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Month: May 2022

AN IMPROBABLE WAGNER COMIC OPERA

AN IMPROBABLE WAGNER COMIC OPERA

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—For this early opera, if you generously award 1.5 stars to Richard Wagner, you have to give at least four stars to Pocket Opera for its spanking-fresh semi-staged production. San Francisco‘s smallest opera troupe brought off an animated, sparkling show with Wagner’s “No Love Allowed” (Das Liebesverbot), an early production before Wagner became Wagner. Instead of the usual stab at German mythology and grim machinations, here we get a pseudo-Italian frivolity sounding like Donizetti, featuring an assignation-with-wife plot…

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Opera Resounds, despite Adversity

Opera Resounds, despite Adversity

PALO ALTO, CA—World-renowned are Stanford University’s technology expertise and her women’s sports teams. But across town, there’s a little miracle called West Bay Opera, which despite a postage-stamp-sized auditorium to play in, brings off productions that are both presentable and downright moving. Cheers rang out with WBO resuming performances after the two-year Covid padlock, hitting its stride in its 66th season. Imagine a theater incapable of scene changes. Half the musicians are sitting in the wings like caged birds, barely…

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Black Women’s Creativity

Black Women’s Creativity

Count on mezzo Julia Bullock to design a program quite unlike anything ever at the S.F. Symphony: a multimedia perusal of the history of black women in America, bravely breaking out of the mold, played before a largely white S.F. Symphony audience. By the end you were convinced you’d earned a credit toward a master’s degree in sociology. In the process a lot of long-gone readings by notable artists were brought back to life in a viable format. The only…

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WOMEN AT SYMPHONIC FOREFRONT

WOMEN AT SYMPHONIC FOREFRONT

Although never billed as such, the latest S.F. Symphony program unreeled a tribute to the creativity of women—as conductor, as soloist, as composer. And by the end, I found myself reaching for my seat belt during a brassy, rambunctious large-orchestra finale of modern music that, yes, even got a standing ovation May 13. Yes, that dissonant modernist Lutoslawski gets a standing ovation—imagine that! The woman composer in a more dulcet mode was Lili Boulanger, sister of the legendary composition professor…

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STRIKING GOLD IN THE MUSICAL YUKON

STRIKING GOLD IN THE MUSICAL YUKON

ROHNERT PARK, CA—A composer can still strike gold. Yet today. I had Michael Daugherty, 68, pegged for a 21st-century Ferde Grofé—-a skilled tone painter in music for our times. Until, that is, we got to the finale of his new suite for and about Sonoma County, “Valley of the Moon.” That finale segment, “Call of the Wild,” was immensely engrossing. Instead of the expected happy music, Daugherty here turned troubled, unsettled and enigmatic, much like the adventurous author of said…

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THE SUBS SAVE A CHANCEY ‘SWAN LAKE’

THE SUBS SAVE A CHANCEY ‘SWAN LAKE’

When a sports team plays with its third string, the results may be miserable. In ballet, not so much. “Swan Lake” is such a long, demanding drama that the Swan Queen and certain others need a couple of nights off, minimum, after performing. So at the third S.F. Ballet performance, such as last Sunday, you might get the No. 3 Swan Queen (newcomer Wona Park), No. 3 hero Siegfried (Wei Wang), and so on. And the evil eagle-like sorcerer Rothbart…

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