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IN Music News THIS WEEK:
Big Festival for Little Napa
New Honor for Chanticleer
RIchard Pearlman
A New Dracula for San Francisco?
The Secret of Menlo Is Out
Closer to Home, a New Song of the Earth
New Adlers, Upcoming Programs
Conservatory Move on Schedule, Mostly
Elza with a Z
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Big Festival for Little Napa
By Janos Gereben
A music festival of big names, an event worthy of a major metropolis, is heading to Napa County (population 75,000). IMG Artists owner Barrett Wissman is extending the Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona, Italy, to another famed wine-making region, namely Napa Valley, under the name Festival del Sole, beginning this summer.
The inaugural festival will open July 16, with a roster including singers Renée Fleming, Frederica von Stade, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Samuel Ramey; instrumentalists Nikolaj Znaider, Sarah Chang, Joshua Bell, Nina Kotova, Piotr Anderszewski, and the Emerson String Quartet; and conductors Alan Gilbert, Stéphane Denève, and Carlo Ponti Jr. with the Russian National Orchestra.
The weeklong event will also feature meals and classes by some of the region's top chefs and, of course, local wines. The festival in Italy, which runs August 5-20, was founded four years ago by Wissman and author Frances Mayes. In addition to some of the Napa participants, the Cortona festival also presents Anna Netrebko, Susan Graham, Marcelo Alvarez, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and the Royal Opera House Orchestra of Covent Garden.
In Napa, the Festival del Sole cofounder and codirector is Richard Walker, a Walnut Creek attorney who has been instrumental in the development of the 15-year-old Russian National Orchestra, which is financed mostly from outside Russia by such donors as San Francisco's Gordon Getty and Seattle's Charles Simonyi. Walker said of the launching of the festival that "Napa Valley, already renowned for its fabled wine and cuisine, joins the ranks of the world's leading cultural destinations as well." Participating organizations are Festival del Sole, Tuscan Sun Festival, Napa Valley Museum, Lincoln Theater, and COPIA, the American Center for Wine, Food, and the Arts.
 codirector of the Napa festival
 accompanying Maxim Vengerov
New Honor for Chanticleer San Francisco's Chanticleer vocal ensemble received word on Monday that it will be honored by one of the year's four American Music Center Letter of Distinction awards for leadership in contemporary music. Other recipients are guitarist Bill Frisell, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, and jazz musician and educator Billy Taylor. An AMC Founders Award award is going to composer Milton Babbitt. In speaking of being "thrilled to honor such a wonderfully diverse and talented group of musical heroes this year," AMC Executive Director Joanne Hubbard Cossa said, "Running the gamut from mastering dodecaphonic technique to creating beautiful choral music to exploring new frontiers in jazz to in-depth, provocative journalism, our awardees' achievements have left an indelible mark on the American cultural landscape." The awards will be presented in New York on May 1, during the American Music Center's annual meeting.
Richard Pearlman Known as a "champion of American opera," Richard Pearlman, director of the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists and a frequent visitor to San Francisco, died on Saturday of lung cancer. He was 68. Pearlman directed numerous San Francisco Spring Opera productions, including the 1971 and 1974 Don Pasquale, the 1972 Il Barbiere di Siviglia, the 1973 Carmen, the 1976 La Périchole, and the 1981 Roméo et Juliette. Writing in the Monday Chicago Tribune, music critic John von Rhein eulogized Pearlman as "a walking encyclopedia on every aspect of opera from stage direction to makeup. ... Beyond his love of opera and the singing voice, however, was his dedication to the training of young American singers. ... His appointment in 1995 as director of the Lyric's apprentice wing gave him the ideal base from which to prepare the next generation of vocal talent for the professional challenges awaiting them. 'My No. 1 job,' Pearlman once said, 'is making sure the training aspect of the program adheres to the highest possible standards. It's one thing to have good people in the program. It's quite another to do everything in your power to make them better by the time they leave.'" A nationally known educator, opera coach, writer, and translator, Pearlman served from 1976 to 1995 as director of the Eastman Opera Theatre at Rochester University's Eastman School of Music. He was important in the career development of many young singers enrolled in the program, including soprano Renée Fleming.
A New Dracula for San Francisco? Classical Voice's Lisa Hirsch has followed up "whispers and rumors" by going directly to the source: She asked Little Women and Lysistrata composer Mark Adamo if he happens to be working on something for San Francisco Opera and general manager David Gockley, with whom he has long collaborated. Adamo's reply: "Fingers crossed, yes. We are having serious talks about my third opera, but the first for San Francisco — a grand-opera scaled variation on Bram Stoker's Dracula. We'd actually been talking about this since 1999, as what would have been the third commission for Houston Grand Opera [Gockley's former company], but the first for [Houston's] 2,700-seat Brown Auditorium, rather than the 1,200-seat Cullen Theater." (Following the Enron collapse and 9/11, and Houston Opera's subsequent financial crisis, Gockley substituted Mozart and Lehár for the world premiere of Adamo's Lysistrata and the local premiere of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, making good later on both expensive and box-office risky novelty plans.) As for timing, Adamo says Gockley has indicated that the new opera could be scheduled as early as the 2009-2010 season, "but I am very grateful that he is being patient with me as I figure out what the piece is about. This is always the most time-consuming — because the most important — part of the process: What does Dracula have to say to us now that hasn't already been said a thousand times? "There's no point in making just an opulent thriller, or some sarcastic, 'ecole de Buffy' version in a 3,200-seat house with full chorus and winds in threes. I truly don't want to commit to a date, having been late with both previous operas and a concerto, until I know that I've found — forgive the pun — the lifeblood of this material and that I really will finish the opera when I say I will." Adamo who has been composer in residence at New York City Opera since 2001, was last heard in these parts when Marin Alsop conducted Little Women at the Cabrillo Festival. Incidentally, when it comes to a "local Dracula opera," Alva Henderson (of San Francisco State and S.F. Conservatory of Music) premiered his Nosferatu just a little over a year ago. Karen Ames, the Opera's director of communications, responded to our request for comment by saying on Monday that "Mark Adamo is one of many composers that David mentions frequently when asked about future planning. The discussions are ongoing and no formal plans or timeframes have been settled."
 composing Dracula?
The Secret of Menlo Is Out Music@Menlo, an outstanding — if apparently secretive — festival, has not yet announced its 2006 season, but diligent perusal of the Internet did yield some information. "Returning to Mozart" is the theme, understandably enough in this 250th anniversary year, with a nod to Shostakovich, who was clever enough to be born 100 years ago, thereby staking out a corner of musical real estate this season. The main concert series will take place in Palo Alto and Atherton (also known as "greater Menlo") from July 24 through August 11. It will consist of six programs and five "encounters," the latter with such provocative titles for discussion and performance as:
Tickets will go on sale May 10; check the festival Web site. Music@Menlo's important educational arm, the Institute, will be held again — and once again, admissions are closed already, even before the public announcement, so applications are not accepted. If you cannot participate in the educational sessions, at least you're able to attend the free Prelude Concerts and the Young Performers Concerts, for which admission is $10.
 Music@Menlo Festival Directors
Closer to Home, a New Song of the Earth Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde is a great work, but its connection with the Earth is tenuous at best. Not so in the case of the San Francisco Ballet's one-time performance last week of Ballet Mori, danced to live sound compiled from a UC Berkeley Streckeisen STS-1 seismometer located in the Hayward Fault. Even this, however, was not the actual sound of the earth, but rather composer Randall Packer's "soundscape" built on live seismic data, with the collaboration of Ken Goldberg, a UC Berkeley professor of engineering. Still, it was eerie — or downright scary — to listen to the deep rumble in the War Memorial Opera House, which was shaken up so badly during the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, as Ballet Mori commemorated the 1906 quake two weeks ahead of its anniversary. (Those two big quakes came from the more famous San Andreas Fault, but scientists insist that Hayward may be even worse news.) Here it was, however, music from Mother Earth, following Mozart's music for Stanton Welch's gloriously free-flowing Falling, Stravinsky's for George Balanchine's Rubies, and before an amplified cello recording of Bach's Chaconne from Partita No. 2 and Michael McGraw's heroic pianism in a stunning new suite from Eva Crossman-Hecht for the U.S. premiere of William Forsythe's mighty Artifact Suite. Ballet Mori ("Ballet of Death" being a needlessly unpleasant title, especially in a city which is actually celebrating the approaching centennial) could easily have turned into a gimmick, were it not for the choreography of Yuri Possokhov, the young artist (of Magrittomania fame) creating an eight-minute work with powerful visceral impact. There is no dancer with longer legs than Muriel Maffre, and as she moved around bent over, the startling image was that of a prehistoric creature, a cross between Wagner's Erda on a bad-hair day and the insectoid Amazons of Jerome Robbins' The Cage. In Benjamin Pierce's floor-length diaphanous costume, Maffre danced a sequence of movements in which she represented both the force inside the deep and those impacted by that staggering force — it's difficult to say how the duality could be represented, but it was, memorably. The seismometer used in the ballet is said to be responsive to nanoradian tilts, which may be caused by something as infinitesimal as a human hair placed under the corner of a level football field. You can read more on the subject — and to learn how to install a Streckeisen STS-1 of your own — at http://tinyurl.com/f8ckl.
New Adlers, Upcoming Programs San Francisco Opera has announced the 2006 Adler Fellowship awards to sopranos Kimwana Doner (Detroit, Michigan), Rhoslyn Jones (Alder Grove, British Columbia, Canada), Melody Moore (Dyersburg, Tennessee), and Elza van den Heever (Johannesburg, South Africa); mezzo-soprano Kendall Gladen (St. Louis, Missouri); counter-tenor Gerald Thompson (Pocahontas, Arkansas); tenors Matthew O'Neill (Evansville, Indiana) and Sean Panikkar (Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania); baritone Eugene Brancoveanu (Arad, Romania); and bass-baritone Jeremy Galyon (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania). Doner, van den Heever, Thompson, Panikkar, and Brancoveanu are returning Adler Fellows from the 2005 season. Outgoing 2005 Fellows include sopranos Jane Archibald and Nikki Einfeld, tenor Thomas Glenn, baritone Lucas Meachem, and bass Joshua Bloom. Beginning this season, the Adler program will include professional training and development of an Apprentice Coach Fellow. Matthew Piatt (Victoria, Kansas) has been selected for the program's first fellowship. As with Adler singers, the Apprentice Coach Fellow will be chosen from apprentice coaches who have participated in the Merola Opera Program. Adler Fellows are also featured in the 24th annual Schwabacher Debut Recital Series: Elza van den Heever (April 9) and Melody Moore and Matthew O'Neill (April 23). Other public engagements include Adler Fellows in Concert (April 30, Mondavi Center, Davis; May 1, Music at Meyer, Temple Emanu-El, San Francisco; May 5, Eureka Chamber Music Series), in concert with Modesto Symphony (May 5 and 6, Modesto High School Auditorium), and Opera in the Gardens (May 28, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, San Francisco).
 
Conservatory Move on Schedule, Mostly Proud and happy as San Francisco Conservatory of Music President Colin Murdoch is with the school's upcoming big move to the Civic Center, he appeared somewhat pensive in the lobby of Cowell Theater, during the intermission of the school's production of The Marriage of Figaro. Months of rain and other factors have added up to an approximately two-month delay in construction, he said, and although the new building will open on schedule in the fall for the school year, including the September 18 dedication, the planned time cushion for the transfer may get squeezed, resulting in final touches still being made even as the sound of music wells up from 50-70 Oak Street.
Elza with a Z In 1998, James Schwabacher's Debut Recital Series offered introductions to the considerable talents of Anna Netrebko and Joyce di Donato, both of whom have gone on to fame and fortune. This Sunday, Elza van den Heever's Schwabacher recital turned into a debut every bit as promising as those two, eight years ago. Van den Heever is an Adler Fellow, much talked about around here ever since her arrival from South Africa eight years ago to study at the San Francisco Conservatory. She made a successful switch from mezzo to soprano and participated in the Merola Program. Supported by an admirable accompanist, the Opera Center's John Parr, van den Heever presented an ambitious, varied, demanding, and rewarding recital on Sunday at Temple Emanu-el. The well-packed auditorium gave her several ovations — including one in which San Francisco Opera general director David Gockley was among those on their feet.
(Janos Gereben is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice. His e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com.)
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