San Francisco Classical Voice

Santa Cruz Stands by Its Schools

The Enlightened City of Santa Cruz has passed Measure B with a spectacular 80 percent of the vote. The measure provides reauthorization of a parcel tax expected to generate more than $2 million annually for the city's schools over the next seven years, specifically to pay for teachers, art and music programs, librarians, and counselors in elementary and middle schools. School officials strongly supported the tax in light of recent funding cuts at the state and federal levels.

Who Doesn't Like Violas?

The fact that Left Coast Chamber Ensemble founder-director Kurt Rohde is a violist may have something to do with the organization's next concerts, Dec. 1 and 3, called The Violas in Our Lives. Rohde and Phyllis Kamrin are featured in George Benjamin's Viola, Viola; also on the program: Yu-Hui Chang's Perplexing Sorrow and Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. See www.chambermusicpartn.org.

Meanwhile, Rohde will also be in evidence in Zellerbach Hall on Dec. 2, where his 70-minute oratorio, Bitter Harvest, will have its world premiere, Kent Nagano conducting the Berkeley Symphony. "I've been working on this for nearly four years," Rohde says, "and it has become more like an opera than an oratorio. The music is unlike anything I have ever written, which can be very good or very bad. We shall see . . ." For information: www.berkeleysymphony.org.

Sir Charles at 80

Nominally still associated with the San Francisco Opera (principal guest conductor emeritus, but absent since 2000), Sir Charles Mackerras has just celebrated his 80th birthday by conducting "a characteristically energetic account" of Un ballo in maschera at Covent Garden, receiving an ovation for his work as well as for his longevity. The Telegraph rhapsodized: "There was no denying Mackerras's whiplash discipline over the orchestra, or his feeling for the clarity and bounce of this most classically graceful of Verdi's scores. How many other conductors could make the chords that herald Ulrica's appearance so electrifyingly precise? How many would bother to make the dance music in the last scene so, well, danceable?" Next Sunday, Mackerras is due to lead the Philharmonia in a birthday concert in London's Australia House.

Cylinders! For Free!

Cylinder recordings, the first commercially produced sound recordings, have preserved music performed in the decades before and immediately after the turn of the 20th century. Today, more than a century later, most listeners are familiar only with whatever has been transferred to media used today. But now, with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the UC Santa Barbara Libraries have created a public digital collection of over 5,000 cylinder recordings, and made them available for free downloading or streaming, from www.cylinders.library.ucsb.edu. Norwegian bachelor farmers should not miss Carsten Woll's rendition of Aa kjöre vatten aa kjöre ve, at http://tinyurl.com/b5wun.

Atomic Fallout

In an interview with Wynne Delacoma, published Sunday in the Chicago Sun-Times, John Adams said he was astonished by the response to the San Francisco Opera premiere of Doctor Atomic on October 1: "When I write an orchestra piece, no one ever makes a critical comment," he said. "I'll have to beg for them. People will say, 'Well, it's a piece of classical music. He must be a genius because only geniuses write classical music, so I won't go near it.' With opera, everyone has an opinion. Everyone feels completely emboldened to walk up to me with a very blunt critique. It's amazing."

"I just couldn't take a walk in my neighborhood [in Berkeley]. At one point, I was walking along, and a woman pulled over to the side of the road. Her 14-year-old daughter's sitting there in her soccer clothes, embarrassed out of her mind. The woman rolls down the window and yells, 'You were much too nice to Oppenheimer. He was a son of a bitch.' Then she drives off. It was great because it showed that the piece had penetrated the culture of the community in a way that contemporary music rarely ever does."

Lyric Opera of Chicago will present Doctor Atomic in its 2007-2008 season, and Adams doesn't foresee making extensive revisions. He pronounces himself "very satisfied" with the music but expects to keep tweaking the opera's melodic lines. "I have changed my operas, but very, very little, [though] I'm always changing the vocal line as we go along," he said. "I work with singers, and I need to know if what I've done is realistic. I'm not sure I want to create an Oppenheimer role that can be sung by only one or two people on the planet at any given time."

As to widespread criticism of Peter Sellars' libretto and direction (more the former than the latter), Adams stands by his collaborator: "I believe deeply in Peter. I think he's one of the great artists on the planet. I know that he's profoundly controversial, and people are often overwhelmed by an Adams-Sellars production because there's so much data to take in. But opera is really the only art form that can involve the complete sensory apparatus of the public."

Adams is visiting on the occasion of the Chicago Symphony's current subscription concerts that include his works; L.A. Philharmonic Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts.

Sony CD Software Reversal Makes Problem Worse

Following up on last week's Music News item about the trouble with Sony's First4Internet XCP copy protection software (it can make computers vulnerable to hackers, and prevents downloading to perfectly legal iPods), here's news of a "cure" that's worse than the disease. A web-based uninstaller Sony offers is said to allow any web page you visit to download, install, and run any code it likes on your computer. Any web page can seize control of your computer and then wreak havoc. "That's about as serious as a security flaw can get," experts say.

They suggest that no installation of any software delivered over the net from First4Internet should be accepted until a fix is delivered. If it's too late for that, try deleting the CodeSupport component from your machine. For technical information, see www.muzzy.org.

Meanwhile, Sony is recalling affected CDs. Discs in the supply chain will not be sold, and customers who have already bought discs will be able to exchange them. See www.sonybmg.com

Will Hunt Lieberson Return?

When Lorraine Hunt Lieberson canceled a long-scheduled appearance in San Francisco's Doctor Atomic, rumors started circulating among her many local fans — and worldwide as well — about her state of health. Daniel J. Wakin, in the New York Times, presented a lengthy article about rumors, denials, and the still-lingering doubt that Hunt Lieberson's illness may go beyond the announced "back injury," and that the 51-year-old mezzo may be dealing with cancer as well.

Besides the Doctor Atomic world premiere — a major event — her cancellations included a North American recital tour last spring, a Carnegie Hall recital, and an important appearance in the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. And yet, Wakin writes, she remains committed to other performances, including a series of concerts with major orchestras this fall and winter in which she will sing a work written by her husband, Peter Lieberson. Hunt Lieberson, in fact, is due to sing with the Boston Symphony this weekend, first in Boston, then in Carnegie Hall.