Music News
A Musical Oral History Gold Mine
A propos a Classical Voice article concerning Madi Bacon, music historian Caroline Crawford is calling attention to the UC-Bancroft Library’s collection of oral histories, including one about Bacon.
Several of these, writes Crawford, including her oral histories of Jean-Louis LeRoux, James Schwabacher, Joaquin Nin-Culmell, Kurt Herbert Adler, Sándor Salgó, Ruth Felt, and Donald Pippin can be read online.
Ruth Felt, with pianist Wu Han
One of the major multi-interviewee projects is “Artists and Staff of the San Francisco Opera”. It includes Leontyne Price (b. 1927), Birgit Nilsson (b. 1918), Leonie Rysanek (b. 1926), Geraint Evans (1922-1992), Ingvar Wixell (b. 1931), Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (1932-1988), Jess Thomas (1927-1993), Carol Vaness (b. 1952), Gerald Freedman (b. 1927), Wolfram Skalicki (b. 1925), Dorothy Kirsten (1917-1992), Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007), Matthew Farruggio (b. 1920), John Priest (b. 1931), Richard Rodzinski (b. 1945), Ruth Felt (b. 1939), Richard Bradshaw (b. 1944), Evelyn Crockett (b. 1909), and George Pantages (1918-1991). (The list has not yet been updated with recent deaths.)
According to Crawford: “In process are histories of Ali Akbar Khan, the Kronos Quartet, and the making of the opera Doctor Atomic.”
Ali Akbar Khan: oral history in the making
Berkeley’s ‘Coro de Egrasandos’
For many years now the University of California Alumni Chorus has roamed around the world, impressing audiences, making friends, and enjoying the aggregation of bonus miles (although airlines may not honor those much longer, alas). Earlier this month, 27 singers of the temporarily renamed “Coro de Egrasandos de la Universidad de California en Berkeley” spent two weeks in Uruguay and Argentina, giving five concerts. Directed by Mark Sumner and accompanied by William Garcia Ganz, the Chorus/Coro presented programs of contemporary and traditional American music.
The chorus performing in the City Hall of La Plata, Argentina
Photo by John Lafler
At four of those concerts, the Berkeley singers joined local host choirs to sing music of Latin America. The concerts were part of international choral festivals sponsored by the host choirs: Coral Cantemus de Montevideo; Coro Municipal de Colonia, Uruguay; Coro Universitario de la Plata; and Coro Amicana of Mendoza, Argentina. UC/AC also performed as part of a series of concerts held at the University of Buenos Aires Law School in the capital city. As for the economic/political verdict on Argentina from one of the singers: “a first-world culture with third-world economic problems.”
When in Argentina … UC Chorus rides ‘em near Buenos Aires
City’s New Performance Venues
With the recent building/rebuilding bonanza of the city’s museums — de Young, Asian Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Contemporary Jewish — new performances spaces have been added to the list. All four have such facilities: There are numerous in the Herzog & de Meuron-built de Young: Koret Auditorium (capacity of 280), Piazzoni Mural Room (150), the de Young Café (190), the Café with the terrace (500), Wilsey Court (500), the Wilsey Court with the Café, and the Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden Terrace (1,250). The less-than-grand Samsung Hall in the Asian has a maximum seating of 450 and poor acoustics.
SF/MoMA
Other venues include the Phyllis Wattis Theater (278) in Mario Botta’s SF-MoMA; and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Hall (250) in Daniel Libeskind’s Contemporary Jewish Museum.
Piano’s central piazza of glass is a potential performance space as well
Next up, opening in September, is the spectacular new California Academy of Sciences’ Renzo Piano’s rhapsody in glass. It has a multipurpose, modular Forum, which seats 180, as well as the new Morrison Planetarium dome for 300.
The Rainforest Dome: for tropical music?
On the minus side, nothing came of the grandiose plan for the proposed Lyric Theater at Van Ness and Grove. Nor does the planned San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design seem to be on schedule, and the new Mexican Museum on the periphery of Yerba Buena looks DOA.
Rhein-dämmerung
From its June 3 premiere to the last performance Saturday, the new San Francisco production of Das Rheingold kept peaking musically, and its planetarium show became more and more acceptable … or at least less objectionable. Anyway, bring on all the planets and space debris that director Francesca Zambello fancies when Donald Runnicles and the Opera Orchestra put on such a smooth-as-silk, stomach-punching-gritty performance: It was among the best of the many DR/OO collaborations in recent years.
It’s still difficult to give a simple thumbs up or down to the “OperaVision” screens in the balcony — they are both intrusive and revealing — but there was no question about the magic they conveyed, focusing on the orchestra during those gloriously stormy interludes. The close-ups of Runnicles and the musicians around him leaning into the music as if possessed, provided music theater on par with whatever might have happened on the stage. (See next item for more on OperaVision.)
OperaVision
Orchestral and vocal performances between the premiere and the final performance went from good to great, but Zambello’s quirky directorial touches — Fricka whacking Wotan on the head to wake him, Donner and Froh convulsing the minute Freia and the apples are gone, and many others — didn’t age well. There is too much in the direction that’s unnecessary; less would be better.
The cast was at its best. Richard Paul Fink’s Alberich was in the same class as Stefan Margita’s much-acclaimed Loge. Mark Delavan’s Wotan still hasn’t fulfilled its obvious promise, but the performance was clean. The Giants of Günther Groissböck and Andrea Silvestrelli were, well, very big. Jennifer Larmore’s stage presence once again amused and delighted. Tamara Wapinsky’s Freia has grown significantly.
It’s really too bad that we have to wait two years for Die Walküre; tomorrow would be none too soon.
Bye-bye, gods and goddesses
Photo by Terrence McCarthy
A View of OperaVision
In response to the “maybe yes, maybe no” take above on the San Francisco Opera’s OperaVision screens, veteran opera fans Derek and Stephanie Smith mince no words:
We have avoided seats in direct line of the screens since our first exposure to them in the Upper Balcony at S.F. Opera. At that time, and from that location (to the left of center), you could not avoid them since they were hung directly in front of us even partially blocking the stage. If we must go to a performance featuring the screens, we now make sure our seats are in the center block with the screens on either side of us. While they are distracting from the last rows, and probably less so the further forward you sit, you can try to avoid looking at them, especially when using opera glasses (the old fashioned way of checking out distant details, without interference from a camera operator or editor). Why didn’t they try hanging the screens on the walls so nobody’s sightlines are obstructed? When we made this suggestion we were told that it would be too expensive to move them now. So we’re stuck with them for all time?
The screens at least allow the viewer a glimpse of the action on the stage when seated behind a large head that is effectively blocking the view. Maybe audiences seated in Orchestra, Grand Tier, and Dress Circle would enjoy that option, too. And let’s not forget the deprived people in the forward boxes who have only partial visibility of the stage. It’ll be almost as good as watching PBS broadcasts on the home screen! Whoopee!
We have had to buy an extra pair of (more expensive) series tickets for next season in order to avoid the so-called “OperaVision” nights. I appreciate that the new administation is experimenting with ways to make opera accessible and appealing to more people but would hope that some experiments can be refined or disposed of if necessary. Thank goodness the greeters at the door no longer say patronizingly “Welcome to the Opera.” Now, if they would only get rid of the tacky “Enjoy the opera” exhortation just before the curtain rise.
One Singular Opera Sensation
This year’s opera simulcast in the ballpark was so successful that, just for once, we’ll allow the Opera’s PR Department to do the reporting, adjectives and all:
Lucia in the ballpark
Photo by Edgar Lee
San Francisco Opera hit a home run on Friday, June 20 when 23,000 music lovers and adventure seekers spent a memorable first day of summer enjoying the monumentally successful free live simulcast of Lucia di Lammermoor at AT&T Park, starring internationally renowned soprano Natalie Dessay.
Sitting blanket-to-blanket on the outfield and mingling in the stands, fans enjoyed a rare warm night munching on peanuts, popcorn, and Cracker Jack while watching the moon rise slowly over the city, echoing the moonrise in this production of Donizetti’s opera classic ….
Opera fans: the next generation
Photo by Kristen Loken Anstey
Choral Project Across the Universe
The next season of San Jose’s Choral Project is building up to a global-plus event, titled “Across the Universe,” and consists of music made popular in film, television, radio, and theater. No strict classicists, these singers will present favorites by Billy Joel, the Beatles, Imogen Heap, James Taylor, and others. That will be a year from now, at the Montgomery Theater.
Ben Walter, Michael McDonald, and Sheila Sardi of Choral Project
Closer at hand is the season’s gala opening concert on Aug. 13 at Saratoga’s Montalvo Arts Center, with an operatic excursion into contemporary music. Divide Light, produced by Lesley Dill, composed by Richard Marriot, and directed by Eleanor Holdridge, features soprano, mezzo, and baritone soloists, as well as the Del Sol String Quartet. Choral Project Artistic Director Daniel Hughes will conduct the work whose libretto is inspired by the poems of Emily Dickinson.
In December, Winter’s Gifts is the annual holiday offering, with the San José Chamber Orchestra. In the spring, the Choral Project shares the stage once again with the Silicon Valley Gay Men’s Chorus in Heartsong: Equinox. The group will also participate in Stanford’s Invitational Choral Festival, the Santa Rosa Concert Association’s Guest Artist Series, and Chateau Julien’s Holiday Spectacular in Carmel Valley.
The Choral Project, ready for Halloween
Leonard Pennario
Pianist Leonard Pennario, who was to turn 84 on July 9, died Friday in his La Jolla home, following a long illness with Parkinson’s disease. After making his debut — at age 12, with the Grieg Piano Concerto, no less — Pennario pursued a concert career that kept him at the forefront of the music world for more than half a century. He was one of only two pianists to be named permanent members of the jury of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. (The other was Hungarian-born Lili Krauss, who died in 1986.) Pennario was also famed for his chamber music performances, and succeeded Arthur Rubinstein, in a trio with violinist Jascha Heifetz and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.
Pennario (back row, third from left) at the 1962 Van Cliburn Competition. Cliburn is in the front row.
Edgar Vincent
Edgar Vincent, 90, manager and publicist to such operatic stars as Plácido Domingo, and the late Beverly Sills and Birgit Nilsson, died last week in Manhattan. He was also associated as a publicist and trusted advisor with Leopold Stokowski, Georg Solti, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Isaac Stern.
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
©2008 By Janos Gereben, all rights reserved.
Your review of Das Rheingold took exception to Francesca Zambello’s ‘quirky directorial touches.’ I have a pained recollection of her Santa Fe production of Dialogues of the Carmelites, in which she managed to upstage the gorgeous music in the last scene. Instead of the usual offstage guillotine sounds, she had the guillotine on stage with each nun apparently being beheaded right in front of us. In their fascination with the mechanics, no one even noticed the music, and the audience was left dry-eyed at the usual 3-hanky conclusion.
Posted by mary jean clauss on July 1, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Regarding OperaVision, I sit a bit to the left of center in row two of the Balcony Circle, and while I can try to avoid looking at the screen, there’s no escape from the ongoing changes in background lighting level. When the screen switches to a bright image, it’s as if an overhead beacon came on—a real annoyance that spoils one’s concentration and enjoyment of the opera. So far as I’m concerned, if people can’t enjoy a performance without these projections, they should either stay home with an opera DVD or go to an opera broadcast in a theater. Some time ago the Opera said in a letter to subscribers it was studying the situation but I have heard nothing further about the problem.
Posted by Tom Koster on July 1, 2008 at 2:12 pm
The answer may lie in positioning. The Vancouver Symphony, with several small, remote-controlled cameras mounted facing the conductor and his players, has been doing this for years. It is IMMENSELY popular. Each of two screens is mounted to the sides of the Orpheum’s proscenium (2780 seats + 8 wheelchair), and thus the ‘direct’ lighting variables are minimized.
It’s great fun to see how the ’sound’ of a given solo is reinforced by the audience watching to see what instrument is making it. I believe more have learned the difference between a tenor trombone and a French horn than in any way we could have dreamed. It works.
Those who don’t like the screens can simply admire the conductor, which is only right and proper.
Posted by Charles Barber on July 1, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Have not seen the Operavision screens so cannot comment on them (I imagine I would find them distracting) but I would like to comment on the side boxes. Since I now use a rollator (rolling walker) I have to have a box seat because I cannot sit in the wheelchair seating in the orchestra — it is too cold and too far from the stage. Although I do miss about a third of the stage, I enjoy being up close and personal to the singers and the orchestra and if I really need to see the “other side” I get a second ticket on the other side. Yes, box seats are expensive, but I do not eat much. And being up close is that important to me.
Posted by Ruth C. Jacobs on July 2, 2008 at 2:13 am
Additional information about the MUSICAL ORAL HISTORY GOLDMINE item: Caroline Crawford writes that two of the projects mentioned were written by others, not her. Janet Harris is the author of the Madi Bacon interview, and Martin Meeker is responsible for the Ruth Felt chapter.
Posted by Janos Gereben on July 3, 2008 at 9:09 am
I think that the Operavision screens are great, and ampleased that my subscription (last row of the balcony in the corner for the sound) has them for all performances. Much rather look at the screen than use opera glasses, and last night at Lucia I saw much detail in Miss. Dessay’s performance that I would have otherwise missed.
Posted by Bruce Brown on July 3, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Here’s another vote in favor of OperaVision from somebody who prefers standing room in the top balcony. The sound there is the best in the house and if you stand in the middle, you can either watch one of the two screens on the sides or the stage in the middle. Opera glasses, on the other hand, have always given me a headache. I can see why people sitting directly in front of them in the side balcony sections might have a serious beef, but for some of us, it really is great for closeups and not remotely as intrusive as I anticipated.
By the way, we’re really going to miss Runnicles when he’s gone. He’s getting better with every year.
Posted by sfmike on July 8, 2008 at 10:40 am