Isolde: "I'm gonna love you, like nobody's loved you. . . . "

A funny thing happened between the fourth and fifth performances of a triumphant Tristan und Isolde in the War Memorial, where Christine Brewer's mighty voice fills the 3,200-seat opera house evening after evening.

Friday evening, Brewer sang Harold Arlen's take on overwhelming love, the commitment "come rain or come shine." The place: the living room of the Victorian Englander House. The occasion: the San Francisco Song Festival's Artist Salon. The impact of Brewer "singing to you" quietly across a few yards' distance: unforgettable. "Happy together, unhappy together," she sang, "You're gonna love me, like nobody's loved me," and we did.

Just as she sings Isolde's killer role with a voice that flows from her naturally and inexorably, she sang the Johnny Mercer text in Arlen's simple, appealing harmonies from the heart, without a smidgen of artifice.

Her St. Louis Woman set was a natural, Brewer said, since she comes from (and still lives in) a small town on the Mississippi River. She sang gospel, blues, and jazz, not becoming aware of opera until after she had turned 19. When somebody suggested voice lessons to her, she felt hurt, thinking that lessons were to remedy something wrong with the voice. Trained as a music teacher, she taught in schools until her career took her from a town of 500 to the world's metropolises. The small-town connection came up in her encore, "Mira," from Bob Merrill's Carnival — which sounded as true and convincing as did everything else from her Friday night.

The other two Arlen songs were the often-neglected "I Wonder What Became of Me?" (in the evening's most affecting performance) and "I Had Myself a True Love."

The entire event, Playing Favorites, was meant to allow singers to perform music of special significance to them, and it turned out to favor crossovers from traditional lieder. New music was in evidence as Marnie Breckenridge sang a Jake Heggie song, Valentina Osinski went to Joni Mitchell for inspiration, and Brian Leerhuber brought down the house with the Cole Porter "Night and Day," in an interpretation as if "from the diary of a stalker."

Elza van den Heever sang a song from her native South Africa, S.F. Opera Center director Sheri Greenawald favored Barber and Stephen Foster, and Brian Thorsett sang from a Victorian songbook — appropriate for the venue. Steven Bailey, the accompanist, switched effortlessly from period to period, genre to genre.

Bruce Rockwell's three-year-old organization is dedicated to the "revival of interest in the art song," but as John Kendall Bailey, the emcee, pointed out, "in this country, the lines between art song and popular music often blur." They certainly did at this event, delightfully.

Revolution in E-Flat

The San Francisco Symphony's Keeping Score Web site has turned its multidisciplinary attention to Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in a big, colorful way. Prefacing discussion of the Eroica, Michael Tilson Thomas writes, "How do you start a revolution? Try E-flat . . ."

The Eroica program will be broadcast on PBS stations at 10 p.m., Nov. 2; a preview is available on line. The Eroica Web site provides timelines to explore Beethoven's life and the historical context of the work. The "explore the score" option combines the performance video with pages of the score, including markups, themes, and keys — all with commentary from MTT and the orchestra's musicians.

The current Beethoven feature follows the initial Tchaikovsky project. Next up: Stravinsky and Copland.

Ruth Ann Swenson Address

"San Francisco's own" soprano Ruth Ann Swenson is facing surgery and chemo for breast cancer. To wish her well, write to her in care of:

Zemsky/Green Artists Management
104 West 73rd Street
Suite 1
New York, NY 10023

Composers, Inc.: Tonight's the Night

Opening its 23rd season tonight in the Veterans Building Green Room, Composers, Inc. presents soprano Christine Brandes (with pianist Laura Dahl) in premieres of works by local composers Jeffrey Miller (John Clare Songs) and Allen Shearer (How Poems Are Made). Also, Michael Torke's July, Anthony Joseph Lanman's Il Dolce Stile Nuovo, and Joan Tower's Snow Dreams for flute and guitar. The previously scheduled performance of Susan Burkey's Light That Fuse has been postponed.

Flicka and the Kids, Again

Frederica von Stade, resident patron saint of all good causes in music, will share the stage with teenage singers from the Young Musicians Program tomorrow. The free concert will be held at noon, Oct. 25, on the Oakland City Center Plaza Stage. Flicka will sing a duet with Elliott Nguyen, 16; the program will also feature Khris Carey Sanchez, 13; Kendra Dodd, 15; Nicole Raynor, 15; and Courtney Knott, 16.

Free SFCO Concerts, with Dancers Even

The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra is giving free concerts, called Partners: Music & Dance, with the participation of dancers from the San Francisco Ballet School Trainee Program.

The invitation to the public is for Nov. 4 in the S.F. School of the Arts Auditorium (555 Portola Dr.), and Nov. 5 in Berkeley High School's Little Theater (1980 Allston Way). Both concerts start at 2 p.m. The program includes music by Handel, Bach, and Franceschini. SFCO starts its regular season on Dec. 29.

Death in the Setzer Violin Dynasty

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that former Cleveland Orchestra violinist Marie Setzer has died at age 86. Her husband, Elmer, was also a violinist in the orchestra. Son Philip Setzer plays violin in the Emerson String Quartet. "In the days before his mother's death, Philip took his violin to the hospital and played Bach for her. Setzer's last words were a response to her son's question about leaving the radio on: "I always want to hear music." She died listening to Mozart.

Left Coast Season-Opener

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble is doing something new, as usual. In this case what's new is a repetition — of several works it had commissioned. Alas, in "new music," more often than not, new pieces that see the light of day come and go, not to be heard again.

LCCE's Come on Back for Seconds program will remedy that situation, first on Thursday, in Mill Valley's Throckmorton Theater, then in the War Memorial Green Room on Oct. 30. The group will be performing John Schott's Trio for viola, guitar, and piano (2002); Marty Rokeach's Quartet for guitar, flute, violin, and cello (2001); Charles Leoffler's Two Rhapsodies for oboe, viola, and piano; and there will be a world premiere: Mark Winges' San Francisco Stopover for guitar, cello, and viola. The season of repeats and new works will continue Dec. 7, 11; Feb. 22, 26; March 22, 26; May 17, 21.

Lyric Opera on the Air

While San Francisco Opera continues its efforts to return to broadcasting, Chicago's Lyric Opera has made the grade. With a $2 million matching grant seed from mall developer Matthew Bucksbaum, the company's broadcast expenses are covered for the next five years. Beginning with the opening-night live broadcast of Richard Strauss' Salome Saturday on WFMT-FM, the Lyric has returned to the air, joining the Metropolitan, Houston Grand Opera, and scores of companies in Europe bringing opera to everyone.

Caribbean Mythology at Covent Garden

The Royal Opera's first commission to a female composer went to Dominique Le Gendre. Her opera, Bird of Night, is now in the Covent Garden repertory, following its world premiere last week.

The 46-year-old composer was born in Trinidad, lived in Paris, and now resides in Britain. Asked by Reuters if race and sex have hindered her career, Le Gendre replied, "I don't know, because no one's going to tell me." Bird of Night, inspired by her native Caribbean mythology, tells the story of a girl called Apolline who dreams of becoming a bird. Characters sing in English, Trinidadian dialect, Creole, and even Aztec, both language and musical style being a first for the Royal Opera House.

"It's definitely something that they've never seen before," Le Genre told Reuters, "[but] at the same time it is still in the tradition of opera in the sense that it is presenting all of those fundamental human emotions through this story that combines mythology and reality." She hopes that her work will attract new audiences to the opera.