Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Pocket Opera

Pocket Opera just successfully pulled off a seriously ambitious production last month: Benjamin Britten's 1960 adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. Britten composed grand operas like Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, and Gloriana, while also composing chamber operas with small orchestras such as The Rape of Lucretia, Albert Herring, and The Turn of the Screw. A Midsummer Night's Dream falls somewhere in between in terms of orchestral size, so Pocket Opera commissioned an orchestral reduction from Liam Daley with the blessing of the Britten estate. Daley did a marvelous job, making me miss the full orchestra on only a few occasions. There was no editing, however, on the opera itself or the huge cast of characters, and somehow General Director Nicolas A. Garcia managed to stage the proceedings on the tiny Legion of Honor stage last Sunday without everyone banging into each other.

The standout singer of the production was countertenor Kyle Tingzon as Oberon, the King of the Fairies in the scary, enchanted wood. One of the greatest operatic performances I have ever seen was by the late Brian Asawa as Oberon when the SF Opera last presented the work in 1992, and Tingzon was as good as Asawa. He's ready to sing the role on any stage in the world. The role of Puck was originally written as a speaking role for a teenage acrobat, and here was charmingly performed by Atlantis Clay minus the acrobatic tumbling. Oberon and Puck spend most of the narrative concocting maliciously nasty pranks, but Tingzon and Clay played the duo as amiable characters just having a bit of fun.

The "rude mechanicals," workmen rehearsing a ridiculously terrible play, were a fun bunch, and didn't overdo their comic business. Kirk Eichelberger as the blustering, egocentric Bottom who wants to play every role, bellowed loudly and he was a fine ass.

The Pyramus and Thisbe troupe often steal the show, in the play and the opera, but in this production they were overshadowed by the quartet of quarreling lovers: a particularly fine Ellen Leslie as Helena, Leah Finn as Hermia, Kevin Gino as Lysander, and Spencer Dodd as Demetrius. Their interactions and their playing off of each other musically and dramatically was first-rate, and when all turns to cacophony among them at the end of Act Two, they were amazing.

I do have one serious complaint with the production, however. Britten specifically wrote the roles of individual fairies and larger chorus for boy sopranos. Unfortunately, only one boy soprano, the delightful James Coniglio, was cast as a Fairy and the rest were sung by adult women. They sounded all wrong. Britten composed some of the greatest children's music ever written, and knew what he wanted in terms of sound. The gender of the fairies isn't important, but a child's voice versus an adult's voice are two very different things, and part of what makes this opera so great is the ethereal sound Britten creates for fairyland. The finale, with the soprano voices of a countertenor, a silvery adult female soprano, and a chorus of child sopranos weaving in and out of each other, is one of the most beautiful things that Britten or any other composer has ever written. If and when Pocket Opera revives this production, and I hope they do, please cast the fairy roles appropriately. There are half a dozen great childrens' choruses in the Bay Area, so there's really no excuse not to do the music right.

Radiant Rhythm with the New Century Chamber Orchestra

Due to an unspecified physical accident, Music Director Daniel Hope wasn't able to finish out the 2025-2026 New Century Chamber Orchestra season last week, so a last-minute replacement had to be found. The ensemble got very lucky, however, when the 32-year-old Canadian violinist Blake Pouliot jumped in to the rescue with only two days' notice. He proved to be sensationally good, and so was the entire concert.

The Saturday afternoon concert at The Presidio was entitled Radiance in Rhythm, and most of the compositions played around with Latin rhythms, not in a simplistic El Salón México manner, but in a more complex way. The opener was the 1968 Fuga y misterio by Astor Piazzolla from his tango opera, Maria de Buenos Aires. The music was exactly what the title stated, a fugue on a tango theme with a mysterious section in the middle, brilliantly performed by Pouliot and the string ensemble.

This was followed by a world premiere commission, Blues Variations, by the 38-year-old composer/conductor Henry Dorn. Born in Arkansas, where the radio played All-Blues Saturday all day long, he now teaches in St. Olaf, Minnesota. The ten-minute work was a set of 12 variations on a theme by blues singer Peetie Wheatstraw (1902-1941) that started conventionally but then ventured into all kinds of strange, interesting places before returning to the main theme. It was a really good piece.

The guest soloist for the concert was the Spanish classical guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas who looked like a matinee idol and played like one too. He tackled Michael Daugherty's 2006 Bay of Pigs, a concerto for guitar and strings evoking pre-and post-revolutionary Cuba in three distinct movements, filled with tricky rhythms and startling dramatic effects.

After intermission, the string ensemble played the 1923 Primera Suite Uno by Alberto Williams (1862-1952), one of Argentina's founding classical music composers who I had never heard of before. It was a short, agreeable, four-movement work that made one want to hear other music by him.

The final work was Joaquin Rodrigo's 1939 Concierto de Aranjuez, the most popular classical guitar concerto in the world. Sáinz Villegas returned as soloist and gave a lovely description of the work, explaining that the first movement is flamenco dance with feet planted on the ground while the third movement is courtly dance where feet "jump off the ground." The long, poignant second movement Adagio stems from the sadness Rodrigo was feeling over the stillborn death of his daughter.

Even though the Concierto de Aranjuez is a classical pops concert staple and played incessantly on classical radio stations, I had somehow gone through life without hearing a live version, and it was worth the wait. It was a gorgeous performance, highlighted by Sáinz Villegas's soulful, delicate playing that was completely integrated with the ensemble around him.

The all-string chamber orchestra was augmented by 12 pick-up musicians on woodwinds and brass, and they were flawless in very exposed music. Pablo even dragged oboist Jesse Barrett out for a solo bow for his contribution, and he deserved it.

Monet and Venice at the de Young Museum

My late friend Jerry Morgan once described Venice, Italy as "the greatest tourist trap in the world, perfected over centuries." (Pictured is Canaletto's 1745 painting, The Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day.)

Evidently, the French Impressionist painter Claude Monet was not interested in visiting such a well-trod location, but was finally cajoled into a visit by his second wife Alice Hoschedé in 1908, when he was 68 years old.

In an exhibit organized by the Brooklyn Museum and the de Young, nineteen paintings by Monet join a collection of Venetian views by other artists, including the 1881 Venice, the Doge's Palace by Renoir.

The impetus for the Autumn 1908 visit was an invitation by British socialite Mary Hunter to join her at her seasonal rental, the Palazzo Barbaro, which seemingly hosted every artist of the late 19th century, from Henry James to John Singer Sargent, who painted the 1899 An Interior in Venice there.

Alice and Claude were only scheduled to stay for two weeks, but were so enchanted by Venice that they moved into a hotel and stayed for another three months. Setting out on a gondola each day, Monet would paint the same locations repeatedly in varying light. (Pictured is The Grand Canal, Venice.)

Of the 37 paintings from this series, 19 have been reunited for this traveling exhibit.

After the Venetian sojourn, Monet exhibited these paintings for the public two years later, then retired to his home in Giverny where he was soon a grieving widower after Alice died in 1911.

Monet spent the next two decades working on his series of Water Lilies at home in Giverny, including this 1914-17 canvas owned by the SF Fine Arts Museums. The add-on price for the exhibit is exorbitant, but if you buy a reasonably priced annual membership to the museum, it's a bargain and you can go as often as you desire.

French Music at the SF Symphony

Last week's all-French San Francisco Symphony program on Thursday afternoon did not start promisingly. Just as the 51-year-old Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan was waiting for audience silence before the quiet opening of Debussy's 1894 Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, a cell phone rang. After another pause, somebody emitted an explosive sneeze and the audience started giggling. There were two more cell phone alerts before Jordan finally gave up and embarked on an exquisitely transparent performance of the Prelude.

Rebecca Wishnia at the San Francisco Classical Voice website gave the concert a dismissive review, but I had a different experience and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. Part of the reason was that I bought a last-minute rush ticket and was seated in the second row of the orchestra section, smack dab in front of the fabulous French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, complete with sparkly jacket.

He was the soloist in the 1896 Piano Concerto No. 5, "Egyptian" by Camille Saint-Saëns, with its evocative slow movement depicting a journey on the Nile. The concerto has been derided as kitsch over the years, but I loved every minute of it, and Thibaudet gave an awesome performance, modulating his dynamics from delicate to forceful throughout.

For an encore Thibaudet was joined by conductor Jordan for the final movement from Ravel's 1910 Mother Goose Suite, entitled Le jardin féerique: Lent et grave (The Fairy Garden). It could not have been more charming.

After intermission, Jordan led an exciting account of Berlioz's 1830 Symphonie Fantastique. The five-movement work filled with famous tunes is completely eccentric. I heard Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the Symphonie Fantastique a couple of times over the decades, and it was always unsatisfying because he tended to smooth out the strangeness of the work, but that was not the case with Jordan. The concluding two movements, March to the Scaffold and Dream of a Witches' Sabbath were thrilling and weird, just as they should be.