Music News
Cost of Seats Hurts Bottom Line
Opera, the combination of many art forms, requires all kinds of costly resources. Our story for the day is about the simple, humble seat that you occupy, and the rental cost thereof. Suppose you run a small opera company and your rent per seat is increased to $14.16, and you’re charging $18 to $32 for tickets: How long can you stay in business?
Not long, says San Francisco Lyric Opera, which has gone public with the little-discussed issue of the city’s rental charges. During the current run of The Tales of Hoffman, the fledgling company’s program notes warn subscribers that after a four-year run, it will change the venue from the Florence Gould Theater to Fort Mason Center’s Cowell Theater.
The 333-seat Florence Gould Theater (minus 40 seats removed to make space for the orchestra) is located in the Legion of Honor, and it is managed by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF). The program note says beginning next year, the rental fee will more than double, from $1,750 per evening performance to $4,250, and there will also be “an arbitrary cancellation clause,” which gives the landlord the right to cancel events, however long planned, prepared, and sold.
Asked to comment, a FAMSF spokesperson said the cancellation policy is not new, and the increase is necessary because, “For many years, we were renting at below market rate and losing money. We raised our rental rate to be more in line with other venues in San Francisco.”
However, it looks like just as Lyric Opera is providing bargain prices and bringing new audiences to the opera, there are some rental alternatives in the city. The 437-seat Cowell Theater (also requiring the use of a couple of rows for the orchestra) has much better facilities than the Gould, and it will charge $2,150 for evening performances (a $1,200 base, plus union techs, house manager, and so on), which translates to $5.37 per seat.
Fort Mason Center
It makes you wonder why a nonprofit, city-supported institution such as FAMSF would charge the nonprofit community-based Lyric three times the fee available from Fort Mason Center. (The Center is run by the Fort Mason Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, which signed a 60-year lease with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It is operated largely without federal, state, or city support.)
Next up, a look into the rental policies of the city’s War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, which handles the Opera House, Davies Hall, Herbst Theatre, Veterans Building Green Room, and Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall — a total of some 8,000 seats. On paper, the Opera House rental is a fairly modest $2,100, or 10 percent of gross receipts, up to a $6,000 maximum, but only a $4,200 maximum to nonprofits … and that’s for 3,146 seats plus standing room.
Of course, there are huge additional expenses, such as the box office, a performance bond, insurance, house staff (house manager, 16 ushers, and a nurse), security, stagehands, equipment, and so on. Pity the nonprofit arts organization in search of affordable performance spaces!
Herbst Theatre interior
Oakland Opera on the Move, Too
Another tiny company, the Oakland Opera Theater, has also been forced to relocate, from its Oakland Metro home to the former Black Sea Gallery on Third Street in Oakland. As in case of the Lyric, the move is an improvement, to a venue twice the size of the Oakland Opera Theater’s previous home.
The company says it was “priced out of the previous location on Broadway near Jack London Square in Oakland when a property tax clause in the original lease that had never been put into effect was suddenly enforced, nearly quadrupling the rent.”
Running on Third Street Oct. 5-14 will be Britten’s 1954 The Turn of the Screw (from Henry James’ novella), reset by Artistic Director Tom Dean on a remote Louisiana plantation. The production features soprano Anja Strauss and tenor Gerald Seminatore, respectively, as the governess and the otherworldly manservant Peter Quint, along with aerial performance artists The Starlings Trapeze Duo.
The Starlings: swinging to Britten
Tannhäuser’s Fascination With Older Women
There’s been much debate about the San Francisco Opera’s current (musically superb) production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser, but no attention has been paid to a pair of notable anniversaries. We are here to remedy that.
This tale of the 13th-century minstrel torn between Venus’ earthly and “sinful” love and Elisabeth’s idealized and redemptive love does refer to Venus’ ageless reign. But in fact, 2007 is Elisabeth’s 800th birthday. That would be the real Elisabeth, Thüringiai Szent Erzsébet, daughter of the Hungarian King András II, who was born in Sárospatak in 1207 and died in Marburg on Nov. 17, 1231 — although not at the hand of Wolfram, regardless of what you may see in the War Memorial.
The other anniversary, also the 800th, is of the “Wartburg Sängerkrieg” (Battle of song) that makes up the second act of Wagner’s opera. Thousand-year-old Wartburg became the home of one of the first “Meistersinger” contests, and also home to St. Elisabeth of Hungary, sent there at age 4 to become consort to Ludwig IV of Thuringia. She died at age 24, and was canonized as a saint for the charitable miracles attributed to her (though probably not including the flaming tree in the San Francisco Opera production).
St. Elisabeth, turning 800 and In the Venusberg by John Collier
Local Notables Make Their Mark Elsewhere
Berkeley Opera’s Mark Streshinsky is one busy stage director as he makes his rounds around the country. According to the proud mother, Kensington writer Shirley Streshinsky: “Mark was directing the premiere of Anna Karenina in Miami, taking over from Colin Graham who died during rehearsals, and then went to Opera St. Louis to direct the same work there this summer. He is returning to Detroit next month to direct The Marriage of Figaro (he directed Cenerentola there two years ago), then he will direct Tosca, with his wife, Marie Plette, in the lead, in Sacramento in the spring, before returning to Cincinnati to direct Lucia di Lammermoor in the summer.
“He’s got another return to Detroit coming up for Anna Karenina, another return to Dallas Opera for Bohème, and then he will debut at Seattle Opera for La traviata — all as stage director.”
And in other news, former Merolina Christina Lamberti is featured in the cast of the Maribor (Slovenia) premiere of Valentina Turcu’s La Callas, an opera-ballet honoring the 30th anniversary of Maria Callas’ death.
New work shows Callas in many roles
Eth-Noh-Tec Marks Silver Anniversary
Nancy Wang and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo, who created the nationally known San Francisco musical storytelling duo Eth-Noh-Tec 25 years ago, are celebrating with an anniversary season. Originally named the S.F. Kulintang and later the Kalilang Kulintang Ensemble, Eth-Noh-Tec is producing a series of performances titled “25 Live!”
The season starts with the annual Halloween event “Ghouls and Ghosts” on Oct. 27 at the Randall Museum, featuring Alton Chung and stories from the Hawaiian Islands. Other events will take place at the ENT Studio (at 977 South Van Ness). On Nov. 17, the pair will host “Salon! You’re On,” featuring independent films. “Feast of Stories,” on Dec. 1, will combine Mexican-Filipino-Chinese cooking and a quartet of storytellers. “Twenty-Five Lights the Night” on Dec. 22, will mark the Winter Solstice.
Eth-Noh-Tec: Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang
Need a Gimmick? Go Planetary
The California Symphony is reaching high in the sky for its Oct. 14-16 pair of subscription concerts in Walnut Creek: Holst’s The Planets will be accompanied by an high-definition video suite from Chicago’s Adler Planetarium and narration by award-winning astronomer Andrew Fraknoi, conducted by Music Director Barry Jekowsky and designed by Adler Planetarium astronomer and graphics artist José Francisco Salgado.
Each video contains mesmerizing images of the featured planet, consisting of actual footage taken by space probes; animations created by NASA, the European Space Agency, and Salgado; and historical illustrations from the Adler Collection of Works on Paper (some of them hundreds of years old) — all in sync with the seven movements of The Planets.
From the beginning, Salgado says, his intention was that the videos “would not be seen as documentaries but as art pieces designed to inspire audiences and encourage them to learn more about our solar system and the universe.”
Actual photo of Saturn, taken by the Cassini spacecraft
Byrne: The Transfigured Tenor
The San Francisco Lyric Opera premiere of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann Friday featured an excellent cast, well beyond what you’d expect from a small regional company, but there was one performance that impressed to no end.
Richard Byrne
Just a month ago, Richard Byrne sang the role of the Stage Manager in Festival Opera’s presentation of Ned Rorem’s Our Town, impressing with his diction and expert handling of Rorem’s “Ivesian American dissonance.” This time, he sang Hoffmann as a nonpareil “French tenor,” with the right timbre and projection, clean vowels, and high, clear-as-a-bell sound.
When he sang the first phrase as Hoffmann, I pretty much fell out of my seat. It was (and remained through the evening) a pure example of the timbre and projection of a French tenor — with great, unforced diction — about as far from his previous American sound as anyone can get.
There were some problems with tempos, but in the Florence Gould Theater I heard the sound of an appealing and authentic Hoffmann, a thrilling experience. For a moment, I thought about the possibility of discovering an exciting newcomer, but then I found Byrne’s biography in the program, which noted his New York City Opera debut two decades ago, and 250 performances around the world since. Missing from those notes: the astonishing fact that he has been a baritone all these years. The Stage Manager was his first performance as a tenor … and Hoffmann the second. 
Richard Byrne as Hoffmann
Note the emphasis on sound. Byrne and the rest of the cast were done in by Heather Carolo’s bizarre stage direction, making everyone stagger about. At one point, the Coppelius strutted in, hiding his face with his cape, a la Snidely Whiplash. Byrne himself kept lurching, knees bent, in weird, incongruous contrast with the effortless elegance of his singing.
(This report is of the Friday premiere. Lisa Hirsch’s review in this issue of Classical Voice is based on the Saturday performance. Considering that the company managed only two full-scale rehearsals before the opening, Friday might have been considered a kind of dress rehearsal. Also, it appears that much of the “lurching” I saw was eliminated by the second performance — a good thing.)
Hoffmann’s tales involve bizarre misadventures with the same woman (soprano Shawnette Sulker) in four different roles while being pursued by his nemesis (baritone Roberto Gomez), who also takes on multiple forms.
Sulker’s Olympia was a firework of coloratura, with amazing staccato notes, and echo imitations that made you look for a double in the wings. All this while she was made to scramble all over the stage, not as a mechanical doll but as an insane dervish. The tiny soprano’s mezzolike Giulietta and lyric Antonia were beautifully sung, except for a couple of blown high notes and the lack of more “fat” in the voice.
Gomez’s singing overcame the handicaps imposed by the director: His Coppelius was OK, his Dappertutto was better (except for his unfortunate tendency to push an already big voice that could do more with less), and Dr. Miracle was the best of them all. Katherine Growdon’s Nicklausse presented a big and bright turn in the trouser role. Ross Halper, Martin Bell, Igor Vieira, and Trey Costerisan sang well in multiple roles, although staging excesses, particularly for Costerisan’s Andreas, Chochenille, and Frantz, were downright embarrassing.
Music direction had some problems. Unlike in his previous appearances, Barnaby Palmer conducted passages that were way too loud in this intimate hall, but slowly settled down to a better balance. The small, ad hoc orchestra performed well. The quartet of Rita Lee, Claude Halter, Meg Titchener, and Robert Howard (each representing, respectively, an entire section of first and second violins, violas, and cellos) was well-supported by woodwinds and four brass instruments. Ann Levin (clarinet) and Anna Maria Mendieta (harp) made fine contributions.
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
©2007 By Janos Gereben, all rights reserved.
This I think could be the beginning of a most important, revelatory, and overdue series of articles. It will be VERY interesting to see the overall picture once the series is complete, for such venues as Artaud, small legits south of market, the downtown venues, etc. Are you planning on including movie houses? Like the Roxie and their continuous survival problems? Taking the fiscal situation from the point of view of cost per seat, that’s a brilliant idea … Imagine! Investigative reporting in the Cultural Arena.
Posted by Charlie Cockey on September 26, 2007 at 5:24 pm