The Opera Tattler

Eschenbach conducts Wagner & Dvořák

* Notes * 
This week Christoph Eschenbach (pictured left, photograph by Eric Brissaud) conducts San Francisco Symphony in performances of Wagner and Dvořák. The two Wagner pieces included "Die Frist is um" from Der Fliegenden Holländer and Wotans Abschied from Die Walküre, with baritone Matthias Goerne as soloist. Goerne sounded characteristically legato. He was drowned out by the brass, and in fact the whole volume of the orchestra was rather loud. There was an obvious sour note in the second piece. There were moments when the first violins had a lovely, open sound, but the low strings were a bit muddy.

After intermission came Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, From the New World. Again, the powerful volume of the orchestra was impossible to ignore. I found myself distracted by the absence of William Bennett's oboe playing, as this was the first time I have heard San Francisco Symphony since his death.

* Tattling * 
There was some chatter, but nothing too obnoxious.

Lucerne Festival zu Ostern 2013 Sinfoniekonzert 4

* Notes * 
Mariss Jansons and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (pictured left, photograph courtesy of Bayerischer Rundfunk) performed Shostakovich and Beethoven as the closing concert of this year's Lucerne Festival zu Ostern. The orchestra played Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 54 first. The piece is quite odd, having a vernal, yet dark quality to it. The playing all around was splendid. The brass was clean but warm, the woodwinds gleamed, the strings shimmered, and the whole sound came together perfectly.

During intermission, the orchestra was rearranged to have first and second violins on the outside, the violas next to the seconds, and the celli next to the firsts. Before the violas had been downstage, the celli next to them, and the seconds next to the firsts. To end we heard Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67. Jansens seems to have immaculate control of the orchestra, and the musicians played evenly, with precision, but much bright richness as well. I was impressed by how good the horn sounded, and how the piccolo, which seemed sinister in the Shostakovich, sounded perfectly bird-like in the Beethoven.

* Tattling * 
There was light whispering and some coughs during the music, but this was only a minor nuisance.

Lucerne Festival zu Ostern 2013 Chorkonzert 4

* Notes * 
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and the Tölzer Knabenchor were conducted by Mariss Jansons (pictured left) in Britten's War Requiem op. 66 at Lucerne Festival Saturday evening. The orchestra sounded secure and polished. The brass fanfares in the Dies irae were particularly fine. The chorus was perfectly good. The boys' choir sang from backstage and sounded eerie.

The soloists sang well. Emily Magee's icy soprano was somewhat shrill in the Liber scriptus, but sounded creamier as the piece proceeded. The contrast of her voice with the warmth of the chorus was unnerving. Christian Gerhaher's voice is also pleasantly warm, complimentary to both the soprano and tenor. "Out there, we walked quite friendly up to death" was especially beautiful. Tenor Mark Padmore sounded otherworldly in this, and seemed incorporeal throughout the work, as suits Britten. The Lacrimosa with soprano and chorus interspersed with Padmore's solo "Move him, move him" was sublime.

* Tattling * 
This year's common cold features a terrible cough, and this was on full display at between the six movements of the War Requiem. The audience in the third balcony was quiet during the music, but the man in Row 4 Seat 13 clapped (and screamed) at a painful volume during the final ovation.

Lucerne Festival zu Ostern 2013 Chorkonzert 3

* Notes * 
John Eliot Gardiner conducted (pictured left, photograph by Sheila Rock / Decca) English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir in Johannes-Passion BWV 245 at Lucerne Festival Friday night. The playing was crisp and genial, and any intonation errors were within reason given the period instruments. The singing was lucid and very much together. The choir has a gorgeous, clean sound.

The soloists are all fine singers. Hannah Morrison sang the soprano aria "Ich folge dir gleichfalls mit freudigen Schritten" with a spring-like freshness. Meg Bragle sang "Es ist vollbracht!" with strength. Tenor Nicolas Mulroy (Evangelist) was only slightly quiet when singing with the full ensemble, otherwise his voice is pleasant, while Andrew Tortise sounded sweet singing the tenor arias. Dietrich Henschel (Jesus) and Peter Harvey (Pontius Pilate and bass arias) made for a good contrast vocally.

* Tattling * 
The woman in Gallery 3 Left Seat 16 spoke on a few occasions during the music, while the men in Seats 19 and 20 tended to only whisper slightly. There were a lot of coughs when the orchestra was tuning between parts.

Lucerne Festival zu Ostern 2013 Sinfoniekonzert 2

* Notes * 
Claudio Abbado and Orchestra Mozart Bologna (pictured left, photograph by Marco Caselli Nirmal) played a second concert at Lucerne Festival last night. The program started with Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 2, played with a smooth lucidity. Martha Argerich returned to the KKL Konzertsaal stage to play Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20. Both soloist and the orchestra played with a remarkable intensity. Argerich plays with such wonderful dexterity and economy of movement, yet with great vitality as well. Excerpts from the incidental music to Rosamunde opened the second half of the concert. The woodwinds sounded verdant. The pianissimo moments in the orchestra were particularly gorgeous. The evening was rounded out by a stunning rendition of Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. The sound was marked by a singular clarity of line and phrasing. The dynamic contrasts were clear. The strings played beautifully in the Allegro ma non troppo.

* Tattling * 
The galleries can be quite nice to sit in, as there are fewer audience members about to misbehave. The view of Martha Argerich's hands from where we were sitting was rather good.

Lucerne Festival zu Ostern 2013 Sinfoniekonzert 1

* Notes * 
Lucerne Festival opened its Jubiläumsjahr yesterday with Claudio Abbado and Orchestra Mozart Bologna (pictured left, photograph by Marco Caselli Nirmal). The early evening performance began with a vibrant rendition of Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3. The woodwinds played with particular exuberance. Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 followed with Martha Argerich, who missed her previous engagement with the orchestra a few days ago. Argerich played articulately, and with a wonderful sense of breath. After the intermission the orchestra played the Coriolan overture and Mozart's Symphony No. 33. The sound was clear and lively, and Abbado can get a light, dancing quality out of the orchestra, but has fine dynamic control as well.

* Tattling * 
Before Abbado appeared on stage, someone had to go out and remove the music stand at the podium, as it was not needed. In the first piece there was one minor brass error just before the soloist exited the stage to play the trumpet call, and it was almost as if he had left in disgust.

The person in Row 3 Seat 10 of Balcony 4 Right had a prolonged coughing fit during the piano concerto. Many of his fellow audience members gave him pointed stares and he was even (silently) offered cough drops. This person did not have the good sense to leave at the break, and coughed still more in the last piece.

Peer Gynt at SFS

* Notes * 
This week Michael Tilson Thomas conducts San Francisco Symphony in a multimedia production (actor Ben Huber as Peer Gynt and dancer Janice Lancaster Larsen as Ingrid pictured left, photograph by Kristen Loken) of Peer Gynt. The score included music by Edvard Grieg, Alfred Schnittke, and Robin Holloway. Holloway's Ocean Voyage was used in Part II Scene 3, and had a Wagnerian feel to it. It did seem disproportionally long compared to the other pieces.

The playing was slightly off-kilter at times in the first half, especially with some of the choral entrances. Nonetheless, the music gleamed eerily, and the chorus sounded particularly haunting in the second half. The violin and viola soli in Scene 2 of Part I were played beautifully.

Rose Portillo was convincing as Åse, Peer's mother. Her speaking voice is rich and dark. Soprano Joélle Harvey (Solveig) sounded sweet and pure. Ben Huber's Peer Gynt was boyish and sprightly.

The production, directed and designed by James Darrah, made use of a sculptural scrim placed above the musicians. Adam Laresen's videos were, for the most part, tasteful and the shape of the scrim rendered the images more abstract. This did not work as well for projections of the human face, which became distorted in a cartoonish fashion. The use of the limited space, given the symphony on stage and the chorus in the Center Terrace, was artful.

* Tattling * 
The microphones used were occasionally too loud, and emitted crackles and pops in the middle of Part I.

Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela

* Notes * 
Gustavo Dudamel and the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar (pictured left, photograph by Scott Grieder) played the first of two concerts at Cal Performances last night. The program the orchestra is touring right now is entitled "¡MUSICA! A Celebration of Music from Latin America," thus featuring, in this instance, Carlos Chávez, Julián Orbón, and Silvestre Revueltas. The orchestra is huge, so the intensity of the volume is likewise impactful. The orchestra members seemed earnest and serious in playing Chávez's Sinfonia india, the rhythms were all clear. Orbón's Tres versions sinfonicas was, in turns, jaunty, stately, and charming.

The orchestra had fun with the Revueltas that followed the intermission, La Noche de los Mayas, which sounded, as one would expect for a concert suite based on a film score, cinematic. The playing was vigorous and all the musicians seemed present in the moment.

The two delightful encores were La Conga del fuego nuevo by Arturo Márquez and "Mambo" from Bernstein's West Side Story. During the latter, the musicians spun around their instruments and even got up to dance.

* Tattling *
Most of the audience was quiet and attentive. There was some of talking between a few elderly people who must not realize how audible their conversations are to those with unimpaired hearing.

Joyce DiDonato with Il Complesso Barocco

* Notes * 
Last night Joyce DiDonato (pictured left, photograph by Josef Fischnaller) performed with Il Complesso Barocco at the Green Music Center in Sonoma County. The performance is part of DiDonato's "Drama Queens" tour, which involves a program of Baroque arias in Italian. Beginning with Antonio Cesti's "Intorno all'idol mio" from Orontea, it was evident how dramatic and expressive DiDonato's voice is. The high-spirited ensemble also had a great deal of energy, as seen and heard to best effect during Vivaldi's Concerto for violin and strings RV 242, known as "per Pisendel." Director and violinist Dmitry Sinkovsky seemed quite cheerful and everyone playing was fully engaged in creating music.

The high point of the evening was certainly "Disprezzata regina" from L'incoronazione di Poppea. DiDonato gave a theatrical, compelling account of Ottavia's anguish, her voice shows a lot of nuance and range of emotion. The second half of the concert paired two arias for Cleopatra, first Hasse's "Morte, col fiero aspetto," followed by Händel's "Piangerò la sorte mia." DiDonato sang with a gorgeous pianissimo in "Madre diletta" by Zeno.

The three encores were "Lasciami piangere," "Col versar, barbaro, il sangue," and "Brilla nell'alma." DiDonato spoke before each one, approving of the new hall and joking about how it was nice to sing in the Bay Area in a dress, which has not happened in a long time.

* Tattling * 
The audience was quiet but enthused. The modular Vivienne Westwood gown made especially for DiDonato's tour was much admired.

MTT conducts Samuel Carl Adams & Mahler

  * Notes * 
Last night Michael Tilson Thomas conducted San Francisco Symphony (pictured left, photograph by Bill Swerbenski) in the first of three performances of Drift and Providence by Samuel Carl Adams and Symphony No. 5 by Mahler. The Adams piece marks a West Coast premiere. The 20 minute work is scored for many instruments, including electronica, but is surprisingly quiet. It had a rather dry quality to it, and gave me the odd sensation of having the inside of my thoracic cavity gently smoothed by a fine-grained sandpaper.

The second half of the evening was devoted to the Mahler. The brass was quite forward and not particularly subtle. I enjoyed Mark Inouye's bright trumpet playing. The pizzicato in the Scherzo was lively and the Adagietto was neither too fast nor too lax.

* Tattling * 
Someone was excited up in the Center Terrace, and my companion noted this by creating a diagram in his program. I misunderstood at first and thought the Associate Concertmaster was behaving badly, which seemed highly unlikely.

Bychkov conducts SFS in Shostakovich

* Notes * 
Semyon Bychkov (pictured left, photograph by Thomas Brill) conducts San Francisco Symphony in Schubert's Unfinished and Shostakovich's 11th this week. The Schubert that started last night's proceedings was elegant. The pianissimo of the strings with oboe and clarinet in the first movement was simply beautiful. The sound was verdant and fresh. In the second movement, the brass was slightly cloudy at two points, but the woodwinds were excellent.

The Shostakovich that came after intermission required many more musicians than the Schubert. Bychkov kept a fine tension in the musical line, the slow parts were not lax, but contrasted with the faster sections of the piece. The quiet moments of the music were exquisite. The volume of the end of the second and fourth movements was rather deafening, and it was clear why some orchestra members wore earplugs. The trumpets played quite well, as did the English horn.

* Tattling * 
There were many cellular phone rings in the second half of the performance. It seemed whenever there was a gorgeous pianissimo was being played on stage, there was some electronic noise happening in the audience.

Ojai North! Programs 5-6

* Notes * 
Ojai North! at Cal Performances ended with two performances on Thursday. Program 5 began with two contemporary pieces, Hafliði Hallgrímsson's Poemi and Bent Sørensen's Piano Concerto No. 2. Both were played by the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra (Det Norske Kammerorkester), featuring violinist Terje Tønnesen in the first work, and Music Director of the Ojai Festival and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (pictured left, photograph by Felix Broede) in the second. Hallgrímsson's Poemi is evocative and tense. The musicians communicated clearly with each other and the playing was beautiful. The Sørensen had a little bit of everything: claves played by the whole orchestra, humming, rumbling, and brightness. The contrasts between the orchestra and pianist were carefully drawn, and the moments of similarity were also lovely.

It was interesting to note the opposite postures the two soloists took, Tønnesen seems flexible, and bends backward as he plays and constantly moves, while Andsnes hunches more or less in the same position. This of course has to do with their instruments as much as anything else.

The second half of Program 5 consisted of Berg's Four Songs Op. 2, sung by mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn with pianist Marc-André Hamelin and Leif Ove Andsnes playing Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53, "Waldstein." Stotijn's voice has a deep resonance, and her singing was sensitive and hypnotic. Andsnes played "Waldstein" with a grim determination. His style is dry, and for the Beethoven, seemed to lack a sense of breath.

After a break of thirty minutes, Program 6 began with Andsnes playing several György Kurtág pieces. Andsnes sounded precise and elegant. This was followed by a pretty rendition of Debussy's Danse sacrée et danse profane from the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, with Ida Aubert Bang as the harp soloist.

Stotijn and Hamelin returned to the stage with Cabaret Songs by William Bolcom. Stotijn's voice is perhaps not quite as well suited for this as the Berg earlier. The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra ended Ojai North! with Grieg's "Holberg" Suite. The musicians, having changed into summery street clothes, played with vigor. Everyone but the cellists stood and even danced during the Rigaudon. The exuberance of the playing was wonderful to see and hear.

* Tattling *
Someone's mobile phone rang during the Hallgrímsson. A service dog seated by Row G Seat 1 made several high pitched noises, and had to be taken outside in the middle of the Kurtág.

Luisotti & Peled with the SF Opera Orchestra

* Notes * 
Cal Performances hosted Nicola Luisotti and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra (pictured left, photograph by Cory Weaver) on Sunday afternoon, their second this season in Berkeley. The concert began with Prokofiev's First Symphony, and the orchestra sounded best in the graceful, dancing third movement. The woodwinds were clear, as was the brass. The piece that followed, Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 1, featured soloist Amit Peled. Peled played with a beautiful, legato line. After intermission we heard Symphony in D Major by Cherubini. The playing was charming and joyous. It was lovely to see and hear this opera orchestra on stage, the camaraderie of the players and their love of music is apparent.

* Tattling *
There was very little noise from the audience. A man in Row A Seat 120 of the mezzanine looked at his phone at 3:30pm and left just a little afterward. Someone else on this level screamed an obscenity after the Moderato of the Haydn. It was unclear why.

Robertson conducts SFS in Dvořák

* Notes * 
David Robertson (pictured left, photograph by Michael Tammaro) conducts San Francisco Symphony in Rossini, Chopin, and Dvořák this week. The overture to L'italiana in Algeri that opened yesterday's performance sounded neat and precise. Chopin's Concerto No. 2 in F minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 21 also was together and clean. The soloist, Nelson Freire, seemed contained and self-possessed. His quiet playing was most impressive, especially in the Larghetto.

After the intermission the orchestra gave a tidy rendition of Dvořák's 7th. The middle movements, the Poco adagio and the Scherzo: Vivace, were jaunty and charming. The brass sounded clear.

* Tattling * 
There was a lot of talking during the first half of the performance, at least on the odd numbered side of the orchestra level. A woman in Row U Seat 9 even opened up her purse during the last movement of the Chopin, and passed out candies to her friends in Row W. Much crinkling followed as they opened their sweets. Most of the noisiest patrons around us did not return after intermission.

Gilbert conducts NY Phil in Berlioz, Bartók, Debussy, & Ravel

* Notes * 
Last night Alan Gilbert and New York Philharmonic (pictured left) played a second performance at San Francisco Symphony. The evening began with a very cheerful Le Corsaire Overture by Berlioz. Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 1 was sober in contrast, and soloist Glenn Dicterow played elegantly, with long lines. Dicterow listened carefully to the rest of the orchestra, not a surprise given that he is the concertmaster. At one point the violinist's sheet music was blown the wrong way, and Gilbert reached over to smooth out the page. showed a predilection for strong contrasts. After intermission we heard Debussy's La Mer, which was energetic. The harps were particularly good. The last piece was Ravel's La Valse. The orchestra seemed to relish the bits that were loud and fast, sounding rather bright and happy. There were two encores, including Emmanuel Chabrier's España and another that only involved the brass.

* Tattling * 
There was scolding before the performance began as photographs are not allowed in Davies. Otherwise, the audience was rather quiet. A young woman in Row W Seat 15 of the orchestra level could not help but point out various instruments and whispered various explanations to the other girl in Seat 13. Fortunately, this only happened on two occasions.