San Francisco Classical Voice

Ragazzi: Have Music, Will Travel

With all the talk about the decline in the activity of the musical jet set in our age of (in)security, Bay Area musicians are super-busy, making the roads more traveled. The San Francisco Symphony has returned from an acclaimed tour of the Middle West and East Coast, and the SFS Youth Orchestra is to leave soon, on the 2004 edition of its annual trips, taking the musicians to important European concert venues, including Vienna (Musikverein), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Paris and Berlin.

UC-Berkeley's electro-musicians from the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies are at the Ojai Music Festival this week; the UC Alumni Chorus has just departed for a concert tour of Helsinki, Talinn, and St. Petersburg; San Jose's Choral Project is heading to Llangollen, Wales, to compete in the 58th annual Eisteddfod; the San Francisco Girls Chorus toured the Baltic countries last year, has an invitation to participate in a festival in Japan soon. The San Francisco Boys Chorus had an extensive European tour in 2003, planning to tour China in 2005.

So why should Joyce Keil's Ragazzi Boys Chorus stay at home, when Spain and Portugal calls? The very young singers have "done" Japan, Wales, England, Canada, Russia; last year, they performed in St. Peter's in Rome and St. Mark's in Venice. Before they leave for their June-July tour, Ragazzi will perform twice: the entire chorus of more than 100 on June 13 in Redwood City's Messiah Lutheran Church, and the traveling Concert Group and Young Men's Ensemble on June 19, in St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Redwood City. See www.ragazzi.org.

Clockwork Takes Silver at Harmony Sweepstakes

In yet another singing-travel item, top a cappella groups from the US have gathered in San Rafael's Marin Center for the 2004 Harmony Sweepstakes national finals, and San Francisco's Clockwork (consisting of Pacific Mozart Ensemble members Angie Doctor, Eric Freeman, John Paddock, Jim Hale and Stephen Saxon) took second place, after Chicago's Chapter 6.

Judges for the contest were Chanticleer's Joseph Jennings, Phil Debar of "A Cappella Radio International," Steve Baker of The Freight (36-year-old home to vocal music), Bay Area radio veteran Laura Moody, and Voicestra founding member Dave Worm.

Bay Area Gets Few NEA Grants, SFS Does Well

During May, the National Endowment for the Arts announced its final grants for Fiscal 2004, a $40-million portion of its annual Congressional appropriation of $121 million. Of nearly $3 million to orchestras, the San Francisco Symphony received $250,000 to support its public TV/radio series featuring the orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas in programs now under development, called Keeping Score: MTT on Music. A $65,000 grant went to the SFS Youth Orchestra to help with its artistic development program.

The rest of the local award scene is on the lean side: $40,000 went to Film Arts Foundation (Ninth Street Media Arts Consortium of four organizations); Independent Television Service, National Alliance of Media Arts; $30,000 to California Lawyers for the Arts; $15,000 to Theater Bay Area.

West End Opera Companies: and Then There Were 2

For several years now, government officials responsible for subsidies have been suggesting prudence, thrift and consolidation in Berlin and London. In the German capital, the three major opera companies are finally being reigned in (a move complete with protests and resignations), but London's Royal Opera and English National Opera are hanging on to their independence . . . by and large. On the other hand, what has been called "a hugely audacious scheme" of launching a third opera house at London's West End, without a penny of public subsidy and with relatively inexpensive tickets, has — predictably — come a cropper.

Savoy Opera, headed by Raymond Gubbay and Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen, is going out of business in June, after just a month-long run of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. With admirable directness, Gubbay gave the reason: "We just haven't sold enough seats, and it's impossible under those circumstances for us to continue." Providing a bit more wiggle room, Sir Stephen added: "We are looking at why we were not selling enough and whether there is any way forward." According to unconfirmed reports, Savoy Opera ticket sales ran at 25% of the small theater's capacity.

You Want Leonore No. 3 With That?

Last week's San Francisco Symphony concert performances of Beethoven's Fidelio went without the Leonore Overture No. 3 , rather strangely. Considered a standard part of the work when given in opera houses, inclusion of the overture is taken even more for granted at a symphonic venue. (Perhaps that mind-bending narrative used up the time for it.) Michael Tilson Thomas' omission moved Berkeley music fans László and Marika Somogyi to some post-performance reminiscences:

"In the Budapest Operaház, it was an old tradition to play the overture between the two scenes of Act 2, until Otto Klemperer led a post-war revival, and he refused to include it, thereby upsetting the tradition-bound public. Klemperer held that the orchestral interlude 'unnecessarily breaks up the story.' After Klemperer's departure, János Ferencsik conducted Fidelio, and he included Leonore, receiving such an ovation that he went on to repeat the entire overture. Now, there was a true interruption in the story!"

Besides international anecdotes, the Somogyis' contribution to opera in California is through their son, Peter, who is Artistic Coordinator of the Los Angeles Opera. The local angle: Peter Somogyi, with a degree in musicology from UC-Berkeley, began his career at the San Francisco Opera, working for Clifford Cranna, long-time Musical Administrator at the War Memorial.

Stanford Lively Arts' New Season

Stanford Lively Arts announced its 2004-2005 season last week, a program that opens on October 6 with pianist Louis Lortie playing Schubert, Liszt transcriptions of Schubert, Berlioz, and Gounod, the Emerson String Quartet with pianist Jeff Kahane in Mozart, Britten, Brahms on October 20, the English Concert with Andrew Manze, violin, on November 7, Yo-Yo Ma with pianist Emanuel Ax on December 8. Other offerings during the season, include concerts by Chanticleer, Itzhak Perlman, the Emerson, Daedalus, Kronos and Prazak String Quartets, Spoleto Festival Chamber Music, Kit Armstrong, piano, the Paul Dresher Ensemble and Chanticleer with Philharmonia Baroque. The entire season can be viewed on livelyarts.stanford.edu

Opera Webcast Picks for the Weekend

The brave new world of free opera on the Web is seriously under threat, with numerous broadcast sources simply giving up on Webcasting. For example, Classic99/KFUO-FM posted the following message on its Website: "The high cost of royalties and uncertainty surrounding internet streaming has forced us — joining hundreds of other radio stations — to discontinue Internet streaming." So, meanwhile, gather your Webcasts while ye may.

Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, René Jacobs-Collegium Vocale Gent and Concerto Köln; Simon Keenlyside (Count), Véronique Gens (Countess), Patrizia Ciofi (Susanna), Lorenzo Regazzo (Figaro), Angelika Kirchschlager (Cherubino) — Friday, June 4, 1 p.m. PDT, repeated Saturday, June 5, 8 a.m.: www.hofstra.edu.

Cilea, Adriana Lecouvreur — Eve Queler-Opera Orchestra of New York; Aprile Millo (Adriana), Marcello Giordani (Maurizio), Charles Robert Stephens (Prince of Bouillon), Dolora Zajick (Princess of Bouillon) — Saturday, June 5, on NPR stations (none in California!), for example, Spokane's KPBX-FM, at www.kpbx.org.

Chausson, Le Roi Arthus — Daniele Calligari-Theatre de la Monnaie; Dagmar Schellenberger, Louis Otey, Jonas Kaufman, Philippe Georges — Saturday, June 5, 10:30 a.m., on the CBC, www.cbc.ca.