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Author: Paul Hertelendy

YES, THERE IS A THERE THERE

YES, THERE IS A THERE THERE

Much Disparaged Oakland Keeps Surprising OAKLAND—I don’t know if it’s the greatest little opera company around, but it certainly looks like the most enterprising. Given limited resources, the West Edge Opera has shuttled around several East Bay cities, and even changed names (formerly the Berkeley Opera). For its latest summer-season persona, West Edge has set three operas spanning five centuries in three different abandoned sites, none of them theaters. Via strong stage direction, it has reintroduced music theater into the…

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BERG’S OPERA ‘LULU’ IN OAKLAND

BERG’S OPERA ‘LULU’ IN OAKLAND

Daring, Imagination Carry off Modest Staging Oakland? “Lulu” in Oakland? Yes, Virginia, there really is action and daring culture in Oakland, even in the summer doldrums, to judge by the rousing and highly suggestive opera “Lulu” by Berg played in an abandoned railway station by the great risk-takers at West Edge Opera. Naturally, it was a wall-to-wall sellout, 500 fans a night. Fear not, West Edge—-your risks are well taken. Neither a tough-as-nails part of West Oakland nor nearby condemned…

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A ‘RIGOLETTO’ TO DIE FOR

A ‘RIGOLETTO’ TO DIE FOR

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Superlative Interactions of Jester, Daughter By Paul Hertelendy artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance Week of Aug. 7-14, 2015 Vol. 18, No. 7 SANTA FE, NM—If “most unique” were a term usable by any one apart from hucksters, you’d have to apply it to the Santa Fe (summer) Opera, now in its 59th season. On a desert hilltop 7,000 feet above sea level with sweeping views of mountains, it has an indoor-outdoor theater roofed…

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EMERGING YOUNG CHAMBER-MUSIC COMPOSERS

EMERGING YOUNG CHAMBER-MUSIC COMPOSERS

Trial by Fire in Santa Fe SANTA FE, NM—On your high shelf labeled “significant ensembles I’ve never heard of,” save a good spot for the Flux Quartet, which has introduced more than 100 new works to our string-quartet repertory. They played the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, a humming summer-long enterprise with dozens of concerts, each with its own character, manned by diverse quality players from all over. Your yen for contemporary sounds would have drawn you Aug. 7 to…

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DEKKERS’ UNIQUE AUDIENCE IMPACT

DEKKERS’ UNIQUE AUDIENCE IMPACT

His S.F. Dance Co. Dazzles The intermission crowd was the most animated I can recall at a dance event, enthusing, laughing, sipping, and reveling in the glow of a wildly exciting company on stage. So we’d better recognize the mercurial talent of choreographer Robert Dekkers, pronto. And before you enter, check all your biases at the cloakroom, please. Because Dekkers is a purposeful eccentric, provocative to the core in both attire and audience chitchat, coming across as some barely one…

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STELLAR MIDSUMMER CHAMBER CONCERTS

STELLAR MIDSUMMER CHAMBER CONCERTS

With Heavy Other-Coast Representation ATHERTON, CA—In one of the most attractive S.F. Peninsula communities, Music@Menlo has found its niche, selling out chamber concerts offered in intimate venues. The current 13th annual incarnation of M@M is devoted mostly to Schubert, the ultimate romantic master of lyricism, with Schubert’s greatest hits and songs spread out over four weekends. You might call it Lincoln Chamber West. The co-directors also run the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (NYC), drawing heavily from their colleagues…

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BLOCKBUSTER ‘TROYENS’ RUMBLES THROUGH SAN FRANCISCO

BLOCKBUSTER ‘TROYENS’ RUMBLES THROUGH SAN FRANCISCO

Two Operas in One, Studded with Choruses and Ballets, Plus a Prime Diva SAN FRANCISCO—A vast French-romantic creation, as only Berlioz could conceive it, has taken over the S.F. Opera stage and in effect thrown down the glove, challenging other troupes to match or do better, while challenging the endurance of both performers and audience. It adds up to five hours, five acts, and more savory choruses and ballet segments than in a month of run-days. After a low-key start,…

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SAN FRANCISCO’S OPERA PREMIERE IN ITALIAN

SAN FRANCISCO’S OPERA PREMIERE IN ITALIAN

Tutino Work Recalls World War Atrocities SAN FRANCISCO—The Italian world premiere opera “Two Women” is a vibrant old-style melodrama with immediate appeal, one that will play even better when it arrives in Italy. A World War Two tragedy became a novel, then film that had propelled Sophia Loren into super-stardom, and now a searing opera of a woman’s wartime ordeal composed by the retiring, soft-spoken Marco Tutino, 60. Tutino’s musical roots lie close to Puccini’s cohorts of a century or…

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RARIFIED ATMOSPHERE OF ‘MISSA SOLEMNIS’

RARIFIED ATMOSPHERE OF ‘MISSA SOLEMNIS’

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Bold Semi-Staged ‘ThomasSolemnis’ at S.F. Symphony The audacity of Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas is astounding, bordering on a touch a genius, as he dared to mount a semi-staged performance of Beethoven’s great Latin mass, the Missa Solemnis. It turned a church concert into a grand and vibrant spectacle at Davies Hall, which had to be reconfigured mightily to adapt to unaccustomed theatrical flashpoints. Controversy will surround this venture, of course, just as past stagings of church works like the…

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UNRAVELING RAVEL’S SPANISH VEIN

UNRAVELING RAVEL’S SPANISH VEIN

And SFS Tackling de Falla, Lethargically If you love classical music of Spain, you rush to the French composers. Enamored of the Iberian Peninsula, they gave us “Iberia,” “El Cid,” “Carmen,” “Bolero,” “Tzigane,” “Don Quichotte,” “España,” and myriad titles containing the word “espagnol.” The quasi-Spanish vein however has never been a strong repertory point of the S.F. Symphony, which took another crack at it this week under Charles Dutoit but served up merely a watered-down gazpacho. Two alluring works which…

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