Todd to Open ACT Season

Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd — with a performance history both as a musical and opera — will open the American Conservatory Theater's 2007 season (Aug. 30 through Sept. 30) at the Geary Theater. Coming to San Francisco: John Doyle's Tony Award-winning Broadway production, which is also the basis of the Dreamworks Pictures version of Todd. The film is directed by Tim Burton, with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in the leading roles (filming begins in February).

Unlike the original version, with a large cast on a big stage, Doyle's production uses a cast of 10 actors, who also serve as the show's orchestra and play their instruments onstage. The ACT presentation and the production's national tour reunite the Broadway design team: director Doyle (who also serves as scenic designer and costume designer), lighting designer Richard Jones, sound designer Dan Moses Schreier, and orchestrator and music supervisor Sarah Travis.

S.F. Opera's Magic Deal With Houston

As David Gockley explained last week, at the San Francisco Opera's season announcement, the Opera and his former company (the Houston Grand Opera) are trading productions of Mozart's The Magic Flute.

From Texas, veteran HGO fan Val Suan has this perspective: "We get the David Hockney production (which I love), and the Bay Area folks get the refurbished 1980 Maurice Sendak production — the one with flat drawings of palm trees, pyramids, monkeys, and creatures with big eyes, including a serpent that looks like Barney. San Francisco is luckier; they get Erika Miklósa as Queen of the Night!"

Berkeley Symphony's L'Affaire Thomson

As their title indicates, assistant or associate conductors assist the music director of an orchestra (with rehearsals, auditions, educational programs, pop concerts, and so on). They step up to the podium when Maestro is unwilling, unable, or AWOL, in a musical version of A Star Is Born.

Famously, Leonard Bernstein's career took off in 1943 when the 25-year-old assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic took over from the ailing Bruno Walter. Similarily, before he became music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen garnered headlines in 1983 when he substituted for MTT and conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 3. More pertinent to the subject at hand, Kent Nagano got a big break in Boston two decades ago, when Seiji Ozawa yielded the baton to him for performances of Mahler's Symphony No. 9.

As music director of the Berkeley Symphony, Nagano had George Thomson standing by for such events. But the man who overcame appendicitis to avoid substitution (see next story) never needed to step aside during Thomson's 12 years with the orchestra. (Another close call: Nagano was in an airplane and then grounded along with everyone else on Sept. 11, 2001. He was on his way from Berlin to Los Angeles to conduct Lohengrin, and then to Berkeley for a concert here. After a three-day journey that took him to Tijuana, he made it to a postponed Los Angeles premiere. And, he was right on time to Berkeley, where Thomson had led the rehearsals.)

This nostalgic trip down memory lane came into focus on Jan. 19, 2007, the day of Nagano's announcement that he will step down as music director here in two years. Will Thomson have a role in the interim? Is he among possible successors? There was no mention of him in the announcement or during subsequent interviews with Nagano. There was only reference to an "international search" for the next music director. So, later that day, seeing the none-too-subtle handwriting on the wall, Thomson quit as the Symphony's associate conductor, director of the orchestra's award-winning Music Education Program, and program director of the "Under Construction" series.

Thomson's resignation was accepted immediately, but it took the Berkeley Symphony administration 10 days to acknowledge what was reported right after the event in this column under the headline of "Berkeley Symphony: Home Alone?," detailing Nagano's "transitioning" and Thomson's departure. (Gone, but not forgotten: see item farther below, about the Berkeley Opera season.)

This is what the Symphony's Jan. 29 announcement said: "George has made tremendous contributions here in Berkeley, shaping and sustaining key elements of our programs over the years. We deeply appreciate everything he has done, and will miss him greatly."

Nagano: Accept No Substitute

Apropos to the item above, here's a famous Nagano story that demonstrates that hell might well freeze over before an assistant-in-waiting gets a turn on the podium.

In 1995, Nagano, then the music director of the Lyons Opera, was getting ready for the world premiere of Schliemann by Betsy Jolas. During the final rehearsals, Nagano experienced severe abdominal pain and was diagnosed with acute appendicitis. The examining surgeon told him that he must operate immediately. Nagano's reply? "The opera is so complicated and difficult that no one else could just jump in and conduct it, so I explained that it was imperative I be there."

"The doctor was not very pleased, but he agreed to let me continue rehearsals on the condition that if things got much worse I would go into the operation without argument." The pain disappeared, and instead of a visit to the operating room Nagano invited the surgeon to the opera. Nothing is known about the doctor's diagnosis of Schliemann, but the opera — as do so many new works — pretty much disappeared.

The Seraglio, née Abduction, at Berkeley Opera

The Seraglio, a new English-language adaptation of Mozart's The Abduction From the Seraglio, opens the Berkeley Opera season, March 10-18 at the Julia Morgan Theatre. George Thomson conducts the work with its new "reimagined" libretto by Amanda Moody and new lyrics by Ross Halper. Principal singers include sopranos Sheila Willey and Ann Moss, tenors Andrew Truett and Brian Thorsett, and bass Roger McCracken. Set design is by Torben Torp-Smith and costumes are by Vincent.

Before the season-opener, Berkeley Opera will hold its third annual "Bidding by the Bay" fund-raiser, 4-7 p.m. on Feb. 11 at Berkeley's DoubleTree Hotel. The guest of honor is Classical Voice founder Robert Commanday. The rest of the season will bring Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, in English with spoken Shakespearean dialogue (May 5-13), and a new adaptation of Verdi’s Aïda (July 21-29).

Angel Addendum

James Keolker writes about a past column item, regarding Tom Busse directing a St. Louis production of David Carlson's opera, The Midnight Angel: "In 1993, it was a joint production of Opera Theater St. Louis and Marianne Oak's Sacramento Opera. The West Coast premiere was in Sacramento, and many of your readers may well remember that event."

Pikovaya Dama in Palo Alto

West Bay Opera's season opens Feb. 16 at the Lucie Stern Theater with Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, conducted by Ernest Fredric Knell and directed by David Ostwald. The cast includes: Adam Flowers, Jason Detwiler, Torlef Borsting, John Minágro, Igor Vieira, Alaine Rodin, Elena Yakoubovsky, Barbara Staffen, Kathleen Moss, Julie Booth, and the children of Cantabile Youth Singers.