San Francisco Classical Voice

Read to Head Carmel Bach

The Carmel Bach Festival has named Jesse Read as its new managing director, according to festival board president Jack Buffington. Read is succeeding Willem Wijnbergen, who was not mentioned in the announcement.

Principal bassoonist in Carmel for the past quarter century, Read has also developed a series of chamber music recitals at the festival, working with former music director Sandor Salgo and the present music director, Bruno Weil. For the past eight years, Read has been director of the University of British Columbia's School of Music in Vancouver. He will continue in that position, combining it with work in Carmel, as before . . . except that he will now be in charge, running the festival, with Weil. The appointment follows a national search by acommittee comprising festival board members, musicians and staff. For information about the current festival season, see www.bachfestival.org.

Opera San Jose On the Move

After years of surviving — even thriving — in cramped little Montgomery Theater, Irene Dalis' Opera San Jose is making the big move in time for its 21st season to the California Theater. The company is operating with a $3.6 million budget in economically still-hurting Silicon Valley, a one-fourth increase over last year.

The September 18 opener will be Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, double-cast as follows: Figaro - Joseph Wright/Jason Detwiler; Susanna - Sandra Rubalcava /Aimée Puentes; Count Almaviva - David Babinet/David Britton; Countess - Deborah Berioli/Lori Decter; Cherubino - Michele Detwiler/Heidi Rae Kalina. This and the other productions will be performed eight times — and that's a lot of seats to fill . . . 35,200, to be exact.

Tosca follows, November 20 - Dec. 5, with two casts: Tosca - Lori Decter/Deborah Berioli; Cavaradossi - Adam Flowers/Etsel Skelton; Scarpia - Jason Detwiler/Joseph Wright. Carmen is scheduled February 5-20, with Malin Fritz and Michele Detwiler in the title role; Don José - Etsel Skelton/Adam Flowers; Escamillo - Joseph Wright/Jason Detwiler; Mica”la - Deborah Berioli/Lori Decter.

The company's first Wagner, The Flying Dutchman, runs April 9-24. Senta - Lori Decter/Deborah Berioli; Erik - Adam Flowers/Etsel Skelton; Dutchman - Jason Detwiler/Joseph Wright; Daland - Kirk Eichelberger/Jesse Merlin.

David Rohrbaugh conducts Mozart and Wagner, Robert Wood has Tosca and former San Jose Symphony music director George Cleve conducts Carmen. Lorna Haywood is stage director for Marriage and Tosca, David Cox for Carmen, and Olivia Stapp for Dutchman. Giulio Cesare Perrone is the designer for the entire season. See www.operasj.org.

Symphony Season in San Jose

Symphony Silicon Valley, which succeeded the bankrupt San Jose Symphony three years ago, formed by officers and musicians of Ballet Silicon Valley, will now fly on its own, moving into California Theater, operating on a $1.6 million budget.

Still without a music director of its own, the Symphony will be led by guest conductors, some of whom may be in line for a permanent position. Instead of the single concerts the orchestra gave in the Center for the Performing Arts, there will be a pair of performances — Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 2. The season opens October 9, Sergiu Comissiona conducting music by Copland, Gershwin, and Korngold, with the addition of "a surprise work from the year the California Theater first opened, in 1927."

Patrick Flynn conducts the October 30-31 concerts, with Robin Mayforth as soloist in the Corigliano Chaconne from the movie The Red Violin, music by Vaughn Williams, Jennifer Higdon, and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5. On Dec. 11-12, Thomas Conlin conducts a program of vocal music by Britten, Poulenc, Schubert and Wagner; the San Jose State Chorale is featured. Paul Polivnick conducts on January 15-16, Ju-Young Baek is the soloist in the Sibelius Violin Concerto; also, works by Mendelssohn and Stravinsky. February 26-27 will see William Boughton on the podium, Maria Tamburrino and Dan Levitan as the soloists in Mozart's Flute & Harp Concerto; also, Schumann's Symphony No. 2.

Lan Shui conducts on April 30 and May 1, the concerts featuring Richard Todd in Strauss' Horn Concerto No. 1; also, Strauss' Don Juan, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3. Mallory Thompson is the conductor May 28-29, Natasha Paremski is the soloist in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2; also, Brahms' Symphony No. 2. The Symphony's Website is at www.symphonysiliconvalley.org.

Carlos Kleiber

Some 30 years ago, Kurt Herbert Adler engaged Carlos Kleiber to conduct at the San Francisco Opera, but the Austrian-Argentine conductor eventually decided that the voyage would be too difficult, declining the invitation. And so went the city's only chance to hear Kleiber, who died last week, at age 74. He was one of the most brilliant and most temperamental musicians of recent times. Calling off appearances at the last minute, getting into huge arguments, never giving an interview, Kleiber also inspired orchestras, enchanted audiences, left behind recordings in both opera and the symphonic literature that serve as standards of interpretation.

Born in Berlin, in 1930, the son of Erich Kleiber (who conducted the premiere of Alban Berg's Wozzeck), he moved with his family to Argentina in 1935, to escape Hitler's regime. He first appeared as a conductor in 1952 in La Plata, moving on to Munich and a career there that lasted for most of the rest of his life (with many excursions to Vienna, Berlin and elsewhere in Europe). He last appeared on the podium five years ago, and lived since in Slovenia, homeland of his mother and his late wife. Kleiber was buried Saturday in the Slovenian village of Konjsic, according to a Reuters report.

Up Next at Berkeley Opera?

Berkeley Opera, with one more weekend of The Bat from Hell to go, is considering another ambitious and off-beat season for 2004-'05. Not yet official, but the likely lineup is Puccini's complete Il Trittico, a "simplified version" of Wagner's Die Meistersinger, and Monteverdi's Orfeo. With its annual budget of about $200,000 (perhaps the smallest of all well-known opera companies), Berkeley Opera is financially constrained, artistically daring. See www.berkeleyopera.org.

Magnificat's Lucky 13th Season

San Francisco early-music ensemble Magnificat, directed by Warren Stewart, will give four series of concerts for its upcoming 13th season, with programs devoted to the music of Carissimi, Schütz, Monteverdi, and Charpentier. Performing at the First Lutheran Church in Palo Alto, St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley, and St. Gregory Nyssen Episcopal Church in San Francisco, Magnificat features a revolving core of artists. The featured program on September 24-26 will be Carissimi's Vanity of Vanities; on November 12-13, Monteverdi's A due Voci Pari; on January 28-30, Charpentier's The Sacrifice of Abraham and the Prodigal Son; on March 18-20, Schütz's Passion and Resurrection. Additional concerts will present Giovanni Rovetta's Christmas Vespers and Chiara Margarita Cozzolani's Messa Paschale. See www.magnificatbaroque.org.