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Author: Paul Hertelendy

RIGHTING RODERICK IN POE’S SHORT STORY, USHERED IN

RIGHTING RODERICK IN POE’S SHORT STORY, USHERED IN

Getty’s ‘Usher’ Opera in SFO Double Bill Gordon Getty, who terms himself a 19th -century man, shakes hands with a long-gone Edgar Allan Poe in his mind-trip opera “Usher House” (2014), given its US premiere at the S.F. Opera Dec. 8. Getty and Poe walk the tantalizing lines between reality, fantasy, life and death distilled out of the nebulous outlines of Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This is an engaging one-act opera of spooks, cadavers…

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CHANTICLEER PERENNIALS FOR CHRISTMAS

CHANTICLEER PERENNIALS FOR CHRISTMAS

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Spotlighting Brilliance of a One-Time Wonder By Paul Hertelendy artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance Week of Dec. 12-23, 2015 Vol. 18, No. 33 STANFORD, CA—Heaping wreaths and encomiums on the elite Chanticleer chorus’ Christmas program for the 37th time? No—pointless and repetitive. Let’s learn instead from the once-in-a-lifetime burst of genius coming to ordinary folk like you or your neighbor——folks such as Franz Biebl, who wrote the beloved signature piece “Ave Maria” and…

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WOMEN VIBRANTLY AT THE FOREFRONT

WOMEN VIBRANTLY AT THE FOREFRONT

BERKELEY—With her niche securely in place, Berkeley Symphony Music Director Joana Carneiro is diversifying the repertoire, presenting work of the two most prominent (active) European women composers this fall. There’s an audacity and imagination at play there, avoiding tired programs and rep duplications with other orchestras. Also her orchestra is sounding better than ever as she continues to hone the creativity, six years after her appointment here. The audacity was palpable when she led off with a dozen players scattered…

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MEDIEVAL NUREMBERG BARGING INTO THE 19TH CENTURY

MEDIEVAL NUREMBERG BARGING INTO THE 19TH CENTURY

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Wagner’s Opulent ‘Meistersinger’ in Vivid Dimensions The San Francisco Opera got its act together in more ways than one for Wagner’s “Meistersinger” opera, serving up music theater instead of the old-fashioned static sequence of singers. Furthermore, if any one could tone down the overachieving brass section in the pit, we’d be close to perfection for this massive 5½ hours show. This marks the eighth time since 1960 that the SFO has presented the quasi-historical work. Having seen/heard each reprise, I…

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BIGGER-THAN-LIFE ORATORIO, ABOUT ALL HUMANITY

BIGGER-THAN-LIFE ORATORIO, ABOUT ALL HUMANITY

Garrop’s Eloquent World Premiere Given by Local Chorus The choral-orchestral “Terra Nostra” given its world premiere here Nov. 14 is a colossal effort, the largest-scale oratorio introduced in these parts in decades. The eloquent work running some 80 minutes is a secular one in three parts, from the world’s early beginnings and the dawn of humanity. Had composer Stacy Garrop been content with the first two parts and stopped, I might have been jumping off bridges, given the ending lament…

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CONTEMPORARY GALLIC-BERKELEY LINKAGE

CONTEMPORARY GALLIC-BERKELEY LINKAGE

Parisian Ensemble Visits the West Coast BERKELEY—An earth-shaking, all-contemporary, all-imported concert was saved with two ensemble pieces offering real music, not just sonic experiments. For the first time since its founding in 1976, Pierre Boulez’s renowned Ensemble Intercontemporain came to Cal from Paris, borrowing a good many percussion instruments from the university for the occasion. For Cal Performances, the booking marks a milestone. Musicians from Paris, yes, but only one of the four composers, Franck Bedrossian, was French. Ascribe it…

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DAZZLING RHYTHMIC INTRICACIES

DAZZLING RHYTHMIC INTRICACIES

Cheng-Ades’ Two-Piano Tour de Force One of the masters of modern rhythmic complexity, Thomas Adès, paired up with Gloria Cheng for a 20th-century two-piano recital that still has my ears ringing. Their percussive repertory, delivered with muscular dispatch, offered more than 100,000 notes that may still be resonating through the facility, leading me to marvel at the dynamic pair’s sheer immunity to fatigue. None of their music is easy to play, or even to listen to. But the tour de…

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THAT FORMIDABLE MOZART CLARINET QUINTET

THAT FORMIDABLE MOZART CLARINET QUINTET

Dali Quartet Linked with Virtuoso Ricardo Morales SAN JOSE—Most orchestras have a No. Two conductor/consultant. Chamber groups have no such luck. The orchestra can send the #2 around during rehearsals, hear from the audience side, and judge whether all the balances between sections are good. The Dalí String Quartet from Philadelphia could use a similar sonic consultant to get optimum outcomes. They played a novel program here Oct. 25, pairing up with a stellar clarinetist, Ricardo Morales, principal in the…

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THE MAESTRA’S A NATURAL FOR SIBELIUS

THE MAESTRA’S A NATURAL FOR SIBELIUS

I was about to write off the S.F. Symphony concerts this week until the guest maestra led a gorgeous and profound Sibelius Symphony No. 5 for a finale. The Fifth is a majestic century-old masterwork, full of the Finnish neoromantic’s distinctive Nordic coloration, achieved with instruments playing with enigmatic emotion in their lower register, festooned with somber French horns and soft timpani rolls. The podium guest was the glamorous young Susanna Mälkki (pronounced MELL-key), sending the music soaring heavenward with…

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MY LAI WAR DISASTER DRAMATIZED

MY LAI WAR DISASTER DRAMATIZED

Berger Monodrama Tears at Complacency STANFORD—Jonathan Berger’s new operatic monodrama “My Lai Lullaby” is a searing cry in the wilderness over one of the darkest incidents of the lamentable Vietnam War. I wish it could have been unveiled 40 years ago, when the war, its unprecedented protests, and the bringing down of Richard Nixon were still a deeply divisive force punching in America’s face and boring holes in our skulls. Berger’s ingenious creation calls on the blending of string quartet…

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