Music News
S.F. Opera Goes to Hollywood
San Francisco Opera General Manager David Gockley had his pioneering, open-air, free simulcasts years ago, when he was heading Houston Opera. Twelve long years ago, still in the last century, Gockley oversaw a free live video simulcast of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, starring Cecilia Bartoli, to an audience in the plaza outside the Wortham Theater Center — a first in the U.S.
When Gockley came to San Francisco, two years ago, he introduced multiple free simulcasts from the War Memorial (including a first-ever event in the Giants’ ballpark), and restored radio broadcasts that were on hiatus for many years. Then came the Metropolitan Opera’s high-definition simulcasts to theaters (see next column item), and Milan’s La Scala getting into the act, and the “electrification” of opera busting out all over.
Today, Gockley is back in the lead, with yet another first: a four-year contract for worldwide distribution of San Francisco Opera productions in “Hollywood feature film quality digital cinema format.” Partners in the venture are The Bigger Picture and AccessIT. Shows will be sent by satellite, stored in the theaters, and then screened. Initially, close to 200 screens are expected to be used, in markets where theaters have installed the digital cinema systems.
The initial Digital Cinema Program will feature four showings each of the company’s 2007 productions of Puccini’s La Rondine, Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah; Mozart’s The Magic Flute; Mozart’s Don Giovanni; Appomattox, a new opera by Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton that premiered in October; and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
When Met simulcasts work well, the quality is sky-high, so it’s difficult to visualize the claims made for this new project, but here they are:
“SFO will be the first opera company in the world to utilize technology at this level, including the highest quality projectors with technology from DLP Cinema® made by Texas Instruments, a key differentiator from other opera series that are currently playing in theaters on projection systems designed for cinema advertising rather than feature movies.” The films will be in an all-digital 2K release format, with 5.1 surround sound. The project is supported by Gockley’s Koret-Taube Media Suite, the first permanent high-definition, broadcast-standard video production facility installed in any American opera house.
“The promise of digital cinema is about more than simply exchanging 35mm film prints for digital satellite delivery,” says Jonathan Dern, co-president of The Bigger Picture. “It enables theaters to become cultural centers for their communities, bringing audiences together to enjoy entertainment experiences previously limited to specific live venues. Audiences will be thrilled with the innovative and world-class operas from San Francisco Opera delivered in stunning 2K digital cinema quality on the big screen.”
An essential component, a precondition, to all the electronic distribution of opera is agreement with the artists and labor unions. Today, Gockley also announced a tentative four-year “experimental agreement” with unions to clear vastly expanded rights for up to six titles per year. In this new agreement, union members would also participate in revenue sharing on top of the supplemental fee. The company’s significant capital investment in technology allows for revenue sharing from the first dollar earned rather than from any calculation of net profits, says the announcement.
Of the series of agreements with the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), American Federation of Musicians (AFM), and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), Gockley says the big change from the conflicts of the past to the cooperation today is based on “respect, trust, and honesty, having a sense of one family moving together.”
Gockley’s motivation is both economic (to build audiences for opera) and personal:
My very first opera experience was actually in a movie theater — hearing Mario Lanza sing in the film The Great Caruso. I vividly remember the power of hearing that incredible voice at a young age and the feeling that I absolutely had to experience a live opera.
I am thrilled that this partnership will bring opera to large audiences at a very reasonable price point, an undertaking that I firmly believe will bring more new people to the art form and ultimately into opera houses all over the world.
David Gockley
Met R&J Simulcast Roulette
The Metropolitan Opera began its series of eight high-definition simulcasts of the season into movie theaters last weekend, with Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. The event incited impassioned debates around the country about performances by Roberto Alagna and Anna Netrebko in the title roles, but across the Bay from San Francisco, in Emeryville, the issue was more practical. According to UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Andrew A. Stern from the Sunday repeat screening:
When the picture came on about 15 minutes late, it was dull, with poor color. Sound was very bad. The manager, who refunded our money, told us that the AMC theater had installed the wrong projector, and that there were satellite problems. Same for the live Saturday performance.
A report from London, where tickets cost more than $50 (over twice the price in the U.S.), says there were only minor technical problems, and — unfortunately — no refund. A friend from Ohio writes that it took her an hour to drive home 12 miles after the show because of the snow storm.
Bob Brock says the Redwood City simulcast was “perfect.” Sandra Harder reports that the telecast in San Rafael was interrupted for about 15 minutes early on, but audio continued throughout. (That would be the same as listening to the Met matinee on the radio, if only the area’s major FM station bothered to do so. San Francisco listeners can try to tune in KUSF, 90.3 FM.)
Ready for the next Met “theatrical telecast” adventure?
- Jan. 1: Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, starring Christine Schäfer and Alice Coote (with tenor Philip Langridge as the Witch) in a new English-language production by Richard Jones conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.
- Jan. 12: Verdi’s Macbeth, in a new production by Adrian Noble starring Lado Ataneli and Maria Guleghina, with company Music Director James Levine on the podium.
- Feb. 16: Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, starring Karita Mattila and Marcello Giordani and conducted by Levine.
- March 15: Britten’s Peter Grimes, starring Anthony Dean Griffey and Patricia Racette in a new production directed by John Doyle and conducted by San Francisco Opera Music Director Donald Runnicles.
- March 22: Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, starring Deborah Voigt and Ben Heppner with Levine conducting.
- April 5: Puccini’s La Bohème, with Angela Gheorghiu and Ramón Vargas starring in the Franco Zeffirelli production, conducted by Nicola Luisotti (San Francisco Opera’s music director-designate).
- April 26: Donizetti’s La Fille du régiment, starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez in a new production directed by Laurent Pelly and conducted by Marco Armiliato.
To find a theater near you for a simulcast and to make a reservation, see the Met’s Web site. Participating theaters in and near San Francisco have increased from the initial four or five to two dozen for the current season.
Last season, the Met sold a third of a million tickets worldwide at $18 each in the U.S. and more overseas. It took in 50 percent of the proceeds, earning at least $3 million, in addition to other income from the sale of rights. Each simulcast cost $850,000 to $1 million to make. The Met had to use about $1 million in endowment money to make up the costs. Prices for the new season increased to $22 (with discount for students and seniors).
Nicola Luisotti in the War Memorial Opera House
Photo by Terrence McCarthy
Academie to Bow
The Berkeley Akademie Ensemble, led by Kent Nagano and Stuart Canin, will give its first concert tomorrow in Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. There will be an introduction by Robert Commanday and Joseph Kerman.
Six guest musicians from the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie arrived last week to participate in the concert along with members of the Berkeley Symphony. On the program: Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (No. 2 and 3), Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, and Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen. Nagano announced the formation of the organization a year ago, when disclosing that in 2009 he would leave as music director of the Berkeley Symphony, a position he has occupied since 1978. He spoke of the project as one “born out of a tradition in Europe of Akademies which trace their origins all the way back to what one might call the democratization of music, around the time of Beethoven,” said Nagano. As general music director of the Bavarian State Opera, Nagano heads one of the oldest Akademie concert traditions, established in Munich in 1811.
“The Akademies were founded in order to share music, which had been primarily reserved for the aristocracy, with the community at large,” Nagano said. “They had an enormous following, and interestingly enough the more new music that was presented, the more intriguing the concert was. It was very much music of the times and for people of the times. That was the spirit in which we wanted to launch the Akademie here in Berkeley.”
Kent Nagano
S.F. Opera, Symphony Escape Deficit
San Francisco Opera has ended fiscal year 2007 (the 2006-2007 season) with a “modest surplus” of $40,437 on an annual operating budget of $61,148,690. During the season, the Opera presented 76 performances of 10 operas and performed for more than 300,000 people both inside and outside the War Memorial Opera House.
San Francisco Symphony’s fiscal 2007 turned out to be a surprise — a good one. Rather than the recently anticipated deficit to follow two seasons in the red (after a long run of fiscal stability), the Symphony ended up with an operating surplus of $454,000 on a budget of $58.3 million. During the 2006-2007 season, Michael Tilson Thomas’ 12th year as music director, the orchestra performed on two European tours, and a series of concerts on the East Coast.
Why Seattle Needs a Classical Voice of Its Own
Robert Commanday writes:
On Sunday, The New York Times published a lengthy feature article, by James R. Oestreich and Daniel J. Wakin, which detailed big troubles confronting the Seattle Symphony. It was triggered by a member’s lawsuit against Music Director Gerard Schwarz and the orchestra, charging “the orchestra had discriminated against him because of a disability: severe anxiety disorder,” worsed by ’systematic harassment.’ ” Enlarging the story was the news that “15 current or former members of the Seattle Symphony have signed sworn declarations on behalf of that member, Peter Kaman, many of them creating an image of Mr. Schwarz as a vindictive, harsh taskmaster who has undermined morale.” The Times article goes on to list conflicts, debates, and episodes verging on the bizarre.
Schwarz has been music director for 22 years, perhaps the longest tenure of a major orchestra music directorship in the country. He has had success on many fronts — in programming 20th-century American composers, in making recordings, and especially in raising funds for the Symphony Association, notably for the construction of Benaroya Hall. Still, in recent years big trouble has been brewing and it has taken a newspaper from 3,000 miles away to air it out.
The yet unspoken problem in Seattle, which is responsible for this extended, unsettled situation, is with its press, the two major newspapers. This becomes evident when you search for articles discussing any problem at the Seattle Symphony, anything about the orchestra that is, other than rewrites of press releases and happy, enthusiastic reviews. Until the Times article forced the local papers to act — to publish the Times article and produce a minimal news story announcing the course of the lawsuit — nothing had run in The Post-Intelligencer as far back as our search to November 2006. In The Seattle Times, up until last Sunday, only one article discussed the suit, announcing the setting of a trial date, on Aug. 30, and nothing else. Happily, the Times article in Seattle triggered many responses on the newspaper’s blog, some of which praised the Times initiative, and criticized the local press for ignoring the story.
Gerard Schwarz
Behold, Another Classical Voice
Even as Robert Commanday has urged Seattle to go the Classical Voice way (see item above) we found evidence on the East Coast of the Classical Voice of New England.
This is the third such publication in the country, other members of the family acknowledged:
Classical Voice of New England, Inc. (CVNewEng.org) is an online journal for classical music, which also covers opera and dance, was incorporated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is based in Williamsburg, and covers all of New England.
CVNewEng (CVNC) was founded in the spring of 2006 and modeled after the then five-year-old Classical Voice of North Carolina, for which two of CVNC’s founders write. CVNC was in turn modeled on San Francisco Classical Voice, which dates from 1998, but whose site format and organizational structure are quite different. We will soon file for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status with the IRS.
S.F. Ballet’s Crackerjack of a Nutcracker
It’s official: The City’s holiday season began at 7 p.m. on Thursday. That’s when the curtain went up on the San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker in the War Memorial. The throng of well-dressed and well-behaved children provided a lively juxtaposition with the amazing record of the Tchaikovsky classic: It’s the 63rd Nutcracker season here, and the work’s 1944 American premiere has reached into the 21st century in a rejuvenated, robust production.
What started with William Christensen’s U.S. presentation of the 1892 Ivanov-Petipa masterpiece, and modified twice now by company artistic director Helgi Tomasson, is anything but a museum piece. Following the long, happy run (1986-2003) of Jose Varona’s fairytale sets and costumes, the current version employs the elegant, handsome Michael Yeargan’s scenic design, places the action in San Francisco a century ago, and sets the story as Clara’s dream, with young Lacey Escabar carrying the role splendidly.
The Act 1 story is as ever before, but without the dancing bear (a small cub shows up, rather curiously, in the Mother Goose number, now renamed “Madame du Cirque and Her Buffoons”), and Act 2 parades the Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, French, and Russian dances. While all went well on premiere night, Garrett Anderson, with Daniel Deivision and Matthew Stewart, brought the house down deservedly in their hyperkinetic Russian number.
In the current Tomasson version, the relationship between the young principals of Act 1 (Clara and Fritz) and the “grown-up” leading dancers is somewhat hazy. While the Nutcracker Doll becomes Davit Karapetyan’s wonderful, fully airborne Nutcracker Prince in Act 1, Clara’s transformation awaits the Grand Pas de Deux — with a terrific debut.
Maria Kochetkova and Davit Karapetyan
Kudos to the audience: Considering the large number of children — including an inappropriate under-5 contingency — it was simply amazing how quiet it was in the Opera House during the performance. There were exceptions, of course — mostly adults, some individual cases of Juvenile Fidget, and that steadily conversing couple in Row N. But in my 30-plus years of Nutcrackers, the opening-night audience was the best by a long shot.
S.F. Ballet Music Director Martin West
A Night of Art
Miami’s Beach’s first 12-hour Sleepless Night should give ideas to San Francisco’s performing arts organizations, especially in the long periods between Black and White Balls. Imagine a night of performances, a fringe festival of all the arts, probably centered around the Civic Center.
Yang Returns to Walnut Creek
Pianist Joyce Yang, who has quite an international career going, is scheduled for a return engagement with the California Symphony, where she made her professional debut in 1999, at age 13.
Showcasing young prodigies is a passion of California Symphony Music Director Barry Jekowsky; it’s a two-decade-long tradition, beginning in 1987, with then 16-year-old violinist Kyoko Takezawa. Among the others who have since achieved international fame are violinists Sarah Chang (then 9), Leila Josefowicz (12), and Hilary Hahn (18); pianists Helen Huang (10) and Chloe Pang (13); and cellist Alisa Weilerstein (14).
Yang will be the soloist in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Lesher Arts Center concerts on Jan. 27 and 29. Jekowsky will conduct the program, which also includes Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, Kodály’s Háry János Suite, and Leroy Anderson’s Forgotten Dreams and Serenata, which is a tribute to the legendary American composer on the centennial of his birth.
Joyce Yang
S.F. Chamber Orchestra Premiere at Free Concerts
The next series of San Francisco Chamber Orchestra’s free concerts will offer the premiere of former Empyrean Ensemble codirector Yu-Hui Chang’s Concertino for Flute and String Orchestra. Conducted by SFCO Music Director Benjamin Simon, the Jan. 24-27 concerts will feature Tod Brody (flute), Rufus Olivier (bassoon), and Bill Barbini (violin).
On the programs: Jean Francaix’s Divertisement for Bassoon and String Orchestra, Schubert’s Rondo for Violin and String Orchestra, and the Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings. Venues include Old St. Mary’s Cathedral (Jan. 24), Herbst Theatre (Jan. 25), Palo Alto’s St. Mark’s Church (Jan. 26), Berkeley’s First Congregational Church (Jan. 27).
Yu-Hui Chang
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
©2007 By Janos Gereben, all rights reserved.
The Met Simulcast at the Santana Row theatre in San Jose was excellent. The colors were vivid and the sound nopnotch from the pre-curtain view of the interior of the Met Opera house, the intermission interviews with Renee Fleming to the final curtain calls. There was much applause from the full house audience in the theatre at the end. The Met management and the theatre owners are to be congratulated for this much appreciated effort.
Posted by Lee Scoville on December 19, 2007 at 2:54 pm
No sooner did I read this article on SF Opera’s plans to join the opera broadcasting bandwagon did I see another article about this in yesterday’s NYT. Their article kind of read like a profile of bickering children trying to outwit each other (e.g. “Ours is better b/c it will be live,” “Ours is better b/c it will use superior sound technology,” etc.), which was mildly annoying, but highlighted an interesting point that was previously (I think) a non-issue: now that people in NY can see Opera from SF and vice versa, do these two opera companies see themselves as vying for audience?
And if they see each other as competitors, to what extent will this affect/inform programming decisions of the two opera companies, I wonder. . ..
Posted by Kyoko Oishi on December 20, 2007 at 11:26 am