Opera Ball: Centennial Celebration Concert

Eun Sun Kim on the podium of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra at the 2021 “Homecoming” concert (photograph by Cory Weaver, from the booklet for the Opera Ball)

Last night the War Memorial Opera House provided the venue for the Centennial Celebration concert being held as part of the Opera Ball. Eun Sun Kim conducted the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, accompanying four vocalists, three of whom have risen through the ranks of Adler Fellowship to the level of soloists sought by opera companies around the world. Those vocalists were soprano Nadine Sierra, tenor Michael Fabiano, tenor Pene Pati, and baritone Lucas Meachem; and Fabiano was the only one that had not been an Adler Fellow.

This year those not attending the Ball itself were given a new opportunity to experience the concert. The entire program was streamed live, allowing those with satisfactory computer screens to pay admission for the URL that served as the stream source. Many readers may recall that, during 2021, Opera is ON, the video streaming service provided by SFO, provided an excellent distraction from pandemic conditions by streaming archival videos of past performances. That technology has also been used for live-streaming images of the stage to the remote Balcony seats; and last night the stream reached anyone connecting to a Web site.

Vocally, there was more than enough to enjoy in this streamed experience. Not only were all the vocalists familiar to me, but also they summoned up pleasant memories of my earliest encounters with them on the Opera House stage. Taken as a whole, last night could not have taken a better approach to honor the legacy of 100 years of opera seasons.

Because the vocal work was so impressive, it was not difficult to overlook the shoddy quality of the video. The Stage Direction was by Jose Maria Condemi, but it quickly became evident that any interaction between his crew and the controllers of the video capture and transmission equipment was little more than accidental. As a result, anyone responsible for directing the cameras and controlling which of those cameras provided the video feed achieved his/her/their task with very little awareness of what both listening and viewing demanded.

This was more than unfortunate since there was an impressive amount of highly perceptive staging coming from Condemi. He also knew when to allow the soloists the liberties they deserved. This was particularly the case when Pati performed “A Te Tarakihi,” a traditional Maori ritual with both vocal and physical elements.

On the other hand, there were also some squirm-inducing moments, the most prominent of which involved a rather lame attempt to rewrite the lyrics of “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better).” There was also a world premiere performance by the Orchestra of “fffanfare!!,” composed by Texu Kim. This was conceived as a mashup of familiar opera themes. However, once the listener “got it,” the impact was little more than clunky; and those of my age could not help but recall wistfully the high jinks of both Spike Jones and the Hoffnung Festival Orchestra.

Finally, the program stated that the performance would last for one hour and 30 minutes without intermission. After two hours had elapsed, the end of the program was just coming into sight. The additional time was consumed by an abundance of speechifying from a podium on the edge of the stage. Given that everyone in the audience had a booklet for the entire evening that included a two-page program for the music, much, if not all, of the “commentary” put more than a little strain on those that were there to listen to the vocalists and the orchestra.