The Opera Tattler

* Notes *
The Inside Music talk for San Francisco Symphony's recent West Coast premiere of Lindberg's Seht die Sonne was a lecture by musicologist Ilkka Oramo, followed by a short interview of the composer. It was mentioned that Lindberg works like a scientist and his work is approaching tonal objects. The influences of Seht die Sonne are Mahler's 9th, Mexican funeral processions played on animal horns and shells, and Schoenberg's Gurrelieder. The name of the piece, in fact, comes from the text that concludes the Gurrelieder. The orchestra for Lindberg was rather large, including more than a dozen percussion instruments played by three musicians. Conductor Sakari Oramo seemed have good control, the orchestra sounded fine. The brass section played particularly well, everyone very much in tune and together. There was a delightfully eerie part played by harps, piccolo, flute, and oboe, and then a bit where the harps violently alternated between two notes. The most hair-raising moment was the cello cadenza that begins the third part of the piece, it starts off very beautifully, becomes rather high-pitched, there is an outburst of pizzicato, a return to bowing, and then there is the relief of all the strings coming in. The end was striking, a melting into silence of strings and timpani.

They paired the Lindberg with Debussy's Chansons de jeunesse, sung by the conductor's wife, soprano Anu Komsi. Her voice is nice, it has a warm timbre but an icy precision as well. She did not seem to have a feel for how quietly she could sing and still be heard in Davies Hall, perhaps it is because these performances are her San Francisco Symphony debut. Some of her pianissimo was not audible, and generally it was difficult to follow her French. Her voice did blend well with the horn at the end of "Coquetterie posthume" and she sang "Au Clair de la lune" very prettily. Komsi was restrained in her approach, as was conductor Oramo, perhaps it was just too subtle for me. It all sounded pleasant but boring, devoid of true emotion, though the text is effusive.

The second half of the evening gave us Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92. Oramo had a straightforward take on the work, without huge risks. The contrast between dynamics was strong and the playing was spirited but rigorous.

* Tattling *
Sometimes going to Davies Hall is disheartening, as the audience can be quite terrible. When an opera audience is ill-behaved, one can put it down to the frivolity of opera, people get distracted by the spectacle of it, and this is understandable. Yesterday at the symphony, the people next to me talked at full volume during the first piece, saying such choice statements as "This is more noise than music." They obviously did not enjoy themselves at all, yet they clapped anyway, especially when Lindberg came out on the stage. They also spoke during the Debussy, though this music was quiet, and it was easy to hear the woman's comment about how she "just couldn't stand it," though I am not sure what she was referring to. During the last two songs there were four watch alarms marking the hour, all at different moments.

At intermission I thought about the woman's comment, and wondered if she had some sort of neurological disorder, as she had a particular motor pattern of shaking and twitching. I felt a bit bad for her, though her program made the most awful sound as it scraped against the fabric of her trousers, not to mention how much she crumpled the paper in her hands. All sympathy was lost when she spoke aloud during the Allegretto (a mobile phone also rang during this, but it wasn't in the loge), I understand one cannot always control one's movement, but talking is voluntary. I shushed her, and she at least tried to whisper during the rest of the work. She fell asleep during the Presto, and her snore jolted me out of my seat, waking her. I have a feeling I would have been much less exhausted if I had just gone to Free Opera in the Ballpark.