Another Opening, Another Show: September 2026

September is the traditional start of the "performance season", as it used to be of the school year; now most students are back to school in August, & I start receiving back-to-school ads in early July. The seasons all blur together these days. Two weeks ago I wandered into the drugstore, looking for soft-bristle toothbrushes, in my usual summer attire of shorts & a tank top, only to see the shelves being stocked with ghoulish Halloween supplies ("ghoulish" would include the mega-packs of candy that will, if they're any good, though they probably are not, undoubtedly be stale by the end of October). It was around the time of that visit that I received my first ad this year that mentioned "pumpkin spice" on . . . something. Does it matter? (I've never actually had "pumpkin spice", outside of pumpkin pie; I assume it's basically cinnamon with a dash of clove?) So Autumn (season of mists & mellow fruitfulness, thank you John Keats) is bringing its salutary chill to our thresholds. Or would be, except climate change means that we're entering the hottest months in the Bay Area, though the snowmen & sleigh bells of Christmas will soon no doubt be making their improbable California appearance. The world is a mixed-up place, as we all know, but at least the Opera & the Symphony have stuck to their traditional schedules, opening this month, so off we go. One thing that never changes is the need of the performing arts for financial support & attentive, respectful audiences, so let's all do what we can in that regard (end of sermon, at least for today: go in peace to love & serve the Muses).

Theatrical

On 27 August at SFMOMA, in conjunction with their exhibition Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal, Laura Sheppard of the Yiddish Theater Ensemble will present a staged dramatic reading from Harriet Levy's Paris Portraits: Stories of Picasso, Matisse, Gertrude Stein, and Their Circle; the show is directed by Suzanne Stassevitch with piano accompaniment by Dale Tsang & is free with RSVP.

From 4 September to 11 October at their Peet’s Theatre, Berkeley Rep presents The Cook by Eduardo Machado, directed by David Mendizábal, about an aristocratic Cuban family's cook, Gladys, who vows to protect their mansion when they flee Castro's Revolution – and then, forty years later, the family's daughter returns.

From 5 to 26 September at the Potrero Stage, Crowded Fire presents Manning by Benjamin Benne, directed by Adin Walker, about a Latin family (a father & his two sons) mourning the loss of their wife/mother.

From 10 to 12 September at the Strand Theater, ACT presents Crushing, created by Carly Steyer & Megan Calfas, executive produced by Rosario Dawson, co-produced by Natachi Onwuamaegbu, in which "multidisciplinary artists—playwrights, actors, novelists, poets, comedians—perform true stories from their love lives onstage" (thanks, but I'd rather attend the rebuttal show).

From 10 to 27 September at Fort Mason's Magic Theatre, the Lorraine Hansberry Theater presents the world premiere of African Stew by Lisa B Thompson, directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, about what happens when the families of a newly engaged African American woman & a Nigerian man meet for the first time.

From 11 September to 11 October, Berkeley Playhouse presents Legally Blonde: The Musical, directed by No’Eau Kahalekulu with music direction by Camden Daly & choreography by Cat Delos Santos Reyes.

From 12 September to 18 October, the New Conservatory Theater Center presents Little Shop of Horrors, the beloved musical by Howard Ashman & Alan Menken, directed by Ben Villegas Randle, with musical direction by Jad Bernardo & choreography by Leslie Waggoner.

From 15 to 19 September at their Roda Theater, Berkeley Rep presents Choligarchy, written & performed by Margaret Cho.

From 22 September to 18 October at the Toni Rembe Theater, ACT presents Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest as adapted & directed by Emma Rice.

From 25 September to 11 October at Z Space, the Oakland Theater Project & New Performance present King Lear, directed by Michael Socrates Moran.

Starting 26 September at the Ashby Stage, Shotgun Players presents The Fall Show, created by Erika Chong Shuch & Charles Mee, about "an older couple’s unexpected romance".

From 26 September to 28 November, San Francisco Playhouse presents Peter Pan Goes Wrong by Henry Lewis, Henry Shields & Jonathan Sayer, the creators of The Play That Goes Wrong, so this one is pretty self-explanatory.

Talking

On 9 September at the Goldman Theater in the David Brower Center in Berkeley, Other Minds presents The Nature of Music 21: Listening With, featuring "musician, anthropologist, and philosopher of sound" Marina Peterson discussing "How does one listen with rather than listen to? And how might listening with allow the listener to more fruitfully conceptualize climate change?"

On 15 September at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, Isabel Allende will discuss her new book, Story Telling: A Writing Life.

Operatic

The San Francisco Opera opens its season with Verdi's magnificent Simon Boccanegra, conducted by Eun Sun Kim & directed by Claus Guth (revival direction by Katherine M Carter), with Amartuvshin Enkhbat in the title role, Eleonora Buratto as Amelia/Maria (Toni Marie Palmertree takes the role on the 27 September performance), Christian Van Horn as Jacopo Fiesco, Joshua Guerrero as Gabriele Adorno, Aleksey Bogdanov as Paolo Albiani, & Gabriel Natal-Báez as Pietro; performances are 12, 16, 19, 22, 25, & 27 September; please note that 12 September is Opening Night for the season, & you are the best judge if that is the sort of scene that appeals to you.

The second opera in San Francisco Opera's season is a rarity, Mary, Queen of Scots, with music & libretto by Thea Musgrave, conducted by Clelia Cafiero & directed by Stewart Laing, the opera stars Heidi Stober in the title role, Thomas Mole as James Stewart, Earl of Moray, Thomas Kinch as the Earl of Bothwell, Christopher Sokolowski as Lord Darnley, Hadleigh Adams as David Riccio, David Soar as Cardinal Beaton, Philip Skinner as Lord Gordon, Olivier Zerouali as the Earl of Morton, Chance Jonas-O'Toole as the Earl of Ruthven, Sadie Cheslak as Mary Seton, Sofia Gotch as Mary Beaton, Mary Hoskins as Mary Livingston, & Alexa Frankian as Mary Fleming; performances are 20, 24, 26, 29 September & 2 & 4 October.

On 13 September at Robin Williams Meadow in Golden Gate Park, the San Francisco Opera presents its annual Opera in the Park concert, with Music Director Eun Sun Kim leading the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in "an afternoon of duets, arias, and more", performed by as yet unannounced singers from the current season. I find the idea of outdoor concerts more pleasing than the actual experience, but as with the Opening Night shenanigans, you are the best judge of whether this will appeal to you.

From 13 to 27 September, Opera San José presents Mozart's Don Giovanni, conducted by Joseph Marcheso & directed by Alek Shrader, with Wm. Clay Thompson in the title role, Kenneth Kellogg as the Commendatore, Yulan Piao as Donna Anna, Jonghyun Park as Don Ottavio, Maria Brea as Donna Elvira, Phillip Lopez as Leporello, Joseph Park as Masetto, & Nicole Koh as Zerlina.

Opera Day in the Bay will take place on 20 September in the Redwood Park at the Transamerica Pyramid Center; produced by Céline Ricci, hosted by Carla Lucero, & dedicated to the memory of Erie Mills, this event brings together Ars Minerva, Festival Opera, Lamplighters Music Theatre, Livermore Valley Opera, Mercury Opera Theater, Opera Parallèle, Opera San José, Pocket Opera, Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera, San Francisco Opera Guild, Upspark Productions, & West Edge Opera in a celebration of what opera is & can be (specific performers & musical selections will be announced in early September); the event is free but advance registration via Eventbrite is required

On 27 September at the Piedmont Center for the Arts, Festival Opera opens its Salon Series with a Resident Artist Showcase, celebrating its new resident artist program & featuring ​Marielle Leiboff & Rachel Nelson (sopranos), Phoebe Dinga (mezzo-soprano), Spencer Greene (tenor), Liam Daley (baritone) with pianist Daniel Lockert performing operatic scenes & arias by Verdi, Handel, Mozart, Leoncavallo, Richard Strauss, Bizet, Rachmaninoff, Lehar, Massenet, Jeanine Tesori, & Bernstein.

On 26 September at the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco, the Wagner Society of Northern California will present Wagner and Clam Fritters – a Talk by Joseph Horowitz, about Anton Seidl & the early days of Wagnerism in America.

Vocalists

On 8 September in Davies Hall, Anthony Parnther leads the San Francisco Symphony as they accompany jazz singer Samara Joy.

On 27 September in Hertz Hall, Cal Performances presents baritone Lester Lynch with pianist Kevin Korth in a program "exploring love, loss, and mortality" in the form of Samuel Barber's Dover Beach (with string quartet: René Mandel & Wyatt Underhill, violins; Kaya Bryla, viola; Anne Richardson, cello), Mahler's Rückert Lieder, & lieder by Schubert & Mussorgsky, songs by Hahn & Tosti, & traditional songs as arranged by Gordon Getty,

Orchestral

On 12 September at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Robert Mollicone leads the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony in Dance, Drama, and Desire, a program including Barber's Overture to The School for Scandal, Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite #2, Korngold's Cello Concerto (with soloist Hans Brightbill), & Chausson's Symphony in B-flat Major.

On 18- 19 September, David Afkham leads the San Francisco Symphony in Unsuk Chin's subito con forza, the Schumann 4, & the Brahms Piano Concerto #1 (with soloist Garrick Ohlsson).

On 24 September, the San Francisco Symphony holds its Opening Gala; Giancarlo Guerrero will lead the band in The Chairman Dances by John Adams, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (with soloist Hilary Hahn), & the Capriccio espagnol by Rimsky-Korsakov.

On 26 September in the Caroline H Hume Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Edwin Outwater will lead the SFCM Orchestra in To Decipher Birdsong by Brayden Meng (winner of the Conservatory's Highsmith Orchestra Composition Prize), Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral (this piece will be conducted by Conservatory student Grace Whalen), & the Prokofiev 5.

 

On 26 - 27 September at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek, Donato Cabrera leads the California Symphony in The Oceanides by Sibelius, Jennifer Higdon's Cello Concerto (with soloist Julian Schwarz), & Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.

On 27 September in Herbst Theater, the San Francisco Pride Band will hold its Fall Community Concert; details have not yet been announced.

Chamber Music

The Friction Quartet (Otis Harriel & Kevin Rogers, violins; Mitso Floor, viola; Doug Machiz, cello) will perform Transformation, a program curated by Rogers featuring Julia Wolfe's Blue Dress, György Ligeti's String Quartet #1 (Métamorphoses nocturnes), & Haydn's String Quartet opus 76 #6 in E flat Major, & that's 18 September at the SF Community Music Center & 20 September at the Crowden School in Berkeley.

On 20 September in Davies Hall, pianist Garrick Ohlsson joins San Francisco Symphony musicians in an afternoon of chamber music, featuring the Brahms Piano Trio #2 in C major, Opus 87, Impulso Suite by Ramiro Boero, La muerte del ángel & Decarísimo by Astor Piazzolla, & the Piano Quintet, Opus 67 by Amy Beach.

Noontime Concerts hasn't released its full performance calendar for this month yet, but if you're in the vicinity of Old Saint Mary's in San Francisco around 12:30 on a Tuesday, you might want to check here to see what's on offer.

Instrumental

On 6 September at Grace Cathedral, Raymond Hawkins will perform an organ recital featuring dance & dance-inspired music by Bach, Couperin, Haydn, Vierne, Boëllmann, Edward German (as arranged by Edwin Lemare), Calvin Hampton, & Naji Hakim.

On 20 September at Old First Concerts, harpist Noël Wan will perform Les fleurs du mal, a program featuring music (some transcribed for her instrument) by Rachmaninoff, Gabriel Jenks Stalk, Gabriel Fauré, Clifton Callender, Puccini, Per Nørgård Consolazione, & Wagner.

On 20 September at Noe Valley Ministry, Noe Music presents the San Francisco recital debut of pianist Janice Carissa, who will perform two Philip Glass Études, Bach's French Suite #5,  Frederic Rzewski's 

Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues. a piece composed for Carissa by Eunike Tanzil, & Prokofiev's Sonata #8.

On 27 September, percussionists Allen Biggs & Tommy Kesecker will perform at the First Unitarian Universality Society of San Francisco, as part of their Starr King Way Performance Series.

Early / Baroque Music

Chanticleer presents The Machaut Project, an exploration (staged by Elkhanah Pulitzer) of the 

world of Guillaume de Machaut, a "realm of devotion and desire, where courtly love becomes a meditation on the human heart", & you can experience it on 13, 17, 19, & 20 September at the ODC Theater in San Francisco.

On 27 September the Cantata Collective resumes its traversal of Bach's cantatas at Saint Mary Magdalen in Berkeley; this time they present Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 38, Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost, BWV 114, & Warum betrübst du dich, mein Herz, BWV 138, with vocal soloists Nola Richardson (soprano), Heidi Waterman (alto), Brian Thorsett (tenor), Edward Vogel (bass); the concerts are free & open to the public.

Modernist / Contemporary Music

On 8 September at Brava Theater, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players & the ARTZenter Institute present the first of this season's free ARTZenter Institute Emerging Composer World Premiere Concerts; this one features flotsam by Ella Kaale, Witchcraft II: Sacrificial Ritual by Matthew Lam, One Thousand Self Portraits by James Larkins, & Crosshair Offset by Xingyue Song.

On 9 September, 836M presents a Creative Lab in partnership with the Kronos Performing Arts Association; the Kronos Quartet (David Harrington & Gabriela Díaz, violins; Ayane Kozasa, viola; Paul Wiancko, cello) will hold a public rehearsal of Philip Glass's String Quartet #5 & Yevgeniy Sharlat’s Pencil Sketch (the Quartet will be performing the Glass in several concerts in 2027, celebrating the composer's 90th birthday); you can make a reservation here.

On 12 September at BAM/PFA, cellist / composer Theresa Wong will perform her 2011 song cycle The Unlearning, "a reflection on Francisco Goya’s 1810 series of etchings Los desastres de la guerra (The Disasters of War) and their resonance with our contemporary world", as a duo with violinist / vocalist Carla Kihlstedt, along with projections by Daria Martin & Mao Mollona.

On 13 September at Old First Concerts, pianist Kevin Lee Sun & Friends will perform Look to This Day, a program that "presents music by two living composers—Hyo-shin Na and Daniel De Togni—centered around the difficulty, ephemerality, and cherishment of life. Sun performs two solo works by Na, and is joined by composer De Togni on shakuhachi for his own Death Poems, and soprano Wallis Lucas joins for De Togni’s Songs of Becoming, both West Coast Premieres."

On 19 September at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco & on 20 September at the Berkeley Piano Club, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents Impossible Inventions, a program featuring Thea Musgrave's In the Still of the Night, Paul Novak's impossible inventions (their 2025 Composition Contest Winner), Mendelssohn's String Quartet #1 in E-flat major, Opus 12, & world premieres from LCCE's Pathways Program.

On 25 September at the Curran Theater, Laurie Anderson performs The Republic of Love featuring Sexmob.

Jazz

On 6 September at Old First Concerts, Mike Greensill & Friends will celebrate pianist / arranger /accompanist Greensill’s 80th birthday & his 40th anniversary of performing at Old First Concerts; the friends will include Roberta Donnay, Kellie Fuller, & Gale Terminello, vocals; Noel Jewkes, saxes; Bill Klingelhoffer, French horn; Ruth Davies, bass; & Brad Buethe, guitar.

Pianist / composer Paul Cornish brings his eponymous Trio to the SF Jazz Center on 10 - 11 September.

On 10 -11 September at the SF Jazz Center, Christian McBride pays a centennial tribute to Ray Brown, joined by with an all-star trio of Ray Brown Trio alumni — pianist Benny Green & drummer Gregory Hutchinson, both alums of the Ray Brown Trio.

On 12 - 13 September at the SF Jazz Center, pianist Nduduzo Makhathini will make his venue debut, bringing his trio & music from his latest release, The Myth We Choose.

On 12 - 13 September, bassist Christian McBride brings his Quintet (also featuring Nicole Glover, tenor saxophone; Ely Perlman, guitar; Mike King, piano; & Savannah Harris, drums) to the SF Jazz Center.

From 17 to 20 September at the SF Jazz Center, Branford Marsalis & the rest of his quartet (Marsalis on tenor saxophone, Joey Calderazzo on piano, Eric Revis on bass, & Justin Faulkner on drums will be joined by vocalist Dianne Reeves to pay centennial tribute to John Coltrane.

On 19 September at the UC Theater in Berkeley, the SF Jazz Center presents saxophonist Ravi Coltrane (joined by Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet, Gadi Lehavi on piano, Elé Howell on drums, & a bass player TBA) paying centennial tribute to his father, John Coltrane.

USAF The Commanders Jazz Ensemble will perform a free concert (first come, first seated) at the Presidio Theater on 19 September.

On 19 - 20 September at the SF Jazz Center, pianist / composer Myra Melford brings her Trio (Medford, Michael Formanek on bass, Ches Smith on drums & vibraphone) will perform music from her latest release, SPLASH.

On 21 September at the SF Jazz Center, the Branford Marsalis Quartet (Marsalis on tenor saxophone, Joey Calderazzo on piano, Eric Revis on bass, Justin Faulkner on drums) will perform.

On 22 September, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will perform at the SF Jazz Center.

Dance

On 6 September at the East Meadow of Presidio Park in San Francisco, World Arts West will hold the third & final weekend (the other two were in July & August) of its 2026 festival, Legacy of Liberation, with free public performances to "celebrate diverse communities through the art of dance" by Academy of Danse Libre, Amazed by Grace Dance Ministry, Los Lupeños de San José, & Uzumaru.

On 11 - 12 September at Z Space, the Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble will celebrate its 20th Anniversary with a sampler of their repertory.

The Parsons Dance Company performs at the Presidio Theater on 12 - 13 September.

RAWdance will be in residence at 836M this fall, developing a new full-length work based on the myth of Echo & Narcissus which will premiere in December at ZSpace; the residency kicks off on 17 September with an opening receiption at 835M (free but reservations are required).

On 20 September, the Chitresh Das Dance Company will perform Invoking the River at the Presidio Theater.

From 25 to 27 September in Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances presents the Australian Ballet in Oscar, based on the life of Oscar Wilde, with choreography by Christopher Wheeldon & music by Joby Talbot (performed live by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra).

Mostly Museums

GaHee Park: Behind the Curtain, the surrealist painter's first solo institutional exhibition in the USA, opened at the Yerba Buena Center on 7 August & runs through 3 January 2027.

Eternal Paris: Photographing the City of Light opens at the Legion of Honor on 5 September.

You have until 13 September to see Matisse's Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal, an excellent small exhibit at SFMOMA.

BeHere / 1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration opens in the Great Hall of the Oakland Museum of California on 18 September & runs through 27 December.

You have until 20 September to take in the superb exhibit The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy at the Legion of Honor.

On 20 September, Maren Hassinger will restage her 1982 performance piece Pink Trash, on UC Berkeley’s Crescent Lawn (this is in conjunction with BAM/PFA's current exhibit Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing).

Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective, opening at the Asian Art Museum on 25 September & running through 25 January 2027, offers the first North American museum exhibition of the career of the Korean abstract artist.

Cinematic

On 29 August & 1 September, the Roxie will be showing a new 4K restoration of Center Stage, Stanley Kwan's unconventional biopic of Chinese silent film star Ruan Lingyu, played by Maggie Cheung (Kwan also directed one of my all-time favorite films, Rouge).

The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is running Through an Open Window, co-curated by filmmaker Michael Vass & artist GaHee Park, described as a "weekly film series exploring voyeurism and theatricality, cocktail charm and social taboos"; check here for upcoming titles.

BAM/PFA is launching many of their fall film series this month, beginning with Alice Diop in Person from 3 to 18 September, in conjunction with the French filmmaker's residence at UC Berkeley; Jean-Luc Godard’s Early Films opens 5 September & runs through 19 November; an extensive retrospective of Martin Scorsese Pictures opens 5 September & runs through next June; Alternative Visions, the Archive's "long-running annual series of historical and contemporary experimental film" starts 9 September & runs through 18 November; Georgian Cinema Now: Part 1 (Georgia as in the country, not the southern state) opens 23 September & runs through 2 October; & the Special Screenings series this month includes Chaplin's Modern Times on 12 September.

On 17 September at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, Loren Means will present a lecture with film clips on Jewish Directors: Film Noir & the Femme Fatale.

From 17 to 20 September at the 4-Star Theater in San Francisco, you can check out SFCritterFest, a series of films exploring the relations between humans & the animal world.

On 19 September at the Roxie, the Neon Speaks Festival presents SF Lost Neon Landscapes: Chinatown, a compilation of short films featuring the iconic (yes, I'm using the word) SF neighborhood.

On 19 September, the Orinda Theater & the San Francisco Silent Film Festival present a centennial screening of Buster Keaton’s The General, with Timothy Brock conducting the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra in his original score; though I've always regretted that Keaton chose to make a Confederate soldier his hero, this is truly one of the great films of the silent era.

From 24 to 27 September at the Roxie Theater, the San Francisco Film Preserve presents Re:Vision, their "inaugural film festival, celebrating the work of archives and archivists. Over four days at the Roxie, we're spotlighting astounding works of cinema across decades, borders, and genres"; check out the full schedule here.

The first annual San Francisco Brazilian Film Festival will be held at the Vogue Theater on 24 - 27 September; click here for more information.

This month's classic movie matinee at the Orinda Theater, on 29 September, is 1933's Footlight Parade, with musical numbers staged by Busby Berkeley, & what more do you need to know than that?

West Edge Opera: American Apollo

The third & final opera of the 2026 West Edge Opera Festival was American Apollo, a new opera with music by Damian Geter to a libretto by Lila Palmer, offering & examining the relationship between John Singer Sargent & Thomas Eugene McKeller, a young Black man employed at Sargent's hotel in Boston, who served as a model for the painter for a set of murals in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. McKeller's body served for various Greek gods & heroes, though his skin, his face, & sometimes his gender were switched, which is not unusual for models, of course, but Sargent also left a radiant portrait of a naked McKeller as himself, a portrait that he kept in his own possession & passed on to close friends. It did not surface into the "official" story of Sargent until the 1980s, when it was acquired by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the same museum whose sub rosa renditions of McKeller still greet visitors on the grand main staircase.

The 1980s were the years I spent in Boston; this story resonated with me on several levels, as I was familiar with the splendid Sargents in the MFA's collection as well as the work of another major character in the opera, Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose eponymous museum, located just a few blocks from the MFA (& not that far from my last apartments) is one of my favorite places on earth. (Many a reverie of mine has been if not resolved then ended as I thump down to earth on the thought, Goddammit, why don't I have a Veronese Room?) Sargent gave Gardner an album of sketches of McKeller (signed, unlike many of his sketches: what might that signify?), which she did not display publicly but kept in her Museum. The rediscovery of these sketches led to the exhibit Boston's Apollo, which I missed seeing because of the pandemic; the catalogue is an in-depth look at Sargent & McKeller & worth reading for anyone intrigued by the subject. That exhibit brought new prominence to the relationship between artist & model.

I found the opera a subtle & layered work, & I'm glad I saw it twice. Nobody knows for sure what the relationship was between the painter & his favored model; even bohemian & wealthy artistic circles could be discreet, & passing time always erases life in its wake (a number of scholars have done heroic work piecing together what can still be known about McKeller's life). Time may erase life, but art can linger; there is, above all, the now celebrated nude portrait of the model not as a god or hero but as a man (who radiates godliness & heroism in his joyful nakedness). Probably drawing inspiration from that painting, & its history of being kept privately by the artist, this work tells a definite & probable story of a romantic relationship between the two men. It's not the only possible story from what hints remain to us, but it's convincing & compelling.

The music is lovely & sometimes approaches the perfumed & languishing air of salon music; I assume this is a re-creation of the sophisticated artistic atmosphere of Sargent's & Gardner's wealthy, cultured, Euro-American milieu (I don't know any of the composer's other music, so I don't know if this is his sound or the particular sound he chose for the particular period he is dramatizing). The scenes involving interactions among the Black characters are subtly different, with echoes of a jazz bass & horns (it's lightly done, though, without a gross distinction between the worlds, which interact & flow together). There's quite a lot of harp in the score. The harp is an interesting instrument. It has a fairly ethereal reputation – society girls plucking it as they hunt for husbands, chubby cherubim plinking away around the celestial throne, that sort of thing – but its sound has a surprising amount of tensile strength, & it can sound both glittery & strong, like sequins made out of steel. The final sound of the opera is one last spritz from the harp, vanishing into the silence.

Geter also insets Reynaldo Hahn's song À Chloris. It's a bold move, incorporating another composer's work, but it not only strengthens the period feel, it also resonates thematically here, in an opera about taking from different sources, different cultures, different ways, & shaping what you've taken into something of your own (even as you're adding to, being subsumed in, another tradition). It's worth looking at the lyrics & music of the song: setting a fairly banal celebration of triumphant & reciprocated love by the Renaissance poet Théophile de Viau (you can find the words here), Hahn transforms the text into something new & deeper with his music (a sound which is simpatico with the aura summoned by Geter's for this opera), providing an exquisitely melancholy Bach-like tune, adding a deeper dimension to the words, as if even in the moment of wild first joy the speaker knows that his love, this nacreous bubble, will soon vanish, its momentary beauty gone except for memory & concomitant regrets. Sargent sits down at the piano during a modeling session & starts playing & singing the song. He explicitly compares what Hahn is doing to what he (& McKeller) are creating: a new twist on old, very old, themes. McKeller doesn't know the song, but he knows enough French & enough music to pick up the score & sing the rest of it. Sargent tells him he's full of surprises. The wistful song, with its sense of a blissful love lost, will ripple through the orchestra as the work proceeds.

The opera itself works with surprises & indirection. The story plays out on stage, but the more you know about the situation the more implications you see. McKeller has moved up north from Wilmington, North Carolina, a city which, when McKeller lived there, was the site of a White Supremacist coup against the elected local government. You don't have to know this to know about the racial prejudices & pressures that would cause a young Black man to move away, but it is one of those things that opens out the world of the opera, which begins with a group of Black men lamenting (angrily, despairingly, stubbornly, resignedly, factually: a lot is being conveyed) their racial status in the United States.

The racial difference is a running theme, & how could it not be, but so are differences in age & class & background & worldly experience between the two men. There is a real connection there, as we see when McKeller collaborates with Sargent during their sessions, which become like a director & an actor puzzling out a drama together, but how much of a chance would these two really have together, in their world or ours? A former valet / model (&, presumably, lover) of Sargent's shows up & threatens him & McKeller. He makes dismissive references to Sargent's taste for "exotics" (meaning men of color), as if the jaded aging man needed increasingly spicy dishes for his palate to taste anything, & as if this young American Black man were some sort of fancy foreign import instead of a refugee from North Carolina.

Given all the complicating factors, Sargent & McKeller do not have a steady affair. Reality intervenes, as reality does. Sometimes the intervention is tragic, as when the First World War convulses the globe; German bombs kill relatives of Sargent's; McKeller enlists in the American army. Sometimes the intervention is positive, as when Isabella Stewart Gardner brings the men back together, as she sees how powerfully McKeller has inspired her friend's art. (Even her commitment to art, though, has sadness underpinning it; she sings of how she dedicated herself to beauty after her little son, barely two years old, died.) With her keen eye & abundant spirit, she does with artist & model what she did with artworks in her museum: she arranges, she juxtaposes sometimes unlikely elements, creating out of existing objects something new, a vivid spark of the memorably gorgeous.

And don't artists always have the last, or at least the lasting, word? As the painter & his model go from "Mr Sargent" & "Mr McKeller" to "John" & "Tom", the model wants to be seen as himself: that is, not as a model. A model has an artistic function that often involves metamorphosis & erasure. McKeller knows what the deal is, of course; it's a wish to be in a different world, a different relation to Mr Sargent / John. In the very moving final scene, McKeller hears of the painter's death (by then he's left the hotel for a job as a postal carrier, & his close friend Ida Mae shows him the newspaper when he stops by on his route). He goes by his studio to pay his respects. That part is historical fact. What is perhaps speculative, but certainly compelling, even overwhelming, is that it's only then that McKeller discovers the portrait of him that Sargent did. He is overcome by this proof that the artist's transforming eye had in fact seen him for who & as he was.

This was a rich work. Like the Gardner museum, or Sargent's paintings, it would repay repeated visits. On the surface, it's a conventional story of an artist & his model. (Is the relationship exploitation or celebration? or both & something else besides?) But, as in the scene in which McKeller starts singing Hahn's art song, it's full of surprises. Sargent is now a celebrated figure, but his reputation has dipped & swooped over the years (too many portraits of rich society ladies, perhaps). But it's worth remembering that painting murals featuring Greek gods & heroes was a strangely, stubbornly outmoded artistic choice in the years between 1916 & 1925, when Sargent dedicated himself to what he saw as the capstone of his career. Matisse had painted Femme au Chapeau in 1905. Picasso had painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907. The western tradition was twisting & splintering under Sargent's feet (& in fact, the Gardner museum was the first American museum to own & display a work by Matisse). The ground is always shifting under us. Nothing here is as it seems.

You can't present a rich & subtle work without rich & subtle artistry. If artists have the last word, as Sargent did viewing McKeller, here are some of the artists who had the last, or at least latest, word with their viewing of Sargent viewing McKeller: Kedrick Armstrong led a gorgeous performance of the gorgeous score, & Nataki Garrett molded it all on stage. Baritone Markel Reed performed Thomas McKeller; he doesn't particularly look like McKeller, outside of both being Black men, but he has a commanding stage presence & a rich, resonant, honeyed voice; this must be a really taxing role, given the length of the opera & the demands it places on him, but he had the strength & power to make his ending liebestod, in which he sees Sargent's portrait of him & realizes its implications, deeply moving. Tenor John Bellemer performs John Singer Sargent, with great beauty of tone & delicacy of touch. He makes the famous man both surprisingly tentative around his models & authoritative in his artistic vision. Isabella Stewart Gardner is not an easy role – there's always the danger of slipping into a caricatured Eccentric Rich Lady mode, sort of a haute monde Auntie Mame (I hate Auntie Mame, by the way), but soprano Marnie Breckenridge brought warmth, wit, & understanding to the performance. Alexandra Armantrading creates a warm, compassionate Ida Mae McDonald, indelible in her few appearances, as does Leberta Lorál as Thomas's mother (as well as another minor role). Matt Hidalgo brings cynical anger & some floating high notes to Nicola D’Inverno (the former valet / model / lover); he also portrays Mr Sparhawk.  Philip Harris, Wilford Kelly, Michael Belle, & Alex Taite are all memorable in small roles. Outstanding work all around.

Friday Photo 2026/34

reflections on Market Street, San Francisco

West Edge Opera: Rinaldo

I cannot gush enough about West Edge Opera's witty & astute production of Handel's Rinaldo. I have been going to Handel operas for over 40 years (I saw baroque operas before I saw any of the mainstream repertory) & this is one of the all-around best productions I have seen; everything – concept, costumes, sets & lighting, acting, singing, playing, dancing – worked at a remarkable level.

I was reminded of one of the first operas I saw, the Peter Sellars production of Handel's Orlando at ART in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1982. His idea was to set the work in Cape Canaveral, saying that the contemporary marvels of moon flight were an apt equivalent to the fanciful machinery of baroque opera. The result, propelled as was this production by a cast of superb singers, was so clear & persuasive that a year or so later a co-worker of mine swore it had been performed in English. As those were the days before surtitles, I had thought long & hard, in my opera-going infancy, about whether I wanted to sit through three hours of a drama in a language I basically did not understand. So I told her that I was "pretty sure" (meaning dead certain) it was performed in Italian. She kept telling me I was wrong. A few days later, though, she did grudgingly admit that she thought "perhaps" I "might have been" right about the language. I gave my usual response in such situations, a bland smile, but insert internal eye-roll.

I mention this because there is no real "performance tradition" of these operas; they sank out of sight, mostly, after the eighteenth century & have only been revived in our day. I've seen productions that range from powdered wigs & period-appropriate stage machinery to high-concept modernist shenanigans. One of the many advantages of baroque opera is exactly that there is no performance tradition; the works are flexible & sturdy enough to take on all kinds of approaches.

Just as Sellars set Orlando in Cape Canaveral, so this production, devised, directed, & choreographed by Keturah Stickann, transfers the action of Rinaldo to a comic-book / graphic novel world in which evil (but sexy) villains fight the Police Commissioner & the local superhero for control of the Big City. The original (the libretto by Giacomo Rossi is loosely based on an episode in Tasso's epic Gerusalemme liberata) is set during the Crusades, which feels a bit awkward these days. It's not that the original audience of 1711 really cared about the Crusades, but they would have a pretty clear general sense of who were the good guys & who the bad & whom they should support. Today's audience, by & large, if it feels anything about the Crusades, feels the opposite of the original audience. (I realize I am simplifying a great deal here, as we have contemporaries who care passionately about the Crusades, & are very certain of the right side, & would like to resume the fight, but those people are unlikely to be attending baroque operas in Oakland California.) Setting the action in a comic-book world clarifies which side is which. Most comic books & superhero movies are all about titanic & deeply felt clashes between Good & Evil. And they're very serious about it.

And that's the most astute thing about this choice: it doesn't diminish or mock the material. Just as Mark Morris in The Hard Nut used the graphic style of Charles Burns to shed fresh & illuminating light on Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, so the comic-book setting here not only clarifies the drama but gives it a contemporary intensity it might lack in a less considered new setting. The vivid colors (lots of dark purple among the wicked, a peacock-blue body suit for our hero) & the bold graphic backgrounds (handled by shifting & skillful projections, designed by Yuki Izumihara), with fights illustrated as in the 1960s Batman TV series with Pow! & Blam! in graphic bubbles, all lie easily on the sumptuous & varied music of Handel's rich score (conducted with verve & authority by Emily Senturia).

The entire ensemble is superb, starting with the dancers, playing various policemen, furies, & suchlike attendants & background personnel; they had a verve & precision that brought all their roles to vivid life, & their Keystone Kop antics were, rather surprisingly (& unlike many of the antics of the original Sennett Kops) very funny. The dancers were Ellis Broderick, Eden Magana, Elena Martins, Devon Martirez y McFarland, Christopher Nachtrab, Max van der Sterre, & Livanna Maislen. Their sense of being vividly, actively present in each moment was shared by the singers: to the splendid singing was added deft characterization, with subtle touches throughout.

As our massively strong & righteous titular superhero, countertenor Kyle Tingzon, clear & pure & true of voice & person, justified the baroque preference for high-voiced heroes. As with many heroes noted for physical strength – Hercules, Samson, Ajax – there's a comic angle to the treatment of him, & a bit of obtuseness in his make-up (both are amusingly illustrated in his battle with the little birds during his picnic with Almirena). He is constantly flexing, grinning, standing with hands fisted on hips Superman-style, striking poses. What you see is what you get, mostly, though he does have his suffering arias, which Tingzon delivers as movingly as you could wish, piercing through the heroic exterior to display a genuine heart within. The posing is actually pretty remarkable; I've seen dramas in which someone playing a boxer has clearly studied his pugilistic choreography but in between those moments lets himself go slack. Tingzon was alert & on point throughout, while also delivering fountains of glittering vocals, a remarkable feat of physical & mental concentration.

Contralto Sara Couden plays Goffredo, here recast as a Commissioner Gordon type, head of the metropolitan police, with an impressively bushy walrus moustache & even more impressive low notes. There's an amusing running gag in which Rinaldo, unaware of his strength, obliviously crushes the Commissioner's hands during a handshake, or unsettles him with the heartiness of a backslap. The Commissioner tries gamely to keep up. He's also a bit appalled by some of Rinaldo's more crotch-centric poses, but that's what you get with superheroes. Shawnette Sulker plays Almirena, the Commissioner's adorable daughter & Rinaldo's love, with pert & appealling comedy, though she also can pluck heart strings with her rendition of what is possibly this opera's most famous aria, Lascia ch'io pianga. (Funny how often in comedies it's the moment of sadness that stands out; to take an obvious operatic example Una furtiva lagrima from the otherwise lightly comic L'Elisir d'amore.) To complete the roster of good guys, we have Gabi Esquinazi in a couple of striking smaller roles, as a Siren & a Magician who helps Goffredo & Rinaldo defeat the forces of evil, transporting them to their magic lair (their supervillain hideaway) on a magical craft: a tandem bicycle. As the Magician, Esquinazi was in a glowing pink ensemble & seemed to be making a play for the Commissioner in various subtle ways, hints the Commissioner decided not to take.

To these forces of righteousness we have opposed the villains: Nikki Einfeld as the enchantress Armida & Efraín Solís as Argante, here the head of a syndicate aimed at eradicating superheroes & otherwise generally being bad guys. Armida, her dark hair swirling high above her head & dark purple flounces cascading down her hips, with a shiny black leather corset & shiny thigh-high black leather boots, surrounded by demons in matching shades of purple literally dancing attendance, is a cross between a dominatrix & a drag queen. Argante wears the classic gangster's dark pin-striped suit, with the surreal touch of rose-pink petals covering the shoulders & the trouser legs. (These petals are a running motif in the costumes; Rinaldo has them as well, though in a shade of blue that matches his outfit, & here I will mention that Bethany Deal did the striking & witty costumes.) Argante has an arrogant & precise formality, at least when dealing with his secretary, or the Commissioner, but he also has a puppy-dog horniness. While embracing Armida he waggles his butt against her, when thinking about her while alone he slides his hands down to his midsection, he is immediately smitten by the charming Almirena. Both Einfeld & Solís command the stage effortlessly; their scenes have a real spark.

I could rave on & one, with details that instead will be stored in memory, to be replayed over & over. this performance (which, as with all the West Edge productions, I saw twice) was pure joy from beginning to end: even the somber moments are done with such talent, such conviction, such brio that they contribute to the overall sense of joy. I have seldom left a theater with quite this level of exhilaration. If only they could bottle this essence & sell it. Would I restrict myself to a few sips a day. or just heedlessly down the heady elixir?

Museum Monday 2026/33

 

detail of a sixteenth-century Italian majolica gourd flask with stopper, now at the Legion of Honor

Friday Photo 2026/33

 

building detail near the Phoenix Theater, San Francisco

West Edge Opera: The Turn of the Screw

The West Edge Opera Festival is in full swing; as I did last year, I will be seeing each show twice, as I volunteer at the Saturday matinees & am a ticket holder for the Sunday matinees. I have now seen my two performances of Britten's The Turn of the Screw, based on the famous ghost story by Henry James as adapted by librettist Myfanwy Piper. Company music director Jonathan Khuner led a strong performance, with committed, exciting singing from the cast: Laura Bohn as the Governess, Alex Boyer as Peter Quint, Erin Neff as Mrs Grose, Aléxa Sessler as Miss Jessel; James Coniglio & Noah Hajduk alternate as Miles, & Siena Coniglio & Roya Agarwal as Flora (I saw both sets of children). Company head Mark Streshinsky directed a provocative but sometimes puzzling staging.

Plentiful use is made of projections & scrims. I know some people who are immediately put off by scrims on stage, but I am fine with them, especially for a work like this, in which they act as a physical representation of the haziness, the out-spreading ambiguities, of the story & the layers of memory & interpretation or misinterpretation through which that story unfolds. They also provide a useful screen for the plentiful projections, through which this production tells much of its tale; the ghosts, for example, are always projections, never appearing physically on stage until they take their bows. Those singers are sequestered in a discreet curtained booth way up in the auditorium & off to the side; I probably would not have noticed it but someone pointed it out to me & told me what it was. (There is enough weirdness in the Scottish Rite Temple so that this particular oddity didn't stand out.) The physical dislocation between the projected figures on stage & the sound of their voices helps create an otherworldly air about them (this is true also of the amplification of the children's singing, which lends, as amplification usually does, an odd, slightly flattened effect to their voices).

Some of what is shown on film, though, falls under the "puzzling" category I mentioned earlier. When the Governess meets the handsome, romantic guardian of the two children, with his somewhat odd injunction that whatever happens, she, a young & inexperienced woman, must deal with it on her own, without contacting him, the two of them are shown on the scrims in passionate physical embraces. The Governess looks disheveled & a bit distraught. This seems to be something that we are meant to understand is actually happening & not just a (literal as well as metaphorical) projection of the Governess's fantasies about this mysterious figure (he is literally masked, wearing a carnival black mask, which presumably also is meant to differentiate him from Peter Quint, as the same singer performs both roles). When I see moments like this, which I do fairly often in contemporary stagings of works from different, less accommodating times, I wonder if anyone these days knows what "sexual repression" really means. It doesn't mean being a bit discombobulated by a brief & unsatisfying affair; it means that even the notion of such a thing, when it inevitably starts creeping into the susceptible mind, is hurried out of sight, pushed down out of conscious thought, into the murky depths of longing that act as the hidden springs of our outward actions. This story is one that springs in that way from repression. I don't understand what is gained by making the Governess's barely acknowledged desires, or even just her romantic feelings towards the guardian, into actual physical embraces. It seems too crudely obvious.

We are also shown several times footage of Miles at school. He is cowering near a sink, obviously in a bathroom, being pelted by unseen but presumably fellow-student hands with wadded balls of paper. Miles has, of course, been expelled from school, for reasons that are never officially explained. In classic horror-story style, this allows our imaginations to float free, though they mostly head in the direction of some sort of sexual corruption. The footage here, as with that of the Governess & the guardian, is too explicit & also too trivial: this is the sort of thing that gets the perpetrators a stern talking-to, not expulsion. Spelling things out kills the mystery & the haunted atmosphere. Also, it looks as if Miles is the victim, so why would he be expelled? I am assuming the boy we are shown is meant to be Miles; we are not shown his face, which he clutches in his hands, because of course we have two separate Miles (Mileses?) performing. It's not impossible that the unseen Miles is meant to be leading the victimization of another boy, but, again, what happens doesn't seem to warrant expulsion. The scene, whether Miles is victim (as I think he's meant to be) or perp, goes against everything we are told about him: that he is a boy who is very popular with other children & adored by adults. And if he were being bullied & ostracized in school, why would he be so eager to go back?

There are also many projections of the still-living Quint & Jessel in their time with the children. These are literally sunny & quite wholesome: Quint playing catch with Miles (using an American baseball glove, rather surprisingly), sitting with the children in church, teaching them to play the piano, gently touching the swollen middle of an apparently pregnant Miss Jessel. In many of these scenes, Quint is wearing a light tan sweater vest. No man can look insidious, corrupt & corrupting, in a sweater vest. This is simply a fact. I may not know much about fashion, but I know that.

During my second viewing of the production, it occurred to me that perhaps this was a deliberate move, a signal to us: Quint & Jessel are actually not, & were not while living, corrupting influences; they were, instead, positive role models of a healthy sexuality. I think what we have here are essentially two separate sets of ghosts: the wholesome ones &, later on, dressed in serving-man attire & more luridly lit, the evil influences of the Governess's fevered imagination.

This is an interpretation that seems almost comically perverse, but then this is an opera that exists in perversity, that is, in speculation, nuance, & eerie alternatives that go beyond our surface & conventional assumptions. Sometimes what seems perverse is merely unexpected.

I had to parse all this out after seeing the show twice & reading the director's note in the program & thinking between my two performances about the implications of what we are shown. Some elements I haven't mentioned yet went into this, so I'll spell them out now. The Governess (who throughout wears a sort of odd ensemble of plaid skirt & white blouse, like an overaged Catholic schoolgirl back when such girls wore school uniforms) is disturbed by her encounter with the guardian. When she arrives at the lush estate of Bly, the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, who is apparently intended as a sort of Mrs Danvers figure, kisses her ("with your permission") full on the lips. This triggers the already emotionally vulnerable Governess, who picks up on Mrs Grose intense disgust at the former & now dead valet, Quint, & his relations with the former governess Miss Jessel. The Governess then projects her sense of sexual danger & corruption onto these two, hallucinating their appearance as ghosts who are still capable of corrupting Miles & Flora; in the later scenes, when this more threatening Quint appears, we see the Governess off to the side, mirroring his actions in a herky-jerky way (but which is the marionette & which the puppet master?). The Governess determines to protect the children, with increasing hysteria (yes, I know the origin of the word) & dire results.

At least, I think that's what we're supposed to see here. Questions are raised & there are no definite answers, which I suppose is only suitable for a work rooted in a story by Henry James.

I re-read the tale before going to the opera. It is, as any English major can tell you, a celebrated example of the potential ambiguities of a first-person narration: are the ghosts real, or are they a projection of a lonely, repressed young woman? (No other adult actually sees them, & we only have the Governess's word for it that the children do.) It occurred to me this time that there is a third way: the ghosts are indeed a corrupting influence, but what the Governess sees as the corruption of the Innocent is what Blake would have termed Innocence turning into Experience (in this light, Quint's longing appeal to Miles, comparing himself to a wild horse on the shore, is particularly telling). In other words, given what is usually read as the sexual nature of the ghosts' influence, the Governess is trying to keep them artificially innocent, out of adulthood, confined forever in the stylized innocence of the children's folk rhymes that form an important part of the score. The Governess actually succeeds in her aim, but with tragic results. This move from innocence into an adult consciousness expanded by the knowledge of how vicious people can be is certainly one of James's great themes; The Ambassadors & The Golden Bowl & The Wings of the Dove, that massive trio from late in his career, explore this theme with ever-expanding subtlety. How can the good not only remain good but become better exactly through confronting the evils of others?

The idea of Mrs Grose as a repressed lesbian is definitely not in James, but that's OK. It struck me as an intriguing possibility. In the novel, Mrs Grose, as her name indicates, is a sort of salt-of-the-earth, good-hearted but not particularly imaginative woman ("gross" in the sense of solid & not refined, not in the sense of "ooh, icky!"). She functions as the "normal" person who is mostly willing to go along with an educated young woman like the Governess. Interpreting her as a further turn of the Governess's screw ratchets up the general sense of perversity, which certainly works for this opera, but it also removes any sense of a "normal" world, outside of what we see of the living Quint & Jessel.

When I saw this production the first time, I felt the kiss came out of the blue & went nowhere. I did notice in my second viewing that there is a scene when Mrs Grose tentatively & briefly strokes the Governess's hair, but that still isn't a lot. The key mechanism here – the transference of Mrs Grose's obsessions to the Governess – did not occur to me until I read the director's note ("When the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, who has her own problems of obsession, expresses to the highly suggestible Governess her deep-seated anger toward the memory of the late valet, Peter Quint, we are launched into a perfect storm of psychosis."). I'm pretty sure I would not have picked this up from staging alone. I'm not wild about the Hitchcockian notion of the insidious lesbian, but I can see the possibilities here. (But if it's Mrs Grose's lesbian attraction that rouses the Governess, why is the latter so fixated on Miles & not on Flora?)

Perhaps we are meant to understand the source of the problem not as Mrs Grose's sexuality, but her repression. But "repression" doesn't really come across here. It's inherent in the original material, just because of when it's set. And it is very unclear when this production is meant to take place. I asked a number of people what they thought, & pick a decade from 1890 to the present day & someone suggested it, but no two people listed the same one. I think this matters because ideas of sexual corruption & therefore what should be repressed & therefore whether repression is "good" or "bad" have varied wildly over those years. Miss Jessel's out-of-wedlock pregnancy, as shown here, would be a life-destroying tragedy in one decade & a lovely occasion for a congratulatory party in another. There is no single standard. One thing that has not changed is horror at pedophilia, but honestly I never felt in this production that the ghosts posed any kind of sexual threat to the children; as I said, they seemed to be the only healthy role models they had. (I should mention that some people at the same performance disagreed with me about this.)

There are occasional hints of sexual confusion, or perhaps just gender play: when the children are introduced to the Governess, Flora bows & Miles gives a dainty curtsy, but this seems more like mischievous fun than any sort of "corruption". The libretto uses words that would have carried a subtextual weight when the opera premiered in 1954, a subtext which now comes across more as text: gay, which is used to describe the guardian (making his making-out with the Governess either more or less effective, depending on your point of view) & queer. What do those words mean in the context of whenever this production is set?

The lack of an identifiable time period also reduces the way class differences play out among the characters; again, in some decades the class distinctions are vital & in others not so much. One reason Mrs Grose defers to the Governess is the latter's higher class, & one reason she disapproves of Quint is that he aimed above his station: she asserts that Miss Jessel was a lady & therefore too good for him, but this sort of proto-D H Lawrence theme doesn't really come through here.

The Turn of the Screw is inherently a work (whether original tale or operatic adaptation) of radiating ambiguities. There were several points when I felt this production offered not ambiguity but confusion. I have seen the opera before, heard recordings, read the original story & other works by Henry James (not just in college but recently), read the program notes, & saw the West Edge production twice, & it was still sometimes unclear to me what we were supposed to be seeing. And I wonder how many others will see the opera twice, or have the other background I have just listed. I will speculate that this is a case in which the artists involved were so immersed in the material that what was crystalline to them is murky to those less immersed. But I'm not sure the oddities & confusions are altogether a bad thing. I have pondered this production far more thoroughly than I have more superficially pleasing shows; it led me down previously unexplored paths I would have otherwise missed.

When I started telling myself something in the staging was "wrong" I started wondering why I found it so, exploring different implications & suggestions, & I (mostly) ended up thinking that what I saw was not "wrong" so much as an alternative that I needed to consider. If some things don't quite fit in, & some things seem too obvious & others too vague, if  some confusion & uncertainty remain, that's not really unsuitable to a story like this. This is after all a ghost story, & wondering where the solid ground is & what just happened seem like the essence of a haunting.

Museum Monday 2026/32

 

detail of an untitled study by Diego Rivera for Allegory of California, a ceiling mural for the Pacific Stock Exchange Luncheon Club in San Francisco

Friday Photo 2026/32

 

a street in Oakland, California

Museum Monday 2026/31

 

detail of Interlock by Maren Hassinger, seen at BAM/PFA as part of the special exhibit Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing

@ Z Space: In a Memory Palace

Last night at Z Space I saw the first performance of In a Memory Palace, a resonant & mesmerizing new work. Done in the style of Noh Theater, it is the story of a middle-aged woman who visits her father in a senior residence only to encounter a strange & strangely familiar old woman, who reminds her of a childhood neighbor, a refugee from Hitler's Austria, a woman she was sure had died long before. Though this work has a very specific storyline, it is evocative of other journeys, both chosen & forced, both physical & mental; the evocation is not only on the stage, but in the lobby, which contains an installation exploring different aspects of exile & emigration. Moving away from some "native land" or from your family traditions is such a basic American story that it would be difficult to find, I think, someone who didn't connect with this material on some level, perhaps even a profound one.

(I give away some plot twists below, so take that into consideration when deciding whether to read on, though most of them are fairly easily guessed if you've seen any Noh plays.)

This work floats suspended in a liminal space: between Japanese & Western theatrical techniques & traditions; between the flute & percussion of Noh & the Western sounds of cello & piano evoking fin de siècle Vienna; between present & past; among the actual, the remembered, the supernatural, & the desired. The stage is bare; there are actually two stages, a broad main one, bright white, & then, on its left, a smaller one, the same bright white, that functions as the entry/exit ramp as in Noh Theater (but it also, in being slightly set apart & narrower than the main stage, though otherwise resembling it, reinforces the subtle disjunctions that are part of the mood & metaphors of the piece). At the back of the playing area are several very long overlapping translucent white curtains (sort of like shower curtains); onto these are projected monochrome designs, some of them ambiguous (waves? rocks? massed foliage? as well as stars or stylish Viennese designs). To the right, off from the main stage, sits a chorus of eight, who sometimes chant comments on the action.

As in Noh, the action is very deliberate, very considered. The dialogue is mostly chanted to musical accompaniment & is poetic in its repetitions & phrasings. At times I could not catch every line, which is just a reality of listening to material that is sung with musical accompaniment. I briefly wished that they had used surtitles, but decided that would have been too distracting, at least for a compulsive reader like me. As with comments written in the margin of a book, the printed words would pull you out of your own total experience of the material & impose concentration on only certain aspects of what's going on. The imperfection of our perception is actually a key theme of the work, the blurring of words & memories, the half-caught phrases & the passing glimpses of life. Surtitles would force on the work an almost counter-effective clarity. This is not to discount the power & beauty of the words, but just to suggest that's what most important here is not catching each individual line (most of which are clear enough, as is the storyline) but immersing yourself in the mood, one created by slowness, the intense presence of the characters, the spare but rich setting, the mystery of memory, & of the past, our own & the world's.

For it turns out there are several mysteries around the older woman. The woman who remembered her from childhood (she's wrapped in a shawl, sort of babushka style, printed with an abstract monochrome design but with a very bright red fringe; the performer sits to the side for most of the performance with an intense, riveting, attentive quiet) remembered her as saying she was a concert pianist. This elderly woman claims she was a well-known fashion designer to the Viennese haute monde. She was a Catholic married to a Jew; after the Anschluss, such women were "encouraged" to leave their husbands but she refused & they managed to emigrate but of course abandoning their homes & homeland threw their lives off-course & the glamor & excitement of her fashionable, sophisticated Viennese world vanished with that world.

Perhaps this is why the woman's spirit is haunting the earth, to make her story known, or just to revisit herself the life she should have had. Ghosts are a traditional presence in Noh. The character of the old woman is the only one in this play to be masked in the traditional style. But her costumes are Western: a series of strikingly sumptuous gowns in the style & colors (lots of Klimt-like swirls & gold) of the Vienna Secessionists. She ends the work with a solo dance, summoning both the traditions of Japanese theater & the vanished waltzes of Vienna.

The play is brief (about one hour & fifteen minutes) but intense & concentrated, the sort of thing that will flower out in your mind afterward. It is playing at Z Space through 1 August & then goes to San Antonio, Texas. The play has a dedicated website, which you can find here. I will say that the playbill was not entirely clear about who did what & if there was a cast list I couldn't find it. So here's what I found (much of this comes from J Magazine, which had an article about the show; there were copies available in the theater lobby): the script is by Edith Newton, based on elements from her life; the music by David Crandall & Kevin Salfen, costumes by Margaret Mitchell, masks by Kitazawa Hideta, direction by Jubilith Moore. The show was presented by Theatre Nohgaku with Kunoichi Productions & Theatre of Yugen. Kudos to all of them & to the actors & musicians on a magnificent evening.