San Francisco Classical Voice

Thomas Hampson: Satisfaction Guaranteed

"Ruth doesn't know I am going to say this," said Thomas Hampson from the stage of Herbst Theatre Monday night, "but it's OK because I will cover the cost: If you feel you're not getting what you paid for, turn in your tickets at the end of the concert and your money will be refunded." Then, in response to some nervous titters in the audience, Hampson added, "I mean it, I am serious."

The reference was to Ruth Felt, founder-director of San Francisco Performances, home to an annual appearance by Hampson for the the past quarter century. By sheer coincidence, I had asked Felt before the concert if the unusually late and intense allergy season is having a toll on "her singers" and was surprised when she said, "Wait for Tom's announcement."

Allergies (or "something," he said) got to Hampson already two nights ago in San Jose, when he sang the last concert of his "Song of America" tour — although he managed to add four encores there, a remarkable act of stamina as he was coming "fresh" from singing a four-hour role in the Metropolitan Opera's Parsifal run, and starring in the Met's televised gala. Now, before the beginning of a sold-out lieder recital, he had to make a decision whether to go on or cancel. He chose to perform, adding a money-back guarantee.

Then, somewhat incongruously, Hampson used up a great deal of his remaining voice with a 17-minute lecture on Schumann, Schubert, Heine ("without whom there might not have been a Sigmund Freud," an aside to ponder), and — especially — the validity of his version and interpretation of Schumann's Dichterliebe. To read about the subject, Hampson suggested his Web site http://hampsong.com/ (don't bother with hampson.com; that's the wrong address).

This is a matter of passion for Hampson, to differentiate between Schumann's original 1840 20 Lieder und Gesänge aus dem Lyrischen Intermezzo and the 1844 shortened version that goes under the (Schumann-approved) name of Dichterliebe.

To husband his voice, Hampson sang "only" a substantial cycle of Schubert/Heinrich Heine songs from Schwanengesang, and those 20 Lieder by Schumann. With Wolfram Rieger's self-effacing and gloriously effective accompaniment, Hampson sang well, the voice ranging from a bit worn to as good as ever. At the end of the evening, no one appeared to have taken Hampson up on his money-back offer.

A member of the S.F. Opera Chorus in the audience — which included retiring S.F. Symphony Chorus Master Vance George and many of his singers, having a night off from the Mahler Eighth series — told me, in deep sympathy with Hampson, "Intense allergies have been wiping out a lot of us in the last few months. I'm still on a batch of drugs that I've never had to take before. They help but things are still dicey at times vocally." Singer or not, visit www.pollen.com to find out what ails you. As the great German lieder goes: "Gesundheit!"

Chanticleer Competition Winners

Winners of Chanticleer's third biennial Student Composer Competition, encouraging composition students to write works for high school-level choirs, was announced on Monday. They are: Vicente Chavarria, Miami, Fla.; Erica Glenn, Tempe, Ariz.; Blake R. Henson, Princeton, N.J.; Matthew Peterson, Northfield, Minn.; Philip Rice, Coldwater, Mich.; Jorge Sosa, New York, N.Y.; and Dale Trumbore, Chatham, N.J. Honorable mentions went to Mark Fromm, Pittsburgh, Penn., and Samuel Hunter, Fairview, N.C.

The winning compositions will be performed at future San Francisco Chanticleer Youth Choral Festivals, daylong workshops drawing up to 250 students from across the Bay Area, and taking place annually in the fall. Eric Barnum won the last competition, in 2003, with a work based on Byron's "She Walks in Beauty," included on Chanticleer's 2004-2005 national tour program. The 2001 competition winner was Kelly Crandell, then a student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, for his setting of the Shakespeare text, "Blow, blow thou winter wind."

MTT's Pas de None for a Goode Cause

Music theater is in Michael Tilson Thomas' blood, stemming from a heritage possibly going back several generations before his famous singer/actor grandfather, Boris Thomashefsky. Music theater, in the form of opera, is an MTT forte, even if that's not fully appreciated yet, as relatively few have heard him conduct in the genre. But in the adjacent world of dance, MTT has not made his mark. Sorry to say, that's true even after his debut Friday night as the composer for a dance piece.

His subminimalist contribution to the opening of the Joe Goode Performance Group's 20th season in the Yerba Buena Theater was meager in quantity and quality — even if the publicity about the MTT-Goode collaboration supported the anniversary celebration, thus helping a good cause. "Subminimalist" is not a value judgement; it's a statement of fact. For all but the finale of the 40-minute Stay Together, there was no music beyond a few disjointed chords, a percussive note here and there, and random sound effects.

Were you not apprised of the MTT connection, you'd never peruse the program to look for the composer, so peripheral, almost imperceptible was the "music." Something slightly different occurred during the last five minutes, when a tentative jazz riff, a compulsive marimba ostinato, accompanied the dance. Too little, too late to qualify for a true Op. 1. The composer's own note about the music stated that the score was based on one of his old theater songs, described as "a mordant homage to a bygone era of pop."

The work itself, of course, is another story. Both typical and best-ever, Stay Together is Goode's usual multimedia expression of hilarious angst, a wonderfully entertaining piece about the issues of staying together vs. falling apart or being alone. Against Erik Flatmo's Rotko-inspired set, Austin Forbord's videography mixes live and taped images, the performers reciting (and "dancing out") Goode's text in mesmerizing, dramatic, and utterly funny close-ups.

"Art is so much more difficult than life," it is stated, with self-mocking anguish. Stay together or do the "big maybe"? "Crying" is rhymed, so to speak, with "why-ing," and somebody suspiciously similar to the choreographer is accused of "employing in the company everybody you ever slept with."

The company's dancers-actors-reciters-film stars are brilliant, and Goode himself has become a Chaplin, a Bob Hope, a Robin Williams in his ability to make an impact even while doing nothing. Most anyone else as uniquely quirky as Goode would easily become his own caricature during a 20-year run, but this man keeps getting more and more out of material that's modest but authoritative. He just needs another composer, one with more notes, at the very least.

ASCAP Awards for Daring

The actual title is "Awards for Adventurous Programming From the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers and the American Symphony Orchestra League." Presented on June 2 in Los Angeles at the Orchestra League's 61st national conference, awards went to 25 orchestras for "extraordinary efforts to expand the symphonic repertoire and develop and educate orchestra audiences."

Award winners include: Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Etowah Youth Orchestras, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Albany (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, New England Philharmonic, Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra, St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra. Among festival orchestras: the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.