The Second Summer Concert Program in Davies

Conductor Nicolas Ellis (from the Web page for last night’s performance)

Yesterday evening Davies Symphony Hall saw the second Summer Classics program performed by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) as part of the Summer with Symphony concert series. The title of the program was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Both my wife and I have fond memories of the Davies concert that presented all of the music that Felix Mendelssohn had composed for William Shakespeare’s play interleaved with a semi-staged performance of all of the texts associated with that music.

Sadly, this approach to Mendelssohn and Shakespeare did not take place last night. Instead, Midsummer was reduced to the three most familiar movements from the full score, the overture, the nocturne, and (of course) the “Wedding March.” This began the second half of the program, and Shakespeare prevailed with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Fantasy-Overture,” “Romeo and Juliet.” The first half of the program was framed by opera, beginning with the “Forest Murmurs” episode from the second act of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried and concluding with the “Carmen Fantasy” by Franz Waxman. This was originally composed for the movie Humoresque and was subsequently arranged for violin and symphony orchestra by violinist Jascha Heifetz. These two operatic offerings framed the performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending.” Violinist Geneva Lewis was the soloist in both this selection and the “Carmen Fantasy.”

Nicolas Ellis made his debut as conductor. Sadly, things got off to a shaky start with the forest more mushy than murmuring. Fortunately, Ellis managed to get his mojo working before Lewis took the stage. Their shared chemistry for “The Lark Ascending” could not have been more engaging, and their shared take on Georges Bizet’s opera could not have been more dazzling. Following the intermission, Ellis’ command of the podium was just as satisfying. Even if I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to Tchaikovsky’s take on Shakespeare, there was a freshness in Ellis’ interpretation that kept my attention from beginning to end.

SFS: A “Summer Classic” in Mid-July

Geneva Lewis, violinist for the selections by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Franz Waxman (from the event page for her performance)

“Serious” music tends to take a back seat in Davies Symphony Hall during the summer months. However, in a few week’s time the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) will present a program in its Summer Classics series given the title A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That title will refer to the music the Felix Mendelssohn composed for a performance of the play by William Shakespeare of that title. This will begin the second half of the program, and it will be followed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet,” which he called a “Fantasy-Overture.” The program will begin with the instrumental “Forest Murmurs” excerpt from Richard Wagner’s opera Siegfried, arranged for concert performance by Hermann Zumpe. This will be followed by Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending.” The program will then return to opera with Franz Waxman’s “Carmen Fantasy,” edited for violin and orchestra by Jascha Heifetz. The soloist will be Geneva Lewis, and the conductor will be Nicolas Ellis.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place in Davies Symphony Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, July 17. As usual, a Web page has been created for purchasing tickets online, showing availability and prices for the different seating areas. Tickets may also be acquired at the Box Office, which is at the entrance to Davies on the south side of Grove Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street.

DSO: Wagner with Tchaikovsky and Strauss

The text for yesterday evening’s latest YouTube livestream of the performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) began as follows: “Stories of tragic love unfold through the expressive power of the orchestra.” Each half of the program began with music by Richard Wagner: the Prelude and Liebestod episodes (the latter performed without vocalist) from Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde and the “Siegfried Idyll” tone poem, which serves as a supplement to the operatic tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen  (the ring of the Nibelung). The first half of the program concluded with another tone poem, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini;” and the program concluded with an instrumental suite of excerpts from Richard Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier. Music Director Jader Bignamini led the ensemble.

What struck me most positively was the conductor’s measure-by-measure sensitivity to Wagner’s dynamics. Those familiar with the composer know how his sensitivity to dynamics underscores the narrative subtleties that provide the backbone of the music. Those dynamics are better appreciated when the narrative is performed in its entirety, but there are always subtleties underlying many (if not most) of Wagner’s excerpts. One could appreciate those subtleties in watching Bignamini at work, even when the music has been deprived of its overall narrative context.

The music of the other two composers on the program was anything but subtle. The narrative behind Tchaikovsky’s tone poem was inspired by one of the “Inferno” episodes in the first of the three parts of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. I must confess that the account of forbidden love borders on soap opera, and Tchaikovsky’s music just adds more soap to the narrative. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the composer’s approaches to instrumentation, particularly when he deploys a trio of three separate flute parts, given a thoroughly engaging account by last night’s Detroit musicians:

Three members of the DSO flute section playing Tchaikovsky (screen shot from last night’s YouTube livestream)

Where Rosenkavalier is concerned, I much confess that I prefer the full-length opera to the excerpts. The “magic” resides in the relationship between the music and the overall narrative. When selections are performed, they tend to be most meaningful only to those that know the whole story. The most significant case in point concerns the most familiar instrumental waltz, which is actually providing background for a scheming scoundrel! Fortunately, I could engage my own memories of the opera as context for Bignamini’s performance and could fully appreciate the excerpts he performed!

Chan Gets Down to Business with SFS Concert

Now that conductor Elim Chan has been officially welcomed in City Hall at the end of last month, she has now gotten down to business with her first performance conducting the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) after she was officially named new Music Director of the ensemble. Some readers may recall that I was kind enough to describe her last performance on the SFS podium as a disappointment, but there was nothing disappointing about her return to the podium last night! Her selections spanned a little over half a century, and all three of them fired on all cylinders.

The “bookends” for the program could not have been more contrasting. Chan began with the Prelude for Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. This was, as is so often the case, coupled with an instrumental account of the opera’s final music, the “Liebestod.” The second half of the program, on the other hand, was devoted entirely to Claude Debussy’s three-movement tone poem “La Mer,” which has endured as many slings and arrows from the critics as Wagner did! The “concerto” of the program was a vocal selection sung by mezzo Sasha Cooke, a cycle setting six poems by Théophile Gautier given the title Le Nuits d’été (the nights of summer), composed by Hector Berlioz. As an encore, she sang “Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen” (I live my life in growing orbits), the second of the six songs that Michael Tilson Thomas collected for his cycle Meditations on Rilke. (Thomas’ recording of the complete cycle was released by SFS Media in July of 2020.)

Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” on the cover of the 1905 first edition of the score of “La Mer”

Much as I have consistently enjoyed Cooke’s performances, the high point of the evening was the chemistry Chan had established with the orchestra over the course of the entire evening. There is a plethora of instrumental details in “La Mer,” and Chan managed to provide a clear account of all of them. Debussy may not have captured the fractal details that one finds in the woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai entitled “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.” For that matter, Pierre Lalo, critic for Le Temps, wrote “I do not hear, I do not see, I do not smell the sea.” Far be it from me to criticize the late Lalo for having tin ears; but, as far as I am concerned, he missed the point. Indeed, there are surges of sonorities in the final movement that might almost make you want to duck from an oncoming wave!

Chan’s approach to Wagner was as engaging has her reading of Debussy. While movement is the underlying force of “La Mer,” the music for Tristan was all about intense reflection. Over the course of the opera, the overall “path” is one of descent; so the performance of the music’s “bookends” comes across as a bit of a shortcut. Nevertheless, each of the two movements has its own approach to unfolding thematic material, over the course of which the listener establishes a “background” for the narrative of the opera. Chan’s account seemed to have that unfolding in mind, and the full resources of the SFS ensemble came across in following her lead with all the necessary precision.

All of these factors made last night a high point in the current SFS season.

Cool?

Elim Chan speaking at Thursday’s event in City Hall (photograph by Jana Ašenbrennerová, from the Web page for the San Francisco Chronicle article)

I was not able to make it over to City Hall this past Thursday for the formal introduction of Hong Kong conductor Elim Chan as the new Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). Having now read the San Francisco Chronicle account of the event, it was probably just as well. Aggravation tends to lead to apoplexy, which I try to avoid as much as possible!

Ironically, the trigger for that apoplexy resides in the Chronicle’s headline. Chan was quoted as saying: “I want to make us cool.” A chill went down my spine as I read those words, reminding me of how the very spirit of “cool” had been massacred in Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics for the musical West Side Story. This was a far cry from the twelve tracks found on the 1957 Miles Davis album Birth of the Cool (whose tracks had been recorded in 1949 and 1950). This is not the sort of music I would expect to hear in an SFS performance, although it would not surprise me if there are members of that ensemble that are perfectly comfortable with bebop and hard bop when they are in different settings!

My hope is that Chan has begun to establish a foundation for her own way of doing things (if she has not already established it). What matters most is how she will share that foundation with the SFS musicians. Fortunately, as I observed this past Thursday, I shall have my first opportunity to observe how she engages with those musicians on Friday, June 5. That program will be devoted entirely to music from the nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries. It goes without saying that all of those selections predate the “cool.” Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the “back-to-back” accounts of Richard Wagner and Claude Debussy!

SF Symphony Announces New Music Director

Conductor Elim Chan in San Francisco Bay with the San Francisco skyline behind her

This morning the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) announced that Elim Chan will become its next Music Director. She will be the thirteenth conductor to hold that position over the course of the orchestra’s 115-year history. Her tenure will begin in September of 2027 for an initial six-year term.

Fortunately, those interested in her capabilities will not have to wait long. She will assume the SFS podium for the program that will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6. The soloist for that occasion will be mezzo Sasha Cooke, who will sing both the song cycle Les Nuits d’été by Hector Berlioz and the “Liebestod” from the conclusion of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. The program will conclude with Claude Debussy’s “La Mer,” providing Chan with the opportunity to display her command of a diversity of sonorities.

Following the Friday performance, all ticket-holders are invited to a post-concert welcome celebration. Both light food and beverages will be served. There will also be more music, but the performers and their repertoire have not yet been announced.

Tickets may be purchased for both of the concerts through the above hyperlink. Most readers probably also know that tickets may also be acquired at the Box Office for Davies Symphony Hall, which is on the south side of Grove Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. Those interested in learning more about Chan’s achievements as a conductor will find useful background material on her Wikipedia Web page.

Simone Young Brings Wagner to SFS

Visiting Conductor Simone Young (photograph by Sandra Steh, courtesy of SFS)

Simone Young made her debut on the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in Davies Symphony Hall in April of 2019, and her most recent appearance took place in December of 2021. She has been serving as Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony since 2022 and conducted complete cycles of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at last year’s Bayreuth Festival. This weekend sees her return to Davies, and the second half of her program is devoted to an orchestral account of Ring music.

One of the problems with separating that music from its staging is that the flow of the narrative is often supported through extended repetitions of critical phrases. This is evident as early as the Prelude to Das Rheingold, and the final episode of Des Rheingold, the procession of the Gods entering Valhalla, practically drowns in a repetition whose only difference involves louder and louder dynamics. For those that enjoy operatic performances of the Ring, this is a moment as compelling as it is grand. However, when you take away the dramatic context, all that remains is redundancy.

Mind you, the excerpts from the remaining three operas were better suited to the concert hall. There was, of course, the “Ride of the Valkyries” (how could there not be?); and Young gave it a dynamite account. Equally engaging was her approach to “Siegfried Idyll,” basically a “preview” of thematic material that would show up later in the Siegfried opera of the Ring. Finally, there were excerpts from Götterdämmerung from both early and late in the narrative, beginning with the “Dawn” episode, then following Siegfried on his “Rhine Journey,” and concluding with his death and funeral. Taken as a whole, the second half of the program provided an abbreviated account of the Ring narrative through some of the most compelling excerpts from the cycle.

The program began with the latest debut of a recent composition. “The Space Between Stars” was composed by Ella Macens, who has received commissions from both the Sydney Symphony and the Melbourne Symphony. I must confess that I tend to be skeptical about music that attempts to capture cosmology. Macens definitely knew how to manage a rich palette of sonorities, but the piece as a whole tended to be more static than one would have preferred.

More secure was the account of Camille Saint-Saëns’ first cello concerto, his Opus 33 in A minor. The soloist was Gautier Capuçon, who gave a solid account of the three-movement score. Unfortunately, the composer had a tendency to repeat his themes too many times, and even a cellist as talented as Capuçon could not overcome that repetition with an overall shaping. As usual, however, one could appreciate the polish in his solo passages.

Sadly, that polish did not continue into his encore selection. This was “Towards the Forest” by Bryce Dessner, which came off as music conceived for Earth Day. However, there was too much repetition in the score and too much attention to what can only be called “special effects.” Mother Earth (Gaia) deserved better.

Another Dim Shenson Spotlight Performance

Pianist Mao Fujita (photograph by Doville Sermokas)

Yesterday evening saw the second performance of the fifth iteration of the Shenson Spotlight Series. Like the first performance, which took place about a month ago, this was a solo piano recital, performed this time by Mao Fujita. The “pillars” of the program were the first sonatas composed by Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. The Brahms selection was complemented by music of Richard Wagner, the most salient of which was Franz Liszt’s transcription of the “Liebestod” music from the opera Tristan und Isolde.

Once again, however, the promise of the program selections did not rise to a level of satisfying attentive listening. Indeed, where any dynamic levels from forte to above are concerned, Fujita’s motto seemed to come across as, “Nothing succeeds like excess.” Even in early Beethoven (Opus 2, Number 1 in F minor, the very first “numbered” sonata) Fujita deployed a wide dynamic range, which came across as little more than overwrought. All of the elegant gestures in this sonata, which are so evident when played on a period instrument, were lost in the muddle. Things were not much better in the Brahms sonata, which, for me at least, recalled Peter Schickele’s joke about having a black belt in piano. (I do not think Brahms would have appreciated that joke!)

Fujita concluded the evening with one encore, unannounced and unfamiliar.

The Three Faces of Parsifal

Matthew Ozawa’s conception of Klingsor’s magic garden in the second act of Parsifal (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I returned to the War Memorial Opera House for our second encounter with Matthew Ozawa’s staging of Richard Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal. As I previously observed, “Wagner himself rejected calling this work an opera, describing it, instead, as Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel (a sacred festival stage play).” Nevertheless, just about everyone else sticks with the noun “opera,” which definitely more easily remembered (not to mention digested)!

My first account focused on the nature of the characters, citing all of the vocalists interpreting those roles. Yesterday, however, I found myself more focused on the overall structure of the narrative. I used my program book to jot down “titles” for each of the three acts. What emerged were three different perspectives on the title character, each associated with a different act as follows:

1. Parsifal the fool
2. Parsifal tempted
3. Parsifal enlightened

Some may find this a bit simplistic; but I feel that, taken as a whole, the narrative is one of the protagonist’s growth through a journey of discovery. After all, it is not too much of a stretch to approach the first act as the beginning of Parsifal’s journey, culminating in a sense of “arrival” in the final act.

Mind you, yesterday’s other advantage was a seat that commanded a generous view of the orchestra pit. Following a score attentively would be too much of a distraction from the staging. Nevertheless, Ozawa’s general approach to minimality allowed time to watch individual instrumental players evoke the spirit of the many different motifs that establish both personalities and actions, all realized through the meticulous attention of Conductor Eun Sun Kim. After all, when you have five hours to experience, dividing that time across a diversity of focal points hardly counts as distraction!

This was one of those experiences in which returning to an opera for a second time awakened a fresh set of impressions, but I am unlikely to return for a third time!

Existentialism is not Mumbo Jumbo!

The Temple of the Grail in the first act of the current San Francisco Opera production of Parsifal (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

I was glad to have a schedule that allowed me to attend the first of five San Francisco Opera performances of Richard Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal, and then have all my thoughts in a row and documented prior to 8 AM the following morning. Sadly, I was not able to see what the San Francisco Chronicle had to say about it until relatively late this morning. The account was written by Joshua Kosman, identified as the Chronicle’s “former classical music critic.” This was not the first time that the two of us had significantly different opinions, but I was more perplexed than usual by what I read in this morning’s paper.

More specifically, this is the account that set my juices flowing:

In tackling Wagner’s final and most enigmatic operatic creation, the company has deftly bypassed all the piece’s most intractable challenges – its static dramaturgy, its talkiness, its indecipherable religious framework – and opted instead to dazzle the eyes and ears.

This, I think, is the correct “Parsifal” strategy. There’s no obligation to take seriously the opera’s air of sacramental mumbo jumbo, with its babble about sin and redemption and purity, just because Wagner and his followers have done so. While there is always room for a diversity of opinions, those two paragraphs struck me as a need for a response to a call, or, at least, a need to take on existential adjectives such as “enigmatic” and “correct.”

Where the latter case is concerned, I always remember a Second City routine that was set in the Art Institute of Chicago. Two people are looking at the same painting. One says, “I don’t like it.” The other snaps back, “Well, you’re wrong!” When it comes to interpreting narrative, there will always be situations in which there is no “correct strategy.”

One does one’s best to identify events and how they impact each other, but sometimes coming to a conclusion can be elusive. In reflecting on my own experience of Parsifal, I would say that the opera involves the human condition as it applies to the qualities of loss (Amfortas’ wound) and enlightenment (Parsifal’s influence on Kundry). One may be perplexed by how these characters come to be influenced; but they are flesh and blood, rather than puppets of “sacramental mumbo jumbo.”

I suppose what matters most is that the Parsifal narrative is far from “a walk in the park.” That is why I invoked the phrase “journey of enlightenment” in the conclusion of my “morning after” writing. Perhaps, in the context of my metaphors, I should simply accept the fact that, in our respective visits to San Francisco Opera this past Saturday afternoon, Kosman and I found ourselves walking down entirely different paths that may never meet!

Having now put two stakes in the ground (one for each article), I can confess that I am looking forward to seeing this production a second time this coming Sunday!

Wagner’s “Sacred Festival Stage Play” at SFO

Yesterday afternoon at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco Opera (SFO) presented the first of five performances of Richard Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal. Wagner himself rejected calling this work an opera, describing it, instead, as Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel (a sacred festival stage play). That said, this is a creation that has found its way into performances around the world. Furthermore, because Good Friday is a major factor in the narrative, many opera companies are inclined to schedule performances in conjunction with the celebration of Easter.

The title character dates back to the twelfth century in Perceval ou le Conte du Graal by the twelfth-century trouvère Chrétien de Troyes and the thirteenth-century Middle High German chivalric romance Parzival of the Minnesänger Wolfram von Eschenbach. Both of these involve the Arthurian knight (usually known as Percival) and his quest for the Holy Grail. Wagner’s Parsifal, on the other hand, is a far cry from the Arthurian legends. Rather, he embodies the character of a “holy fool.”

Kundry (Tanja Ariana Baumgartner) under the spell of Klingsor (Falk Stuckmann) in the second act of Parsifal (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

Nevertheless, the Grail itself serves as the “backbone” of the overall narrative. It is guarded by an order of knights led by their king, Amfortas (baritone Brian Mulligan). He guarded the Grail with a sacred spear, which was stolen by the sorcerer Klingsor (bass-baritone Falk Stuckmann); and he now suffers a wound that will not heal. According to a prophecy, only an “innocent fool” can end his suffering. That “innocent fool” is Parsifal (tenor Brandon Jovanovich), who kills a swan and is reprimanded by Gurnemanz (bass Kwangchul Youn), one of the knights guarding the Grail. That confrontation leads to an elaborate path involving seduction (Kundry, sung by mezzo Tanja Ariana Baumgartner), frustration, and, ultimately, the healing of Amfortas.

One can appreciate why Wagner refused to call this an opera. The narrative of guarding the Grail is secondary to the emergence of the “innocent fool” and his impact on the social structure created around the Grail itself. The “primary” path of the narrative is the enlightening transformation of Parsifal and the impact of his enlightenment on Kundry, an enlightenment that parallels the curing of Amfortas’ wound.

It goes without saying that the narrative for this opera is a convoluted one. Nevertheless, the staging by Director Matthew Ozawa provided a clear path along which one came to know all of the personalities and the problems they confront, many of which are satisfactorily resolved. It would be unfair to say that this is a plot with a happily-ever-after conclusion. The journey of enlightenment does not always lead to happiness, but it can still take us into a world in which we can live with at least some satisfaction. That is the world in which Amfortas is finally healed!

Richard Wagner’s Final “Opera” Coming to SFO

The end of this month will see the next offering in the 103rd season of the San Francisco Opera (SFO). As many readers probably know by now, Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim has made a commitment to conduct one opera by Giuseppe Verdi and one by Richard Wagner every season. The first of these, Rigoletto, opened the current season. The second will be Wagner’s final composition, Parsifal. For those that find the noun “composition” to be more than a little elusive, it is important to note that Wagner himself never described the work as an opera. Rather, as can be found on its Wikipedia page, he called the results of his effort Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel (a sacred festival stage play).

Set design by Robert Innes Hopkins for the forest setting of the first act of Parsifal (courtesy of SFO)

Like the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, Parsifal is a major undertaking, even if it is only a single opera. It is set deep in a forest occupied by a band (some would call it a cult) of knights that serve the Holy Grail, defending it with a Holy Spear. Their king, Amfortas, was stabbed by the Holy Spear; and, at the beginning of the opera, his wound has not yet been healed. That wound is treated by Kundry, without the knights knowing that she is bound as a servant to Klingsor, who was responsible for the stabbing of Amfortas.

Parsifal’s first appearance can almost be called blundering. He has killed a swan and is carrying its limp body. The knights of the Grail, led by Gurnemanz, see this as an atrocity. However, Gurnemanz knows that Amfortas can only be healed by a “pure fool;” and he sees Parsifal as the embodiment of that fool.

This is the sort of narrative that demands a “willingness of disbelief” (or, as others would put it, “you can’t make this stuff [sic] up”)! The story unfolds at a pace far more gradual than that of the Ring; and, as in many productions, as well as the 1982 film by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, there have been any number of stories (mostly jokes) told about those that lacked patience for the unfolding.

That said, Kim has been consistently engaging in her past conducting experiences with Wagner’s music. Both last year’s performance of Tristan und Isolde and the preceding account of Lohengrin held my attention from beginning to end. As a result, I have every reason to expect that she will lead the pace of narrative in a manner consistent with the staging planned by Matthew Ozawa.

There should also be much to expect from the vocalists. The title role will be taken by tenor Brandon Jovanovich, who was particularly exciting in his San Francisco Opera account of Siegmund in Die Walküre. Brian Mulligan’s last encounter here with Wagner took place in the fall of 2023, when he sung the role of Friedrich of Telramund in Lohengrin. Finally, bass Kwangchul Youn will sing the role of Gurnemanz, having previously sung King Marke in last year’s Tristan. That leaves the pivotal role of Kundry, torn between healing Amfortas and serving Klingsor. She will be sung by mezzo Tanja Ariane Baumgartner.

Where Wagner is concerned, it tends to be useful to prepare the audience for the duration! The approximate running time of this SFO production will be four hours and 50 minutes, including two intermissions. This means that all performances will begin earlier than usual.

There will be five of them, two beginning at 1 p.m. on Saturday, October 25, and Sunday, November 2. The evening performances will begin at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, October 28, Friday, November 7, and Thursday, November 13. Ticket prices range from $35 to $447. All tickets may be purchased in the outer lobby of the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue or by calling the Box Office at 415-864-3330. Box Office hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. on Monday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday. In addition, there will be a livestream of the Sunday afternoon performance; the charge will be $25.

Web pages are available both for tickets to the Opera House and for the livestream. Finally, those going to the Opera House will have the option of purchasing dinner packages (which will be sold separately from the tickets for the performance). A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for the different dinner options.

SFO Orchestra: Final Community Concert

Richard Wagner (1868 photograph of Richard Wagner by Jules Bonnet, public domain, from Wikimedia Commons)

Yesterday afternoon the San Francisco Opera (SFO) Orchestra presented the second of the two community concerts to be performed in San Francisco. In contrast to the Music and Flowers program of chamber music, presented at the Minnesota Street Project, today’s program involved the entire ensemble led by its Music Director Eun Sun Kim. The program began with one of the few chamber music compositions by Richard Wagner, expanded to the resources of the string section, and concluded with an instrument-by-instrument account of the full ensemble.

The Wagner offering was “Siegfried Idyll,” scored for an ensemble of thirteen instruments: flute, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, trumpet, two violins, viola, cello, and bass. He composed it as a birthday present for his wife, leading a performance of it on the stairs of their Tribschen villa on Christmas morning of 1870. (This was one of the more engaging episodes in Tony Palmer’s Wagner film, much of which was far less memorable!) Kim’s conducting could not have been more sensitive; and, while the venue at Saint Joseph’s Arts Society was a large one, the attentive listener could still appreciate what may have been Wagner’s most intimate undertaking.

The remainder of the program could be described as “cause and effect.” The “effect” was Benjamin Britten’s Opus 34, “The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.” This was composed for a documentary film entitled “Instruments of the Orchestra,” which introduced the viewer to both the individual instruments and also the ways those instruments were grouped into wind, brass, strings, and percussion sections. These were all presented as variations on a single theme, a Rondeau that Henry Purcell included in the incidental music he composed for the play Abdelazer by Aphra Behn. I was particularly impressed that Kim deployed the two violin sections to face each other for their interplay in Britten’s score. I was even more delighted to listen to her account of Purcell’s “source” music to prepare her audience for Britten’s theme-and-variations approach.

The program was prepared to last for only about an hour, performed without an intermission; and the finale of the Britten selection was so invigorating that I had no doubt that my time had been well spent!

Bartlett’s Uneven Shenson Spotlight Piano Recital

Pianist Martin James Bartlett (from his San Francisco Symphony event page)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, this year’s Shenson Spotlight Series presented by the San Francisco Symphony continued with a solo piano recital by Martin Janes Bartlett. He prepared a program that spanned from the eighteenth century (music which predated the piano) to the twentieth. The major work on the program was Robert Schumann’s Opus 15 Kinderszenen (scenes from childhood), a collection of thirteen short pieces composed in 1838.

This is one of those works that has been encountered by just about anyone that took serious piano lessons. (My own coaching came from Jake Heggie with input from Johana Harris.) Sadly, Bartlett seemed to be more interested in speed, rather than phrasing, leaving little room for expressiveness in any of the thirteen movements. When he was not overplaying his approach to pace, he turned to dynamics; and his account of Franz Liszt’s transcription of the “Liebestod” episode at the conclusion of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde amounted to a roar that totally undermined the semantic infrastructure. The other composer to receive significant attention was Maurice Ravel, whose “Pavane pour une infante défunte” (pavane for a dead princess) and “La valse” were performed in Herbst Theatre by Louis Lortie exactly two weeks earlier. The conclusion of the former was delivered with a heavy hand, while the account of the latter left me wondering if that would have been how Franz Liszt would have played it.

The program began with early keyboard compositions by François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau. The latter was the Gavotte movement from the RCT 5 suite in A minor. In that movement the dance theme is followed by six variations. Bartlett delivered an account that sounded as if it has been written for a modern piano. Clearly, the composer did not have this in mind; but the interpretation was both solid and convincing. This was preceded by one of the best-known short pieces by Couperin, “Les Baricades mystérieuses;” but Bartlett leaned so heavily on the damper pedal that it was almost impossible to sort the theme out from the arpeggiated accompaniment.

Both encores were selections from George Gershwin’s Song Book, “The Man I Love” and “I Got Rhythm.” I used to enjoy listening to Earl Wild play this music in recital, and his approach to Gershwin was always engaging. Bartlett’s account left me wondering if he even knew there were words behind those songs, let alone the denotations and connotations of those words!

I fear that the Shenson “spotlight” deserves better!

Yeol Eum Son Takes on “Hammerklavier”

Pianist Yeol Eum Son (from her home page)

To appropriate shamelessly the words of Jane Austin, “It is a truth universally acknowledged” that every season at least one piano recitalist will take on Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 106 (“Hammerklavier”) sonata in B-flat major. Last night that pianist was Yeol Eum Son, visiting Herbst Theatre for the latest Chamber Music San Francisco Program of this year’s season. Things did not bode well with her frenetic charge into the opening phrase of the first movement, and things did not get better as she progressed. Indeed, in her determination to make sure that all of the notes were in the right place, too many of those notes never quite found their place in phrasing.

The first half of the program amounted to a nineteenth-century “follow-up” to late Beethoven. The final selection was one of Franz Liszt’s transcriptions, taking on the aria “Am stillen Herd” from Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Those familiar with the opera probably recognized the theme; but, as is often the case with Liszt, that “core” was overwhelmed by a plethora of excessive tropes. More modest (and, thus, somewhat more engaging) was the coupling of a mazurka by Pauline Viardot with an early “Romance” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Opus 5. Son began the program with two lesser known composers from the late nineteenth century. She began with Franz Bendel’s 1875 Opus 141, an improvisation on what it is probably the most familiar theme in music history, the “Wiegenlied” (cradle song) by Johannes Brahms. This was followed by a mazurka by the prolific Pauline Viardot (prolific because the catalog number was VWV 3012). The program concluded with two encores, neither of which was announced.

Taken as a whole, the program was a major undertaking. However, as was particularly affirmed by the Beethoven selection, there was little to offer by way of compelling expressiveness. I am afraid I came away with the impression that Son was playing for competition judges, rather than an audience of attentive music lovers.

Making a Wagner Opera: a KQED Documentary

Last night KQED aired a program entitled “A Journey into Lohengrin,” which I recorded in order to approach the content with as fresh a mind as could be prepared for any experience of the music of Richard Wagner. This was basically a documentary in the “making of” genre involving a production of Wagner’s Lohengrin, which was performed by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) in the fall of 2023. The performance of any Wagner opera is a major undertaking, as much for the musicians as for the vocalists.

Eun Sun Kim conducting a rehearsal of Lohengrin with Kristinn Sigmundsson as King Heinrich der Vogler (left) confronting Brian Mulligan as Friedrich of Telramund (right)

Nevertheless, in many respects Lohengrin is a special case. When I wrote about it on this site after its opening performance, I began the task of description by observing that the plot was “a convoluted account of conflicting factions at the court of King Heinrich der Vogler.” What I did not appreciate at the time was that the demands on the musicians were just as convoluted as the motivations behind each of the characters in the cast. This was particularly the case for the trumpet players, who literally surrounded the audience with fanfares coming from every imaginable direction. Sitting in the audience (even with as clear a view of the orchestra pit as of the stage), I was often more than a little perplexed by what was happening where and why.

As a result of this documentary, I think it would be fair for me to say that I now have at least a plausible conjecture of the “why.” Wagner composed long instrumental passages in the middle of at least one of his acts, rather than settling only for introducing the acts with preludes. That is because there is a major transition in the narrative during the final act, requiring “music without action” for an extended period. The music thus provides action of its own with that distribution of the brass players interjecting their fanfares.

Where the documentary is concerned, the focus is not so much on Wagner as it is on Music Director Eun Sun Kim. While the film captures many of her personal thoughts about preparing the musical side of the production, what is more engaging are the episodes that capture her exchanges with the individual vocalists, as well as her ensemble. I came away with the impression that she wanted to be as well-informed about every detail of the narrative as she was about the marks on the paper of the score that she was preparing to conduct. We thus learn about how the different vocalists established their character parts as much from their own observations as from their interactions with Kim. The viewing experience left me more than a little in awe of a documentary that was capable of delivering so much engagement over the course of only one hour.

The SFO Web page for this documentary includes a hyperlink for online viewing through both the SFO Web site and YouTube. The video was directed by Elena Park, and she knew exactly how much time to allocate to each of the episodes. The interviews included not only the opera singers but also individual members of the orchestra offering their own respective takes on the almost telepathic techniques required to keep conductor, musicians, and vocalists all focused on the goal of bringing music and staging to life.

Returning to Wagner at San Francisco Opera

Yesterday afternoon I returned to the War Memorial Opera House for a second encounter with Paul Curran’s staging of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with tenor Simon O’Neill and soprano Anja Kampe in the title roles. There is so much depth in not only the narrative itself but also the many was in which the composer deployed key motifs to advance that narrative. Indeed, that intimate relationship between the music and the drama is so critical that the “role” of conductor Eun Sun Kim was as critical to the narrative as any of the characters up on the stage itself. As a result, from yesterday’s vantage point, I had to make no end of judicious choices between the orchestra pit and the stage.

Thus, by the end of the afternoon, I felt that I had experienced a thoroughly engaging span of four and one-half hours. As is the case with most operas, the overall structure is a balance between action and reflection. For the most part, Wagner’s music provides the foundation for the reflective episodes. There is so much depth in that reflection that, while the action itself is critical to the narrative, the music charges it as if it were a bolt of lightning. It should therefore be no surprise that the last of the three acts of this opera should be structured around extended reflections with the action kept to a bare minimum.

Isolde (Anja Kampe) and Tristan (Simon O’Neill) feeling the first effects of her love potion (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

For the most part, those reflections unfold through the music. In that respect I feel it particularly significant to note the extent to which there was always an intimate conjunction of Kim’s judicious pacing of Wagner’s score with the unfolding of Curran’s actions, particularly during those critical moments at the end of the first act when the love potion beings to take effect. It is worth noting that Wagner wrote his book-length essay Opera and Drama in 1851, and Tristan und Isolde, which was first performed in 1886, makes it clear that he believed in turning theory into practice. (Another “fun fact” is that Tristan was composed at the same time that Wagner was working on his Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle.) Curran, in turn, realized Wagner’s “practice” through a consistently compelling account of the libretto’s narrative.

There are, of course, any number of jokes about the “extended durations” of Wagner operas; but Curran’s staging kept the viewer on the edge of his/her/their seat, rather than looking at one’s watch!

Visiting a “Vintage” Wagner Opera Album

Following up on the latest new production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which began its series of five performances by San Francisco Opera this past Saturday, I was inevitably drawn to my collection of recordings. These included the recent addition of the Naxos box set in its Great Opera Recordings series. This consisted of three CDs, each accounting for one of the opera’s three acts. This attracted my attention because the conductor was Fritz Reiner. While Reiner was best known as the Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he spent many years in the orchestra pit of the Metropolitan Opera from the mid-Forties to the early Sixties. (He died in November of 1963.)

Kirsten Flagstad on the cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Reiner’s RCA albums included relatively few instrumental excerpts from Wagner operas, so I welcomed the opportunity to listen to his take on one of those operas in its entirety. The Naxos album involved an “amalgam” of two performances, which took place on May 18 and June 2, 1936. These were concert, rather than staged, occasions with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden sang with a full cast of soloists led by tenor Lauritz Melchior and soprano Kirsten Flagstad in the title roles.

The second half of this opera is where the “action” is at its most intense, and that intensity begins with the instrumental Prelude. Reiner captured the anxiety behind the opening scene in which Isolde is waiting (impatiently) for Tristan’s arrival. This amounts to a “slow burn” in which the fire finally emerges with full passion at the very beginning of the second scene. As might be guessed, the overall dynamic range of the recording of this episode is far more limited in what we encounter through more sophisticated audio technology. Nevertheless, the passion is in the vocal work; and there are no end of engaging nuances that the attentive listener encounters in the deliveries by both Flagstad and Melchior. (Ironically, last night I happened to be viewing a video of Melchior visiting Victor Borge, which was about as distant from the dramatics of Tristan as one might expect!)

To be fair, I tend to be forgiving about most of my encounters with recordings made during the first half of the twentieth century. I appreciate efforts to filter out as much “noise” as possible; but, at least with current technology, there is only so much one can do to enhance the signal! To the extent that one can listen “through” that noise, there is much to be gained from the dramatic qualities brought to this album by all of the contributing vocalists, not only Flagstad and Melchior but particularly bass Emanuel List as Marke, the King of Cornwall that was supposed to marry Isolde. Similarly, soprano Sabine Kalter as Brangäne conveys the frustration in her efforts to remind her mistress Isolde to “get real!”

Will I revisit this “historical” account of a recording that is almost a century old? I suppose the best answer would be, “Probably, but not frequently!” For the most part, I tend to be more interested in what today’s vocalists can do with their repertoire. Nevertheless, Flagstad and Melchior were the giants of their day. Given that I was born in 1946, they were firmly at their peak before then. However, I shall always be curious about major events that were “before my time;” and this Naxos release allows me to reflect on one of them!

SFO’s Compelling Account of Richard Wagner

Last night the War Memorial Opera House saw the first of five San Francisco Opera (SFO) performances of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. This opera has not been performed here since the 2006–07 season, when the production directed by Thor Steingraber was conducted by then Music Director Donald Runnicles with tenor Thomas Moser and soprano Christine Brewer in the title roles. This new production was first staged at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice under the direction of Paul Curran. In bringing this staging to San Francisco, Curran made his SFO debut.

This occasion provided him with many opportunities to work with those that had become familiar with SFO. Indeed, the role of Tristan was sung by tenor Simon O’Neill, whose connection to SFO goes all the way back to his performances in the Merola Opera Program. Soprano Anja Kampe, on the other hand, was last seen here when she sang the role of Sieglinde in a performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre. At the other end of the time-line, so to speak, two Adler Fellows contributed to two of the lesser roles, tenor Thomas Kinch as Melot and baritone Samuel Kidd as a steersman.

As is often the case in opera, the narrative is one of convoluted confusions. Isolde is an Irish princess obliged to marry King Marke of Cornwall for political purposes. She is being brought to Cornwall by Marke’s knight Tristan. Her “baggage” includes a collection of potions; and, during her voyage to Cornwall, she decides that death would be better than marrying against her will. She shares a potion of atonement with Tristan, knowing that it will be fatal for both of them. However, what they drink is actually a love potion, which they experience just as their ship arrives in Cornwall.

Isolde (Anja Kampe) and Tristan (Simon O’Neill) in one of their more ecstatic moments (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

In the second act they are now spellbound by the potion; and the entire act is, for the most part, an extended love scene. I say “for the most part” because it concludes when the knight Melot catches them “in the act.” Both he and Tristan draw swords, and Tristan is mortally wounded. (If this seems like an abbreviated account, rest assured that Wagner provided a generous account of some of his most passionate music for that “extended love scene!”)

The final act takes place in Tristan’s castle in Brittany, where he is slowly dying, tended by his servant Kurwenal. He is visited by both Marke and Isolde’s maid Brangäne, who had explained the power of the potion to Marke. Marke forgives Isolde, who focuses only on Tristan’s death. She then takes her own death potion; and, after her extended love-death aria, she is united with Tristan in the afterlife.

While there are no ends of twists and turns in this plot, Curran knew exactly how to keep things moving from one episode to the next with at least a minimally sufficient foundation of logic. Most important, however, was how the vocal work rose above all of that complexity. Under Curran’s direction all of the vocalists delivered credible (and usually compelling) accounts of each phase of the narrative. Thus, while the entire experience came close to five hours in duration, there was never a moment in which attention would lapse.

This was an account of Wagner’s commitment to “opera as drama” that would have done the master proud.

SFO Season will Continue with Wagner

Since Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim began her San Francisco Opera (SFO) tenure in 2021, she has followed through with a promise to conduct one opera by Giuseppe Verdi and one by Richard Wagner every season. This season the first half of that promise was fulfilled with the opening-night opera, Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (a masked ball). Next month Kim will shift her attention to Wagner with the first SFO performance of Tristan und Isolde since October of 2006.

By way of a disclaimer, I should confess that, when I made my shift from Silicon Valley researcher to focusing on my current writing practices, my interest in Tristan could probably be called obsessive. To be fair, however, it would not surprise me to learn that more words have been written about this opera (not just through reviews but across the full scope of scholarly publications) than any other Wagner composition, if not any other opera at all. (For all I know, death will beckon me while I am busy reading yet another of those discourses.) All this should account for my eagerness to see yet another staging of the opera, probably more than once!

This production will mark the SFO debut of Director Paul Curran, who first conceived the staging for the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The title roles will be sung by tenor Simon O’Neill (who happens to be a graduate of the Merola Opera Program) and soprano Anja Kampe, who has already established a “Wagner presence” with SFO. Indeed, she made her debut here in June of 2011, when she sang the role of Sieglinde in Die Walküre as part of a complete Ring cycle directed by Francesca Zambello.

For those unfamiliar with the plot, Tristan is a knight having been tasked with bringing Isolde to King Marke (bass Kwangchul Youn) to establish a bond of peace through marriage. As might be guessed, Isolde is not particularly happy with this treatment and is determined to poison herself before encountering Marke. However, her “traveling companion,” Brangäne (soprano Annika Schlicht) mistakenly gives her the vial of a love potion; and the first person she encounters is (of course) Tristan!

Kurwenal looking after the dying Tristan (photograph by Michael Crosera from the Teatro La Fenice production of Tristan und Isolde, courtesy of SFO)

Much of the second act involves the resulting passion between the two of them. However, Tristan’s loyal friend Melot (baritone Thomas Kinch) exposes the relationship between Tristan and Isolde. Tristan honors Isolde’s honor in a sword fight with Melot, during which he is stabbed. This leads to the third act during which Tristan’s fellow knight Kurwenal (bass-baritone Wolfgang Koch) has brought Tristan home to his castle in Brittany. However, before dying of his wound, Tristan has one last encounter with Isolde, after which she takes poison (getting the right potion this time) to join him in death.

This new production will be given five performances, four beginning at 6 p.m. on Saturday, October 19, Wednesday, October 23, Friday, November 1, and Tuesday, November 5, with a matinee performance beginning at 1 p.m. on Sunday, October 27. Ticket prices range from $28 to $426; and, depending on seating location, there is a facility fee of either $2 or $3 per ticket. All tickets may be purchased in the outer lobby of the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue or by calling the Box Office at 415-864-3330. Box Office hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. on Monday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday. In addition, there will be a livestream of the Sunday afternoon performance; the charge will be $27.50. Web pages are available both for tickets to the Opera House and for the livestream. Finally, those going to the Opera House will have the option of purchasing dinner packages (which will be sold separately from the tickets for the performance). A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for the different dinner options.