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Author: Paul Hertelendy

REMARKABLE CAREER = GREAT BALLET WITCH

REMARKABLE CAREER = GREAT BALLET WITCH

A veteran ballet dancer in her late 70s still stealing the show as the malevolent Witch casting spells and curses? My apologies to the ever-youthful roster of S.F. Ballet performers, but this “La Sylphide” show and its whole bubbling cauldron of vermin belong to Anita Paciotti, hook, line and sinker. I had first encountered her as the sole leading lady of the newborn Oakland Ballet’s precarious venture “Hansel und Gretel” in 1964, 58 years ago—-then playing Gretel rather than the…

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BACK-ROW PLAYERS COMING TO THE FOREFRONT

BACK-ROW PLAYERS COMING TO THE FOREFRONT

BURLINGAME, CA—-Give an orchestra a physical exam, doctor, and it proves very revealing. An ensemble of San Francisco Symphony players, none of them plucked from the front rows, gave a strong program here at the Kohl Mansion notable for cohesion, dramatic fire, and unassailable tuning, thereby underlining the strong fiber embodied unobtrusively within the ranks of the SFS. Adding to their challenge March 6 was a slate of obscure pieces by, largely, unheralded composers, spotlighting two black women composers from…

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THE TIMELIEST OPERA OF THEM ALL

THE TIMELIEST OPERA OF THEM ALL

Though in a huge setting, it was a very intimate contemporary opera, with front-row patrons close enough to turn pages for the conductor. And the dark of the tall edifice only intensified the uneasiness of little Sophia escaping for her life in the scary woods which may or may not harbor ghosts and goblins galore. This is “Sophia’s Forest.” If reminiscent of the spiritual inquietude of old  works like “Hansel und Gretel,” “Turn of the Screw” and “Transfigured Night,” it’s…

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NEW BALLET: NOVEL AND NIMBLE BOTS?

NEW BALLET: NOVEL AND NIMBLE BOTS?

The new ballet “Blake Works I” appeals most strongly to those in teens and twenties. Its James Blake songs are stripped down and quirky, and the moves are in very modern ballet, with a lot of hip wiggling and squiggling rarely encountered at the San Francisco Ballet. To say nothing of marionette-like parading. But this opus is far more, with the angular, novel and nimble nonstop of hands and arms, as fast as the eye can follow and sometimes knotted…

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AFTER TWO YEARS, CATHARSIS

AFTER TWO YEARS, CATHARSIS

In the elite world of art song, mezzo Sasha Cooke comes closest today to wearing the mantle of the late East Bay singer Lorraine Hunt, who had left us indelible musical memories. Cooke’s evening recital Sunday achieved multiple goals with reflections on two years of nationwide pandemic disruptions. She mastered (and memorized) an unprecedented array of 17 world-premiere songs written for the occasion by as many composers, using texts and poems suited to the theme. And for those listening on…

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RUSSIANS, MTT: BOTH ARE BACK

RUSSIANS, MTT: BOTH ARE BACK

Pairing a most introspective work with a most extroverted one was yet another instance showing Michael Tilson Thomas still on top of his game in programming. And his program of Shostakovich and Prokofiev was winning wide admiration from the patrons, despite the works coming out of Russia, not exactly our closest neighbors these days, and out of old Soviet Russia at that. As if to attest to his on-going recovery from the brain surgery of last summer, Music Director Laureate…

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Pandemic Trumping Premiere

Pandemic Trumping Premiere

ROHNERT PARK, CA—The Santa Rosa Symphony’s brave 2022 resumption of concerts (with VAXXes and masks everywhere) continued with a tumultuous world premiere, a major artist, a Beethoven concerto and a choice memorial. Most distinctive is the premiere of a ground-shaking symphony by Gabriella Smith of Berkeley, “One,” which Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong called the hardest work he has ever conducted. The musicians might be in broad agreement. Without question “One” opened our ears, with some applauding vigorously, others ready to bolt from…

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Morris-Schumann: A Winning Pair

Morris-Schumann: A Winning Pair

BERKELEY—Was it Santa Claus arrived early? A closer look revealed it was actually choreographer Mark Morris with the big bushy beard in a new role: Singer, accompanying his light entertainments up on the dance stage. Over the years, with his Dance Group he has carried out at least four roles, previously as dancer and actor as well. The next time he turns up here, he might well be lighting designer, usher, tour-bus driver, phys-therapist and chancellor too if he has…

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CLEAR SAILING FOR THE CHORUS ONCE MORE

CLEAR SAILING FOR THE CHORUS ONCE MORE

After a good (or, more accurately, bad) year’s Covid absence, the Chanticleer singers were back once more in exemplary form, and we can properly celebrate Christmas again with their predictably profound and joyful sounds. The dozen male vocalists—the only ones in the entire hall without masks—won sustained ovations Sunday from the crowd at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland as well as from Bishop Michael Barber in his low-key attendance as just one of many fans in the…

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