San Francisco Classical Voice

Reducing the SF Opera Deficit?

A published interview with general director Pamela Rosenberg on Monday, released in advance of completing the audit for the San Francisco Opera's Fiscal Year 2003 (ending on July 31), indicates a deficit of $3.8 million on an operating budget of $59 million. After the previous year's loss of $7.6 million, company officials predicted an FY '03 deficit in excess of $9 million, but the administration trimmed the budget by more than $5 million through production cancellations and staff reduction. Classical Voice will have a complete report when the financial report itself becomes available.

Mother of All Production Disputes

The New York City Opera — normally a mild-mannered institution — is charging that the San Francisco Opera "stole set and costume designs for its production earlier this year of The Mother of Us All," according to a report by Josh Gerstein in the New York Sun. For many years now, opera companies around the US — and the world — have been collaborating, swapping productions, co-producing; this kind of dispute, especially if taken to court, is highly unusual.

San Francisco Opera attorneys have filed a pre-emptive suit in federal court, and the case was assigned to Judge Claudia Wilken. The first hearing is expected in March. There is no dispute about the facts of the case: set designer Allen Moyer and costume designer Gabriel Berry worked on the 2003 San Francisco production, the 2000 presentation at NYCO, and at Glimmerglass Opera in 1998. The issue is ownership. The Sun report says the New York company claims the rights to the designs while San Francisco contends that the designers own those rights and are free to sell them as they see fit.

After a warning letter from NYCO attorneys after Mother's opening in the War Memorial in September didn't result in a meaningful response, a follow-up communication from New York "accused the San Francisco Opera of violating copyright law, theft of intellectual property, and unjust enrichment." A response quoted in the Sun, from SFO attorney Katharine Livingston, disagreed: "The costumes in the San Francisco production were based on historical research and new designs."

While NYCO is not commenting on where legal matters stand, SFO's Vanessa Bartsch responded to the Sun's question by acknowledging that the company has filed for declaratory relief, asking the court to declare that SFO "did not violate any copyrights or interfere with any other rights of the New York City opera."

Met Broadcasts for the 'Greater Bay Area'

While bemoaning first the complete lack of FM broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera in and around San Francisco, then the very limited service offered by the tiny university station KUSF-FM (90.3), Classical Voice neglected to mention that there are luckier communities in the neighborhood: K259AP (91.7) in Davis, KBIF-AM (900) in Fresno, KXPP-FM (90.9) in Sacramento, and KOMY-AM (1340) in Santa Cruz.

More Local Grammy News

In addition to the Classical Grammy Nominations item further below in this column, San Francisco's Corbett Arts Management is calling attention to a nominated recording with an all-local crew. Pianist Petronel Malan's Transfigured Bach was produced by Victor and Marina Ledin, and engineered by Leslie Ann Jones, of Skywalker Studios, who is also a first-time nominee for Engineer of the Year.

Malan (not related to the San Francisco Ballet's Roy Malan or the SF Girls Chorus' Rachel Malan) is originally from South Africa; she is a member of the San Francisco chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, currently residing in Texas, where she just completed her doctorate. Transfigured Bach is her first recording.

Oakland Ballet Sugar Plums Dancing to Tape

"In a further nod to ever increasing budget constraints," says an Oakland Ballet spokesman, the company will present this year¹s Nutcracker to taped music and "will forego the use of live musical accompaniment by the Oakland East Bay Symphony. The Ballet's chief operating and fiscal officer, Tony Caparelli, said "This difficult decision was reached in response to a decrease in overall funding and our inability to pay for these orchestral services. We hope to restore the relationship with the Symphony next season."

Dear Old CD, We Hardly Knew You

It may just be that audio CDs (if not CD-ROMs) will soon join piles of LPs, cartridges, open-reel tapes and cassettes in the attic. Yes, it seems unbelievable that the sturdy, handy, oh-so-contemporary little discs may be heading to the ash heap of history, but that's what EMI is thinking . . . and helping to make happen.

The year fast approaching, 2004, will mark the end of EMI producing CD albums. Tristan und Isolde, with Placido Domingo and Christine Brewer, Antonio Pappano conducting, will be the company's CD swan song. After that: DVDs only. Other major companies are sure to follow EMI, and not too far behind either, but NAXOS and other lower-cost distributors may keep the CD format for a while.

All I Want for Christmas, Gadgetwise

CDs and DVDs (see above) are all very well, but the smallest, latest, best music device is the tiny MP3 player, some as small as (and shaped like) a finger, running in price from $99 to $700, and containing as much music as 40 gigabites, which should keep you listening nonstop for a good many days.

"They may be the closest you'll ever get to God singing in your ear," gushes Robert Everett-Green in the Globe & Mail, the music writer (NOT a Target marketing executive) rhapsodizing on: "Some of them look like disposable lighters, except that they have tiny earphones attached. Others emerge from a pocket like a slim cigarette case, except that they're stuffed with more songs than a Gitane has shreds of tobacco. They're MP3 players . . . memory modules disguised as music boxes."

Further Setback for Classical FM

In several large areas, including upstate New York, Time Warner Cable is pulling the plug on independent and NPR FM stations, meaning that in Hudson Valley, for example, WQXR (and with it, Metropolitan Opera broadcasts) will be gone from cable, along with NPR stations. The reason: Time Warner is pushing its own digital radio service, which follows the kind of format Bay Area listeners are familiar with per the safe-and-bland KDFC-FM programming. Have something to say about it? Try Glen Bisogno, Marketing Director, Time Warner Cable, PO Box 10775, Newburgh NY 12552. A civil approach to such uncivil deed is advisable.

New Head Ragazzo Is No Boy at All

Founded and directed by Joyce Keil, Peninsula-based Ragazzi Boys Chorus has a new executive director. Susan Poor is also president of the San Francisco City Chorus and she has sung with many other choruses, including the San Francisco Concert Chorale, the San Francisco Bach Choir, and the San Francisco Concert Chorale. She is owner of Susan Poor Consulting, a company dealing with health care policy, planning and organizational development.

THE FOLLOWING ITEMS ARE REPEATED FROM THE LATE EDITION OF LAST WEEK'S MUSIC NEWS:

Classical Grammy Nominations

Recording Academy nominations in classical categories for 2003 include several Bay Area artists and organizations. Results are to be announced on February 8, 2004, at the 46th Grammy Awards ceremony, to be telecast on CBS.

In the Best Classical Album category, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony are nominated for their recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 and Kindertotenlieder, along with mezzo Michelle DeYoung, Vance George and the SFS Chorus, the Pacific Boychoir, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus. The competition: another Mahler No. 3 recording, by Pierre Boulez and the Vienna Philharmonic; Rorem's three symphonies, by José Serebrier and the Bournemouth Symphony; the four Schumann symphonies, by Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra; Britten's Violin Concerto and Walton's Viola Concerto, with Mstislav Rostropovich and the London Symphony Orchestra, Maxim Vengerov soloist on violin and viola.

In Best Chamber Music Performance, the Kronos Quartet is nominated twice, for its recording of Berg's Lyric Suite with soprano Dawn Upshaw, and of Vasks' String Quartet No. 4, both for Nonesuch. These go up against recordings of Bliss works by the Maggini Quartet; Carter's Oboe Quartet by the Speculum Musicae; and piano quintets of Shostakovich and Schnittke by pianist Boris Berman and the Vermeer Quartet. (The Kronos has yet another nomination, for the Best Classical Crossover Album award for The Gorey End, with the Tiger Lillies.)

Alameda's Frederica von Stade is a double nominee in the Best Classical Vocal Performance and Best Classical Contemporary Composition categories, for her recording of Argento's Casa Guidi, with Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra. Others in the vocal contest: Ian Bostridge, David Daniels and Chrisopher Maltman in the Britten Canticles; Barbara Bonney's operetta album, Im Chambre Séparée; Thomas Quasthoff and Anne Sofie von Otter for Schubert Lieder with Claudio Abbado and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Montserrat Caballé for Songs Of The Spanish Renaissance, Vol. 1.

Pianists have a clean sweep of the Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra) category, with the nomination of András Schiff, Piotr Anderszewski, Petronel Malan, Evgeny Kissin, and Emanuel Ax.

Seattle's 'Great New Ring' for 2005

Releasing information on Thursday about the company's 2005 Ring cycle, Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins recalled his promise made a couple of years ago that "Stephen Wadsworth would direct a great new Ring and that he and the designers would return in 2005 not to revive the Ring but to recreate it. The same sets, costumes, and lights will not have changed drastically," Jenkins said, "but the direction of each singer will again be attuned to the artist performing the part. Though this seems obvious, it's not always done. Each time this Ring is performed, it will be newly minted."

A headline of the announcement is the casting of Ewa Podles as Erda. The Polish contralto has had a cult following in the US for decades, but few appearances with prominent opera companies. The conductor will be Atlanta Symphony music director Robert Spano, in his first Ring. Soprano Jane Eaglen and Canadian tenor Alan Woodrow return as Brünnhilde and Siegfried. (Woodrow was injured in a gym accident before the 2001 opening, sang the first cycle from the side of the stage, and withdrew from the remaining two cycles.) English tenor Richard Berkeley-Steele, who took over for Woodrow in 2001, will now take on the role of Siegmund.

Also returning are baritone Richard Paul Fink as Alberich, soprano Margaret Jane Wray as Sieglinde, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Fricka, and bass Stephen Milling as Fasolt and Hunding. Although the Wagner cycle has been a feature of the Seattle season for more than three decades, this will be the first time this most demanding of opera spectacles is to be presented in an appropriate setting. The opening of Seattle's Marion Oliver McCaw Hall last June assures the company of the right venue for the Ring.

The dates of the performances are:
Cycle I: August 7, 8, 10, and 12, 2005
Cycle II: August 15, 16, 18, and 20, 2005
Cycle IIII: August 23, 24, 26, and 28, 2005
For full information, see www.seattleopera.org/news/