Janos Gereben

There are recitals, there are great recitals, and then there’s Yuja Wang. In an extraordinary scene Sunday in Herbst Theatre, after hearing her play the audience appeared both exhausted and elated. My hands hurt not merely from applauding, but also from an apparent case of couvade syndrome (men’s sympathy pain at childbirth) on listening to two hours of devilishly difficult Scriabin and Prokofiev played with ease and astonishing clarity.

As the Summer music festival season approaches, a roundup of recommendations and a few meaningful reflections.

Kurt Rohde, winner of the prestigious Rome Prize, and also the violist/founder of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, will soon have the world premiere of his Concertino in the Bay Area. And two other San Francisco musicians have been benefitting from artistic residence in Rome. While Rohde's Rome Prize stay recently concluded, San Francisco–raised composer Lisa Bielawa, is a current Rome Prize winner; and ODC Dance Company founder/artistic director/choreographer Brenda Way was a Resident in the Arts, and served as a senior advisor to the Rome Prize winners, including Rohde.

The upcoming San Francisco Opera production of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, aka Girl of the Golden West, aka “Puccini's American opera,” returning here after an absence of 31 years, is the epitome of ”Italian-American.”