Reviews

Jason Victor Serinus - September 8, 2009

Those of us who saw San Francisco Opera’s production of Puccini’s La Rondine in fall 2007 may think that we know the opera. We don’t. SFO’s Nicolas Joël production, which was reprised at the Metropolitan last season and simultaneously shown in hi-def in many theaters around the world, is not the final word on Puccini’s Johnny-come-lately masterpiece. For that we must turn to the scholarship of Marta Domingo, and Decca’s newly released DVD of her radically revised version of La Rondine for Washington National Opera.

Jason Victor Serinus - August 25, 2009

For those of us who love opera, the Merola Grand Finale is like a decisive first date. Some singers who parade their stuff before us may have the looks, the glamour, the ease, and the savoir faire for an enjoyable outing.

Steven Winn - August 24, 2009

With the exultant opening exclamation of “Veni, creator spiritus,” the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus recapture the torrential excitement they unleashed in their November 2008 performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at Davies Symphony Hall. In one sense, that shouldn’t surprise.

Steven Winn - August 21, 2009
As a lens on the arc and evolving character of Beethoven's music, the complete works for cello and piano offer a concise, revealing, and altogether absorbing perspective.
Robert P. Commanday - August 17, 2009
The Seattle Opera’s Siegfried performed heroically on Wednesday, fighting the lingering effects of an illness more challenging than Fafner the dragon. Stig Andersen’s strategy worked.
Be'eri Moalem - August 17, 2009
“Feeling ... for the inevitable ... direction ...
Robert P. Commanday - August 11, 2009

There’s a lot of life left in the old Ring myth, made abundantly apparent Sunday and Monday in the opening of Seattle Opera’s current rerunning of Wagner’s tetralogy. With Stephen Wadsworth’s imaginative direction, the first two operas, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, were wholly engaging, his fresh interpretation showing how little need there is to transport the story into different times, cultures, or modern places, to try to make obvious strained metaphors of class or economic conflict or whatever.

Heuwell Tircuit - August 11, 2009
I’d thought I’d seen every possible CD combination, but leave it to Bridge Records to come up with an original, refreshing Tchaikovsky release. The one CD contains the composer’s two largest and most important piano works, played to the tens by virtuoso Vassily Primakov: The Seasons, Op. 37b, and the big Grand Sonata in G Major, Op. 37 (Bridge 9283).
Kwami Coleman - August 11, 2009
To be a Deadhead is to be a part of a unique, dedicated, and endlessly enthusiastic bunch.
Jeff Dunn - August 11, 2009

How do you tell a hack orchestrator from a master? One composes a new sequence of sounds, the other a sequence of new sounds. And if the sequence itself has a certain cohesive inevitability about it, you have a ground-breaking masterpiece. Two of these were served up to an enthusiastic audience Friday night at the opening of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, thanks to invitations from Music Director Marin Alsop.