SFCV RSS Feed Integration

Not that long ago it would have been rare to find any small label issuing all 12 of Haydn’s last symphonies at one go, and borderline impossible to find them so well-played as they are on Marc Minkowski’s new set of Haydn’s “London” Symphonies, with Les Musiciens du Louvre.

It’s not just about the big names. When the 53rd Monterey Jazz Festival swings into action on Friday, Sept. 17, ten gifted high school–age ensembles will feature prominently on the grounds and main arena stages. Their appearances constitute but one aspect of a comprehensive jazz education program.

Richard Thomas' Jerry Springer the Opera is a multiple award-winning, much-praised work, developed with the support and participation of Cameron Mackintosh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Nick Hytner, and other notables.

It finally made its profane, foul-mouthed, offensive and hilarious entry last weekend in a big, spectacular Ray of Light Theater production at the Mission's Victoria Theater, the beginning of a five-week run.

Soprano Danielle de Niese — eye-buggingly beautiful, extremely intelligent, and madly in love with everything she does — is a joy to interview. Here she talks about her steamy iPod encounters, S.F. Opera debut in Figaro, work with Nicola Luisotti, and recent vocal developments. 

Robert Levin is a leading keyboard artist, active in early music and historically informed performance, most notably for his expertise in the works of Mozart. His improvisational skills in this idiom are legendary — an approach not many dare to take, yet one he considers essential to the interpretation of this music. Here he talks with SFCV about finding Mozart fragments, the art of improvisation, and the importance of playing on the original instrument. 

Works of fiction that become operas often suffer some degree of degradation in the translation. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, for example, is generally acknowledged a masterpiece: Dostoyevsky called it “flawless as a work of art.” Yet David Carlson’s opera Anna Karenina seems destined to go down in operatic history as a valiant attempt, at best.

There are musicians, there are virtuosos, and then there is that special class of transcendent musician for whom only superlative adjectives suffice. The double bass player Edgar Meyer is just such a performer, hailed as “the best bassist alive” (San Diego Magazine) and “the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively unchronicled history of his instrument” (The New Yorker). 

As one of the grandest of grand operas, it’s only fitting that Verdi’s Aida would open San Francisco Opera’s fall season. The 140 people assembled on the War Memorial Opera House stage for the Triumphal Scene may not have held a candle to the 2,000 supernumeraries enlisted by Col. Mapleson in Chicago in 1885, but when you add in all the women in the audience who used the opening as an excuse to wear huge pieces of Egyptian-styled jewelry, it was quite the show.

Ask enough of your neighbors, and you’ll find one or two at least who are involved in a chorus somewhere. There are hundreds of local groups, if you count church choirs, and a goodly number even if you don’t. Bay Area choral aficionados have a lot to choose from, but the concerts listed here are hugely appealing, even if you don’t sing in the shower yourself.