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Month: September 2022

A LEAP INTO MUSICAL NIRVANA

A LEAP INTO MUSICAL NIRVANA

Mahler’s “Resurrection” was a revelation, leaving us in the audience limp and giddy, as if, in a euphoric state of ecstasy, we had just been led through the Pearly Gates into the great beyond. And it was the finest hour yet for Maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen in the bows when the orchestra remained steadfastly seated, deflecting the cheers to the conductor himself. The audience too responded with an inordinate five-minute ovation for the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus et al for…

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A MASTER CLASS IN MODERN BALLET  

A MASTER CLASS IN MODERN BALLET  

In its 29th season, the 16-member Smuin Contemporary Ballet is joyous, youthful and exuberant, meticulously rehearsed in fast-moving sequences that enkindle audiences again and again. And its post-Covid rebirth is grounds for celebration. For that dance critic who once said, I won’t go any more, they are too commercial, all one can say is phooey. With new personnel, the troupe continues to enkindle the vitality and eclectic dance diversity of founder Michael Smuin, who had already passed on 15 years…

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1938 MUSIC & SPEECH: ILL-DIGESTIBLE SANDWICHES OF HISTORY

1938 MUSIC & SPEECH: ILL-DIGESTIBLE SANDWICHES OF HISTORY

Somewhere between a theater piece and a radio-show reenactment, “Berlin 1938” played over the weekend with devastating force. It is destined to be a prize-winning venture as it relives a highly precarious time between escapism and the horrific persecutions on the eve of World War Two. Even if yours was not among the families directly impacted back then, this musical show cum political theater unleashed grim edges both telling and terrifying. Daniel  Hope’s NCCO was converted into a stage band…

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SHAKESPEARE: BRUSH UP YOUR LIBRETTO!

SHAKESPEARE: BRUSH UP YOUR LIBRETTO!

One of the real problems in John Adams’ new opera is that Shakespeare wrote plays but never opera librettos. Now, Will, “Hamlet,” “Macbeth” and “Othello” are all well and good as stage plays, but couldn’t you think of baritones and sopranos too? In using Shakespeare and earlier texts for almost all of his libretto, composer Adams was stuck with lines rarely ending in vowels. He thus  saddles the singers with drooping fade-out lines that suppress their attractiveness and expressiveness. Just…

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‘ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA’ IN MORE FORMAL, MORE MODERN ATTIRE 

‘ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA’ IN MORE FORMAL, MORE MODERN ATTIRE 

Composer John Adams has made a welcome attempt to bring under control the unwieldy “Antony and Cleopatra” story out of Shakespeare. Evolving from there, past  composer Samuel Barber’s grand 1966 Met failure, to Adams’ world premiere, it has been  boiled down from some 40 scenes and two dozen solo voices (ouch!) to this sleek, late-model version in three hours, two acts debuting Sept. 10 to mark the 100th year of the San Francisco Opera. If you were waiting for gooey…

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A BLAZING COMET FROM THE EAST

A BLAZING COMET FROM THE EAST

Hiromi is a phenomenon of our times. When she settles in with jazz piano, it’s as if an alien spirit of high inventiveness has taken over artistic control, using her as a mere vessel to exude a wealth of ideas, transitions and pulse-quickening runs that defy easy characterization. A composed Japanese woman and mother, she still exudes glints of the precocious girl who vied to be a classical artist. What stands out after a long evening at SFJazz was her…

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