The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Month: October 2006
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The four new Adler Fellows for 2007 are Heidi Melton, Ji Young Yang, Katharine Tier, and Noah Stewart. They join second year fellows Rhoslyn Jones, Melody Moore, Elza van den Heever, Kendall Gladen, Matthew O'Neill, Sean Panikkar, Jeremy Galyon, and Matthew Piatt. Press Release | SF Opera Adler Fellow Web Site
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Deutsche Oper Berlin decided to reschedule Idomeneo for two performances before the end of the year. All this controversy certainly is suspect, perhaps it is true that no publicity is bad publicity. I suppose if I were running an opera house in a city with two other major competitors, I might try a few stunts…
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This season, instead of sending subscribers a yearbook going over all of the operas showing at San Francisco Opera, they sent out a double CD with David Gockley talking about each opera and playing clips. Seattle Opera has been doing this for a few years as well, and this format is useful as one can…
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* Notes * The Wagner Society of Northern California held a symposium on Tristan und Isolde last Saturday, October 21, 2006. There were seven speakers whose topics ranged from the day-to-day administration of Tristan at San Francisco Opera to a Jungian analysis of Wagner. The turn out was good, about a hundred people. The highlight…
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* Notes *The fourth performance of Tristan und Isolde was last night, and it was consistent with the previous performance I saw last week. Thomas Moser (Tristan) started off pretty well in Act I, and he sang beautifully in Act II, but by Act III he was rather quiet. * Tattling * The audience was…
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Coloratura soprano Ruth Ann Swenson has breast cancer. Ms. Swenson is a favorite in San Francisco, where she had her 1983 debut as Despina in Così Fan Tutte as a second year Adler Fellow. She was last seen here as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro in June of this year. In the picture…
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Los Angeles Opera has a podcast. Press Release [PDF]| Podcast Web Site
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* Notes* It was my intention to go to the Kirov’s production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, which ran from 6-11. October in Orange County. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, but I did make it to the matinee performance of Boris Godunov yesterday. They did the 1869 version of the work with no intermission,…
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* Notes * Die Fledermaus ended its seven performance run at San Francisco Opera yesterday. It was as charming as ever, almost everyone had it together for the final go-around. Wolfgang Brendel had the correct footing for his Rockettesque duet with Eugene Brancoveanu at the end of Act II. Likewise, Brancoveanu managed to keep the…
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* Notes * Los Angeles Opera’s 1987 production of Tristan und Isolde was revived last week in San Francisco. The production was designed by David Hockney, best known for his swimming pool paintings from the sixties. The set looked much like a large-scale colorful pop-up book, filled with strange details, such as curtains attached to…
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