the Shostakovich 5.
On 8 June at Herbst Theater, the San Francisco Pride Band presents . . . On A High Note: The Pete Nowlen Farewell Concert; to mark the retirement of Newlen, the Band's longtime Artistic Director, he will conduct the world premiere of American Epic (commissioned from composer Carlos McMillan Fuentes under the Band’s Black, Indigenous, Person of Color (BIPOC) Composition Program), along with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (with Fuentes as piano soloist), as well as Chamak by Reena Esmail, To a Liberator by George Fredrick McKay, Tundra by Nubia Jaime-Donjuan (conducted by Mike Wong), & Monkey Business by David Lovrien.
On 13 June at the Paramount, Kedrick Armstrong leads the Oakland Symphony in Errollyn Wallen's Mighty River along with the Beethoven 9, the Choral, with soloists Hope Briggs (soprano), Zoie Reams (mezzo-soprano), Ashley Faatoalia (tenor), & Adam Lau (bass).
On 14 June at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Martha Stoddard leads the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony in the American premiere of Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra by Juan Sebastian Cardona-Ospina (with timpani soloist Jimmy Chan), Overture by Grażyna Bacewicz, What the Wildflowers Tell Me by Mahler (arranged by Britten), & the Sibelius 3.
The Verdi Requiem that San Francisco Symphony management sabotaged last fall is making an appearance in the closing weeks of the season, on 20 & 22 June, this time led by James Gaffigan, with vocal soloists Rachel Willis-Sørensen (soprano), Jamie Barton (mezzo-soprano), Mario Chang (tenor), & Morris Robinson (bass), joined by the Symphony Chorus, led by Jenny Wong; in addition to the Verdi, the program includes Mozart's Ave verum corpus, & Gordon Getty's Intermezzo from Goodbye, Mr. Chips, his Saint Christopher, & his The Old Man in the Snow.
Owing to the boneheaded myopia of the San Francisco Symphony's current mismanagers, Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen is leading his final performances with the ensemble this month: on 6 - 8 June, he conducts the world premiere of an SFS commission, Rewilding by Gabriella Smith, along with Richard Strauss's Don Juan, his Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, & the Sibelius 7; on 12 - 14 June, he leads the Mahler 2, the Resurrection (a choice, under current circumstances, both ironic & hopeful), with soloists Heidi Stober (soprano) & Sasha Cooke (mezzo-soprano), along with the Symphony Chorus, led by Jenny Wong.
On 26 & 27 June, the San Francisco Symphony joins with something called BLACKSTAR Symphony to perform a symphonic re-imagining of David Bowie's final album, Blackstar. I like Bowie so I'm listing this, but generally I feel pop music doesn't really need the lush amplification of a symphony orchestra & I wish Orchestras would devote their "new/unusual music" energies towards new scores written specifically for them, not in pumping up pop works that don't need the upholstery. (Yes, I am well aware that many of the staple Symphonic composers used the folk & popular music of their time, but that's exactly it: they used such music, adapting & changing it to suit their purposes; they didn't just flesh it out, full-length, with unnecessary sonorities in order to lure in ticket-buyers who otherwise would never go near Symphony Hall.)
Chamber Music
On 8 June, the Berkeley Hillside Club Concert Series presents An Afternoon of Music & Words, with the words provided by Martha Anne Toll, from her book Duet for One, & the music by Gwendolyn Mok (piano), Ariel Pawlik-Zwiebel (violin), Markus Pawlik (piano), & Omri Shimron (piano); remarks & readings by Toll will be interspersed with performances of Franck's Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano (third movemen), Vocalise by Rachmaninoff, Bach's French Suite #2 in C Minor (second & third movements, Courante & Sarabande), & the Brahms Sonata for Two Pianos in F Minor, Opus 34b (first movement).
On 15 June at Davies Hall, a chamber group of San Francisco Symphony musicians will perform Caroline Shaw's Entr’acte, Anton Arensky's Cello Quartet, Aleksey Igudesman's Latin Suite for Two Violas, & the String Quartet #3 in B-flat Major, Opus 67 by Brahms.
On 22 June at Old First Concerts, Le Due Muse (Sarah Hong, cello; Makiko Ooka, piano), with special guest violinist Fumino Ando, will perform Nikolai Myaskovsky's Sonata for Cello and Piano, #1, Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Cello and Piano, & Anton Arensky's Piano Trio.
On 28 - 29 June at Old First Concerts, Sixth Station Trio (Anju Goto, violin; Federico Strand Ramirez, cello; Katelyn Tan, piano) will perform music from the video game Stardew Valley.
Instrumental
On 1 June at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony presents cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason & pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason performing Mendelssohn's Cello Sonata #1 in B-flat major, Fauré's Cello Sonata #1 in D minor, Poulenc's Cello Sonata, & Natalie Klouda's Tor Mordôn.
On 4 June at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony presents double-bass player Xavier Foley, performing Bach's Suite #5 for Solo Cello (as arranged for bass), along with a series of his own compositions.
Noontime Concerts at Old Saint Mary's presents two piano recitals this month: on 17 June Sharon Su performs Chopin's Berceuse, Opus 57, Maria Szymanowska's Nocturne in B-flat Major, Mel Bonis's Omphale, Opus 68, Ravel's Jeux d’eau, & Florence Price's Fantasie nègre #1 in E minor; & on 24 June, Jason Sia performs an as-yet unannounced program.
Early / Baroque Music
On 3 June at Old Saint Mary's, Noontime Concerts presents Musica Pacifica (Judith Lisenberg, recorder; William Skeen, cellist, Yuko Tanaka, keyboard) performing chamber works by Bach & Buxtehude.
WAVE (Women's Antique Vocal Ensemble) performs a 25th Anniversary Concert, Celebrating the Past, Looking to the Future, on 6 June at Saint Mary Magdalen in Berkeley, when they will perform "some of our favorite music from 25 years of concerts — gorgeous medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque songs from Europe, England, and Latin America — plus some wonderful music new to us".
The San Francisco Early Music Society presents Emperor of the Moon, a collaboration between Nash Baroque Ensemble & Dance Through Time, offering a "pastiche of music, dance, pantomime and puppetry from the 17th and 18th-century English stage", & you can see it 6 June at Carrington Hall in Redwood City, 7 June at the Live Oak Theater in Berkeley, & 8 June at the Gunn Theater in the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.
The Handel Opera Project presents Handel's Samson on 15 June at the First Church of Christ, Scientist (the Maybeck Church) in Berkeley; the cast features Gabriel Liboiron-Cohen as Samson, Daphne Touchais as Dalila, Sara Couden as Micah, Wayne Wong as Manoah, Michael Orlinsky as Harapha, & Shannon Arcilla, Jayne Diliberto, & Caleb Alexander as assorted Philistines.
Modern / Contemporary Music
The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents Spring Contrasts, a program exploring the "contrasting timbres of the violin [Liana Bérubé], clarinet [Jeff Anderle], and piano [Allegra Chapman]", featuring the Suite en Trio, Opus 59 by Mel Bonis, Processional by Hannah Kendall, Unquiet Waters by Kevin Day, selections from Cinco Bocetos: Canción de la Montaña & Canción del Campo by Roberto Sierra, the first movement of the Sonata for Violin and Piano by Roberto Sierra, & Contrasts by Bartók, & you can hear it all on 7 June at the Piedmont Center for the Arts & on 9 June at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players & the ARTZenter Institute continue their collaboration this month, with two concerts (both at Herbst Theater in San Francisco, & both free), one on 18 June featuring Luca Robadey's Stained Glass, Laura Cetilia's Unless, & Daniel Cui's Nanjing Fragments & one on 20 June featuring Gabriel Duarte's Färgstark, Sofia Jen Ouyang's Burst, & Angel Gomez's Synecdoche; if I'm understanding correctly, & I may not be, these are the pieces selected after the first round of concerts.
Garden of Memory, New Music Bay Area's annual & much loved celebration of the Summer Solstice, will take place at Chapel of the Chimes on 21 June; tickets are only available in advance, & as attendance is limited they're gone well in advance, so buy now if you're interested in going.
Jazz
On 8 June at the Presidio Theater, the Marcus Shelby Orchestra will perform Black Ball: The Negro Leagues and the Blues, Shelby's celebration of "the history and legacy of Black baseball through songs, video, theatrics, singers, dancers, and clowns."
The San Francisco Jazz Festival runs 13 - 15 June; check here for the line-up.
Art Means Painting
Bouquets to Art, the popular exhibition of plants arranged to reflect the surrounding art, runs 3 to 8 June at the de Young & the Legion of Honor.
Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California, tracing "the flow and flourishing of quilts in the context of the Second Great Migration" opens at BAM/PFA on 8 June & runs through 30 November; this is sure to be one not to miss!
On 14 June at BAM/PFA, Yasufumi Nakamori will lecture on Martin Wong and Premodern Art of Asia (the museum's 2017 exhibit Martin Wong: Human Instamatic was a highlight of their recent exhibition history).
Cinematic
The 22nd SF Documentary Film Festival (SF DocFest), with 39 features & 47 shorts, will run, mostly at the Roxie, from 1 to 11 June; check here for the full schedule.
BAM/PFA begins its summer series of films this month: In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City. inspired by the book of the same title by Imogen Sara Smith, "focuses on film noirs set in suburbia and small towns, on the road, in the desert, and along borderlands" & that launches 6 June & runs through 24 July; the self-explanatory Robert Altman at 100, featuring a nice selection of acknowledged classics (Nashville) & lesser-known gems (Popeye), opens 13 June & goes through 30 August; Bruce Conner: Films from the BAMPFA Collection will feature two different programs of Conner's experimental / collage films, on 15 & 27 June; Andrei Tarkovsky: Voyages in Time opens 20 June & runs through 29 August (I had always thought of myself as a Tarkovsky lover, & then one day I decided to check how many of his films I had actually seen, & I realized that what I am is a devout lover of Andrei Rublev with a lot of catching up to do).
It's not as difficult to see as it was before Criterion released its edition, but if you want to see Jacques Rivette's marvelous Céline and Julie Go Boating on a big screen, you may do so at the Balboa in San Francisco on 9 June.
The 21st International Queer Women of Color Film Festival (presented by Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project), featuring 49 films across 7 screenings, runs at the Presidio Theater from 13 to 15 June.
Frameline, the LGBTQ+ film festival, runs 18 to 28 June; check here for films & locations.
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