February 15, 2022 • 8:53 am Comments Off on Happy Birthday, John Adams!
A spirited toast to the matchless John Coolidge Adams, who celebrates his 75th birthday today. This is an especially busy year for the composer: San Francisco Opera will launch its centenary season in September with the world premiere of Adams’s latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra.
Filed under: John Adams, music news
January 19, 2022 • 3:08 pm Comments Off on San Francisco Opera’s 100th Anniversary Season
So it’s now official: San Francisco Opera will launch its centennial season with the world premiere of a new John Adams opera: Antony and Cleopatra, set to the composer’s own libretto culled from Shakespeare’s tragedy and various classical sources (Virgil, Plutarch, etc.). Music Director Eun Sun Kim will conduct the production directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer; the cast will be led by Julia Bullock and Gerald Finley as the lovers, with Paul Appleby, as the young Caesar, Octavius, Alfred Walker as Antony’s confidante Enobarbus, and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Octavia (Octavius’ sister and the wife of Antony).
But there’s much more that promises to make this an extraordinary season, with a return to eight mainstage offerings. SFO will present the local premiere of El último sueño de Frida y Diego by Gabriela Lena Frank, an SFO co-commission that will receive its first performances at San Diego Opera in October 2022 before coming to the War Memorial Opera House in June 2023.
There will be new SFO productions of La Traviata directed by Opera San José’s incoming general director Shawna Lucey, Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice featuring countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński in a new production by Matthew Ozawa, and Madame Butterfly directed by Amon Miyamoto and starring Karah Son and Michael Fabiano.
Two operas that received their American premieres in the 1950s are also being featured: Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites and the Richard Strauss masterpiece Die Frau ohne Schatten in a David Hockney production. Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is also part of the lineup, in the Bay Area premiere of the Robert Carsen production. On 16 June 2023, there will additionally be a gala 100th Anniversary Concert.
Complete press release here.
Bookmark sfopera.com/100 for the latest news and updates.
Filed under: John Adams, music news, San Francisco Opera, Uncategorized
December 27, 2021 • 9:55 am 1
Here’s my latest Seattle Times story, about John Adams as composer and conductor:
Seattle Symphony audiences have another reason to be proud of their band…
Filed under: John Adams, Seattle Symphony, Seattle Times
August 11, 2020 • 9:06 pm Comments Off on John Adams: Live Score Reading and Chat
This Thursday at 3pm EST, join John Adams and conductor David Robertson for a real-time discussion of Doctor Atomic Symphony. They’ll give a close reading of the score, using a recording by the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Adams himself. This is part of the live-score chat series hosted by Boosey & Hawkes.
Filed under: John Adams
February 15, 2020 • 10:38 am Comments Off on Happy Birthday, John Adams
A very happy birthday to John Coolidge Adams, who turns 73 today. The clip above, City Noir, is one of the pieces on the program when Adams guest conducts the Seattle Symphony in April. He’ll also present Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes, his brilliant new piano concerto, with Jeremy Denk as the fiendish soloist.
(I haven’t noticed yet whether Sony Classical has sent out a message celebrating “the composer of Become Ocean.”)
Filed under: John Adams
September 27, 2019 • 7:21 am Comments Off on New from John Adams: I Still Dance
John Adams’s latest composition was recently given its world premiere by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. Here’s my program note introducing I Still Dance:
The unique creative exchange between John Adams and the San Francisco Symphony spans four decades and represents one of the most significant success stories in the collaboration among contemporary American composers, orchestras, and audiences.
Filed under: John Adams, Michael Tilson Thomas, program notes, San Francisco Symphony
December 6, 2018 • 2:42 pm Comments Off on John Adams on the Yin and Yang of His Musical Life
My story for the Juilliard Journal on John Adams as he returns to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra next week at Alice Tully Hall. Program details here.
“What does it take to move us from our customary place?” John Adams asked in his commencement speech to the Juilliard class of 2011. “That is what we want when we confront a work of art, whether it’s a completely new creation or an impassioned performance of a masterwork from the past.” The acclaimed composer returns to Juilliard December 10—this time to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra in a program that pairs the Brahms Fourth Symphony with two 21st-century pieces: Ciel d’hiver by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and Adams’ own Doctor Atomic Symphony.
Filed under: Brahms, conductors, John Adams
August 6, 2018 • 1:56 pm 1
JULIA BULLOCK (KITTY OPPENHEIMER). PHOTO CREDIT: KEN HOWARD FOR SANTA FE OPERA, 2018
Here’s my review for Musical America of the new production of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, which Peter Sellars directed for Santa Fe Opera:
SANTA FE, NM—As with any classic tragedy, from the outset we already know the denouement of Doctor Atomic: The world’s first atomic bomb will be successfully detonated in the New Mexican desert at dawn on July 16, 1945—a prelude to the atrocities of its use less than a month later on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Review here:
Doctor Atomic-Musical America-review
Filed under: John Adams, Musical America, Peter Sellars, review, Santa Fe Opera
December 14, 2017 • 10:23 am Comments Off on John Adams, with Strings Attached
John Adams. Photo by Margaretta Mitchell
My new John Adams profile for Strings is now available online:
In the contemporary music world, writing opera tends to generate the sexiest headlines and, at least temporarily, to garner more widespread attention….
Filed under: John Adams, profile, Strings
August 22, 2017 • 1:55 pm Comments Off on Alice Goodman: New York Times Profile
Alice Goodman in Fulbourn, England. Credit Nadine Ijewere for “The New York Times”
My New York Times story on the poet and librettist Alice Goodman is now online:
When “Nixon in China” had its premiere at Houston Grand Opera on Oct. 22, 1987, there had never been anything quite like it. No previous American opera — perhaps no opera, ever — had so boldly dealt with recent political history…
Filed under: Alice Goodman, American literature, American opera, John Adams, librettists, New York Times, Peter Sellars, Uncategorized
Arts & Culture Stories from NPR
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 