The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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Category: Michael Tilson Thomas

  • MTT Withdraws from Iolanthe

    Michael Tilson Thomas is no longer conducting SF Symphony's performances of Iolanthe. George Manahan shall conduct instead, with Joyce Castle replacing Felicity Palmer as Queen of the Fairies. Sasha Cooke sings the title role, former Merolina Joélle Harvey sings Leila, and former Adler Fellow Lucas Meachem sings Strephon. Event Details | Press Release [PDF]

  • Martha Argerich at SFS

    * Notes * San Francisco Symphony gave a concert of Gabrieli, Ligeti, Ravel, and Liszt last Friday. In ecclesiis from Gabrieli's Symphoniae sacrae was lead by chorus director Ragnar Bohlin. The piece sounded both clear and lovely. Michael Tilson Thomas took over for Ligeti's Requiem, an eerie work in which both wails and hives could…

  • Anne-Sophie Mutter at SFS

    * Notes * Anne-Sophie Mutter gave the US premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina's second violin concerto, In tempus präsens, with San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, yesterday. The piece was played again tonight, and has a shimmering, yet compressive quality, filled with bumblebees and crickets. Mutter played cleanly and with much vigor. The violas,…

  • Mahler’s 8th at SFS

      * Notes * Michael Tilson Thomas and San Francisco Symphony continued their Mahler recording project with Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major, the so-called Symphony of a Thousand. The work struck me as a bit strange, the first part being in Latin and rather religious in feel, whereas the second part is in German, and…

  • Beethoven’s 6th at SFS

      * Notes * Michael Tilson Thomas conducted San Francisco Symphony in a program of Haydn, Barber, and Beethoven last week. The Haydn was Symphony No. 60 in C major, Il distratto, which was sprightly and perfectly cute. This made for a nice contrast with Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, which is a bit moodier.…

  • Beethoven’s 9th at SFS

     * Notes * Michael Tilson Thomas conducted Knussen's Symphony No. 3 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 last night at San Francisco Symphony. Though Tilson Thomas gave a helpful exposition of the former piece before he began, the work did not improve for me after a second hearing. I still found it rather metallic in sound,…

  • MTT Conducts Brahms at SFS

    * Notes * Michael Tilson Thomas and San Francisco Symphony end a 3-week long Brahms Festival tonight. The chorus was in fine form during Friday's performance, the singers were very much together, in tune, and their German diction was fairly clear. The first half of the performance included Geistliches Lied, Opus 30 and Gesänge für…

  • MTT and Deborah Voigt at SFS

    * Notes * Yesterday Michael Tilson Thomas conducted San Francisco Symphony in a program of Knussen's Symphony No. 3, Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder, Barber's Andromache's Farewell, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. Soprano Deborah Voigt returned to San Francisco Symphony as the soloist for the Strauss and Barber, a performance she will reprise with MTT at Carnegie…