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.