The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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  • Opera San José’s Florencia en el Amazonas

    Opera-San-Jose_Florencia-en-el-Amazonas-8_Photo-Credit_David-Allen_edit-scaled * Notes *
    Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas (Act II pictured, photograph by David Allen) had a long overdue Bay Area premiere at Opera San José last weekend. The attractive new production features lots of strong singing.

    The music is reminiscent of Puccini, lots of shimmery swells of sound. The orchestra sounded robust under Maestro Joseph Marcheso. Likewise the singing was very powerful.

    Bass-baritone Vartan Gabrielian (Captain) has impressive low notes that resonate well. Baritone Ricardo José Rivera has a loud, booming voice, and he was suitably fey as Riolobo. Baritone Efraín Solís sounded very distinct from Rivera, his part as Alvaro is much more of this world, and his warm, textured sound was charming. He sang well with mezzo-soprano Guadalupe Paz, I like her part of Paula, as there are an interesting range of feelings that are explored with this role.

    Tenor César Delgado and soprano Aléxa Anderson are convincing as young lovers Arcadio and Rosalba. Delgado is plaintive and Anderson is bright. Soprano Elizabeth Caballero did a fine job with the title role of Florencia Grimaldi. She has a dramatic flair to her sound, her final aria "Escúchame" was effective.

    The set, designed by Liliana Duque-Piñeiro, has two pieces of scenery that suggest the river boat, basically some stairs with a deck and a paddlewheel. There are also a bunch of large cutout pieces hanging from the ceiling that are leaves and vines of the jungle, it is pretty, and the lighting pulls everything together. It wasn't always clear when the characters were on the boat or not, or when they were traveling on the river. Director Crystal Manich has the singers push the pieces of the set around to change the scenes, which went smoothly. I liked the butterfly imagery that was employed throughout the opera, there was a puppet, winged costumes, and blue butterfly confetti.

    * Tattling * 
    The audience silent for the most part, I only noted a light crinkling of paper from the center of the orchestra level during Act II, but it was only for about a minute.

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  • Opera Parallèle’s Birds and Balls

    4.4.24-2105 Vinkensport Ensemble Credit Kristen Loken* Notes *
    Opera Parallèle gave a splendid performance of two comedic one-act operas yesterday at SFJAZZ. Done in one go, the evening began with David T. Little's Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera (pictured, photograph by Kristen Loken), which was followed by Laura Karpman's Balls. It was impressive how cohesively these works were presented together, both visually and musically.

    Director Brian Staufenbiel put us in a 70s telecast of these two very disparate sporting events, with Mark Hernandez as sports announcer Howard Cosell engaging the audience and even the conductor. There were projections surrounding us, and the live-image capture was especially effective. As always, Maestra Nicole Paiement deftly held the orchestra and singers together. It was fun to hear her conduct a bit of Verdi's Triumpal March from Aida in Balls, when Billie Jean King enters. At one point in this opera nearly all the musicians stopped playing their instruments and clapped beats with their hands, they were all very much synchronized, Paiement keeps everything very precise.

    Vinkensport is about Flemish folk sport of Finch-Sitting, in which trained finches try to sing the most "susk-e-wiets" in an hour as possible. In this opera there are six competitors, all the finches have very amusing names. Soprano Jamie Chamberlin gave a very vulnerable and human performance as Holy St. Francis's Trainer, she's had quite a lot going on in her personal life, while soprano Chelsea Hollow's character of who trains Farinelli is actually just using a tape recorder, since her bird is deceased. Hollow's voice is crystalline and very beautiful. Soprano Shawnette Sulker as Sir Elton John’s Trainer drinks many martinis and is very funny, her bird-like voice seems very apropos. Tenor Nathan Granner is likewise entertaining as Han Sach’s Trainer, his nice light sound is very pretty. Rich-toned bass-baritone Chung-Wai Soong is more somber as Prince Gabriel III of Belgium’s Trainer, we learn he inherited his role as trainer from his father.  Baritone Daniel Cilli as Atticus Finch’s Trainer is also serious, setting his bird free in the end.

    4.4.24-3004-Nikola Printz as BJK in Victory with Cast Credit Kristen Loken Balls (pictured, photograph by Kristen Loken) tells the story of "The Battle of the Sexes" tennis game between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973 with a surrealist bent, Susan B. Anthony is a character, and at one point Billie Jean King dons a tricorn hat.

    Many of the singers in the first opera were also in the second, but Balls has the jazz singer Tiffany Austin as King's secretary, Marilyn. Austin has a lovely voice that stood out. Tenor Nathan Granner is again very humorous as Bobby Riggs. Mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz was compelling as Billie Jean King, their sound is resonant and powerful.

    * Tattling *
    The audience was mostly quiet, but as Billie Jean King sang about the pressure of tennis, someone dropped some plastic cups in the Left Terrace, Row TJ.

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  • Mark Padmore Sings Winterreise

    Cal-performances-mark-padmore-mitsuko-uchida-by-justin-pumfrey* Notes *
    Tenor Mark Padmore sang Schubert's Winterreise at Cal Performances yesterday afternoon. Accompanied by the pianist Mitsuko Uchida ( pictured with Padmore, photograph by Justin Pumfrey) we were taken on an intense journey with these 24 songs.

    Padmore has a bright voice and clear German diction. He was able to convey the text not only through his enunciation but by coloring the notes, the meaning felt completely obvious. I liked how he could sound like a perfectly pretty bell but also get across the passion of the words. There were times when his intonation was inexact, but this heightened the drama of these lieder rather than detracting from the piece. Uchida's playing was clean and supportive.

    Der Lindenbaum and Die Post were particularly strong. The former starts with such sweetness, and turns darker and more strident, and then back. It was sad that during this performance the song began with a cellular phone ringing and had so much rustling of programs before it ended that Uchida hushed the audience. It was maddening given how beautiful and engaging the performance was.

    * Tattling *
    The performance started 15 minutes late, as it had no intermission. The audience was embarrassing. The person next to me in Row D fell asleep three or four times, jerking awake and shaking not only her seat but the ones around her. There was so much electronic noise, throughout, the worst of which was a phone that rang five times during the last song.

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  • The Joffrey Ballet’s Anna Karenina at Cal Performances

    3cal-performances-the-joffrey-ballet-cheryl-mann* Notes *
    The Joffrey Ballet's Anna Karenina was presented by Cal Performances last night at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley for the first of three performances. The 2019 ballet with music by Ilya Demutsky was played live by Berkeley Symphony and conducted by Scott Speck.

    The music is eerie and busy, there is a lot going on with a full orchestra, piano, and vocalist Lindsay Metzger.

    Choreographed by Yuri Possokhov, the story is condensed into two acts and runs just shy of two hours. Possokhov uses the floor quiet a bit, but judiciously, the movements are beautifully fluid. The racehorse scene (Act I, Scene 4) was particularly impressive as far as utilizing the many dancers all together, as was Act II, Scene 5, in Betsy Tverskaya's salon (pictured, photograph by Cheryl Mann). I was very much amused by the use of different colored tutus in this latter scene. There was also a lot of using furniture in the dancing, there's a couch that is featured in the love scene between Anna and Vronsky, a bed in Act II's prologue when Anna has a fever and the subsequent scene, and lots of chairs for the Parliament scene.

    The production made good use of lighting, projections, and props, it moved through the many scenes effectively without falling flat or feeling too overdone with meticulous details.

    The dancers were strong. From the very beginning, Hyuma Kiyosawa is an exuberant Levin, and Yumi Kanazawa is a sweet Kitty. Dylan Gutierrez is a lanky, almost gangly Karenin, but didn't have any trouble doing lifts with both Anna Karenina and their son Seryozha (played by Jimmy Gershenson). Alberto Velazquez is convincing as Vronsky, his duets were particularly good. Best of all was Victoria Jaiani as Anna Karenina. Her extension is incredible, and her utter brokenness at Obiralovka Train Station was haunting. The staging of her death, with the railroad tracks and light of the train, was artful.

    * Tattling *
    The audience was quiet, there was no talking or whispering, only a few rustles of programs or lozenge wrappers disturbed the music.

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  • San Francisco Symphony’s 2024-2025 Season

    03_ESA_PEKKA_II_SF_SYMPHONY_0564-v3September 5-8 2024: Joe Hisaishi Symphonic Concert: Music from the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki
    September 19-21 2024: Salonen conducts Verdi's Requiem
    September 25 2024: Opening Gala with Salonen; Lang Lang, piano
    September 27-28 2024: Salonen conducts Nico Muhly
    October 4-6 2024: Salonen conducts Brahms 4
    October 18-20 2024: Salonen conducts Beethoven's Pastoral
    October 25-26 2024: Thomas Wilkens conducts Rhapsody In Blue; Michelle Cann, piano
    October 27 2024: Emanuel Ax, piano
    October 31 2024: Pyscho film with live orchestra
    November 1 2024: Coco film with live orchestra
    November 7-9 2024: Nicholas Collon conducts Enigma Variations
    November 10 2024: Itzahk Perlman and Friends
    November 15-17 2024: Kazuki Yamada conducts Fauré's Requiem
    November 21–23 2024: Bernard Labadie conducts Mozart; Lucy Crowe, soprano
    November 24 2024: Top Gun:Maverick film with live orchestra
    November 29-30 2024: Amadeus film with live orchestra
    December 6-7 2024: Stephen Stubbs conducts Händel's Messiah
    January 9-11 2025: James Gaffigan conducts Mazzoli, Barber, and Prokofiev; Ray Chen, violin
    January 16-19 2025: David Robertson conducts Carmina Burana and Adams' Piano Concerto
    January 24-25 2025: Mark Elder conducts Also sprach Zarathustra
    January 30- February 1 2025: Herbert Blomstedt conducts Schubert and Brahms
    February 6-9 2025: Paavo Järvi conducts Mahler 7
    February 9 2025: Seong-Jin Cho, piano
    February 13-16 2025: Salonen conducts Stravinsky and Debussy; Yuja Wang, piano
    February 19 2025: Tessa Lark, piano
    February 21-23 2025: Salonen conducts Xavier Muzik, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky; Daniil Trifonov, piano
    February 26 2025: Joshua Bell and Academy of St. Martin and the Fields
    February 28-March 2 2025: Robin Ticciati conducts Rachmaninoff 2
    March 2 2025: Yuja Wang and Víkingur Ólafsson Duo Piano Recital
    March 13-15 2025: Elim Chan conducts Tchaikovsky
    March 23 2025: Lahav Shani conducts Israel Philharmonic
    March 27-30 2025: Juraj Valčuha conducts Brahms and Shostakovich; Gil Shaham, violin
    April 4-5 2025: Titanic film with live orchestra
    April 6 2025: Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin with Lambert Orkis, piano
    April 9 2025: Martin James Bartlett, piano
    April 10-12 2025: Marin Alsop conducts Music of the Americas; Gabriela Montero, piano
    April 20 2025: Evgeny Kissin, piano
    May 2–3 2025: Gabriel Kahane's Talent and Phoenix
    May 8-10 2025: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers film with live orchestra
    May 15-17 2025: Dalia Stasevska conducts Rachmaninoff
    May 20 2025: Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano and Michael Feinstein, piano with San Francisco Symphony
    May 21 2025: Tony Siqi Yun, piano
    May 23-25 2025: Salonen conducts The Firebird
    May 23-25 2025: Salonen conducts Beethoven; Hilary Hahn, violin
    June 1 2025: Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason Duo Recital
    June 4 2025: Xavier Foley, double-bass with Kelly Lin, piano
    June 6-8 2025: Salonen conducts Sibelius' Symphony No. 7
    June 12-14 2025: Salonen conducts Mahler Symphony No. 2; Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano

    Next season at San Francisco Symphony will be Esa-Pekka Salonen's last as Music Director.

    Season Highlights | Press Release

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  • Opera San José’s 2024-2025 Season

    DAP_1646_Resized-scaledSeptember 14–29 2024: The Magic Flute
    November 16– December 1 2024: La bohème
    February 15– March 2 2025: Bluebeard’s Castle
    April 19– May 4 2025: Héctor Armienta’s Zorro

    Today new General Director Shawna Lucey (pictured, photograph by David Allen) announced Opera San José’s next season, which includes a regional premiere of Zorro by Héctor Armienta, which opened at Fort Worth Opera in 2022.

    Press Release | Official Site

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  • The Magic Flute at Livermore Valley Opera

    MF rehearsal 3* Notes *
    Livermore Valley Opera's The Magic Flute (Act I pictured with Liisa Davila, Megan Potter, Leandra Ramm, Victor Cardamone, and Alex DeSocio) opened last night with a delightful and well-characterized cast of singers. 

    The English-language production, directed by Yefim Maizel, is straightforward and the set is simple, a platform with three stairs and a background with video projections. There were also a pair of doors that came in to change the space. The backdrops that represented the outdoors looked more fairytale-inspired, while the interiors had more of a video game from the early nineties feel. The costumes were often draped and Grecian though Tamino and the Queen of the Night looked more like they were from Mozart's time.

    Alexander Katsman held the small orchestra together, though there certainly were times when the flute and horns were exposed and not in tune. The main attraction of the evening was certainly the singing. Bankhead Theater is an intimate space and everyone was very audible, especially given how small the orchestra was.

    Bass Kirk Eichelberger was convincing as Sarastro, the acoustics were very good for his low notes and it was impressive hearing the depths of his voice. Baritone Alex DeSocio is an adorable Papageno, his sound is very resonant and pleasing. He was funny and sprightly.

    MF photo 6Soprano Shawnette Sulker's chirping, bright sound was almost too pretty for the Queen of the Night (pictured in Act II with Phoebe Chee) she just bordered on shrill on the run up to the hardest passages of both her big arias, but seemed to effortlessly and beautifully hit the high notes. Soprano Phoebe Chee is a robust and dramatic Pamina, well-supported and clear. I'd really like to hear her as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, which Liveremore Valley Opera is doing next season. Tenor Victor Cardamone makes for a very fine Prince Tamino, such a lovely, powerful sound, with such ease.

    *Tattling *
    The audience was focused and pretty quiet. I did hear some electronic noise when Papageno's pan pipes responded to Tamino's flute call.

    I was a bit flustered upon my arrival to the theater as I had been running late all day, and didn't manage to put my leftover tiramisu in my purse before entering. One of the theater staff rightly took it from me, but I wasn't able to discern where I was to pick it up after the performance, and abandoned the cake as it was rather late and raining a lot.

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  • Rigoletto at Opera San José

    OSJ_Rigoletto_PhotoBy_DavidAllen_1114-scaled* Notes *
    Rigoletto opened at Opera San José last weekend, but I attended the fourth performance, today's matinée. The opera was very moving.

    Dan Wallace Miller's production has the title character with a large scar on the right side of his face, rather than a spinal deformity, while the Duke has pox on his left arm from syphilis. There are also a lot of books, the opening scene has Gilda sitting in the middle of the stage reading, books litter the space of Rigoletto's home, and the chorus is pretty gross and lascivious with one of Gilda's books in Act II. All of this is coherent and fits the narrative.

    Jorge Parodi presided over an enthusiastic orchestra that occasionally was out of tune (the beginning of "Caro nome" definitely had an issue) but pleasantly buoyant. There were also a few times when the orchestra got ahead of the singers, but mostly in Act I.

    The cast is rather large, the chorus sounded cohesive, and there were notable contributions from bass-baritone Philip Skinner as Count Monterone and soprano Abigail Bush as Countess Ceprano. The former had a palpable pathos and the latter an imperious dignity. I also very much appreciated the siblings Sparafucile and Maddalena,  bass-baritone Ashraf Sewailam and mezzo-soprano Melisa Bonetti Luna, both were very convincing and their low, textured tones were a good contrast to the principal singers with higher voices.

    Tenor Edward Graves was a dashing Duke, his bright voice has a lovely lightness. He was a little quiet with the chorus and the orchestra in Act I, but his "È il sol dell'anima" in Act II and "La donna è mobile" in Act III were both strong and pretty. Soprano Melissa Sondhi was sweet as Gilda, her sound can be very pure, though some of her high notes do seem somewhat strained. Her Act II "Caro nome" was beautiful. Best of all was baritone Eugene Brancoveanu (pictured in Act I, photograph by David Allen) as Rigoletto. His warm, round voice is utterly sympathetic, even when he's being cruelly funny as in Act I or unreasonably bent on revenge in the last scene. I was in tears as he discovers his dying daughter, Sondhi does very well here as well, and Brancoveanu's poignancy is undeniable.

    *Tattling *
    The couple in Row A Seats 2 and 4 did not like sitting next to the service dog with the people in Row A Seats 6 and 8, so they moved to Row B. They talked quite a bit at times, but I found was able to block them out by concentrating really hard on the music.

    Worse though was the mobile phone that rang in the quiet part in the last scene right before Rigoletto sings Gilda's name.

    I was sad to have to leave before the final ovation, but had to rush off right at 4:48pm right when the music ended, as my spouse needed to get to his own rehearsal by 6:30pm and our household only has one automobile.

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  • SF Opera’s 2024-2025 Season

    WMOH9_JoelPuliattiSeptember 6–27 2024: Un ballo en maschera
    September 14–October 1 2024: Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale
    October 19– November 1 2024: Tristan und Isolde
    October 26 2024: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
    November 13–December 1 2024: Carmen
    June 3-21 2025: La bohème
    June 14–25 2025 Idomeneo
    June 27 2025: Pride Concert

    San Francisco Opera’s 102nd season was announced today. Only six operas will be presented in the 2024-2025 season, along with one performance of Beethoven’s Ninth and a special Pride Concert.

    Music Director Eun Sun Kim will conduct the Verdi, Wagner, and Beethoven this fall and returns for Mozart in 2025.

    Press Release | Official Site

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  • Erin Morley Recital

    Cal-performances-erin-morley-credit-dario-acosta* Notes *
    Soprano Erin Morley (pictured, photograph by Dario Acosta) sang a garden-inspired recital Cal Performances this afternoon. Accompanied by pianist Malcolm Martineau, we heard a number of unusual pieces by famous composers.

    Morley has a lucid toned soprano, she is very clear and precise without being boring. She began the performance with selections from Huit Chansons de Fleurs by Ricky Ian Gordon and then sang pieces by Bizet, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Saint-Saëns, and Debussy. I particularly liked her rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Rose Enslaves the Nightingale,” her voice has such beautiful colors in it. Her “Le Rossignol et la rose” by Saint-Saëns was also lovely, she can sound quite bird-like.

    The second half of the performance featured songs in German and English. It was good to hear Zemlinsky’s “Vöglein Schwermut” and Berg’s “Die Nachtigall.” Near the end, Morley gave a beautiful version of the traditional Irish song “The Last Rose of Summer.” I found it really telling that despite not knowing most of these songs, and not bothering to grab the program with printed lyrics and translations, I was very much engaged. Morley made every word count and I felt I understood her without effort.

    * Tattling *
    A cell phone rang in the middle of the first set of songs by Ricky Ian Gordon.

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