The Opera Tattler Subscribe to this blog's feed April 19, 2016 2015-2016 SEASON Streetcar in San José NOTES ON Opera San José's Streetcar Svadba-Wedding in SF About * Notes * Opera San José's 2015-2016 season ends with a musically Eugene Onegin in Palo Alto SF Opera's Future Seasons impressive but dramatically wanting A Streetcar Named Champion in SF How Standing Room Works Desire (pictured left with Matthew Hanscom, Ariana Strahl, and Stacey Tappan; photograph by Pat Kirk), Carmen in San José which opened last weekend. The orchestra has never Rigoletto in Alameda OFFICIAL BLOGS OF WEST COAST sounded better and there is much fine singing, but the OPERA COMPANIES minimalist production is not completely successful. Usher Double Bill in SF Barbiere di Siviglia in SF Los Angeles Opera André Previn's opera, based on the famous play by Tennessee Williams, first premiered in the Bay Area nearly twenty years ago at San Francisco Opera. Meistersinger in SF Portland Opera The production at San José, designed and directed by Brad Dalton, features a Nozze di Figaro in San José San Diego Opera rather bare stage in front of the orchestra. The two rooms are represented by furniture -- a bed, two tables, and eighteen chairs -- that are moved around Lulu in NY San Francisco Opera by seven rough-looking male supernumeraries. Lucia (Shagimuratova) in SF Seattle Opera There isn't a good sense of what is inside and what is outside, it isn't clear Magic Flute (Bowden/Shafer) in SF Vancouver Opera what the supernumeraries are doing on stage besides changing the set (often unnecessarily, since much of the action simply happens in the same two Lucia (Sierra) in SF rooms) and echoing the look of Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in stage and film versions of the play. Tosca in San José Sweeney Todd in SF The scenes that reference the upstairs of the building are especially problematic. The upstairs neighbor Eunice stands on a chair to represent her Luisa Miller in SF calling from above at one point, and at the end of Act I Stanley interacts with Eunice, Blanche, and Stella all upstage, but with him downstage facing the More Opera Reviews audience. Dalton also makes use of ghosts, having the young collector played by Xavier OPERA REVIEWS Prado stand in for Blanche's ill-fated husband and Teressa Foss (who also is cast as the nurse) wander through as one of Blanche's dead relatives. Perhaps Blogroll this is to re-enforce how crazy Blanche is, but it was more of a confusing SF Chronicle distraction than anything else. SF Classical Voice All this said, I do very much appreciate Dalton's creativity, and that he did not simply recreate the well-known set of the play or film. Having the orchestra behind the singers also worked very much in the piece's favor, the playing ARCHIVES never overwhelmed the voices. April 2016 Maestro Ming Luke had the orchestra sounding cohesive and perfectly in tune. March 2016 Despite the fact that the conductor was behind the singers, there was hardly any synchronization issues. The screens above the ground floor of the February 2016 audience used to cue the characters apparently worked very well. The jazzy January 2016 parts of Previn's music swung and sounded idiomatic. December 2015 The singing was excellent. Tenor Kirk Dougherty had the perfect amount of awkwardness for Harold "Mitch" Mitchell, and his scenes with Strahl were November 2015 convincing. On the other hand, baritone Matthew Hanscom lacked a certain October 2015 sexual dangerousness for the role of Stanley Kowalski. Though Hanscom's voice is strong, his performance comes off as cartoonish. September 2015 Soprano Stacey Tappan (Stella Kowalkski) had a strong Opera San Jose debut, August 2015 her voice is sweet and her post-coital hum at the end of Act I came off July 2015 beautifully. Soprano Ariana Strahl also had a fine debut with the role of Blanche DuBois, and sang with a devastating brilliance and incredible ease. More... Her clarion tones were a wonderful contrast to Tappan's, you could never mistake one for another. In the end the drama does come through in the music, Stahl portrays Blanche's harrowing experiences with conviction, and the performance was satisfying despite the flawed staging. Tattling * There was the usual light chatter when the orchestra played but no one was singing. A watch alarm was heard in the last act. 07:43 AM in Opera Review, Opera San José | Permalink | Comments (0) April 18, 2016 San Diego Opera 2016-2017 Season http://operatattler.typepad.com/opera/[4/19/2016 12:21:03 PM] The Opera Tattler October 22-30 2016: La Cenerentola November 11-13 2016: David T. Little's Soldier Songs February 18-26 2017: Falstaff March 10-12 2017: Peter Brook's La tragèdie de Carmen April 22-30 2017: La traviata The 2016-2017 season at San Diego Opera was announced April 16. 2016-2017 Season | Official Site 03:54 PM in 2016-2017 Season Previews, San Diego Opera | Permalink | Comments (0) April 03, 2016 SF Opera's Svadba-Wedding * Notes * SF Opera Lab had its first new production premiere last night with Svadba-Wedding last night. The a cappella opera for six female voices by Serbian Canadian composer Ana Sokolović is the perfect scale for the Atrium Theater and director Michael Cavanagh's made use of the whole space. Sokolović's opera is pretty without being cloying, the Balkan rhythms employed hold much interest. This is much closer to being avant-garde than most of the world premieres we've heard at the War Memorial in the last decade. There were moments when the music reminded me of Kitka, but Sokolović has a very charming and peculiar point of view. Often there is much humor in the onomatopoeic sounds the singers produce. The piece is short, a mere 60 minutes, but has a timelessness to it, and not at all in a bad way. There are many instruments used by the singers including metal drinking cups with chains and spoons; tom-tom drum; gong; rainsticks, and ocarinas (ancient wind instruments). The voices have a haunting quality, there seemed to be three sopranos and three mezzo-sopranos. The singing was clear and had an immediacy in the small room. Cavanagh's staging uses a central round platform and five other littler platforms all around the room. The audience is seated at round tables, much like a wedding reception. Tattling * It was hard for the audience members to talk much, given how immersive the performance was, and how the singers basically surrounded us at different moments. After the performance was an actual reception, complete with croquembouche, champagne, and a DJ. 07:53 PM in Opera Review, San Francisco Opera, SF Opera Lab | Permalink | Comments (1) March 28, 2016 SoundBox's Outré * Notes * SoundBox's latest program, titled Outré, featured French avant-garde music over seven centuries. Beautifully curated, the engaging music ranged from Pérotin's polyphonic Sederunt principes with a cappella male voices and portative organ to Messiaen's Couleurs de la cité celeste for solo piano and instrumental ensemble, including the many gongs seen in the photograph to the left. Michael Tilson Thomas lead the musicians and amiably talked the audience through the pieces one by one. Selections from Jean-Féry Rebel's Les élémens was a cheerful place to start, and the sprightly French Baroque music was such fun. This certainly set the stage for the program to come. It was lovely to hear the musicians of San Francisco Symphony in this more intimate venue. Principal oboist Eugene Izotov played Ravel's Pièce en forme de Habanera and Saint-Saëns' Molto allegro from Oboe Sonata in D major, while principal flutist Tim Day played Debussy's Syrinx. Principal percussionist Jacob Nissly especially impressed in Darius Milhaud's Concerto for Percussion and Small Orchestra, Opus 109. Ending with an excerpt of Milhaud's Scaramouche was a festive touch. The French-inspired garden installation designed by Luke Kritzeck with a digital reflecting pool by video designer Adam Larsen was rather pretty. The videos http://operatattler.typepad.com/opera/[4/19/2016 12:21:03 PM] The Opera Tattler during the music did not distract but did not look like screensavers either. Tattling * The youngish audience was mostly quiet. There seats are not guaranteed for these sold-out events and we were lucky enough to find a friend in line just before 8pm. Those who did not line up mostly milled about at the back of the venue, though a couple did stand directly in front of my date (we were seated by the west side of the first stage) for the second set. 02:50 PM in Michael Tilson Thomas, San Francisco Symphony, SoundBox | Permalink | Comments (0) March 15, 2016 Kentridge's Winterreise * Notes * SF Opera Lab began with visual artist William Kentridge's production of Winterreise last weekend. His beautiful meditations on Schubert's Lieder are deeply immersive and the incredible performers, baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Markus Hinterhäuser though very talented, seemed almost incidental to the work. The effect Kentridge gets with mostly black and white projections on a surface layered with paper is compelling, so much so that it was hard for me to focus in on the music. The landscapes and figures dancing or walking across dictionary pages completely held my attention for the 80 minute performance, which seemed much shorter to me. Goerne has an absolutely gorgeous voice, vital and strong, but I was glad I had heard him before, because in this it might have been lost on me.