San Francisco Classical Voice

The Russian dancer/choreographer wowed the devoted audience — responding with standing ovations, flower-throwing, and general pandemonium — with performance after performance, whose climax was a stunning realization of Motoko Hirayama's Revelation, choreographed to John Williams' music for Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. The musical highlight of the evening was Michael McGraw's steel-fingered, overwhelming performance of the Arvo Pärt piano score to Christopher Wheeldon's Quaternary excerpt, danced by the indefatigable Possokhov and Muriel Maffre (who was expected to retire also, but changed her mind to stay with the company for one more year).

Green Again

At the conclusion of last year's Green Music Festival, its founder and director, Jeffrey Kahane, promised that he would be back in 2006, even if he moves house in the switch from Santa Rosa to head the Colorado Symphony. True to his word, Kahane is returning to the small but outstanding chamber-music series on the Sonoma State campus, with a celebration of the Mozart year, along with works by Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Dohnányi, Debussy, and concluding with an all-Schumann solo program by Kahane. For details, see the Summer Ahead feature in this week's Classical Voice.

Somewhat confusingly, the summer Green Festival this year will have a "winter component," the world premiere of the opera Every Man Jack, about Jack London, by Libby Larsen to text by librettist Philip Littell. To be produced in the same Person Theater where the Green chamber-music series takes place, the opera is due November 11-19. Perfect for chamber music, the theater is less suitable for a fully-staged opera, even a small one.

Symphony Under the Stars

The San Francisco Symphony's summer concerts will include several outdoor events: in Portsmouth Square on June 17, Dolores Park on July 23 (both conducted by Alastair Willis), the traditional Shoreline Amphitheater Fourth of July festivities (Randall Craig Fleischer), and in Stern Grove on July 9 (Edwin Outwater). The concerts are sponsored by Target Stores and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Except for the Fourth of July concert, these events are free to the public.

Funding Crises to Worsen

With the sale of the Mercury News and the departure of Knight Ridder headquarters from downtown, San Jose's arts organizations are facing a significant reduction in corporate donations. The Merc had been especially generous to the (late) San Jose Symphony, the city's (late) ballet company, and the surviving/thriving Opera San José, donating to them and other organizations about $2 million a year. Says the Opera's Irene Dalis: "It's a bad, bad blow for arts development. We're all struggling."

King Arthur Around the World

Philharmonia Baroque, having collaborated with Mark Morris in Handel's L'Allegro and Rameau's Platée here and abroad, will now join the choreographer in a new production of Purcell's King Arthur in its only U.S. performances, in Berkeley September 30 through October 7. The world premiere will be at the English National Opera next month, and both the ENO and Cal performances feature the same English cast principals: sopranos Mhairi Lawson, Gillian Keith, and Elizabeth Watts; countertenor Iestyn Davies; tenor James Gilchrist; and baritones Andrew Foster-Williams and William Berger. The conductor of the London production, Jane Glover, will lead the Philharmonia Baroque in Berkeley.

Contemporary Opera in Extremis: Harding and Springer

Tonya and Nancy: The Opera, about the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan ice-skating scandal before the 1994 Olympics, premiered in Cambridge, Mass., last week. Harding and Kerrigan were top contenders at the U.S. figure skating championships when an assailant, eventually found to have been hired by Harding's ex-husband, struck Kerrigan on the knee. Harding won the U.S. championship, but was later banned from the skating world and became a professional boxer.

Composed by Tufts University graduate student Abigail Al-Doory, the opera's libretto, by Elizabeth Searle, is drawn from interviews and contemporary news accounts of the scandal. "The intense competition, overwhelming suspicion, and fierce jealousy between the two rivals" at the heart of the work certainly sounds like the stuff operas are made of.

Among the lines sung by the Harding character: "The difference is that you have to have the balls to punch the other girl in the face. The difference is you don't get in trouble for hitting her."

Meanwhile, the Jerry Springer Opera (which I heard in Edinburgh and London, finding it hilarious and musically interesting) ran into a protest rally at its premiere in Newcastle's Theatre Royal. Christian clergy and activists peacefully (but heatedly) argued against its language and subject matter. Its San Francisco production still up in the air — first announced, then postponed, eventually left up in the air — the Jerry Springer Opera may or may not arrive here, but certainly not in the near future.

Music Merger Mania

You might have seen individual news items recently about consolidation of arts organizations, but it took a Wall Street Journal survey to establish the fact that there is a trend at work here. According to Jacob Hale Russell's WSJ article on Saturday, "taking a page from the corporate world, many arts groups are tying the knot to shore up their finances." In recent months, at least a dozen groups around the country have teamed up, consolidating San Diego's nine ballet companies, Chicago's four opera companies, and the like.

And so, Cleveland's two opera houses have combined into one; Philadelphia's Symphony and the Pops now operate in tandem; Santa Fe, N.M., and Aspen, Colo., share a joint dance company, notwithstanding a distance of 300 miles. Unlike corporate mergers, however, in the arts world, "it's about things people care about emotionally," says Keith Lockhart, music director of the Utah Symphony, which has merged with Utah Opera. Financially, the deal made sense over a few years, two separate deficits turning into a more tenable situation.

And then there is the view from philanthropic foundations. A recent study shows 69 percent of foundations encourage grantees to collaborate, and of those, 42 percent sometimes won't give money at all unless a partnership is involved. In Pittsburgh, organizational response to this was wholesale, with the creation of "Shared Services," a group that unites a half-dozen cultural groups in the joint purchase of everything from office supplies to health care.

News from Japan on Monday says the four financially strapped orchestras in Osaka Prefecture are being urged to merge. Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, Century Orchestra Osaka, Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra, and Orchestra Osaka Symphoniker together receive a $10 million subsidy from the local government, and the combined salaries for their musicians total approximately $36 million annually.

Youth Will Out, Sometimes

Vladimir Jurowski, 34, is the London Philharmonic's new principal conductor, succeeding Kurt Masur, 79. Previously, the position was held by Bernard Haitink, Georg Solti, and Klaus Tennstedt. On the other hand, Haitink, 77, music director of the Dresden Staatskapelle, has just been named principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony, while a successor is still sought for the departing music director, Daniel Barenboim. Pierre Boulez, 81, was named conductor emeritus.

Asleep in Seattle? Alive at the Passion

Young artists usually can't afford to pay a PR firm to keep their resumes current, so the brief biography for tenor Wesley Rogers I read in a concert program on Sunday may be outdated. It says he has sung the role of the Fourth Jew in a Seattle Opera Salomé, and Maintop in Billy Budd.

Looking up from the program, I heard Rogers perform in a fashion qualifying him for major roles in both lyric and dramatic opera. He has the kind of tenor that pours forth powerfully, effortlessly, seemingly for any length of time. Does that bring to mind a certain kind of opera role with a permanent "Help Wanted" sign posted? So, who is asleep in Seattle, employing this potentially echt-Aryan hero in such minor roles?

What turned out to be the rediscovery of Rogers took place Sunday in the role of the Evangelist — a darn fine one — of the American Bach Soloists' St. Matthew Passion. Likely to be on the good side of 40, Rogers even has the physical appearance for leading roles, probably strong enough to lift a Brünnhilde or two. Only later did I realize that it was the second time I had heard Rogers, almost forgetting his 2002 appearance as Laurie in the Cabrillo Festival's Little Women. Back then, I wrote about his "impressive acting and singing ... although [he was] audibly tiring toward the end." Perhaps steroids work for lung capacity, too, and Rogers did a Barry Bonds, hitting a home run as a complete Evangelist this time — who knows?

Other vocal performances ranged between excellent and upsetting. The venue for the Passion, Calvary Presbyterian Church, is a hall with excessively bright acoustics, much more so than Disney Hall. Jeffrey Thomas conducted a fine performance, and when the superb alto, Judith Malafronte, sang "Buss und Reu," the balance was perfect, but relief short-lived. Jennifer Ellis shattered the mood (and ears) with an unpleasantly loud "Blute nur, du liebes Herz," Thomas not reining her in.

The other soprano soloist, Ellen Hargis, was superior, adjusting her voice after the first few notes, and singing in the "Malafronte mode." James Weaver's Jesus was operatically (and Baroquely) wonderful, while some of the other soloists got through their roles — no small accomplishment for St. Matt.

The glory of ABS is the chorus and the best period-orchestra on this side of Philharmonia Baroque — unsurprisingly, as many of these worthies do double duty, and show up in Nick McGegan's band regularly. Take a look at the roster of this performance (with the complete organization list available online at www.americanbach.org/ArtistRoster.htm):

Violins Carla Moore, Cynthia Miller Freivogel, Katherine Kyme, Maxine Nemerovski, David Wilson, Lisa Weiss, Cynthia Albers, Tekla Cunningham, Andrew Fouts, Lisa Grodin; violas David Daniel Bowes, Anthony Martin, Maria Caswell, Daria D'Andrea; viola da gamba William Skeen; flutes/recorders Sandra Miller, Eve Friedman; flutes Mindy Rosenfeld, Byron Rakitzis; oboes/oboes d'amore Debra Nagy, Geoffrey Burgess, Marianne Richert Pfau, Sung Lee.

In continuo roles: Corey Jamason (organ); William Skeen, Farley Pearce, and Joanna Blendulf (violoncello); Steven Lehning (violone); Rodney Gehrke (harpsichord); Kate van Orden (bassoon); Christopher Deppe (contrabass). In the race for the oldest instrument, the winner is Fouts, with a 1710 Claude Pierray violin.

How on earth did this young city collect so much "period talent," never mind the period instruments?

(Janos Gereben is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice. His e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com.)

©2006 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved