The announcement for the San Francisco Opera Chorus’ Nov. 19 concert in the Veterans Memorial Building’s Taube Atrium Theater doesn’t explain the reference to “shadows,” but I will.
It comes from the superb Allie Light-Irving Sara documentary about the Opera Chorus, In the Shadows of the Stars, which shows the backstage world and private lives of the singers. The concert will bring the choristers front and center, with a rich, unusual program, conducted by Chorus Director Ian Robertson. Celebrating three decades on the job, Robertson has prepared the Opera Chorus in more than 300 productions, seen in some 2,000 performances.
Robertson was awarded the San Francisco Opera medal, the company’s highest honor, in 2012. Under his direction, the chorus went from glory to glory in Les Troyens, Peter Grimes, Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Mefistofele, so many other great operas featuring the chorus prominently.
The concert will allow the chorus to demonstrate once again its excellence of diction in numerous languages and its versatile approach to music regardless of period or style. Says Robertson: “It’s a delight for me and the Opera Chorus to have the opportunity to perform music outside of their regular on-stage repertoire and to explore and enjoy the acoustics of the new performance space in the Wilsey Center.”
The concert opens with a chorus from Brahms’ A German Requiem, featuring the full, 48-member Opera Chorus, directed by Robertson, with piano accompaniment by Associate Chorus Master Fabrizio Corona. The program includes works by Berlioz, Janácek, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Wagner, Jerome Kern, Franz Biebl, Arvo Pärt, and Eric Whitacre, plus a selection of spirituals and gospel songs in arrangements by Moses Hogan and Barbara W. Baker.
Of special interest in the program are seldom-performed works, such as Debussy’s Chansons de Charles d’Orléans (a brief work for mixed chorus, a capella) and Janácek’s The Wild Duck, an early piece, from 1885, intended for students. It’s been described as a work that “barely sounds like Janácek, but in its own way it does anticipate the composer’s The Cunning Little Vixen.” The song is about a duck complaining bitterly that she won’t get to raise her ducklings now that she is wounded by a hunter.
And, at the tail end of an opera season without Wagner, it will be good to hear “Freudig begrüssen wir die edle Halle” (Entrance of the Guests) from Tannhäuser included in the chorus’ concert.