SF Dems Debate Watch

I wasn't going to watch the Harris v. Trump debate on ABC television last night because I can't listen to him without feeling ill.

I did finally screw up the courage to jump on a Muni bus and go to the new election headquarters for the San Francisco Democratic Party at Fifth and Market.

By 5:30 PM there was a good crowd listening to various local political celebrities bragging about what good friends they have been with Kamala Harris over the decades while urging people to volunteer and get involved in the November election.

California State Senator Scott Weiner gave a speech...

...as did California State Treasurer Fiona Ma.

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu recounted how he was told early in his career to watch then-District Attorney Kamala Harris in court because she was a master.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has the sole endorsement of the San Francisco Democratic Party for another term, so she was the only candidate for that office that I spotted working the room.

In fact, it was odd not seeing other Democratic candidates for various offices present, but this was very much a "City Family" event.

Shortly before the debate began, the crowd was instructed to cheer and wave signs for a national television clip of San Franciscans at a watch party.

The hardworking audio-visual crew helped cue the assembly and joined right in.

I could only endure 30 minutes of the malignant, delusional Trump but was cheered by Harris's extraordinary performance. At home, I watched the last 30 minutes of Harris carving up the gaseous old wind bag, and it was a tonic. Hearing the news of the Taylor Swift endorsement soon after felt very much like a fairy tale ending.

San Francisco Opera Opening 2024

The high society event known as the opening of the San Francisco Opera season took place Friday night and it was a kick.

For those who purchased the whole package, the marathon celebration began at 5PM across the street at a sit-down dinner in San Francisco City Hall.

Then they picked up their tresses and walked across Van Ness Avenue for an 8 PM curtain time for the opening of a production of Verdi's tragic opera, Un Ballo in Maschera.

The crowd was actually not fully seated until about 8:30 PM.

We were then presented with a video with clips of successful recent productions at the opera along with a testimonial to Cynthia and John Gunn who have given many millions of dollars to the company while serving on the Board.

It seems that one of the Gunn's favorite pieces of music is Bernstein's Overture to Candide, so the SF Opera Orchestra under Music Director Eun Sun Kim performed that first.

Then we all stood for a rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, which traditionally opens the opera season just like a Giants or 49ers game, and then the delicate opening of the overture to Un Ballo in Maschera finally began.

Rather like some of the partygoers I was only attending for the festivities rather than the opera itself, which I will be seeing next Wednesday, so I bought an inexpensive standing room ticket and wished a happy opening day to backstage friends like Michael Mohammed above...

...and Andrew Korniej (above right), a longtime supernumerary with the company, and his spouse.

Since the recent retirement of Joshua Kosman, San Francisco's only full-time music critic for a daily newspaper, arts freelancers are having to step up. Pictured above is the extraordinarily competent Public Relations Director Jeffery McMillan in the Press Room with a writer from SF/ARTS Monthly

Also attending was KALW radio host David Latulippe and his companion...

...along with Steven Winn, one of the best arts writers in the country whose reviews I tend to wholeheartedly agree with more often than not.

Accompanied by her friend Terence Shek, Charlise Tiee has already published her review online (click here for The Opera Tattler).

Writing under a tight deadline, Lisa Hirsch (above left) has had her review published in the San Francisco Chronicle (click here). Posing next to her is West Edge Opera Board Member Terri Stuart.

Watching the parade go by from a solitary pillar with an amused observer's eye was the supremely talented arts writer Georgia Rowe. "There's a lot of kids here tonight," she said, and I was confused because there weren't any children. "I mean there are a lot of younger people than usual," Georgia explained, and she was right.

This was a good thing because the opera performance wasn't finished until close to midnight, and there was still an Opera Ball scheduled for City Hall afterwards. I lasted through the first two acts before heading home, and am looking forward to seeing the whole opera at an earlier hour with a less distracted audience.

San Francisco Opera Fall 2024 Preview

The San Francisco Opera season is opening this week on its traditional moveable date, the first Friday after Labor Day. There will be a sit-down dinner and an Opera Ball at City Hall across the street, with the opening night opera wedged in between. My friend Patrick Vaz, a true music lover, disdains the event with all its tipsy socialites but I have always enjoyed the evening. It's a bit like Opening Day at the San Francisco Giants, except attendees are wearing dresses worth thousands of dollars. For financial reasons, this fall season features only four opera productions rather than the usual five or six, but at least the administration doesn't seem to be actively trying to destroy their own cultural instution like the SF Symphony across the street.

The season starts with one of my favorite Verdi operas, Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball). The 1859 opera ran into censorship problems immediately because it was a fictional account of the real 1792 assassination of King Gustave III at a masked ball in the foyer of the Stockholm Opera House. No assassinations of royalty were to be depicted onstage in Italy in 1857, so the libretto was changed first to Poland and then to Boston in the colonial era, where it never really made sense. This well-reviewed production by Italian director Leo Muscato goes back to the original, and is set in Stockholm. The music is Verdi at his greatest and the assembled cast looks really promising, with the known excellence of tenor Michael Fabiano and soprano Lianna Haroutounian as headliners. Music Director Eun Sun Kim conducts in her ongoing survey of Verdi operas.

Appearing in repertory with Ballo is the 1998 operatic adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's bizarrely prescient 1985 imagining of a future United States where patriarchy has run amok. It was created by Danish composer Poul Ruders who asked the British multi-hyphenate actor Paul Bentley to write an English libretto for him. The adaptation has been widely praised and though the music seemed a bit too discordant for many initial reviewers, the consensus seems to have changed and the music is now being praised too. The opera has appeared sporadically in Europe and the U.S. (Boston) over the last 25 years, but this is a new co-production between the Royal Danish Opera, where it originally premiered, and the San Francisco Opera. The cast looks outstanding and the American conductor Karen Kamensek will be leading the excellent orchestra. The SF Opera isn't making a big deal out of it, but this is the first time in history when the majority of operas in the fall season are conducted by women. It's about time.

In mid-October, Richard Wagner's 1865 opera Tristan und Isolde arrives in a decade-old production from Venice's Teatro La Venice, directed by Canadian Paul Curran in what looks like a beautiful, minimalist production. Tristan will be sung by New Zealand tenor Simon O'Neill and German soprano Anja Kampe will be Isolde. I am not one of George Bernard Shaw's Perfect Wagnerites, but most of my musically inclined friends are. They all seemed to like Eun Sun Kim's conducting of Lohengrin with Simon O'Neill last year so this five-hour soundbath should be right up their alley, and it might be what you are looking for too.

November belongs to George Bizet's 1875 Carmen, which has more recognizable tunes than any opera ever written. The Francesca Zambello production has been bouncing around the globe since it premiered at Covent Garden in 2006. It appeared here in 2019 in a poorly reviewed outing, but maybe things will be better this time with French mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux making her debut in the title role and tenor Jonathan Tetelman as her murderous lover, Don Jose. A young newcomer, Benjamin Manis, conducts.