First Ring Press Release of the Year

Received today from SF Opera.

On the good side, well, depending on how you feel about the principal singers: no cast changes announced.

On the interesting side, there's this:

San Francisco Opera presents three complete cycles of Wagner’s tetralogy—Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung—in the acclaimed production by American director Francesca Zambello. Utilizing visuals from the American landscape, Zambello’s interpretation, which the New York Times called “boldly contemporary” at its San Francisco Opera unveiling in 2011, will include new features, including technologically advanced projections, new imagery and restudied stage action. Zambello commented: “Since directing the Ring here in 2011 and again in 2016 in Washington, D.C., I found the power of the work seems even more contemporary. The great overarching themes of the Ring—nature, love, power and corruption—resound through America's past and haunt our present. As I have worked on it I find I have placed more emphasis on the role of the family and the power of redemption through all the female characters.”

There was plenty about the power of redemption through the female characters in 2011, so it'll be interesting to see what she has in mind. Of course, there are many changes to the cast: Evelyn Herlitzius in for Nina Stemme, Greer Grimsley in for Mark Delavan, Daniel Brenna in for Jay Hunter Morris and Ian Storey, Jamie Barton in for Elizabeth Bishop. Just that would likely result in staging changes.

The press release also includes announcements about many ancillary events. That's all below the cut.

Museum Mondays

Traminer Altarpiece Detail

Bavarian National Museum, Munich

August, 2015

More of the Same

Michael Tilson Thomas, outgoing music director of SFS, will be opening the 2018-19 Carnegie Hall season by curating a Perspective series there. He'll be conducting several orchestras: the National Youth Orchestra of the United States, San Francisco Symphony, the New World Symphony, and the VPO.

And it's hard to tell exactly what perspective or vision he's bringing to the series, because it is basically more of the same of what he does here. The composers are largely dead, entirely white, and mostly male.

Here are the dead composers: Gershwin, Sibelius, Ravel, Stravinsky, Ives, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Prokofiev, Berlioz, Schubert, aka, nothing unusual.

Here are the living composers: MTT, Ted Hearne, Julia Wolfe. And the three works by the living are performed by the New World Symphony and National Youth Orchestra. Shall we ask what that means about the VPO and SFS?

It's That Time of Year

UPDATE from January 25:

Alexey Lavrov, who stepped into the role of Silvio for performances of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci on January 13^th and 17^th, will sing the role at all remaining performances, replacing Alessio Arduini, who is ill. Performances are tonight, Thursday January 25 at 8.00pm, Monday January 29 at 7.30pm, and Thursday February 1 at 8.00pm.

Everybody is sick in NYC:

Alexey Lavrov will perform the role of Silvio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci on the Saturday January 13 matinee performance, replacing Alessio Arduini, who is ill. This performance of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci will be heard live over Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network. Alexey Lavrov previously sang the role of Silvio in Pagliacci at the Met in 2016 and has also sung the role at Opernhaus Zürich. This season Lavrov has sung the role of Ping in Puccini’s Turandot at the Met, and is scheduled to perform as Schaunard in Puccini’s La Bohème in February, a part he sang with the company last year. A graduate of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Lavrov made his company debut in 2013 as the Herald in Verdi’s Otello and has since appeared as Dr. Malatesta in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Schaunard in Puccini’s La Bohème, Count Dominik in Strauss’ Arabella, the Huntsman in Dvořák’s Rusalka, and Yamadori in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The performances of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci are conducted by Nicola Luisotti and star Roberto Alagna, Ekaterina Semenchuk, George Gagnidze, Željko Lučić, and Aleksandra Kurzak. Remaining performances are on January 17, 20 (matinee), 25 and 29, and February 1, 2018.

Friday Photo

Pumpkins

Oakland, CA

December, 2017

Reactions to the Record, 2018

Reactions to the Record, Stanford's once-in-a-while symposium focussing on historical recordings and what can be learned about performance styles from them, is happening this year, April 6 to 8, 2018.

The papers and participants haven't been announced yet, but I can't sing the praises of this conference sufficiently. It's on the small side, maybe 100 participants; it's exceptionally collegial (though there have been a few...heated moments); amateurs are welcome along with working musicologists.

SFCV writer David Bratman and myself have both attended, though I've missed the last couple owing to conflicts. I am not sure whether and how much I can attend this year. In any event, registration is on this page.

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Announces a Season of Male Composers

Sad!

ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall

“Gentle Giants”
Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 8:00 p.m.
Nobuyuki Tsujii, piano
Pärt: Fratres 
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21 for Piano & Strings 
Tchaikovsky: Chamber Symphony No. 1 in D Major (after String Quartet Op. 11) arr. Christopher Theofanidis (NY Premiere - Orpheus Commission)

“Stars Aligned”
Saturday, November 10, 2018 at 7:00 p.m.
Avi Avital, mandolin; Ksenija Sidorova, accordion
Waxman: Sinfonietta for Strings and Timpani (1955)
Bach: Double Concerto in C Minor, BWV 1060R (arr. Paul Chihara)
Benjamin Wallfisch: Concerto for Mandolin and Accordion (NY Premiere - Orpheus Commission)
Rota: Canzona (1935)
Rósza: Hungarian Serenade Op. 25 (1945) 

“Homeward Sound”
Saturday, January 12, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.
Javier Perianes, piano
James Matheson: New Work (NY Premiere - Orpheus Commission)
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major, K. 595
Dvořák: Bagatelles, Op. 47 (arr. Dennis Russell Davies) (NY Premiere)
Mozart: Symphony No. 33 in B-flat Major, K. 319

ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
92nd Street Y, Kaufmann Concert Hall

“Bleeding Hearts”
Sunday, December 9, 2018 at 3:00 p.m.
Steven Isserlis, cello
Rott: Symphony for String Orchestra in A-Flat Major
CPE Bach: Cello Concerto in A Major, H. 439
Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D. 810 “Death and the Maiden” (arr. Gustav Mahler)
 
“Merry Pranks”
Wednesday, May 8, 2019 at 7:30pm
Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord
Falla: Concerto for Harpsichord and Five Instruments
Mozart: Nonet after Quintet K. 452 (arr. Jean Françaix)
Martinů: Harpsichord Concerto G. 71
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks (arr. Brett Dean)

Museum Monday

Traminer Altarpiece Detail

Bavarian National Museum, Munich

August, 2015

Upcoming Conductor Change, Berkeley Symphony

This was....unexpected:

BERKELEY, CA—The Berkeley Symphony today announced conductor changes to its February and April 2018 performances while Music Director Joana Carneiro anticipates the birth of her fourth child this spring with her husband José in Lisbon, Portugal, where they permanently reside. “We are thrilled for Joana and her family - they have our total love and support,” said René Mandel, Executive Director of the Berkeley Symphony. “We very much look forward to welcoming Joana back to the podium.”

Replacing Carneiro for the February 1 and 2 concerts—at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley and San Francisco Conservatory of Music, respectively—is Keitaro Harada, who currently serves as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops, as well as of the Arizona Opera. The program remains unchanged: Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine, Gordon Getty’s Joan and the Bells and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. The Symphony will be joined by the Berkeley Symphony Chorus, Eric Choate, chorusmaster, and soloists Lisa Delan, soprano; and Lester Lynch, baritone.
A substitute for the symphony’s April 19 program will be announced soon.

Best wishes to Joana Carneiro and her whole family!

Friday Photo

Coffee maker

Cole Coffee window

Rockridge, Oakland

January, 2018

It's Called Don Carlo For a Reason

FFS, LA Opera's web page for next season's Don Carlo production is disgraceful.

Here's the graphic, which is of the guy playing Rodrigo....the way he looked about 25 years ago:

I guess that's Ramon Vargas in the lower-left-hand corner.

And the text is just as bad:

Yeah, we all know that former-tenor Domingo sells more tickets than Vargas, but wow. This is really insulting and a distortion of the opera.

LA Opera 2018-19

A good season, with a few things I'd like to see. Copy and pasted from press release, a few comments in brackets.

MAINSTAGE PRODUCTIONS(presented at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)

Don Carlo (Giuseppe Verdi)
September 22 through October 14, 2018; revivalJames Conlon conducts a cast led by Ramón Vargas in the title role, with Ana María Martínez as Elisabeth de Valois, Anna Smirnova as Princess Eboli, Ferruccio Furlanetto as King Philip II, and Plácido Domingo as Rodrigo. The production by Ian Judge returns to Los Angeles for the first time since 2006. [Not after the fab cast we had in 2016 in SF.]

Satyagraha (Philip Glass)
October 20 through November 11, 2018; company premiere
Following the extraordinary success of Einstein on the Beach (2013) and Akhnaten (2016), LA Opera completes the Philip Glass operatic trilogy about great thinkers who changed the world. Satyagraha (Sanskrit for “truth force”) is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s early years in South Africa, where he developed the radical new idea of nonviolent political resistance. Grant Gershon conducts a production created by Phelim McDermott (director of Akhnaten) for the Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera, starring Sean Panikkar as Gandhi. [YES.]

Hansel and Gretel (Engelbert Humperdinck)
November 17 through December 15, 2018; revival
James Conlon conducts a revival of Doug Fitch's dreamlike production, full of fantastical sets and elaborate special effects. Sasha Cooke and Liv Redpath sing the title roles, with diva extraordinaire Susan Graham as the uproariously wicked witch, eager to lure her young victims into a delicious trap. [YES YES YES. Can you tell that I love this opera? and the cast? Although....I favor a dramatic mezzo as the Witch.]

La Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus) (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
March 2 through 24, 2019; company premiere; new production
James Conlon conducts La Clemenza di Tito,  Mozart's final opera seria, written simultaneously with The Magic Flute in the last months of the composer's life. The new production is directed and designed by Thaddeus Strassberger, who previously staged LA Opera productions of The Two Foscari (2012) and Nabucco (2017). Russell Thomas stars as the imperiled emperor whose generosity and compassion point the way to a brighter future. [YES YES YES so that I can finally say that yes, I have seen this.]

El Gato Montés: The Wildcat (Manuel Penella)
April 27 through May 19, 2019; production new to Los AngelesIn one of the greatest masterpieces of the Spanish lyrical theater, a beautiful gypsy (Ana María Martínez) unwittingly inspires a fatal rivalry between a renowned bullfighter (Arturo Chacón-Cruz) and a bandit on the run (Plácido Domingo). The quintessentially Spanish tale unfolds with passionate melodies, dazzling choreography and an atmospheric staging. Spanish conductor Jordi Bernàcer leads a production created by director José Carlos Plaza for Madrid's Teatro de la Zarzuela. [Probably, maybe.]

La Traviata (Giuseppe Verdi)
June 1 through 22, 2019; revival
James Conlon conducts a revival of Marta Domingo's popular Art Deco-inspired update of the Verdi classic. In the face of certain death, a beautiful courtesan dedicates her remaining time to decadent pleasures, dazzling parties and wealthy admirers. But she is transformed when a devoted suitor declares his true love, and demonstrates her great humanity with a heart-breaking sacrifice before her premature passing. Romanian soprano Adela Zaharai, the 2017 winner of Operalia, makes her company debut as the glamorous Violetta, with Rame Lahaj (a 2016 Operalia winner) and Charles Castronovo sharing the role of Alfredo. [So....who is singing Germont Pere? Dare I ask? The production is really not very good; it played in SF in 2009. Move Traviata into the 20s and what you have is...La Rondine, except she dies.]

OFF GRAND PRESENTATIONS
(presented in various venues)

 [All of these look VERY interesting, if I can take any of them in opposite a MainStage opera, I will.]

Vampyr (Joby Talbot)
October 27 through 31, 2018; world premiere
Our annual Halloween mash-up of opera and cinema returns to the spectacular Theatre at Ace Hotel with filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer’s surreal 1932 masterwork, underestimated for decades but now regarded as an important landmark of the horror genre. Composer Joby Talbot creates a compelling new score for chamber orchestra and singers, performed live with a rare screening of this cinematic gem, and conducted by Matthew Aucoin, LA Opera's Artist in Residence.
Presented at the Theatre at Ace Hotel (929 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, 90015)

Prism (Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins)
November 29 through December 2, 2018; world premiere
A mother and daughter lock themselves away from the world to protect themselves from the dangers lurking outside. Prism explores the viscosity of memory after trauma, and the lengths one will go to feel better—no matter the cost. Marking LA Opera's fifth season of collaborations with Beth Morrison Projects, the Los Angeles world premiere presentation of Prism will be followed by performances at the Prototype Festival in New York.
Presented at REDCAT (631 W. Second Street, Los Angeles, 90012)

the loser (David Lang)
February 22 and 23, 2019; West Coast premiereTwo piano prodigies at a master class encounter an even greater talent: the virtuoso Glenn Gould, on the cusp of superstardom. The devastating realization that they will never approach their new rival’s level of artistry changes their lives forever. A painful meditation on dreams forsaken and hopes unrealized unfolds, with Rod Gilfry starring in an intimate staging that incorporates multiple levels of the spectacular Theatre at Ace Hotel.

Presented at the Theatre at Ace Hotel (929 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, 90015)

For more information about LA Opera’s Off Grand initiative, visit LAOpera.org/OffGrand.

San Francisco Opera, 2018-19

The season is pretty much what I thought it would be. Orlando Furioso (Vivaldi) turned out to be Orlando (Handel), and I'm fine with that. I'd heard that Brian Jagde wouldn't be singing in SF next season, but no! There he is as Cavaradossi again (he was in the last two bring-ups, Gheorghiu/Racette /Moore and Haroutounian).

I am....sorta dubious about some of this. Matthew Polenzani as Don José? Um. Marco Berti as anything? He "withdrew for personal reasons" after two performances of the 2014-15 Norma, to be replaced by Russell Thomas for the remaining five and was pretty terrible in the last Trovatore, with Sondra Radvanovsky and the late Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

On the other hand, the winning trio of Radvanovsky, Jamie Barton, and Thomas is back for Roberto  Devereux, and they're joined by Artur Rucinski, whom everybody loved in last year's Traviata.

Nice to see Rusalka back, and of course not in the by-now-moth-eaten Schenk, though why McVicar? Well, we luv him here. I would have preferred to see a production that really digs into the problems with the story, and I bet this does not. Nice cast, though.

I have somehow managed to see repertory staple Cav & Pag only once, back in the 80s; I skipped the last SFO bring-up, which must have been 10 or 15 years ago. I might have to see Tosca owing to Carmen Giannattasio. The bit of the production that got flashed on screen during the ten-minute season announcement looked like....primary-colors Sant'Andrea della Valle.

I vaguely thought that Heidi Stober might be Zdenka, especially after Ellie Dehn was announced as Arabella, and yup. It's pretty nicely cast. Return of Richard Paul Fink!

Again, nice cast for It's a Wonderful Life, which, with its sentimental streak crossed with torturing poor George Bailey, is not exactly a favorite film of mine. I'll see William Burden in pretty much anything and likely he will give a nuanced performance. Sorry not to see Anthony Dean Griffey as Uncle Billy, looking forward to hearing Golda Schultz. (I will say that making the angel female rather than the sad sack incompetent in the movie....might work better.)

I might need someone to explain to me what, exactly, this means, about Carmen: "San Francisco Opera production, originally created by Opera Australia based on the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Norwegian National Opera co-production." We own the physical production but the intellectual property comes from the ROH and NNO via Opera Australia? I'm confused!

Of interest is the conductor lineup: absent a music director, we're getting eight conductors for the season, six of them new to SFO main stage. Patrick Summers (Wonderful Life) and Riccardo Frizza (Roberto Devereux) are the returnees. Bel canto is what Frizza does well, so fine. The debutants are Daniele Callegari (Cav & Pag), Leo Hussain (Tosca), Marc Albrecht (Arabella), James Gaffigan (Carmen), Christopher Moulds (Orlando), and Eun Sun Kim (Rusalka). Kim will be one of the few women to conduct at SFO (previously: Sara Jobin and....anyone else?). (Yes, Karen Kamensek conducted Susannah in 2014, as JSC says in comments. I would have sworn that Jane Glover conducted here, but I cannot find her in the archive.)

I'm going to note that Santa Fe Opera is one of the Arabella production's co-producers, so it will presumably meet their requirements: no traps, no flies. I saw their Albert Herring in LA a few years back, and it was weird to see all the scenery wheeled in from the wings.

Lastly, the season announcement had nothing about Opera Lab or the Wilsey Center and neither does the press release. I have made inquiries.

The whole lineup is after the jump.

West Edge Opera: Snapshot

Received this week:

BERKELEY, CA, January 8, 2018:  WEST EDGE OPERA'S SNAPSHOT presents excerpts from new, previously unproduced operas by West Coast composers and librettists February 24 and 25, 2018. Inaugurated in 2017, the program is the first of its kind in the Bay Area and is a collaboration with Earplay, New Chamber Music Ensemble.

Performances will take place:
Saturday February 24, 2018  
8:00PM 
Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall, 
2288 Fulton St, 
Berkeley, CA 94704  

Sunday February 25, 2018 
3:00PM  
Taube Atrium Theater, 
401 Van Ness Ave, 
San Francisco, CA 94102. 


Both venues are ideally suited to the intimate yet expansive demands of Snapshot and are conveniently close to BART. General admission tickets go on sale January 5 and will be available online at westedgeopera.org or by phone at 510-841-1903. Tickets are $40 each.

This year's Snapshot promises to showcase a diverse group of local and national artists in new works by West Coast composers, Cyril Deaconoff, Larry London, Brian Rosen, Katherine Saxon, and Erling Wold.
The Last Tycoon, music by Cyril Deaconoff and libretto adapted by David Yezzi, is based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel of the same name. The Russian born American composer, conductor, pianist, and organist Deaconoff (born Kirill Dyachkov), attended Gnesine State Music College and is a graduate of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Composition and Choral Conducting). His recent work String Quartet No. 1 was selected by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra for their concert of contemporary music entitled Valley Voices. He has received commissions from the Vallejo Choral Society and the Arts Council Silicon Valley. In November 2011, West Bay opera in Palo Alto presented a workshop of The Last Tycoon.

Dynamo, music by Larry London and libretto by William Smock, features brief, crucial scenes from the professional and family life of Thomas A. Edison. London did his undergraduate work at Harvard and earned a Master's degree in composition at Mills College. He studied with Darius Milhaud, Terry Riley, and Lou Harrison. His compositions have been performed at the Aspen and Cabrillo Music Festivals, by the Oakland Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony chamber series. London has contributed as a composer, arranger, or performer to over fifty films. He composed the music for Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper, an American Masters documentary film, recognized as Best Portrait at the Montreal International Festival of Films in 1998. He wrote music for Joann Sfar Draws from Memory, a documentary film for KQED Public Television in 2012.

Death of a Playboy, music and libretto by Brian Rosen, revolves around a heated private discussion that threatens to disrupt Hugh Hefner's funeral. Rosen is a San Francisco based composer/performer specializing in works that marry music and theater. Brian studied music composition at Interlochen Arts Academy and computer science at Princeton University. He moved to the Bay Area in 1993 to join Pixar Animation Studios for their first full length film, Toy Story and remains on staff as a software engineer, technical director, and occasional voice talent. Brian has written and arranged for the a cappella ensemble The Richter Scales, completed a commissioned operatic adaptation of Alice in Wonderland for Cinnabar Opera Theater, and composed a string quarted premiered and recorded in 2010. He recently received a grant from the American Comnposer's Forum for the premiere of his song cycle A Brief History of Love and Poetry.

In 452 Jamestown Place, music and libretto by Katherine Saxon, a young woman terrifies her boyfriend with outbursts from multiple personalities. Saxon has writen a wide variety of music that ranges from large-scale choral works to intricate chamber music. Her music has been performed at the Atlantic Music Festival, NACUSA events (regional and national), the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the UCSB Primavera Festival. Her work Speed and Perfection received the first prize in the San Francisco Choral Artists' 2012 New Voices Competition.

She Who is Alive, music by Erling Wold and libretto by Robert Harris, features the warlord of a futuristic empire as he gives a dissident female scientist prisoner the third degree. Wold is an eclectic composer who has been called, "the Eric Satie of Berkeley surrealists/minimalist electro-art rock," by the Village Voice. His chamber works have been presented in San Francisco and Santa Cruz by New Music Works and by the San Francisco Conservatory New Music Ensemble. He was a resident artist at ODC Theater, who presented his opera Sub Pontio Pilato, an historical fantasy on the death and remembrance of Pontius Pilate, a chamber opera based on William Borroughs' early autobiographical novel Queer, and his critically acclaimed work A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil, based on the Max Ernst collage novel.

Performers featured in Snapshot include sopranos Heidi Moss and Julia Hathaway; mezzo-soprano Molly Mahoney; tenors J. Raymond Meyers, Jacob Thompson, and Darron Flagg; and baritone Jason Sarten.
Snapshot will utilize the unique spaces at the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall and the Taube Atrium Theater at the Wilsey Center for Opera. Odd Fellows Hall is a high-ceilinged neoclassical space designed by James W. Plachek in 1925. The hall is a ceremonial space with iconic stained-glass details and a skylight that was painted black during WWII and never restored. The Taube Atrium Theater in the historic Veteran's Building at the heart of San Francisco's Civic Center reflects the soaring classicism of the Odd Fellows Hall, but with a renewed contemporary sensibility. Restored for San Francisco opera's new Wilsey Center for Opera, the space is electronically optimized for acoustic music with a Meyer Sound Constellation system.

Museum Mondays

Traminer Altarpiece Detail

Bavarian National Museum, Munich

August, 2015

Process

I've been posted here and there on the internet about the Levine and Dutoit sexual abuse cases. I've gotten some comments about process and the swift ending of careers in the cases of both the conductors. Herein some thoughts on process.

There was an article in the Washington Post a couple of weeks back about a sexual harassment case in a completely different part of the public world, but it's awfully similar in some ways to what happened with Dutoit, different in other ways that bear on Dutoit.

The case in question is that of Judge Alex Kozinski. Some features of the situation:

• Kozinski has a long history of questionable behavior.
• Multiple women attesting to this.
• Incidents took place over decades.
• There's a whisper network of women warning each other about him.
• These women generally told friends and family what had happened contemporaneously with the harassment.
• Non-denial denials: "In an initial statement to The Post, Kozinski said he would 'never intentionally do anything to offend anyone and it is regrettable that a handful have been offended by something I may have said or done.'"
• The federal judiciary has a procedure for dealing with this stuff, and a judge asked Chief Justice Roberts to appoint a an investigator. Kozinsky resigned (retired) a few days later.

Kozinski was not reported earlier in part because clerking is a big stepping stone in a lawyer's career and women he'd behaved inappropriately with were concerned about the effects of complaining on their careers. That's also a feature of the Dutoit case, where the conductor could hire or not hire soloists, and it's a feature of other music business harassment cases, I expect - nobody knows how many unreported harassers there are.

Also regarding Dutoit, with several of these orchestras, he resigned ahead of being fired. What I understand is that music director contracts almost always have "morals clauses," which govern how the MD is to behave, including not making the orchestra look bad. Guest conductor contracts can contain clauses setting forth circumstances under which an orchestra can fire the conductor. I would expect that some of these do cover the conductor's behavior. So that is part of the process: Dutoit signed contracts knowing what they contained and what the expectations are.

It is difficult to set a procedure for how to handle incidents that are far in the past. There's the question of whether behavior is unacceptable or illegal. There are statutes of limitations that come into play, but an organization that has someone under contract is also not obliged to ignore reports of past bad behavior, especially when there are reports from unrelated people and the incidents took place over decades. The fact that Dutoit withdrew from some engagements is telling, also: if these incidents never happened, he is free to hire a lawyer and take action against the accusers. He is apparently not doing this and his denials are of the sort "something happened and they're interpreting it differently from me."

Earlier this week, another six women came forward about their past experiences with Dutoit. He is alleged to have raped one of these women. Several of the women went on the record, though not the rape victim. Anne Sophie Schmidt, a now-retired opera singer, says that Dutoit never hired her again after she refused him.

Dutoit's behavior hasn't been a secret. Back in 1995, journalist Natasha Gauthier reported on this; nobody denied it and no orchestras did anything about it. The Philadelphia Orchestra passed over him twice as a potential music director because of his reputation for "extreme flirtatiousness" (and what a euphemism / lie that is).

The problem isn't that abusers such as Levine and Dutoit are losing their careers because of a lack of process. The problem is that musical organizations didn't have processes in place to protect musicians and other members of their organizations.

Here's an example: Fiona Allan, who says that Dutoit assaulted her at Tanglewood, was told the following by the BSO's manager:  "Before you see maestro, I need to tell you something,” she recalled the manager saying. “Look, we advise, we’ve had some complaints, and I wouldn’t go in there alone." That was the BSO's process! What bullshit! This was in 1997, 20 years ago, when Allan was an intern at Tanglewood. So if you see the BSO claiming that they never knew about Dutoit, well, they are lying. And if the BSO knew, other orchestras knew also.

If you work at a big company, and you find evidence that an accountant - or the CFO - has embezzled a couple of million dollars, you fire that person right away, before the charges are filed or the trial is held. You can't keep someone like that around. And nobody would complain about "lack of process."

This is no different. Don't tell me all about how Dutoit and Levine's careers were destroyed because of lack of process. Their own actions destroyed their careers. It's too bad that didn't happen decades ago, before they had the chance to damage their victims' lives and careers.

Friday Photo

Westminster Abbey

May, 2014

Il Trovatore Cast Change, Met

Received from the Met:

Jennifer Rowley will sing the role of Leonora in all performances of the Met’s production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore opening January 22, replacing the originally scheduled Maria Agresta, who is ill. Rowley has previously sung the role of Leonora with Théâtre de Caen, Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, and Opéra de Lille. She made her Met debut as Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème in 2014, and last year received critical acclaim making her role debut at short notice as Roxane in Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac. Tomorrow night she is scheduled to sing the title role in the Met’s new production of Puccini’s Tosca, a part she has also sung with New Orleans Opera and Dresden’s Sächsische Staatsoper. Her other performances include the title role in Barber’sVanessa with Toledo Opera and as Musetta in La Bohème at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Sir David McVicar’s production of Il Trovatore, led by Marco Armiliato, will also feature Yonghoon Lee as Manrico, and Anita Rachvelishvili as Azucena. Quinn Kelsey and Luca Salsi will share the role of Count di Luna, with Štefan Kocán and Kwangchul Youn both singing the role of Ferrando. For one performance on February 6, Dolora Zajick will sing the role of Azucena.
 Performances of Il Trovatore at the Met are on January 22, 26, 30, Feb 3 (matinee), 6, 9, 12 and 15, 2018.

Maria Agresta withdrew from SFO Turandot performances in September, 2017 owing to illness. Hoping this isn't one serious illness.

And the Harder to Evaluate (2017 in Review)

I inadvertently omitted a couple of items about last year: West Edge Opera's overall season and San Francisco Opera's summer offerings.

For the last few years, West Edge Opera has generally had snappily performed, entertainingly directed operas during its summer season. This past year was an odd one: Thomas's Hamlet, Martin y Soler's The Chastity Tree, and Larsen's Frankenstein.

I've already commented that Frankenstein was a well-performed train wreck; in general, composers should not write their own librettos, unless they happen to be named Wagner, Berlioz, Berg, and sometimes Adamo. Larsen's literary abilities are not in that class. She is a fine composer, as I know because I have heard some of her other music. But usually it's a good idea to hire a pro to write your libretto. (ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME JOHN ADAMS????)

As for Hamlet, it has some good music and some good opportunities for scenery chewing. The staging was pretty good. The singing was outstanding: Edward Nelson as Hamlet, Emma McNairy as Ophelia, Susanne Mentzer as Gertrude, and Philip Skinner as Claudius. But unlike other reviewers, I just could not get to the mental point of regarding the opera as anything other than a crappy version of the Shakespeare play.

The Chastity Tree is a great rarity and a work of a type that really should be heard more: a good opera by a barely-known, but successful, contemporary of Mozart's. You need context to tell why the greats are great! The performance was great fun, the music sparkling, the performers lovely (and weirdly dressed).

Summer at SFO was...not what I'd hoped for. Rigoletto, with the fabulous Michael Yeargen sets making yet another appearance, was supposedly revised in some way from previous bring ups, but darned if I could see how. Nicola Luisotti was in good form; Quinn Kelsey was a terrific jester, Pene Pati, with a lovely voice, has not quite got his own style yet, and Nino Machaidze, making her debut at SFO, was weak. She's not a bad singer by any means, but largely because of her vocal character - dark, mature, perhaps a little too vibrant - she was not remotely convincing as Rigoletto's innocent young daughter.

I've already written about La Boheme; nothing to add, though i will restate that it was an undistinguished bring-up.

And oh, that Don Giovanni: where on earth did the production come from? It was just ghastly looking; a nearly blank stage with mirrors going up and down behind the singers, and the occasional property showing up to sort-of-define the space as something particular. And because the "international version" was used, everybody got every last one of their arias, and the effect was of a badly-staged opera seria, with singers coming on, singing for ten minutes, and wandering off. There was little sign of direction.

The singing was pretty good, though....I thought Ana Maria Martinez miscast and Stanislas de Barbeyrac okay, not great. There were complaints about Erin Wall's audibility, but I could hear her just fine in Balcony Circle. Best of all was really Marc Minkowski's sharply brisk conducting. I hope he'll be back.

Westbroeken

From the Met:

Ekaterina Semenchuk, already scheduled to sing the role of Santuzza in the first three performances of the current season of Mascagni’sCavalleria Rusticana, will now sing at all the performances, replacing Eva-Maria Westbroek, who is ill. Westbroek had been scheduled to sing later in the season from January 20 to February 1, 2018. Russian mezzo-soprano Semenchuk made her Met role debut as Santuzza this week. Earlier this season, she was a soloist during the Met’s concert performances of Verdi’s Requiem, and her other credits with the company have included Princess Marina in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Olga in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Pauline in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, and her company debut as Sonya in Prokofiev’s War and Peace. The performances of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci will be conducted by Nicola Luisotti and star Roberto Alagna, George Gagnidze, Željko Lučić, and Aleksandra Kurzak. Remaining performances are on January 13 (matinee), 17, 20 (matinee), 25 and 29, and February 1, 2018. 

Replacement Report

Orchestras are announcing who will replace Charles Dutoit in upcoming concerts:

• Royal Philharmonic in San Francisco: Thierry Fischer, programs unchanged, Jan. 28 & 29
• New York Philharmonic: Joshua Weilerstein, program unchanged, Jan. 17-20

Museum Mondays

Traminer Altarpiece Detail

Bavarian National Museum, Munich

August, 2015

The Year in Review

This was one very weird year, in so many ways. Personally, it was pretty good! My job went reasonably well, and I have the best colleagues possible in Cloud Networking Docs and generally in Cloud Docs. The only task left with my mother's estate is filing one final tax return. I did not travel as much as I would have liked to, although....Los Angeles for opera; Seattle twice for work within a one month period; NY twice, once for my mom's unveiling, my aunt Ida's unveiling, and my uncle Irving's 99th birthday party, and, ten weeks later, Irv's funeral (sigh, but he had a good long run...); once to Hawaii (not the best vacation ever for various reasons); and once to Santa Fe for opera.

Musically, I will forever remember 2017 as the year Mason Bates wrote a better opera than John Adams. At no point before the dress rehearsal of Girls of the Golden West would I have expected this, and in fact, I would have laughed at the notion.

Boy, was I wrong. While my review of GGW was not as vitriolic as Joshua Kosman's, he and I and nearly everyone else are in agreement about the weaknesses of the opera; in fact, I'm willing to bet that even reviewers who on balance liked it agree about what the weaknesses are. And everybody loved the performers, too.

That said, while Bates's The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs has obvious weaknesses (see my review for details), the music is inventive, energetic, and consistently engaging. I'm looking forward to seeing it again in SF! And wondering about the casting, since Seattle announced an almost completely new cast for their bring-up. My bet: Brian Mulligan or maybe Quinn Kelsey as Steve.

Some of the big musical highlights of 2017:

• Nixon in China at the LA Phil. Conducted by John Adams himself, gorgeously directed by Elkhana Pulitzer, and with a terrific cast, Nixon remains one of the great 20th c. additions to the operatic repertory.
• Salome at the LA Opera. A revival of an old and well-traveled Peter Hall staging and somewhat looking its age, but also with some wonderful touches. An excellent cast, led by the surprisingly convincing, and very brave, Patricia Racette. You wouldn't have thought this was her role, but her combination of musicality and total dramatic commitment makes up for the fact that her voice isn't exactly the right type or size. Beautiful and supportive conducting from James Conlon helped a lot, I am sure. The supporting cast was very fine, with Isaacha Savage a magnificent Narraboth and Alan Glassman a lyrical and convincing Herod. Savage is the real dramatic tenor deal and I look forward to seeing him in leading roles. This performance also made me a fan of the opera after decades of casually loathing it, which is why I now have five recordings of it floating around. Read Alex Ross's wonderful Gramophone roundup for recommendations.
• Das Rheingold at the NY Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert's last subscription appearance as music director of the orchestra. An excellent cast, although....I found Eric Owens a little recessed for Wotan. Jamie Barton as Fricka, Russell Thomas a real WOW as a lyrical and straightforward Loge, and Christopher Purves as the best Alberich I have seen (and I include a great performance by Richard Paul Fink at Seattle in 2001). I note that with Morris Robinson's Fasolt, this was the first non-Porgy opera I've seen with more than one African American singer! And how on earth did they get the great Stephen Milling as Fafner? Gilbert was excellent, and, by the way, there were six harps on stage, although That Hall being what it was, they weren't very audible in the upper reaches.
• Das Lied von der Erde with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Esa-Pekka Salonen, Stuart Skelton, and Karen Cargill delivering greatness all around.
• Alcina and The Golden Cockerell at Santa Fe, in addition to Steve Jobs. I hope to write up both productions in greater detail.
• Elektra at San Francisco was in the HOLY MOTHER OF GOD category, with Christine Goerke's haunted and fabulous Elektra leading the way in an absorbing, if slightly wayward, Keith Warner production set in a museum. Adrianne Pieczonka, Michaela Martens, and Alfred Walker rounded out a tremendous cast; Henrik Nanasi conducted; all my friends saw this multiple times and I only wish I'd gone to the Wednesday performance I missed.
• Manon at SFO. Okay, I'll never be a huge fan of the piece, but the sparkling production and excellent singing by Ellie Dehn and Michael Fabiano made this the second-biggest pleasant surprise of the year for me, after Steve Jobs.
• Turandot at SFO, Nina Stemme, Brian Jagde, Leah Crocetto, debuting conductor Christopher Franklin gave the best performance of this I've seen. I've got a detailed review about half done.
• Claire Chase's amazing four-hour flute recital, the first fruits of her 23 year commissioning project, Density 2036. Greatest recital I've ever seen? The review was not easy to write because you run out of superlatives pretty fast.
• Merola triple bill of La Serva Padrona, Savitri, and The Bear. Peter Kazaras's direction left a good deal to be desired, but the singing and execution did not.
• Krzysztof Urbańsk's two programs at San Francisco Symphony were simply astonishing.

And some lowlights:

• Girls of the Golden West. I've already said plenty about this.
• Berlioz Requiem at SFS, with Charles Dutoit giving an uncharacteristically weak performance.
• Frankenstein at West Edge Opera. A well-performed train wreck of an opera.

Important news:

• MTT to retire as music director of SFS in three years. Wow. I mean, I have had a lot of complaints about the degree of dead-white-guy programming, but the orchestra is in great shape and it's been a wonderful partnership. Enormous shoes to fill, etc. 
• James Levine, finally, after forty years of rumors.
• Charles Dutoit, and since his behavior was in the newspapers 22 years ago, it's not even rumors.
• Waiting for about 30 other shoes to drop.

A Few Random Items

The 2020 music director of the Ojai Festival will be Matthias Pintscher, composer and current music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain. It's sure to be an interesting year, although, of what year could that not be said of Ojai? 

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Opera American has named the participants in their Women's Mentorship program: 

         Protégé:  Piper Gunnarson | Executive Director, On Site Opera (New York, NY)

Mentor:    Annie Burridge | General Director and CEO, Austin Opera

Protégé:  Katie Preissner | Director of Production, Opera Colorado

Mentor:    Clare Burovac | Director of Artistic Operations, Portland Opera

Protégé:  Mitra Sadeghpour | Director of Opera, University of Northern Iowa

Mentor:    Stacy Brightman | Vice President, Education and Community Engagement, LA                                 Opera

Can't say I loved the terminology (protégé? really?), but the program is excellent and there's a nice wide range of participants. Read more about Opera America's Women's Opera Network here.

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Island City Opera's Rimsky-Korsakov double bill is coming up fast, on various dates from January 17-28, 2018, in Alameda, CA. How often do you get to see Mozart & Salieri and Kashchey the Immortal? That's right, not very. Get your tickets here.

SFO Music Director Opening

Nota bene: I drafted this a couple of months ago; long story why I didn't publish it then.

I read Joshua Kosman's final interview with Nicola Luisotti about a week after it was published. Most of it is unexceptional, although Luisotti's "Nobody understood what I was trying to say!" about his remarks in 2015 on the Second Viennese School struck me as...a little late, on his part.

What really caught my eye was this:

Matthew Shilvock, the San Francisco Opera’s current general director, says the search for his successor will be thorough and painstaking, perhaps taking as long as two or three years.

Oh? Nobody says that kind of thing in public except to signal the likelihood that they will stretch the process out for two to three years. There's plenty of talent out there looking for jobs - see my running list of open positions and conductors without permanent contracts, and SFO probably has a much more extensive list of available conductors.

Luisotti's departure was announced in May, 2016, eighteen months ago, and presumably there had been discussions about his decision and the timing of that announcement before that. He could have gone to Shilvock and the board six months or more before May, 2016. A search committee could, and should, have been formed right away. At the very least, Shilvock must be asking around: consulting other general directors and conductors about potential candidates. He must also have a list of conductors available to take over in an emergency, say, if someone under contract for a scheduled opera is ill or injured or has a family emergency.  Imagine a conductor who is in a serious accident and won't be able to conduct for a year or more. Recall the real-life drama of James Levine's medical problems and their impact on two major musical organizations. Someone in Shilvock's position has to plan for these things in advance.

But maybe the reason for the thorough, possibly multi-year search is financial: Luisotti made more than $600,000 in the last year for which I can dig up a 990. Or maybe the reason is that SFO has someone in mind and that person isn't available yet or discussions are under way or whatever.

Let's think for a moment about the qualifications needed to be the music director of an opera company in the US.

• Excellent to great conductor, of consistent skill and a convincing interpreter of a wide variety of repertory, that is, not a specialist who can do Wagner and Strauss, but not Verdi, or the opposite, who can do Verdi and Puccini (and their bel canto predecessors), but falls down elsewhere in the standard rep and important perimeter works 
• Broad knowledge of the repertory
• Experience beyond the podium: can work with the music librarian, chorus master, chorus; knows voices; can do orchestra-building
• Worked as a repetiteur / assistant conductor for some time
• Comfortable with the possibly-maddening fund-raising and socializing and glad-handing required of any US music director
• Familiar with, or has performed, the administrative tasks required of a music director
• Gets along with the general director of the company
• No history of abusive behavior on or off the podium

Best of all might be someone who has experience as a music director of an opera company (although the absence of this didn't keep the Met from hiring Yannick Nezhet-Seguin.) Interestingly, there are a few of this rare breed floating around the music world just now:

• Lothar Koenigs, former music director of the Welsh National Opera, who stepped in for Levine to conduct what sounded on the HD broadcast like an excellent run of Lulu in 2015
• Henrik Nànàsi, former music director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, who just happens to have conducted the fabulous Elektra in SF this season
• Philippe Augin, about whose upcoming departure from Washington National Opera you might be scratching your head
• Antonio Pappano, whose ROH contract will be up in a couple of years, although interviews make it sound as though he is not looking for another opera house gig
• Simone Young, former chief conductor of Opera Australia and former chief executive of the Hamburg State Opera

And there are plenty of other fine conductors who are currently guesting or who might be in a position to add an opera company to their responsibilities. I suspect that the great Susanna Målkki is fully booked, between the Helsinki Symphony, guest work at the LA Phil, and other guest conducting (but please, book her for something!), but how about David Robertson? (Actually, one might wonder just what went wrong with Robertson at SLSO; his departure surprised me.) What about Ludovic Morlot, who will be leaving the Seattle Symphony in another season or two? What about....Krzysztof Urbanski? (Written before I read about an age-discrimination lawsuit at the Indianapolis Symphony that involved Urbanski. Ooops. That could be disqualifying.)

Regardless of which conductor is eventually tapped, I hope that some of the immensely talented conductors out there will visit San Francisco Opera as guest conductors.

(Note: I drafted this blog post before the MTT bombshell hit. Some conductors who might be suitable for SFO might also be suitable for SFS. And MTT is a talented opera conductor who might now be able to guest conduct at SFO.)