San Francisco Classical Voice

Met Broadcast Problems in the Provinces

We made a big deal a while back of KUSF-FM coming to the rescue of opera fans by becoming the only FM station to carry Metropolitan Opera broadcasts in the Bay Area. All went well for the season-opening Fidelio, followed by the re-introduction on the USF station of Doug Pledger's Pledger Plays the Classics, the most delightfully mispronounced program about opera in the Western world. By the second Saturday, however, on Dec. 14, there was no Met broadcast on 90.3 FM.

Inaccessible on Saturday (as ever) by phone, the Web or e-mail, KUSF further complicated the picture by an announcement that the broadcast was cancelled "because of technical difficulties." While there was a storm during the period, the Met feed went out and KUSF kept broadcasting when Il Trovatore should have been heard, so "technical difficulties" might have been caused by somebody not punching the right button. Even more puzzling was that the station's program published on the Website does not mention the Met mid-day Saturday (or any other time), listing during the time slot other programs, including Havaye Tazeh (dedicated to Persian poetry) and the much-anticipated TBA ("to be announced").

Making one more attempt on Monday, just before deadline, SFCV managed to reach a live (and very helpful) person at the station. She said that neither the manager nor the program director were available, in fact, nobody else was in the office at all. Would she happen to know why the Met broadcast didn't go out? Sure. A gust in the storm changed the position of the satellite dish so the Met feed could not be picked up. No one was available over the weekend to fix the problem (could tapping the dish in place have done the trick?), but "it will be handled soon." What about the Website silence about the Met? That's an old page and the information has not been updated yet. Even though it's been two months since the announcement? Yep.

So, the good news is that this college station, operating on a shoestring and a prayer (appropriate for a Jesuit institution), may yet step up to the challenge to provide the only opera broadcast available to a million-listener market of our sophisticated metropolitan area.

It's Not 'Dame Nancy,' But Perhaps Something Even Bigger

Ever since her Merola year 20 years ago, Nancy Gustafson has been rising steadily, with major roles in the world's leading opera houses, starring in film versions of Kat'a Kabanova and Die Fledermaus, great reviews and various honors. She is about to reach another watershed event, SFCV has learned. Gustafson will be named Kammersängerin at the Vienna Staatsoper. This untranslatable, but very rare and important title is given after a quarter century or a whole lifetime of distinguished performances, but Gustafson has earned it in "record time."

SF Symphony Cuts Dashing Figure(s)

Everything is relative, even money figures. A surplus of $112,000 on a budget of $45,431,000 looks puny enough, but during these days of a growing red tide of symphonic deficits, the San Francisco Symphony is very happy to be in the black by any amount.

Ending yet another fiscal year (2002, the orchestra's 90th season) with a balanced budget, SFS is also showing strong sales: almost $20 million from subscriptions and single tickets. The balance of the $45.5 million revenue comes from investment, endowments, government grants ($1.2 million), contributions ($11.2 million), volunteer activities and benefit events. The major portion of expenses, ($35.8 million) went to concert production, meaning mostly musicians' salaries and benefits. SFS presented 237 concerts to nearly 600,000 people during the season.

Chanticleer Bewitches Critics

San Francisco's Chanticleer is on a national tour and Joseph McLellan, writing in the Monday Washington Post, admitted that he is overwhelmed by the excellence of the a cappella group. At the group's concert in George Mason University, McLellan wrote, they exhibited "a level of polish, precision and erudition that defies criticism."

"The freshness of the material, the technical quality and depth of feeling in the singing explained why that audience was near-capacity." the review went on. "Most Christmas concerts are a return to old, beloved things. This one included some of that, but it was also a voyage of discovery."

Christmas with Chanticleer returns home, with performances on Dec. 17 in Petaluma, Dec. 20 in Santa Clara, Dec. 21-22 in San Francisco, and Dec. 23 in Carmel. For details, see www.chanticleer.org. Also, a filmed version of the concert is being shown nationally on PBS stations; KQED screenings are due at 8 p.m. on Dec. 19 and 22, at 5 p.m. on Christmas Day. For information: www.kqed.org.

Bjaland Career Gathers No Moss

Leif Bjaland's contract as music director of the Florida West Coast Symphony has just been extended through the end of the 2006. Bjaland was assistant conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and music director of the SFS Youth Orchestra in the 1980s. He is now also conductor of the Waterbury Symphony in Connecticut and a "cover conductor" for the New York Philharmonic.

Opera Obituaries

There were two significant deaths over the weekend: John Crosby, 76, founder-director of the Santa Fe Opera and designer Maria Bjørnson, 53. Crosby, founder of the company, in 1957, and its general director until two years ago, created a world-famous organization on a spectacular but empty field in the high desert. Under his guidance, Santa Fe Opera produced scores of new works while reviving some obscure classics, besides providing the usual fare of popular opera, always with attractive casts and spending much more preparation time on each work than just about any other US opera company. His advocacy of American works and the operas of Richard Strauss was legendary.

Bjørnson was the artist responsible for creating the entire The Phantom of the Opera "concept," and she had also designed sets and costumes for numerous major opera and theater productions in England and elsewhere. She became embroiled in the controversy in the wake of the BBC documentary, The House, and the subsequent national debate about Covent Garden's supposed inefficiency and extravagance. She was acclaimed for her Janacek cycle productions, especially The Cunning Little Vixen, and for her participation in William Dudley's lavish Rosenkavalier and the Tales of Hoffman at the Royal Opera. At the time of her death, Ms. Bjørnson already completed designs for the Houston Grand Opera's world premiere of The Little Prince, scheduled in June.

New Runnicles Rumor

For a couple of years now, there have been reports about SF Opera music director Donald Runnicles getting a job with an organization in Britain, especially the BBC Symphony. Now that Runnicles is presenting an unusual concert performance of Tristan und Isolde, spread over three evenings, with that orchestra, The Guardian headlined that he is "hotly tipped" to take over the podium permanently. Further down in the story, the heat is somewhat reduced by a moderate statement that the current concerts "may mark a step towards a more formal association: BBCSO chief conductor Leonard Slatkin is stepping down in 2004 after a brief and unhappy stint, and Runnicles has been mentioned as a possible successor."

Considering Runnicles' time- and attention-consuming position in San Francisco, being principal conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke's), principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony, and numerous guest-conducting engagements, something will have to give if he is offered and if he is willing to take on the BBC Symphony.

Even in Vienna . . .

Vienna, one of the world's capitals of music, may lose one of its major orchestras. ORF, Austria's state-owned public radio and television organization, is considering disbanding its Vienna-based Radio Symphony Orchestra, the RSO Wien. Facing a debt of $60 million, ORF has already slashed the orchestra's $9 million budget by $400,000, implementing a new policy of not replacing retiring musicians. The new chief conductor, Bertrand de Billy, says that going below the current strength of 87 would violate his contract and may be an attempt to "dry up the orchestra gradually so that they have a reason to get rid of it."