October 28, 2024 • 10:51 am Comments Off on “Tristan und Isolde” at San Francisco Opera
I reviewed San Francisco Opera’s new production of Wagner’s endlessly fascinating masterpiece for Opera Now:
An extraordinary thing is underway at San Francisco Opera: by taking on one of the major works of the wizard of Bayreuth each season, music director Eun Sun Kim has set about establishing herself as a formidable young Wagnerian….
Filed under: review, San Francisco Opera, Wagner
October 24, 2024 • 12:49 am Comments Off on Jerod Tate’s Chickasaw Opera: “Loksi’ Shaali”
The world premiere of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate‘s opera Loksi’ Shaali’ (Shell Shaker), will be presented on Sunday, 27 October, by Canterbury Voices and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic at the Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City. TianHui Ng conducts this groundbreaking work – the first opera composed entirely in an American Indian language (Chickasaw).
Tate channels the rich cultural heritage of the Chickasaw people in this choral and orchestral composition narrating the journey of the Chickasaw-Choctaw migration.
The opera tells the story of a Chickasaw girl named Loksi’ (Turtle) as she transforms from a troubled girl into a confident young woman. Tate underscores the significance of embracing identity and honoring sacred traditions, and he illustrates how simple acts of kindness can transform the world.
You can find a synopsis here.
Filed under: music news, Native American composers
October 16, 2024 • 3:55 pm Comments Off on Nietzschean Virtuosity: Salonen’s Cello Concerto
For The Strad, I interviewed San Francisco Symphony principal cellist Rainer Eudeikis about his upcoming performances of the Cello Concerto by his orchestra’s music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen:
Now in his third full season as the San Francisco Symphony’s principal cello, Rainer Eudeikis makes his solo debut with the orchestra on 18-20 October in a work by the orchestra’s music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen: the Cello Concerto written by the Finnish composer-conductor for Yo-Yo Ma, who gave the world premiere in 2017. …
Filed under: cellists, Esa-Pekka Salonen, San Francisco Symphony
October 12, 2024 • 5:19 pm Comments Off on Conclusion of Dallas Symphony’s Concert “Ring”
Last May, I covered the launch of Fabio Luisi and the Dallas Symphony’s concert presentation of Wagner’s Ring cycle with performances of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. I returned recently to attend the continuation of their bold adventure with Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Here’s my report for Classical Voice North America:
DALLAS — Having left Brünnhilde deep in slumber at the end of Die Walküre last May, Fabio Luisi and the Dallas Symphony returned to awaken her this month with their continuation of the Ring in concert at their Meyerson Symphony Center home. They presented Siegfried on Oct. 5 and Götterdämmerung on Oct. 8, thereby scaling an Everest normally considered the domain of opera companies. Between Oct. 13 and 20, the adventure will be repeated — this time with the usual interval of just a few days separating the four operas.
Filed under: concert programming, Dallas Symphony, review, Ring cycle, Wagner, classical-music
October 11, 2024 • 11:05 am Comments Off on Re-opening of San Diego Symphony’s Indoor Concert Hall at the Jacobs Music Center
I reported for Musical America on the much-anticipated return to San Diego Symphony’s downtown home in a former cinema palace. Acoustical and architectural renovations have yielded a game-changing space for the orchestra — and the city — according to music director Rafael Payare:
SAN DIEGO—The San Diego Symphony’s concert on September 28 wasn’t just another opening….
Filed under: Martha Gilmer, music news, Rafael Payare, San Diego Symphony
October 9, 2024 • 11:07 pm Comments Off on Philharmonia Northwest Opens Its Season with “Origin Story”
Seattle-based Philharmonia Northwest opens its season — and introduces its new music director, Michael Wheatley — on Sunday 13 October with a program titled Origin Story. The concert takes place at 2pm at the Shorecrest Performing Arts Center.
Wheatley has chosen four works central to his musical identity, beginning with Wojciech Kilar’s celebration of the folk traditions of Poland’s Tatra Mountains in Orawa. Seattle Symphony violinist Elisa Barston will be the soloist in Dvořák’s Romance in F minor and Ravel’s dazzling Tzigane.
The second half of the program will present soprano Ellaina Lewis in her Philharmonia Northwest debut as the soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, the last of the so-called Wunderhorn symphonies. Lewis, who is known locally for her appearances in Seattle Opera’s Blue and Porgy and Bess.
Following the concert, Michael Wheatley will appear in a Q&A talk-back with the audience.
Tickets here.
Filed under: Mahler, music news, classical-music, music, orchestra, philharmonia-orchestra
October 4, 2024 • 11:16 am Comments Off on “The Handmaid’s Tale” at San Francisco Opera
Some thoughts for Musical America on San Francisco Opera’s fall production of The Handmaid’s Tale:
SAN FRANCISCO—It was at the turn of the millennium that composer Poul Ruders and librettist Paul Bentley adapted The Handmaid’s Tale into an opera. These days, however, their version of the dystopian novel Margaret Atwood published in 1985 seems ominously closer to an opera ripped from the headlines than a cautionary tale …
Filed under: Musical America, new opera, review, San Francisco Opera
September 25, 2024 • 9:13 am Comments Off on Julia Bullock Launches Artist Residency at Cal Performances
Julia Bullock is the 2024–25 season Artist in Residence at Cal Performances. Her first appearance in that capacity is in a collaboration with her colleagues in the American Modern Opera Company (also known as AMOC*, of which she is a founding member) for a boldly original staged production of Messiaen’s Harawi, which was premiered in the summer of 2022 at the Festival Aix-en-Provence and subsequently toured across Europe. The performance takes place on 27 September at Zellerbach Hall.
I wrote about this extraordinary artist and her fascination with Harawi for Cal Performances:
The first time Julia Bullock heard Harawi, Olivier Messiaen’s song cycle from 1945, she recalls that both the poetry and the music “shook me to a fundamental core … even though I didn’t fully grasp the depths of the content and the references on first listen….”
Filed under: Cal Performances, Olivier Messiaen
September 24, 2024 • 10:39 am Comments Off on “What Belongs to You”: Garth Greenwell on the Opera Stage
In the years since Garth Greenwell published his 2016 debut novel, What Belongs to You, the 46-year-old novelist, poet, critic, and teacher has established himself as one of the most distinguished American writers at work today.
Garthwell, who at one point studied voice at the Eastman School of Music, is deeply knowledgable about opera and also writes fascinating and highly worthwhile music criticism. His own work will now be the subject of literary and music criticism alike, thanks to composer David T. Little’s adaptation of What Belongs to You to the opera stage.
Little adapted his own libretto from Garthwell’s text and has collaborated with the legendary choreographer Mark Morris as stage director and conductor Alan Pierson to reframe the novel for the opera medium.
What Belongs to Me “tells the story of a man caught between longing and resentment, unable to separate desire from danger, and faced with the impossibility of understanding those he most longs to know,” says Garthwell. Adds Little: “The story is specific and personal, but the experience Greenwell describes is universal: the search for self and the desire to belong amidst loneliness and enduring heartbreak.”
In his New York Times preview, Joshua Barone describes Little’s musical response to the material: “There are flashes of rock, but it is largely inspired by Monteverdi and Schubert, as well as John Dowland, Giovanni Valentini and Gérard Grisey, taking cues from the Renaissance through the 20th century. There is even some Britten. Little called it all ‘a constellation of influences’ shaped by the material.”
“At its most shocking, Little’s music calls on the instrumentalists of Alarm Will Sound to sing, acting as a chorus to embody the hustler Mitko and the protagonist’s father during two pivotal, terrifying moments.”
The world premiere will be performed on 26 and 28 September at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond.
Filed under: music news, new opera, music, opera
September 23, 2024 • 2:59 pm Comments Off on “‘Scheherazade: A Tale” by Ensemble K
Simone Menezes and her adventurous Ensemble K have created a concert project using a new chamber arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade music, into which are woven excerpts from One Thousand and One Nights, ancient love poetry, and newly written dialogue to provide a contemporary look at the legendary character.
Boulez Saal in Berlin is presenting the live performance premiere on 26 September, in cooperation with Cartier.
I interviewed Simone Menezes and translator Yasmine Searle for the program book. The project has also been released as an album — more info here.
Filed under: Pierre Boulez Saal
Arts & Culture Stories from NPR
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 