Listening Ahead
Our Critics’ Choices of Upcoming Events in the Bay Area
for November 18 – December 1, 2008
Recital
Arnaldo Cohen!!
If Arnaldo Cohen was once “the greatest pianist you’ve never heard of,” as The Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein wrote a few years ago, if his admirers were once an “underground swell,” as Allan Ulrich put it in The San Francisco Chronicle in 2001, he has put himself on the map since then. Philadelphia concertgoers have been especially blessed with his performances at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society as well as with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Here’s a player who has been compared to many of the 20th century’s greatest pianists. His San Francisco Performances recital, in which he offers a generous selection of Brazilian composers as well as the four Chopin Ballades, should be something to talk about.
Nov. 22, 8 p.m., $32-$49, (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. (M.Z.)
Chamber Music
Imani Winds
The Imani Winds are a genre-bending African-American group (with some Latino roots as well), whose mission is to illuminate new music. Here, they join with another fine ensemble, the Miami String Quartet for a program of seminal works by Ginastera (Impressiones de la Puna), Villa-Lobos (Quintette en forme de Chôros), and Astor Piazzolla, as well as a new piece Concierto de Cámara by Roberto Sierra.
Nov. 19, 8 p.m., Stanford University’s Dinkelspiel Auditorium, $17-$38, (510) 642-9988, http://livelyarts.stanford.edu. (C.G.)
Guarneri Farewell
After 45 years, the fabled Guarneri String Quartet bids farewell, not with tears, but by embracing the new. In the company of the young Johannes String Quartet, their San Francisco Performances program balances the time-honored beauty of Mendelssohn’s Octet with the Bay Area premiere of William Bolcom’s Octet: Double Quartet. Two additional Bay Area premieres, quartets by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Derek Bermel, make for a night of rejoicing and promise.
Nov. 20, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $32-49, (415) 392-2545, www.performances.org. (J.V.S.)
Guarneri String Quartet
Welcome, Quartet of Death
Music at Kohl Mansion takes a dip into the emerging artists’ pool, presenting the La Catrina String Quartet in a program of music of Mexican composers, as well as Astor Piazzolla’s Four For Tango and the Grieg String Quartet. Founded in 2001, the quartet takes its name from the figure of Death in Mexican folklore. Don’t bother wearing black.
Nov. 23, 7 p.m., Kohl Mansion, Burlingame, $20-$42, (650) 762-1130, www.musicatkohl.org. (M.Z.)
Alla zingarese
Indulge your inner Romani, as the Laurel Ensemble presents “Alla zingarese”, music of Brahms and Bartók influenced by “Gypsy” music, aka the “style hongroise” (Hungarian style). The program includes Brahms’ beloved Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor and, of course, Bartók’s witty trio Contrasts.
Nov. 23, 4 p.m., Old First Church, San Francisco, $12-$15, (415) 474-1608, www.oldfirstconcerts.org. (M.Z.)
Symphony
Symphony of a Thousand
That title for this 1910 Mahler symphony is usually a bit of an exaggeration, but this is an enormous work, in length, breadth, ambition, majesty … and the number of performers. The text includes medieval Latin hymns and the hour-long closing scene of Goethe’s Faust. Michael Tilson Thomas conducts a full orchestra, offstage instruments, three choruses, and eight soloists, including Laura Claycomb, Anthony Dean Griffey, and James Morris.
Nov. 19, 21, 22, 8 p.m.; Nov. 23, 4 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall, $35-$65, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (J.G.)
Redwood Symphony Plays Jewish Music
The Redwood Symphony continues its quest for interesting programming with a concert of Jewish-themed (mostly) music by contemporary Jewish composers, performed in one of the Bay Area’s most beautiful contemporary-styled synagogues. How cool is that? The program includes the klezmer-inspired Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind by Osvaldo Golijov and Steve Reich’s amazing psalms setting Tehillim, as well as works by Philip Glass and Lukas Foss. Music director Eric Kujawsky conducts.
Nov. 23, 3 p.m., Congregation Beth Am, Los Altos Hills, $10-$25, (650) 366-6872, www.redwoodsymphony.org (D.B.)
Eric Kujawsky
Glinka’s Acorn
Musicologist Richard Taruskin has pointed out in a famous article, “How the Acorn Took Root,” that the Russian national style of the Five (led by Mily Balakirev) was influenced directly by the cosmopolitan aristocrat Mikhail Glinka’s Kamarinskaya concert overture. In the upcoming San Francisco Symphony concert, conducted by Associate Conductor James Gaffigan, you get to hear this jewel together with Tchaikovsky’s late “symphonic ballad”, The Voyevoda, a much underplayed work, which Tchaikovsky himself tried to suppress. In between, Hilary Hahn plays the composer’s Violin Concerto, and the program concludes with Shostakovich’s First Symphony.
Nov. 26, 28, 29, 8 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall, $30-$130, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (M.Z.)
Dance
Toreador Revived
Ballet San Jose brings an unusual and rarely performed full-length work to the stage in November, The Toreador, choreographed by Flemming Flindt, after the renowned 19th-century master of the Royal Danish Ballet, August Bournonville. Symphony Silicon Valley, under the baton of Dwight Oltman, will breathe life into the score. The costumes and scenery come straight from Denmark’s Royal Opera House.
Nov. 20-22, 8 p.m.; Nov. 23, 1:30 p.m., San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, $25-$85, (408) 288-2820, www.balletsanjose.org. (M.Z.)
Opera
The Elixir of Love
The simplest and most enchanting of love stories (see review), with Donizetti’s irresistible music, and a brilliant cast, including Inva Mula (the seven-foot-tall “blue diva” of The Fifth Element) as Adina, Ramón Vargas as Nemorino, and the San Francisco debuts of Giorgio Caoduro (Belcore) and Alessandro Corbelli (Dulcamara). Bruno Campanella conducts, James Robinson is stage director. The opera is 2 1/2 hours long, but a “family edition” presents a 2-hour version, with recent Adler Fellows in the principal roles, and reduced admission.
Nov. 18, 8 p.m.; Nov. 23, 2 p.m.; Nov. 26. 7:30 p.m., War Memorial Opera House, $15-$260, (family performances: $20-$80), (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. (J.G.)
Inva Mula
Bohemian Rhapsody
Perennially popular, Puccini’s La Bohème is sometimes left to fend for itself in the casting department. But the San Francisco Opera has taken the opposite approach, engaging international superstar Angela Gheorghiu and star-in-the-making Piotr Beczala as Mimì and Rodolfo, and also rounding out the cast with attractive singers. (See review.) The second cast looks just as strong and might be the sleeper pick of the opera season. Music Director-designate Nicola Luisotti conducts.
Through Dec. 7, various times, War Memorial Opera House, $20-$290, (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. (M.Z.)
Kafka Fragments
Dawn Upshaw, soprano, MacArthur Fellow, majestic champion of new music, and Geoff Nuttall, first violinist of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, bring to Cal Performances an acclaimed production of György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments. Under the direction of Peter Sellars, the two have performed the piece several times since 2005, when the staging was created for the Perspective series that Upshaw curated at Carnegie Hall. Kurtág sets excerpts from Kafka’s diaries, letters, and notebooks. In a 2005 interview with Jeremy Eichler, then of The New York Times, Upshaw said that on first hearing Kafka Fragments she was devastated by it and thought she was not up to singing it; Nuttall termed the violin part “borderline unplayable.” Nevertheless, despite the daunting musical and dramatic challenges of the piece, Upshaw and Nuttall have been acclaimed in previous performances, and this promises to be one of the highlights of the fall season.
Nov. 23, 7 p.m., Nov. 24, 8 p.m., Zellerbach Playhouse, Berkeley, $68, (510) 642-9988, www.performances.org. (L.H.)
Choral
Chora Nova-ish
Chora Nova is, as its name implies, still a relatively new kid on the block. But the results from the first two seasons show a record of high accomplishment under their director, Paul Flight. They may have to accept their “established” status soon. Unlike many choirs, Chora Nova is equally active in the “early music” and modern ends of the repertory. The upcoming concert shows off the chorus in “Masterworks of the Baroque Era,” a title that allows a wide range of programming choices, to say the least.
Nov. 22, 8 p.m., First Congregational Church of Berkeley, $10-$20, http://choranova.org (M.Z.)
UC Santa Cruz Chamber Singers and Orchestra
Last year, SFCV reviewed the UC Santa Cruz Chamber Singers, the Concert Choir, and the UCSC Orchestra in Handel’s Jephtha. This year, conductor Nicole Paiement goes for broke with a semistaged performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana as well as two premieres by UCSC composers. Paiement’s work with these ensembles has paid off in several recordings, the last in 2007, of work by Lou Harrison (New World Records). So this concert should be worth the trip.
Nov. 21, 22, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 23, 2 p.m., Music Recital Hall, UC Santa Cruz, $10-$20, (831) 459-2787, http://arts.ucsc.edu. (M.Z.)
David Bratman is a librarian who lives with his lawfully wedded soprano and a wall full of symphony recordings.
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
Catherine Getches is managing editor of San Francisco Classical Voice. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Salon.
Lisa Hirsch is a technical writer. She studied music at Brandeis and SUNY/Stony Brook.
Jason Victor Serinus writes about music for Opera News, Opera Now, American Record Guide, Stereophile, San Francisco Magazine, Muso, Carnegie Hall Playbill, East Bay Express, East Bay Monthly, San Francisco Examiner, Bay Area Reporter, hometheaterhifi.com, and other publications.
Michael Zwiebach holds a Ph.D. in music history from UC Berkeley.
©2008 By David Bratman, Janos Gereben, Catherine Getches, Lisa Hirsch, Jason Victor Serinus, Michael Zwiebach, all rights reserved.