The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: San Francisco Symphony
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* Notes * San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas celebrate the birth centennial of Leonard Bernstein with a delightful rendering of his Candide that opened last night. The concert version was animated and very funny with fine playing and singing all around. Though done as a concert, this version of the operetta was made…
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September 14 2017: MTT conducts Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Bernstein, Ravel; Yo-Yo Ma, celloSeptember 22-24 2017: MTT conducts Bernstein October 6-8 2017: Krzysztof Urbański conducts PendereckiOctober 13-15 2017: Jakub Hrůša conducts Dvořák, Smetana, and Janáček October 26-28 2017: Osmo Vänskä conducts SibeliusOctober 31 2017: Zubin Mehta conducts Israel Philharmonic OrchestraNovember 2-5 2017: MTT conducts Bernstein's The Age…
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* Notes * Last weekend San Francisco Symphony continued celebrations for John Adams' 70th birthday with The Gospel According to the Other Mary. The oratorio was tastefully semi-staged (Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings, Nathan Medley, Jay Hunter Morris, Kelley O'Connor, and Tamara Mumford pictured left; photograph by Stefan Cohen) and featured a truly resplendent cast. The…
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* Notes * Last weekend Michael Tilson Thomas and San Francisco Symphony presented Das Klagende Lied with some wonderful vocal soloists (Joélle Harvey and Sasha Cooke pictured left with dancers, photograph by Cory Weaver/San Francisco Symphony) and a somewhat incoherent but pretty staging. The early Mahler cantata is narrated by four singers and a chorus,…
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* Notes *Susan Graham (pictured left, photograph by Dario Acosta) is singing Berlioz's La Mort de Cléopâtre with San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas this weekend. The piece, a replacement for the previously announced Brahms's Alto Rhapsody, is quite suited to Ms. Graham. Her clear high notes and fully developed sound work well with…
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* Notes *SoundBox's latest program, titled Outré, featured French avant-garde music over seven centuries. Beautifully curated, the engaging music ranged from Pérotin's polyphonic Sederunt principes with a cappella male voices and portative organ to Messiaen's Couleurs de la cité celeste for solo piano and instrumental ensemble, including the many gongs seen in the photograph to…
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September 7 2016: MTT conducts Steve Reich, Rossini; Renée Fleming, soprano and Susan Graham, mezzo-sopranoSeptember 8 2016: MTT conducts Copland, Vivaldi, Rossini; Susanna Phillips, soprano and Alexander Barantschik, violin September 9-10 2016: MTT conducts Copland, Reich; Susanna Phillips, soprano and eighth blackbird, chamber ensembleSeptember 11 2016: MTT conducts Steve Reich 80th Birthday CelebrationSeptember 14-17 2016:…
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San Francisco Symphony presenting Hitchcock's Vertigo with the score being played live by the orchestra this Friday and Saturday. We spoke to SF Symphony's Associate Director of Artistic Planning Richard Lonsdorf, who programmed the film series. There have often been silent films with the scores played live around Halloween for some years, but The San…
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* Notes *San Francisco Symphony is in the midst giving the West Coast premiere of Ted Hearne's Dispatches as part of its New Voices initiative. The opening performance on Wednesday night was engaging, Hearne's music is richly textured and highlights percussion and celli. The cello players in fact each had to place wine corks between…
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Ted Hearne's Dispatches is having a West Coast premiere at San Francisco Symphony next week starting Wednesday night as part of the New Voices project which fosters the careers of emerging composers. Hearne (pictured left, photograph by Nathan Lee Bush) is perhaps best known for setting U.S. Army private WikiLeaks leaker Chelsea Manning's words to music…
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