San Francisco Classical Voice

LISTENERS' BOX

Responses to Recent Issues

Hear the Dancing?

The review of A Flowering Tree disparages the dancers, in one place saying that the miming of the transformation into the tree was "not enough" and that the staging was "all the more unsatisfying" because the transformation was "absent."

Perhaps the reviewer knows music, but he must be blind to dance. The dancers were exquisite, they added greatly to the performance, and I cannot imagine a more effective element of staging within the small spaces available on the stage than having these dancers double the singers' roles. And in particular the "miming" of the transformations was wonderfully artful and eloquent, much better than a more explicit staging could be in that limited space. Even on an opera stage one would be hard put to present a more artistically effective transformation. What is the reviewer calling for? Special effects? True dance artistry is preferable, at least to those who can see it.

— Stephen Whitney

Add Beethoven, Repeat

It seems unlikely that two artists would perform the same work in the same locality within the same week. Not only did that happen here last week, but the same coincidence occurred 23 years ago: same work, same month. Beethoven's Sonata No. 15 in D Major, Op. 28, "Pastorale," was performed:

March 3, 2007: Jonathan Biss, San Francisco Performances, at Herbst Theatre
March 5, 2007: Murray Perahia, San Francisco Symphony, at Davies Hall
March 9, 1984: Emmanuel Ax, Cal Performances, at Zellerbach Hall
March 10, 1984: Ivan Moravec, Today's Artists, at Masonic Auditorium

Are we the only ones who heard all four recitals?

— Leon and Helen Luey