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IN Music News THIS WEEK:
Post-Party AGMA Suit Against SF Opera
Irvine Foundation Grant to Sacramento World Premiere
Guitar Competition Winner
Internet Broadcast Highlights
Todd Instead of the Bat
The 'Naxos Quartets'
Arts Generate Money
Angels in Paris
Uncle from Boston to Oregon
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By Janos Gereben
Opera on a Shoestring
There is altogether too much hue and cry over the land about the relationship between funding and production. Large organizations feel compelled to borrow millions of dollars on top of already bloated budgets, as if artistic excellence depended on deficit spending. Artists should be well-compensated, no doubt, but "overhead" seems to get in the way too often. There are alternatives. Regional companies in Berkeley, San Jose, Walnut Creek, Palo Alto are making do with relatively tiny budgets, but there are also notable individual efforts all around. Below, just two local examples of using imagination and dedication instead of a credit card.
Exhibit A: Earlier this year, Doug Han, a graduate student at the SF Conservatory of Music, spotted an announcement about a 2005 conducting competition in Romania, where the work for the final round will be Béla Bartók's opera, Bluebeard's Castle.
On a budget of zero dollars, Han has spent months to organize a performance of the difficult work at the Conservatory, "with piano, two talented young singers, myself ready with the baton, uncut, and of course in the original Hungarian." The public is invited to the free concert at 8 p.m., Friday, February 11.
Of the passion leading to such enterprise, Han says: "I set my sights on learning this daunting, haunting, wonderful piece, tracked down copies of the vocal and orchestral scores, devoured every recording I could find, began learning it with a fantastic German conductor I'd worked under the previous summer, and found a Hungarian woman who was ever so enthusiastic to help a young man pronounce the language correctly." For Conservatory information, see www.sfcm.org.
Exhibit B: Responding to an item in this column about San Francisco Opera's financial problems, Robert Arnold Hall wrote that by contrast he had also noticed Classical Voice's report on Mark Streshinsky's "economical but dazzling staging of the Ring Legend in Berkeley with virtual scenery." To take "technological artistry" further, and produce a new opera at a minimum cost, Hall and a group of artists are preparing the premiere for his opera, Mrs. Carroll's Alice in Randall Museum, on April 9. It will be a "multimedia production of masked performers interacting with animated virtual scenery that presents Alice's wild dream world." The artist is Christine Desrosiers, a San Francisco illustrator, recent SF Art Academy graduate; her vivid, original images are being turned into video by George Mauro.
 Principal singers of the cast — Suzan Hanson, Sally Mouzon, and Marie Bafus — perform in multiple roles, which "makes for a budget-friendly production in presenting such wild fantasy, an approach that could make new and old opera repertoire more available to diverse audiences," Hall writes. Staging is by Donald Cate, musical direction by Barbara Day Turner. See www.music-hall.net.
Post-Party AGMA Suit Against SF Opera AGMA suits against the San Francisco Opera administration,long predicted in this column, were filed in local federal district court last week, according to a report in the Dec. 1 New York Times. While union grievances go back several years, the AGMA complaints were pegged on the Opera's Dec. 16 gala concert, celebrating music director Donald Runnicles' 50th birthday. Going well beyond the circumstances of that concert, the suit — filed in the name of principal and chorus singers, dancers, and production staff members — accused the Opera of violating many contract provisions, and then refusing to go to arbitration or to follow grievance procedures over the charges. But the immediate matter was about the administration's "virtual forcing" of singers to participate in the Runnicles gala, in violation of their contract, according to the union. The Times quoted the administration response that it will comment "in an appropriate manner within an appropriate time frame." As reported in this column several times, the matter of the music director's salary has been a greatly divisive issue. According to the Times, "Some company members were also angered by Mr. Runnicles's pay. Tax documents show his salary for the 2002-3 season as $513,000, a 42% increase over the previous year. The singers and dancers said that earlier this year they had agreed to a wage freeze for the next two years and a 2 percent increase after that because the opera was citing financial distress. Chorus members also took a de facto pay cut when the opera limited extra weeks of work during the season." An AGMA representative is quoted that chorus members "earn $45,000 to $55,000 a year, which is difficult to survive on in San Francisco." As quoted here last week, general manager Pamela Rosenberg told a company meeting that "To say that (Runnicles') compensation was `boosted' is inaccurate. As with other conductors and guest solo singers, the level of Maestro Runnicles' compensation is directly connected to the number of times he performs. The increase in question can be attributed to the fact that he conducted three more productions in the 2002-03 season than the 2001-02 season." The AGMA suit addresses the matter of compensation of union members in contrast with the salary increase for Runnicles, and specifically complains that the Opera "asked some of its solo artists to perform below union rates and without first signing a contract." As singers depend on Rosenberg for jobs and assignments, the "request" was more like forcing the singers to participate. The local soloists, Frederica von Stade and Carol Vaness, reported receiving a $1,000 fee, did not complain; in fact, Vaness disputed the complaint, saying that all participants in the concert were there willingly, no pressure involved. AGMA grievances included what the union claims was "forcing" chorus members to provide their own tuxedos and gowns at the opening-night gala, when their contract calls for costumes to be provided; failing to give regular chorus members first choice in casting nonspeaking parts; neglecting to pay living expenses to out-of-town production staff members; and underpaying several principals, understudies and directors.
Irvine Foundation Grant to Sacramento World Premiere The James Irvine Foundation has awarded $25,000 to Michael Morgan's Sacramento Philharmonic to support the orchestra's April, 2005, world premiere of a commissioned orchestral work by André Previn in honor of the painter Wayne Thiebaud, a local resident. The grant will assist in recording and publishing the new work on a CD. The concert including the premiere will take place on April 2, in Sacramento's Community Center Theater, and on April 3, at the Mondavi Center in Davis. The program, conducted by Morgan, also includes Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, and Ernest Bloch's Schelomo, with the orhestra's principal cellist, Robin Bonnell, as soloist. See www.sacphil.org.
Guitar Competition Winner A 20-year-old French guitarist, Thibault Cauvin, won first prize at last week's San Francisco International Classical Guitar Competition, at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. It is a unique event with invited participants, who have already won one or more major international contests during the past two years. Second place was a tie between Marcin Dylla of Poland and Flavio Sala of Italy; third place went to Anabel Montesinos of Spain. Cauvin will return to San Francisco during the 2005-2006 concert season as the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts Artist-In-Residence, performing in schools and businesses throughout the area. He was also awarded a recording contract with GSP Records. Winners shared a total of $16,500 in prizes.
Internet Broadcast Highlights The Houston world premiere production of Jake Heggie's opera, End of the Affair, will be broadcast by National Public Radio, available on the Internet, on Dec. 4. Patrick Summers conducts, the cast includes Cheryl Barker (Sarah), Teddy Tahu Rhodes (Maurice), Peter Coleman-Wright (Henry). Robert Orth (Parkis), Joseph Evans (Smythe), and Katherine Ciesinski (Sarah's Mother). To find broadcast sources, see www.npr.org. The next NPR World of Opera broadcast, on Dec. 12, will be Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, from the 2004 Bayreuth Festival, conducted by Marc Albrecht, and featuring John Tomlinson (Dutchman), Adrienne Dugger (Senta), and Jaakko Ryhanen (Daland).
Todd Instead of the Bat Performing Die Fledermaus on New Year's Eve is a century-old tradition in Europe, but Berlin's Komische Oper has another idea, presenting Steven Sondheim's Sweeney Todd instead this year.
The 'Naxos Quartets' In a unique partnership, Klaus Heymann's Naxos of America — already the leader among recording companies in championing contemporary music — and Peter Maxwell Davies, 70, are publishing a set of 10 new works, called the "Naxos Quartets." Last week, the first CD was published, with two of the new quartets; four more discs are expected. Britain's Maggini Quartet is performing all works. Comments the New York Times on the project: "What's really remarkable is the involvement of a record company in commissioning new music. The conventional wisdom at most major labels is that it's hard enough to sell new music. Going out and helping it come into being is virtually unprecedented."
Arts Generate Money The California Arts Council's 2004 Economic Impact Study (www.cac.ca.gov) shows that the arts generated $300 million in local and state taxes during the past year. A Council statement added: "The congregation of a critical mass of individual artists in a city or region adds to the positive impact on regional economies." The study looked at the impact of the spending by 10,000 arts nonprofit organizations and their 160,000 workers. The results showed the arts had an impact of $5.4 billion on the state's economy. In a related item, Backstage magazine reports New York's Lincoln Center has had a $1.5 billion impact on the city last year, the Center acting as "one of the city's prime fiscal and employment engines." Direct spending on operations by Lincoln Center and all of its resident organizations, the report says, totaled $530 million in 2003; $350 million of that figure represented spending on employee wages and benefits. This translated into 9,000 full-time, part-time, and contract positions, equal to approximately 5,500 full-time employees. Direct, indirect, and induced spending associated with operations spending at Lincoln Center generated $840 million in sales at New York City firms; this sustained some 5,800 jobs with $295 million in earnings. The report also indicates that in New York state as a whole, Lincoln Center generated $1.01 billion in sales, creating 8,300 jobs with $405 million in earnings. Yet another report comes from Seattle, where a study found that the region's arts and heritage organizations generated more than $1 billion for the state's economy, from ticket purchases to hotel stays to shopping and dining out. A Seattle Times editorial says: "We can be grateful for a thriving cultural scene for many other reasons, not the least of which is the vitality the arts bring to a community's lifeblood. Think of what this area would be like without an opera, symphony, ballet, art museums and galleries, or live theater . . . "For all the spiritual and financial benefits the arts world is providing, not all is clear sailing, according to the study funded by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation for ArtsFund. Many groups operate on the narrowest of margins and few have significant endowments . . . Given the more than 23,000 full- and part-time jobs cultural groups have helped create in King County alone, the 6.8 million total attendance that local organizations have drawn in a year, and many other measurable standards of service, the arts and heritage organizations in our midst are proving worthy investments, and valuable builders of community."
Angels in Paris The world premiere of Peter Eötvös' Angels in America last weekend in Théâtre du Châtelet received mixed, mostly favorable, reviews. Rupert Christiansen in The Telegraph reports from Paris that "Eötvös and his librettist wife Mari Mezei fell flat on their faces" in the effort to adapt Tony Kushner's play. "Their adaptation of Kushner's apocalyptic epic of AIDS and the spiritual turmoil of the Reagan era condenses rather than expands the theatrical original, squeezing a gallon of drama into a pint-pot of opera. It isn't just a matter of cutting too many of Kushner's words or scenes. The problem is that anyone with memories of the play on stage will find its operatic incarnation thinner in every respect: the characters diminished, the plot less rich, the language less resonant." The work, the review says, does include "sumptuously beautiful music for the scenes of angelic visitation . . . but otherwise relies on an uneasy mix of Broadway, jazz, serialism and electronics that never settles into a coherent idiom. A lot of the text is spoken or half-sung, and the voices are amplified, to little effect."
Uncle from Boston to Oregon Felix Mendelssohn composed an opera at 14, called Uncle from Boston. If you never heard of it, you're in good company. The work's US premiere, 180 years late, will take place next July, in Eugene, at the Oregon Bach Festival. Festival director Helmuth Rilling conducted the opera's first-ever public performance last month in Essen, Germany. Rilling found the score in the Berlin state library, and found it "stunning . . . a 250-page work that in its scope, structure, and technique belies the composer's age and rivals that of Mozart's early operas. On par with Midsummer Night's Dream, the opera elevates Mendelssohn's status as a key figure in the era of Romanticism." Mendelssohn drew on a libretto written 50 years earlier by Johann Ludwig Caspar. The title refers to the American Revolution, but the story takes place in Brandenburg, where two young lovers engage in deceits and entanglements to hide their romance from their visiting uncle. "The usual kind of silliness," Rilling said, "but with fantastic music." Uncle from Boston uses a full chorus, orchestra, and seven soloists, though it likely was scaled down for its only previous performance, at the Mendelssohn home in Berlin for the composer's 15th birthday.
(Janos Gereben, a regular contributor to www.sfcv.org, is arts editor of the
Post Newspaper Group. His e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com.)
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