Heggie’s New Opera Is Getting Closer to San Francisco
For “local composer” John Adams, it took over 25 years before his great opera Nixon in China made it to San Francisco. I confidently predict that for another local notable, Jake Heggie, the wait for a production here of his Great Scott will be a fraction of that unjustifiable quarter-century delay. (“Here” doesn’t necessarily mean the lately conservative San Francisco Opera, although the War Memorial is a possible venue.)
Great Scott was called “funny, touching, and endlessly entertaining” by D Magazine at its Dallas world premiere last year and received a chorus of raves probably exceeding the warm reception for Heggie’s Moby-Dick. With libretto by Terrence McNally, the opera deals with the lives and backstage doings of singers in a culture that makes professional football the king over the common folk in the arts.
Last weekend, Great Scott had its West Coast premiere in San Diego with a cast that matched the illustrious one assembled in Dallas: Flicka, Nathan Gunn, and Anthony Roth Costanzo reprised their roles from the premiere; Kate Aldrich took the Joyce DiDonato role of Arden Scott, and Joyce El-Khoury played Tatyana Bakst, the role Ailyn Perez originated in November. David Gregson’s reported on opening night in Opera West:
Great Scott takes us backstage to celebrate the creative process... [it] embraces community as well as a world beyond it. The principal characters are all involved in the pursuit of careers, relationships, and the performance of opera itself. Thus Heggie and McNally also give us a skillfully composed and rather witty “opera within an opera,” the faux “newly discovered” bel canto masterpiece, Vittorio Bazzetti’s Rosa Dolorosa, Figlia di Pompei, which Arden hopes will boost her artistic reputation and bring new laurels to her hometown opera company.
A fake 19th-century Italian opera about a woman who sacrifices her life by jumping into Mount Vesuvius in order to save the people of Pompeii (in vain, as we know), sounds awfully campy — but Heggie, taking his inspiration directly from Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, has written some delightful music for his imaginary lost masterpiece. It is funny and affecting in about equal measure.
Gregson also observes: “Heggie is the most Straussian of new composers. His musical lyricism recalls Strauss over and over.”
While awaiting Great Scott, remember Heggie’s other new opera, Out of Darkness, coming to the S.F. Conservatory of Music on May 25–26.
New Scrooge and Old Broadway Hits for 42nd Street Moon Season
Greg MacKellan, founding artistic director of 42nd Street Moon, has announced details of the upcoming 24th season for the company he is leaving this month. Unless an announcement is made soon about a successor for MacKellan, the 2016 – 2017 season will be headed by co-founder and producing director Stephanie Rhoads.
Scrooge in Love last year was unique in being a commissioned world premiere from an organization known for reviving little-known or even forgotten Broadway musicals. Larry Grossman’s splendid new work will make its unusual mark again during the next season when it becomes what I am fairly certain is the first and only immediate reprise — against the repetition of some popular musicals in the Eureka Theater several years apart.
The season also includes a musical about Sherlock Holmes, a rarely seen musical adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie, and the Broadway hit that launched “Tea for Two.”
First off in November is Baker Street, Marian Grudeff and Raymond Jessel’s 1965 musical adventure that finds Sherlock Holmes taking on Professor Moriarty during Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
Scrooge follows at a date and in a venue (other than the Eureka, which is company’s regular home) yet to be announced. Next spring will bring Bob Merrill’s 1957 New Girl in Town, the Eugene O’Neill adaptation created for Gwen Verdon and Thelma Ritter (who had an unprecedented tie for the “Best Actress in a Musical” Tony Award).
The season-closer is the 1971 revision of the 1926 Vincent Youman’s No, No, Nanette about romantic entanglements in 1920s Atlantic City — the musical with West End and Broadway productions and no less than three film versions - 1930, 1940, and a 1950 version starring Doris Day called Tea for Two.
In Brief: S.F. Ballet School Showcase, Voigt Faculty Appointment, Pocket Opera Double Bill
S.F. Ballet School Showcase
When the San Francisco Ballet season ends, there is yet another event much coveted by balletomanes ... and parents. The annual S.F. Ballet School Student Showcase, on May 25 and 27 in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, features students from the youngest to those ready to vie for places in the corps de ballet. The concerts also serve a good cause (scholarships and financial aid programs), and tickets cost considerably less than in the Opera House.
Voigt Faculty Appointment
Soprano Deborah Voigt, who has gone from the Merola and Adler programs (1985–1987) to starring roles with major opera houses around the world, has been named to the voice faculty at the S.F. Conservatory of Music, beginning this fall. The soprano cancelled her Voigt Lessons shows in the Wilsey Center Atrium last weekend because of injury, but plans to reschedule in June.
Rare Pocket Opera Double-Bill
Pocket Opera is reprising Donald Pippin’s unusual pairing of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Franz von Suppé’s My Fair Galatea on May 15 in Berkeley’s Hillside Club and on May 25 in San Francisco’s Legion of Honor. Frank Johnson is guest music director for Pagliacci, Nicolas Aliaga is stage director for both works; J. Raymond Meyers sings the leading tenor roles in the two operas.