Salonen and SFS on Deutsche Grammophon

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Deutsche Grammophon Web page)

The end of last month saw an album release that involved a series of “firsts.” Unless I am mistaken, it was the first time that Deutsche Grammophon released a recording of a performance by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). It was also the first recording of SFS conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Finally, the content itself was taken from the first SFS performances in Davies Symphony Hall of Kaija Saariaho’s two-act opera Adriana Mater. Saariaho had died the week before those performances took place. I do not know whether or not this the first time that Amazon created a Web page for a full-length opera only for digital download. Sadly, that download does not include a libretto; but Saariaho’s Web site includes a Web page with hyperlinks for both the libretto and background material.

Some readers may recall that I documented the opening night performance in Davies. It was one of those ill-fated partnerships of Salonen with Peter Sellars. Sellars used the pre-concert talk to describe the overall plot, which involved a generous share of maudlin acting chops. Nevertheless, that was pretty much all the acting that took place, since the performance by the vocalists involved little more than a lot of coming and going.

When I wrote my account, I refrained from declaring this to be the worst production of the SFS season. That was only because this was not the final production! Now I can definitely declare it to be the nadir. There was nothing in the narrative to establish and maintain attention, and the music had nothing to offer to improve those circumstances. Indeed, I felt that the participating vocalists did so little to establish their respective characters that it would be almost an affront to identify them by name. (At least one of them can be credited with far better qualities in previous performances with SFS.)

There is a Zen proverb that states that, if you find something boring, you should do it again. If it is still boring, you should continue to repeat. After a while, what was originally boring will gradually become interesting! In that spirit, I took the opportunity to listen to this recording several times. It has yet to strike me as interesting.