Last night in Davies Symphony Hall the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) launched its 2023–24 season with its annual Opening Night Gala. As was the case last year, Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen took an imaginative approach in selecting those that would perform with the musicians of the SFS ensemble. This involved two compositions, each of which had its own way of marking the end of its respective century.
The first of these accounted for the end of the nineteenth century, involving a composer that would boldly cross the bridge into the twentieth (probably building at least parts of that bridge himself). Baritone Simon Keenlyside sang Gustav Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (songs of a wayfarer) song cycle. Many would call this Mahler’s first mature work (he was in his early twenties when he completed it). The overall theme could be called “A Lover’s Rejection,” in which clouds of depression grow from one song to the next.
Keenlyside accounted for this descent without ever hinting of wallowing it. The only downside is that the audience had to contend with a video, prepared by 59 Productions with Technical Advisor Luke Kritzeck, that went to great length to distract the listener from that poetic trajectory. Fortunately, Keenlyside’s own comportment made for a viable challenge to the video nonsense, even if it was projected on a very large screen.
The second of the two works that formed the core of the program went all the way up to the end of the twentieth century, having been completed in 2000. This was the first San Francisco performance of Anders Hillborg’s “Rap Notes.” It required three vocal soloists, hip-hop artist Kev Choice, freestyle artist Anthony Veneziale, and soprano Hila Plitmann. This piece worked better with its video background. It provided the text account of the rapping exchanged between Choice and Veneziale.
That projection provided a useful supplement to the performance until the two rappers decided to start improvising! Those improvisations seem to have summoned Plitmann to the stage, where she took the most difficult passage for the Queen of the Night in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 620 opera The Magic Flute and sang it over and over again. This turned out to be the wildest trio singing that I have ever encountered since the days of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.
These two vocal selections were framed by two warhorses. The program opened with a vigorous account of Richard Strauss’ Opus 20 tone poem “Don Juan.” This was another performance supplemented with video. However, it did not take long for the attentive listener to realize that Kritzeck and his team did not have the foggiest idea what the music was doing. They would have done well to consult James M. Keller’s notes for the program book, since the music does have a narrative. Instead, the audience had to view a parade of videos of women; and, for those of my generation, it felt a bit like flipping mindlessly through an issue of Playboy.
The program concluded with Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro.” By this time I knew enough to avoid caring whether or not any video was being projected. This is music that migrates sensuously among the different sections of the orchestra. There is no need for any video supplements since the sonorities clue attentive listener awareness into following the evolving changes in instrumental color. This eventually culminates in the entire ensemble going at it full-blast; but just as effective is the moment around two-thirds of the way into the score, when the entire string section shifts from pizzicato to vigorous bowing.
Was this reinforced by video projection? Who knows? Who cares?
No comments:
Post a Comment