ArtsSF

PALO ALTO, CA—The romance of Valentine’s Day came face to face with ghoulish rituals and murder most foul by that usurper Macbeth. Disastrous? Hardly. The plucky little opera company virtually sold out the house February 14th, emulating the mouse that roared. And it brought on high drama on its opening night, overcoming almost all adversity. This was that jinxed operatic “Macbeth,” by Verdi, out of Shakespeare—an unsettling tale so fearsome that theaters everywhere still leave one light burning on stage…

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Credit the Bach Soloists for filling the week’s vacuum around New Year’s with goodies, specifically by addressing that yawning concert void we have before and after the most celebrated Eve since, well, maybe Adam. On the year’s final afternoon they paraded forth a splendid cornucopia of baroque operatic arias with two imported vocalists, and even an authentic period-instruments orchestra of 27 playing as if Frederick the Great himself was in the boxes at Herbst Theatre, demanding the best. I’m delighted…

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It was the Wagner Rush or the Wagner High, hitting again with flashes of lightning, as overwhelming as it is dazzling. It was just a one-hour sampler (out of that 15-hour “Ring” tetralogy), but you wonder if you could ever stay standing coherently and rationally after a full 15-hour, 4-day hit. Well, there’s some semblance of sanity locally, as there are no plans anywhere on the horizon for the “Ring” being staged at the S.F. Opera; so the S.F. Symphony’s…

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It’s been called the perfect comic opera, “The Marriage of Figaro” or, more accurately, “Figaro’s Wedding.” And the current go-round at the S.F. Opera, while not perfect, catches its humor and dexterity as only Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte could have created. Think about it: In the elegant drawing rooms, intrigue upon intrigue. Assignations in switched identities. Hired help conspiring to outwit the libertine count. The women outwitting the men. Figaro desperately trying to wiggle out of a long-forgotten…

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The unlikeliest hit opera: an immense all-male cast of 75; setting aboard a warship at sea, without touching land or engaging in battle; no dance, no festivities; and a severe tragedy with the ingratiating title character executed because of insane wartime regulations. This is “Billy Budd” (1951), a searing bigger-than-life British drama (after Herman Melville’s virtually forgotten posthumous novella) which opened at the S.F. Opera Sept. 7. The neoclassical musical power of composer Benjamin Britten carries over past the voices…

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SANTA FE, NM—-With new leadership at the helm, the Opera here is making news this summer with two shows for very different reasons: One, an emotion-torn, gut-wrenching “Jenufa” that was the summer’s runaway hit drama, the other a world-premiere fairy-tale for big people. The human tragedy “Jenufa” is built around the village saga of two dramatic sopranos playing the title role and the stepmother respectively: Jenufa, jilted by the playboy Steva and faced with disgrace for her birth out of…

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Faust is back again in a modern-day operatic setting with a female Mephisto, thanks to composer Jake Heggie. Is San Franciscan Jake Heggie the next Leos Janacek? In initiating ultra-dramatic opera when nearing the age of 60, Heggie’s path suddenly parallels that of that amazing late-starting Czech operatic master whose belated bursting forth had ushered in the 20thcentury. Heggie, 58, had already created several operas marked by fluid story-telling and lyricism but little fire. Now, for the first time, he…

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WALNUT CREEK, CA—Zounds, is acting now encroaching on the world of opera? It flourished this summer in both the top-of-the-line S.F. Opera’s “Orlando” and now the struggling Festival Opera here with its history of multiple Lazarus-like revival modes. The casts of actor-singers provide a new vitality to the medium, often compensating (and then some) for less-than-Met voices. The latest such miracle was brought off by a stage director better known as a Bay Area dance director, Mark Foehringer. The vehicle…

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A lesser-known baroque opera took over the S.F. Opera Sunday, offering first-rate stage direction and conducting while falling short of vocal expectations. Handel’s “Orlando” (1733) is a fictional love story inspired by Charlemagne’s eighth-century military leader Roland, one that took 238 years to reach US shores. It had ridden high during London’s craze for Italian opera, though its modest dimensions don’t fit expansively into the huge Opera House. This intimate chamber opera boasts a string orchestra and cast of five,…

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The miracle of West Bay Opera is not just that they pulled off yet another highly professional show in Verdi’s “Falstaff;” it’s what they do bringing that tiny community theater never built for opera so vibrantly to life. Consider that you have no overhead space for flying scenery, no prompter’s box, very limited stage depth, a pit that can’t even seat half a Verdi orchestra, and space even tighter than Falstaff’s drinking buddies usually are. The conditions would be enough…

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