DANCING TO THE DESPOTS

DANCING TO THE DESPOTS

Modern ballet at its most effusive marks the all-Ratmansky evening dubbed “The Shostakovich Trilogy.” In the modern mode, dancers bend, twist, lean, and go upside down, quite beyond classical ballet. And the San Francisco Ballet’s ensemble is impeccable in spinning an entire evening of Russian émigré Alexei Ratmansky’s choreography—-truly a winning combination to finish off a very rich SFB season. If at one extreme these performers can be compared to a well-tuned high-performance sports car, at the other they have…

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AROUND THE WORLD WITH KRONOS            

AROUND THE WORLD WITH KRONOS            

SAN RAFAEL, CA—As usual, the fast-flying Kronos Quartet was innovating mightily. Instead of the standard string quartet concert program, on May 4 they offered a 10-piece musical mosaic based on world music—a double-espresso of surprises, which is hardly the regular cup of tea for string quartets. Are you new to Kronos, our seemingly ageless ensemble? In a nutshell: The four string players are always amplified, giving a more assertive and metallic sound; living composers of both gendersalways dominate; music is…

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DANCE MADNESS AT THE SYMPHONY

DANCE MADNESS AT THE SYMPHONY

BERKELEY—The symphony crowd missed an evocative evening at the Berkeley Symphony that was offering two important mid-career composers, a mad, mad dance program, a foray to British creativity and a fast-rising guest conductor. But the rafts of empty seats in Zellerbach Hall suggested that it was all a bit too far off the beaten track, even for an orchestra as innovative as Berkeley. Having less than average advance media coverage didn’t help either. Covering the pit with a dance surface…

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KALEIDOSCOPIC MUSICAL EXPERIENCE

KALEIDOSCOPIC MUSICAL EXPERIENCE

OAKLAND—It was a bizarre concert, the most haphazard of events thrown like a tossed salad, yet one of the most stimulating of the season. Single-sheet printed programs were late arriving (ink already dry!), handed out to patrons moments before the downbeat. And no one thought to print the names of the three instrumentalists anywhere. You hardly expected a barn-burner, in a modest 150-seat church well removed from the main venues, with the long-haired presenter/arranger/pianist Derek Sup buzzing about in his…

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REMEMBERING ZEMLINSKY

REMEMBERING ZEMLINSKY

If you always yearned to know composers from A to Z, tune in on Alexander Zemlinsky, who spans the extremes. The long-forgotten Austrian composer Zemlinsky was finally given his due with the S.F. Symphony’s first performance of his tone poem “The Mermaid,” 116 years after its premiere. The Viennese composer had the double misfortune of losing out to Gustav Mahler: musically, standing in his instrumental shadow, and romantically, yielding up the elusive Alma, who married Gustav and left A.Z. in…

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EXUBERANCE OVER A PRODIGAL SON

EXUBERANCE OVER A PRODIGAL SON

LOS ANGELES—Yet another grand Salonen love-in, with his third orchestra on the West Coast this year. Is there no end? This time, it was Esa-Pekka leading his former crack ensemble, the L.A. Philharmonic, in his long meandering farewell tour before taking the reins at the S.F. Symphony next year. You hope that your maestro-to-be will be an outstanding musician. What you never expect is the bonus of exuberant affection around several concert halls with totally different audiences and musicians. Little…

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The Nonstop Opera Composer

The Nonstop Opera Composer

REDWOOD CITY, CA—Opera composers are caught in a to-be-or-not-to-be quandary when adapting great novels for the stage. Should the text, consonants and all, be squeezed into librettos of talky vocal lines? Or else just retain the gist and plot (like Giuseppe Verdi) while adding rhymes and all those delectable, soaring vowels that singers love so dearly? Composer Kirke Mechem, 93, audaciously chose the first option in taking on Jane Austen’s classic timeless novel “Pride and Prejudice,” producing his latest opera…

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THE METHUSELAH OF MAESTROS

THE METHUSELAH OF MAESTROS

BERKELEY, CA—Peter Phillips has been conductor of Britain’s Tallis Scholars chamber chorus so long, some of his 10 singers were not even born when he started. Amazingly, over these 47 years the Scholars have maintained their amazing prowess at renaissance music in concert and recordings as they returned to the First Congregational Church for the 19th time. Needless to say, the performance  was sold out with modern-day enthusiasts thronging for olden-day church music. Is anything ever new in renaissance music?…

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OPERA PREMIERE: SIZE IS IMMATERIAL

OPERA PREMIERE: SIZE IS IMMATERIAL

The future of opera in America points more than ever to small, mobile, no-star troupes like Opera Parallèle. Consider the financial pinch of the vaunted major companies like the Metropolitan Opera (pressed despite orchestra seats running close to $500 a night), and now the San Francisco Opera, which just recently laid off 10 staffers. Here in the Bay Area, the fire is lit by lesser-known, versatile troupes in compact theaters, like the local Opera Parallèle in a rough-and-tumble 240-seat theater…

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BEST CADAVERS TO DANCE WITH

BEST CADAVERS TO DANCE WITH

The finest 21st-century work of the current S.F. Ballet season so far is Liam Scarlett’s “Die Toteninsel,” where the dark and brooding mood of the tone poem is carried forward with a wealth of emotion. This is as somber as Scarlett’s previous “Frankenstein,” but not at all lurid. The British choreographer scored richly here, using the great (but rarely heard in concert) Rachmaninoff tone poem “The Isle of the Dead,” inspired by the Symbolist 1880 painting of the German romantic…

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