Moore sang Manon Lescaut's "In quelle trine morbide" and absolutely nailed it — musically, dramatically, in every way. At the end of a thrilling performance, the soprano (obviously realizing that this was The Moment) half floated, half straggled off the stage, kissed by both Runnicles and Gockley on the way, and finally reached the back door. Once out, thinking that she was in private, although still visible through a plastic window, Moore was caught in a protective, supportive, congratulatory hug by Christine Goerke (who has just had her own moment of great success, and for whom Moore is the cover in Die Fledermaus), and then the two — obviously not knowing what else to do — started jumping up and down and couldn't stop, even though Goerke is showing the glow (and other signs) of impending motherhood. Awwwww!

The delightfully cold weather in Golden Gate Park served well as the background to some hot happenings. Goerke, last night's terrific Rosalinda, switched from Strauss to Wagner (where she belongs) with a simple, powerful "Dich, teure Halle," also reprising the Fledermaus "Watch Duet" from the performance just hours in the past, with Wolfgang Brendel (acts 10, sings 5).

The "other" Christine, the reigning Wagnerian soprano in these parts (and elsewhere), Brewer, sang a glorious "Non mi dir" from Don Giovanni and left the audience enthralled with Arlen's Come Rain or Come Shine (from St. Louis Woman), performed with utter simplicity, nothing "operatic" — grand but not grandiose.

Two men held up the gender's good name against such an onslaught of formidable sopranos: Icelandic giant (so introduced by Gockley) Kristinn Sigmundsson spread "La calunnia" from the Panhandle to the Pacific Ocean (a five-mile stretch), seemingly without the help of amplification but with great good humor. San Francisco's once-and-future Rigoletto, Paolo Gavanelli, brought the house down with a warm, solid, straightforward "Nemico della patria" from Andrea Chénier.

There was a lot more, and you can hear it on the air or off the Web on KDFC-FM next Sunday at 8 p.m. Who knows, by then, Moore and Goerke may have stopped jumping.

Orchestra Luxuriating in Luxembourg

Michael Tilson Thomas' San Francisco Symphony is off to Europe, in performances of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 ("Symphony of a Thousand"). Tomorrow, Sept. 13, the San Franciscans will perform in Luxembourg's new Salle de Concerts Grande-Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte. Soloists for the Mahler, also scheduled for a performance in Lucerne on Sept. 17, include sopranos Erin Wall, Elza van den Heever, and Laura Claycomb; mezzo-sopranos Michelle DeYoung and Elena Manistina; tenor Anthony Dean Griffey; bass-baritone James Johnson; and bass Raymond Aceto — several of them Merola and Adler alums.

The Lucerne Festival, established in 1938, has become one of the most important European venues for classical music. The S.F. Symphony's opening concert at the festival will feature Debussy's Jeux; Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D Major, with Christian Tetzlaff; and Dvorák's Symphony No. 8 — the latter two reprising the season-opening program in Davies Hall last week. On Sept. 16, pianist Hélène Grimaud joins the orchestra for Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major. Also on the program are Ives' Thanksgiving and Forefathers' Day and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. The festival appearances are the orchestra's first in a three-year residency, which will conclude in 2009.

Heavy International Traffic at Kohl Mansion

Patricia Kristof Moy, executive director of Music at Kohl Mansion, had a tough weekend and an exhilarating Monday. Two international groups canceled their participation in the upcoming season, but by yesterday, Moy managed to plug the schedule with two other notable trios.

The changes: Instead of the Grieg Trio performing on the Oct. 22 opening night, it will be the Trio Con Brio (two-thirds Korean, based in Copenhagen). Instead of the Paris Trio, the Feb. 4 concert will feature the U.S.-based Amelia Piano Trio, including Japanese pianist Rieko Aizawa.

Music of Planets ... and Asteroids

A couple of weeks ago, we reflected here on the business of Holst's The Planets, and what impact — if any — the downgrading of Pluto from among the planets may have on performances of the suite. Mention was made of Colin Matthews' addition of a Pluto movement to the original Holst work, commissioned and premiered by Kent Nagano and Manchester's Halle Orchestra.

News comes now of the first recording of the extended Planets to be issued today, Sept. 12. Simon Rattle is conducting the Berlin Philharmonic on an EMI CD. One disc contains Holst plus Matthews, and the other features new works by Kaija Saariaho (Finland), Matthias Pintscher (Germany), Mark-Anthony Turnage (U.K.), and Brett Dean (Australia), all hailing asteroids.

Chanticleer News

Besides getting ready for its 29th season, opening Sept. 17 in Berkeley, the 12-man vocal ensemble Chanticleer has other news as well:

• The opening programs feature the world premiere of Ezequiel Vinao’s The Wanderer, an Argentine composer's setting of an ancient Anglo-Saxon poem, along with works by Paul Schoenfield, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Arthur Jarvinen, Robert Kyr, and Steven Stucky.



• Chanticleer's second annual Sonoma Workshop concluded successfully, attended by 66 singers from 14 states and Puerto Rico.



• The group's San Francisco Youth Choral Festival is scheduled for Oct. 20.



• A new anthology of Christmas music, A Chanticleer Christmas, is being released this week. Further recordings are scheduled next spring, and the group leaves on the first of six domestic tours on Sept. 26.

Nagano's Bold Opening in Montreal

Berkeley Symphony Music Director Kent Nagano began his tenure as music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, succeeding Charles Dutoit, who quit two years ago. At last week's opening gala, the program spanned three centuries: Galina Ustvolskaya's Symphony No. 4 (Prayer), Charles Ives's The Unanswered Question, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.

Nagano — who set Lyon, Manchester, and Berlin on their ears with contemporary programming — also engaged conductor-composer Péter Eötvös to conduct a program in Montreal, including his own zeroPoints (written as a tribute to Pierre Boulez) and a commissioned work by Canadian composer Michel Longtin, called Et j'ai repris la route.

Other highlights include the first OSM International Composition Prize, which will be held this fall, with finalists' works to be performed next January; and a world premiere by Canadian composer Ana Sokolovic. The orchestra will also perform works by Canadians Otto Joachim, Allan Gordon Bell, and Andrew Yin Svoboda.

And what's happening back in Berkeley? The orchestra there is likely to get minimal attention from Nagano, for whom Montreal is a minor task compared with the other job he is about to begin this month, the biggest challenge of his career: the post of music director of the Bayerische Staatsoper, one of the world's oldest and most prestigious opera houses. The Berkeley Symphony is deciding this week who will succeed Gary Ginstling as executive director (he is now director of communications for the San Francisco Symphony). June Wiley is filling the position temporarily. Other key positions going vacant in Berkeley are those of the operations manager, after the pending departure of Heli Roiha, and personnel manager.

Up and Coming, the Lyric Way

Where do tomorrow's great singers come from? In San Francisco alone, there is a multiplicity of answers to that, as we proudly point to the S.F. Conservatory of Music, the S.F. Opera Center's Merola and Adler programs, Donald Pippin's Pocket Opera, and others — not to mention companies across the Bay and down the Peninsula.

The happy news is that now there is yet another source of nourishing performance opportunity for young talent: In the resurgent San Francisco Lyric Opera's upcoming production of Verdi's Il Trovatore, the leading soprano and mezzo command special attention. Duana Demus and Patrice Houston make an excellent case for the statement that the tiny Lyric Opera (with Simon Palmer in the administration and his son, Barnaby Palmer, as music director) is becoming a partner in this area's extraordinary cultivation of young singers.

Take a look at the Leonore of the Trovatore that opens this week, for instance. Unlike the usual story of a singer committed to the opera stage even while a toddler, San Francisco native Duana Demus had no thought of becoming an opera singer ... until this contralto in school concerts started vocalizing to the A above high C. "I know contraltos," an instructor told her, "and you, my friend, are not one." The newly designated soprano started singing in a school madrigal group and made her debut in the Mozart Requiem.

On a college scholarship to California State University, Stanislaus, she began formal vocal training, immediately getting leading roles in operas and "falling in love with art song literature." She graduated in 2004 from UCLA, where she received a full scholarship and stipend to pursue master's and doctoral studies. But instead of relocating to Manhattan to begin a career, she moved back here to care for her mother, who had been battling lymphoma (and who died in June). Taking the hours-long commute from her mother's home in Pittsburg, Demus performed with Berkeley Opera (Giorgetta in Il Tabarro), Lyric Opera (Amelia in A Masked Ball and a triumphant Tosca), Fresno Philharmonic (Verdi Requiem), and Oakland Opera (Malcolm's Mother in the opera X), among others.

In a few years, Demus has won the grand prize at the West Bay Opera Superstar competition, was National Winner of the Saritelli-DiPanni Bel Canto Scholarship and the Fé Bland Foundation Scholarship, became a Loren Zachary Competition National semifinalist, and took first place in a National Association of Teachers of Singing competition.

Although she didn't grow up with classical music, Demus credits her grandfather with nurturing her fascination with languages and cultures, "allowing me to open mind, heart, spirit, and sense of humor in embracing all types of music, belonging to people of different times and places." Now Demus collaborates with composers and performs and writes about long-forgotten works, such as the art song cycles by famed Negro spiritual arranger, singer, and composer Harry T. Burleigh. Demus is planning a concert tour to perform these cycles and other works.

Patrice Houston, whose powerfully menacing Ulrica in Masked Ball with Lyric Opera is still in my ears more than a year later, also came from a childhood without classical music. (And she too is from the Bay Area.) "Champions were rampant" in her family, however, with one brother a professional soccer player, another a state champion shot-putter. Her father once worked as a stage director, and watching stage lights, costumes, and makeup helped launch Houston on the path.

For eight years, she worked at Tower Records in Campbell, where she learned about music, becoming "open to variety, thick-skinned, and ambitious." Around Christmas 1992, Irene Dalis — founder/director of Opera San José — walked into the Tower store. Houston recognized her, and suddenly "this pink-haired slacker" was asking Dalis about auditioning for her company. "With that gorgeous smile of hers, she told me to send my resume and a head shot. I was incredibly inspired that day. I found my path, I sought out a new voice teacher, started listening to opera, read Opera News cover to cover, and eventually found my way back to college."

Houston enrolled at San Jose State University as a music major in 1995, studying voice with the late Jeanne Garson and then with Joseph Frank. "I was inspired, completely immersed in music. At the same time, I was exploring. I would spend hours asking my father questions about poetry and acting. He was a policeman, but he had been an actor in his high school and college days. He taught me that acting happens organically and is communicated through facial and body expression. I would learn later that in opera, emotion must be communicated through the eyes, leaving the body without tension and the voice beautiful."

After she finished her degree at SJSU, Houston engaged in intensive study with opera singer Evaldo Dal Poggetto in Hillsborough. "He taught me a way to negotiate my voice. He revolutionized my sound. He continues to be the best-kept secret in the Bay Area."

The next step in exploring opera and show biz was an administrative job with the American Musical Theater of San Jose. She missed performing, however, and auditioned for a performance program in Italy. She got in and studied with the famous Mignon Dunn, who persuaded Houston to move to Manhattan — where she is studying and performing, and getting roles on both coasts ... including a return to the Lyric Opera, where her Azucena will give sleepless nights to those who are just recovering from the aftereffects of that witch Ulrica.