Soprano Amanda Forsythe sings Bach, with oboist Debra Nagy at left and Apollo’s Fire artistic director Jeannette Sorrell conducting from the harpsichord (all photos courtesy Apollo’s Fire)
I reviewedHeavenly Bach, Amanda Forsythe’s wonderful new release of Bach arias and cantatas with Apollo’s Fire, for Early Music America:
“Happiness writes white,” as the phrase goes—or, to borrow the formulation by Tolstoy that has become modernity’s default position: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Attempting to convey the condition of unadulterated joy in artistic terms is to risk a bland sentimentality; the bad news about the human condition is what sells. Part of J.S. Bach’s greatness lies in his ability to paint the full spectrum so convincingly, without compromise.
The Berlin Staatsoper just released a statement by long-term general director Daniel Barenboim announcing the end of his tenure there for reasons of health: “Unfortunately, my health has deteriorated significantly over the past year. I can no longer provide the performance that is rightly demanded of a general music director. Therefore, I ask for your understanding that I am giving up this position as of 31 January 2023.”
It’s the sad culmination of what has been a very difficult period for the maestro. Over the last few months, he had to cancel the many celebrations that had been organized around his 80th birthday in November.
This will be a sea-change for Berlin in particular, whose musical life the indefatigable Barenboim has dominated for decades.
David Danzmayr and the Seattle Symphony; photo (c) Jorge Gustavo Elias
I closed out 2022 with a review of the Seattle Symphony performing Boulanger and Beethoven:
The tradition of attending performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony around New Year’s in Japan — where it is known simply as daiku — has a counterpart in Seattle. That the score’s epic journey spans such a spectrum of human experience yet culminates in a message of overwhelming affirmation makes the Ninth ideally suited for the Janus duty of casting a retrospective glance over the highs and lows of the year drawing to a close while ringing in the one just beginning with hope-filled anticipation….
Company’s first production of TheRing of the Nibelung (1935)
SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport have unveiled a new exhibition in connection with San Francisco Opera’s centennial titled San Francisco Opera: A Centennial Celebration. The curated installation in the Harvey Milk Terminal 1 (located post-security in Departures Level 2) showcases the Company’s first century and the art of operatic stagecraft.
The exhibition, on view through 13 August 13, 2023, captures San Francisco Opera’s rich history through a selection of costumes, stage props, set models, video and archival photographs from the collections of San Francisco Opera, the Museum of Performance + Design and the Metropolitan Opera Archives.
Costumes worn by operatic superstars who have graced San Francisco Opera’s stage during the past century are the focus of the presentation.
SFO Museum’s Curator of Exhibits Daniel Calderon said: “SFO Museum is delighted to feature the history of San Francisco Opera during the Company’s Centennial Season. San Francisco Opera is such an important cultural and artistic institution, and their story is both local and international. With their support, along with loans from the Museum of Performance + Design and the Metropolitan Opera Archives, SFO Museum has assembled a vibrant exhibition of costumes, photographs and artifacts that span almost a century of opera history. We know the exhibition will spur the interest of our traveling public and hope it will make new opera fans in the coming months.”
San Francisco Opera’s Director of Archives Barbara Rominski said: “Working with Daniel Calderon and the entire SFO Museum team has been rewarding on so many fronts, not least for the opportunity to share our archival collections with the airport’s enormous daily audience. Whether travelers have only a few seconds to spend with the exhibits or a long layover to really dive in, these remarkable garments and artifacts have a way of inspiring wonder at the creative possibility of this lively art form.”
Highlights include:
The cape and hat worn by famed Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette during San Francisco Opera’s inaugural 1923 season.
Legendary Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad’s Brünnhilde costume from Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre in the 1935 Company premiere of the composer’s four-opera cycle, TheRing of the Nibelung.
The military outfit worn by French soprano Lily Pons in Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment during the 1940s.
A dress from Massenet’s Manon worn by soprano and inaugural recipient of the Company’s Opera Medal, Dorothy Kirsten.
American soprano Leontyne Price’s costume from the 1981 production of Verdi’s Aida. An iconic interpreter of the title role, Price sang her first Aida with San Francisco Opera in 1957.
Additional costumes from productions of Tosca, Un Ballo in Maschera, Tannhäuser and Rigoletto reflect the work of designers Thierry Bosquet, John Conklin, Paul Brown and Constance Hoffman.
Byron Schenkman & Friends continue their 10th-anniversary season with a program on Thursday, 29 December (at 7pm at Benaroya Hall), juxtaposing the piano trio format with lieder. Beethoven’s Archduke Trio, a pinnacle of the piano trio from 1810-11, will be heard alongside 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence winner Carlos Simon‘s luminous be still and know, a composition from 2015 inspired by an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Filling out the program are songs by Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert featuring vocalist Martin Bakari, winner of the 2018 George London Competition.
The complete program is as follows:
Carlos Simon (b. 1986):
be still and know for piano trio
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791):
Abendempfindung (“Evening Thoughts”) (K. 523) Zufriedenheit (“Contentment”) (K. 473)
Franz Schubert (1979-1828):
Du bist die Ruh (“You are Repose”) (D. 776)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827):
Adelaide, op. 46
Ludwig van Beethoven:
Trio in B-flat, op. 97
Allegro moderato Scherzo Andante cantabile, ma però con moto Allegro moderato
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been channeling her passion for Richard Wagner into a podcast discussion on SWR2 in a three-episode series as part of Sprechen wir über Mord!? Merkel’s podcasts explore criminal contexts and motives in the Ring cycle. The podcasts are in German.
Angela Merkel: “The ring is so universally applicable to humanity that from family life to political life, you can always find things that just keep happening to us humans.”
Angela Merkel: “To claim that anyone is completely free of vanity, well, I wouldn’t say that for me either. Vanity is something that is quite inherent in people, but it also has to be restrained.”
UPDATE: Due to freezing rain and icy streets, The Saddest of All Keys with Richard Lefebvre & Rachel Kessler will be postponed to 14 January 2023.
Marimbist Erin Jorgensen joins forces with poet/Renaissance woman Rachel Kessler and ubiquitous front man Richard Lefebvre for a one-night-only-anti-holiday-holiday show. Expect dreamy visions, tales of kicking drugs, musings on seasonal depression and spiders, JS Bach, and amplified and acoustic marimba – all in the key of D Minor, of course.
Two shows on Friday 23 December at 6 and 9pm at Odd Sea | 1539 NW Leary Way. The venue is a new performance space made from a former auto-body shop in Ballard. Run time is approximately 50 minutes. Tickets here.
The Houston-based chamber music and jazz presenter DACAMERA is offering a holiday gift of Chopin performed by one of the leading interpreters of his music, the Grammy Award-winning Garrick Ohlsson. Listen to his Chopin recital, which opened DAMERA’s season, as a free stream for two weeks, available herewith registration.
Seattle Pro Musica presents its holiday program on 17 December at 3pm at First Baptist Church in Seattle. Titled Behold the Star, the program offers holiday favorites as well as the world premiere of Shruthi Rajasekar‘s newly commissioned I am my own, set to texts by the three Brontë sisters (Emily, Charlotte, and Anne). Winter and holiday-themed works by Herbert Howells, Francis Poulenc, and Guillaume Dufay share the program.
Behold the Star is the third in Seattle Pro Musica’s New American Composer Series. The five-concert series celebrates Seattle Pro Musica’s 50th Anniversary,with commissions and Seattle residencies by five BIPOC composers from across the country.
This performance will also be available by livestream in real time and on demand following the performance (simply register in advance here).
This is a holiday treat I’m especially looking forward to: the upcoming “teaser” for choreographer extraordinaire Donald Byrd‘s The Harlem Nutcracker at Spectrum Dance Theater.
Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Nutcracker Suite is the musical inspiration for this work-in-progress. “The original story centers around an African-American family in Harlem on Christmas Eve,” according to Spectrum’s description. “It highlights the unique warmth and centrality of the grandmother in African-American culture, the resilience of Black American families and Harlem as a center of the African Diaspora.”
This year’s performance is being billed as a “teaser” to the complete production, tentatively scheduled to premiere in a little over a year. It includes the whole show except for the final 20 minutes — which will be unveiled as a surprise at the full premiere.
Dates: DEC 8-11 + 15-18, 2022 at On the Boards, 100 W Roy Street, Seattle, WA 98119. Tickets here.
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 