San Francisco Classical Voice

Good Labor News from Chicago, Cleveland

Negotiations for a new Chicago Symphony contract took a turn for the better over the Labor Day weekend. Looking very grim until just now, the situation there had a clear indication of heading towards a strike, administration and orchestra confronting each other, against the background of a hefty deficit. And yet, on Saturday, the Chicago Tribune reported that agreement has been reached on extending the present contract to October 31, well beyond its September 12 expiration, making opening of the season possible.

The extension agreement seems to echo what happened earlier next door, where the Cleveland Orchestra contract was to have expired on August 29, but now will remain in effect through the end of October.

Kahane's Varied Fortunes

It's "Rags to Riches" for music director Jeffrey Kahane at his old orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony, and "Riches Gained" at his new one (as of next year), the Colorado Symphony. The first, wishful but real, title is for a fund-raiser in Santa Rosa, on October 16, when conductor-pianist Kahane will play rags for the orchestra's supper at a daytime event in the Chalk Hill Estate Vineyards & Winery Grand Pavilion (www.chalkhill.com).

The second, fictitious, title may be the headline for the news from Denver that the orchestra there now has a welcome surplus "in six figures." The last time we looked, Colorado Symphony had an operating budget of about $10 million, with a $250,000 deficit; Santa Rosa's budget was $2.4 million, with a $30,000 deficit. Kahane will conduct the Santa Rosa season-opener on October 9-11, with 17-year-old violinist Caitlin Tully featured in the Beethoven concerto, the West Coast premiere of Robert Aldridge's Leda and the Swan, the Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe Suite No.2. See www.santarosasymphony.com.

Abduction Administrator to Head Bergen Festival

Per Boye Hansen, 46, will be the next director of Bergen International Festival. He is currently artistic director at Komische Oper Berlin, responsible for last month's controversial Calixto Bieito production of Abduction from the Seraglio (see www.Eine_Schande.htm) Twenty years ago, Hansen founded the Oslo Summer Opera Festival, which he managed until 1992. He also ran his own agent service from 1990 until 2000, representing singers, instrumentalists, directors and conductors internationally. He will take over the job from Erling Dahl Jr. in August, but he has started programming the 2006 festival already.

Bernstein Documentary Series

Susan Sarandon is the narrator for an 11-part radio documentary about the life and work of Leonard Bernstein that will air internationally next month. Leonard Bernstein: An American Life presents interviews with more than 100 people who knew and worked with him, including composer John Adams, conductor Marin Alsop, songwriter Betty Comden, crossover artist Bobby McFerrin, and composer Stephen Sondheim. Bernstein died in 1990 at age 72. Producer Steve Rowland spent six years working on the documentary for the WFMT Radio Network in cooperation with the Library of Congress. In the Bay Area, KALW-FM 91.7 and KCSM-FM 91.1 will carry the series. See www.wfmt.com/bernstein.

Beaux Arts Trio Turning Fifty

With a member significantly younger than the organization itself, the Beaux Arts Trio is getting ready for its 50th anniversary next year by launching a three-year complete Beethoven cycle on October 1 at the Metropolitan Museum, offering all the composer's trios, violin-piano, and cello-piano sonatas. Along with pianist Menahem Pressler, one of the Trio's founders in 1955, Beaux Arts includes 31-year-old British violinist Daniel Hope, and Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses. See www.metmuseum.org.

Walking Into Retirement

Peter Jonas is leaving the job of Bavarian State Opera general manager in 2006, to be succeeded by Dresden Semperoper's Christoph Albrecht, at the same time with Kent Nagano becoming company's music director. What will Jonas do in retirement? "I have two great walking plans," he told the Bloomberg News Service. "One is to walk from Inverness in the north of Scotland to Palermo, which will take about five months. Then, after a rest (and if my legs are still functioning), I will try to walk from Warsaw to Lisbon." Classical Voice spared no effort in quantifying the information — by our tape measure, the first hike is about 1,500 miles (exclusive the Channel, which Jonas will not cross on foot, presumably); the Warsaw- Lisbon track takes about 1,800 miles.

Our Town, the Opera

Before Thornton Wilder died in 1975, he was approached by a number of composers, including Aaron Copland, to write an opera based on his best-known play, Our Town. Wilder refused all offers, even the one from Copland, who wrote the score for the 1940 film version. Now, all these years later, Boosey & Hawkes, Ned Rorem's publisher, announced that the Wilder estate has granted permission for the play to be set as a full-length opera by Rorem, with J.D. McClatchy as the librettist.

'My Dinner with Gustav'

A strange theatrical event about the life of Gustav and Alma Mahler is being imported from Europe to Los Angeles and New York City. The play Alma features the music of Mahler, plus "a sumptuous buffet-dinner during the interval with Austrian specialities, sweets and a special `Alma'-wine from Spain, which is part of the performance, included in the ticket price." (N.B.: tickets cost $125.)

Alma Schindler [Mahler (Walter) Gropius (Franz) Werfel — and, although not married — (Oscar) Kokoschka (Gustav) Klimt (Alexander) Zemlinsky], subject of a not-so-hot movie recently, has inspired Israeli author Joshua Sobol eight years ago to write a "polydrama, with various plot elements running in parallel." After seven years of touring in Europe, it's time for the New World.

The announcement for the play's opening in the Los Angeles Theater on September 23 says it is "more than a theater play, it is an act of watching lives being lived, the life of enchantress and devourer of genius. It's theater that smells of life itself." (The last sentence almost certainly the result of translation from the German.) That "sumptuous Austrian buffet" is actually a funeral banquet, marking the death of Mahler in the play just before intermission. I haven't quite figured this out, so here's the description from the producers: "When Mahler dies at half-time, his funeral banquet can be followed interactively to his music, and the spectators are subsequently invited to the buffet." Interactive food with Mahler's music?

Last year, the press release says, Alma was performed in Lisbon, "Alma‘s last station in Europe after her escape from Nazi Germany in 1940. The more than 50 scenes of Alma's life were shown in a 17th century monastery, including a church and a beautiful palm garden. Again the success was enormous. A real Alma-audience had developed, one fanatical fan set a record of attending 73 Alma-performances and followed his heroine over the Austrian border."

An important aspect of all this is the reopening of the Los Angeles Theater, a 1931 edifice, with "a Baroque auditorium [teeming] with golden angels, cherubs, and flowery swags . . . [It has] a rich restaurant space . . . glass-ceiling ballroom . . . marble- lined ladies room . . . circus-motif playroom . . ." Take a look: www.alma-mahler.at