Mozart's Idomeneo at the SF Opera

A musically compelling and dramatically pathetic production of Mozart's early opera Idomeneo is receiving five performances at the San Francisco Opera this month. Between the exquisite conducting of Music Director Eun Sun Kim and her remarkable orchestra, the beauty of the prominent chorus, the variable quality of the soloists, and the drab, colorless Opera Australia production, it was a very mixed bag. Pictured above is the opening scene with the luminous soprano Ying Fang as the Trojan prisoner of war Ilia surrounded her fellow refugees in ugly, stylized modern costumes by Anna Cordingley. (All production photos are by Cory Weaver.)

The three-and-a-half hour production directed by Lindy Hume took place on a unit set of three walls with three doors, along with projections and a turntable that was theatrically pointless except for the storm scene above where Idomeneo and his crew are buffeted by the elements. Tenor Matthew Polenzani, who has given a number of great performances in San Francisco over the years, was not sounding as supple as usual singing Idomeneo, the King of Crete returning from the Trojan War. However, his voice worked for the character and Polenzani's musicianship was impeccable.

The basic plot device is that hideous old story of a god commanding a mortal to sacrifice their own child, as in Jehovah commanding Abraham to murder his son Isaac. In this case, it is Neptune demanding that Idomeneo sacrifice the first person he encounters on shore after surviving a shipwreck, which of course turns out to be his son Idamante. The character was sung by the usually splendid mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack, who was having serious vocal problems due to illness. At the second performance of the scheduled five, she mimed her way through the finale of the last act while Laura Krumm sang the part from offstage. Krumm sounded great and eventually replaced Mack in the third performance for the entire role.

To complicate the plot, there are two women who are in love with Idamante, Ying Fang as Ilia and soprano Elza van den Heever as Elettra, who has somehow wandered off from the cursed House of Atreus. Even though there is plenty of gorgeous music to sing as Ilia, the role itself is rather dull as she sings about how sad she is about everything, usually ending with thoughts of suicide. The role of Elettra, however, is crazed and Elza van den Heever made the most of it.

Tenor Alek Shrader as Arbace, the King's counselor, was luxury casting and he sounded wonderful, as did Adler fellow Samuel White as the High Priest of Neptune. It's too bad they had to compete with acres of white chairs that kept being moved around by the chorus and occasionally twirled around slowly by the turntable for no particular reason at all.

The 1781 opera was only performed twice during Mozart's lifetime, and wasn't even performed in the United States until 1957. The San Francisco Opera has produced it four times since 1977 in two previous productions, by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and John Copley, that were lovely and fairly static, but which didn't allow for the appearance of a huge sea monster without looking silly, even though the libretto explicitly has Neptune wreaking havoc through a sea monster when Idomeneo refuses to sacrifice his son. So there was hope, since the production consisted mostly of video projections, that we would finally get to see a Cretan version of Godzilla onstage, but the opportunity was lost and we saw more dull, textured imagery representing the mayhem instead.

In the original French tragedy on which the libretto was based, Idamante was sacrificed to appease Neptune, but in this Enlightenment operatic version of the tale, Neptune takes pity after murdering thousands on the island via the monster, and commands Polenzani to abdicate his throne and give it to Idamante and Ilia to rule together instead.

This makes Elettra go insane, and Elza van den Heever brought a jolt of excitement and energy to the stage, but it was too little, too late for this inert production.

Nocturnal Omissions with John Coons and Jonah Wheeler

On a wooden beach boardwalk in Puerto Vallarta this winter, I ran into the gay porn star Jonah Wheeler, who was handing out flyers for a cabaret show starring his partner John Coons. "You're my favorite actor on the internet," I sincerely gushed to Wheeler, which made him laugh. He introduced me to Coons, who happened to be sitting under an umbrella on the beach next to us, and I asked him what he sang. "My own material, mostly, but also everything from Broadway to classical." I jokingly asked him if he ever sang any Poulenc art songs, and the response was delighted, "Yes, and even Reynaldo Hahn, just to keep people on their toes."

I never did make it to the show in Puerto Vallarta, but six months later Coons and Wheeler brought their Noctural Omissions act for a sold-out, one-night stand last Sunday at the Oasis nightclub at 11th and Folsom. The show turned out to be musically sophisticated, silly, raunchy, funny, and politically acute. On top of it all, my experience with cabaret singers has been that they often have an unsteady relationship with pitch, but Coons's voice was lovely and true.

Broadway World published this entertaining bio of Jonah Wheeler, "Following a decade-long career as a theatrical music director and orchestrator (Sweeney Todd at Barrow Street, Gigi on Broadway, performances with Molly Pope), he pivoted during the pandemic into adult entertainment. Jonah’s video work is noted for genuine connection, goofy enthusiasm, and friendly authority role-play. He holds the questionable distinction of being the only person to work at both MormonBoyz [a gay porn site] and The Book of Mormon on Broadway."

There was no Poulenc at this particular show, but the "non-binary" Coons presented his own superbly witty songs and ended with a mash-up of the lyrics to the Gilligan's Island theme sung to the tune of Amazing Grace. Weirdly enough, it worked.

There was a genuine sweetness to the couple's interplay all evening, and it was refreshing to hear ribald humor that was less sniggering and more sex-positive. If you get a chance to see the show somewhere, it's highly recommended.

Bay Area Rainbow Symphony Concert

After a lovely day at the San Francisco No Kings march, we attended a Gay Pride concert at the SF Conservatory of Music given by the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony. The volunteer ensemble is sometimes overmatched by the serious music they are playing and sometimes they excel way out of their league. Saturday night's concert offered a bit of both. The great violinist and conductor Dawn Harms recently retired as Music Director and the orchestra has been auditioning different conductors throughout the season. Saturday night was the turn of Oakland-based conductor/composer/flautist Martha Stoddard who led the orchestra in the 1943 Overture by Grazna Bacewicz, and a 1941 Britten transcription of Mahler's second movement of his Third Symphony, entitled What the Wild Flowers Tell Me.

Neither piece made much of an impression, but that changed radically when the orchestra performed the American premiere of Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina's 2022 Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra with professional soloist Jimmy Chan.

Chan gave a brief demonstration of the different pitches and sonic possibilities of the four timpani and then proceeded to play the heck out of the instruments, from delicate pianissimos to full-on pounding, in the three-movement concerto.

After growing up and studying in Colombia, the 33-year-old Ospina went to the University of Memphis for further composition education, returned to Colombia where his music was widely acclaimed, and moved to Emeryville in 2022. I heard his Concerto for Saxophone and Wind Instruments last year and was amazed at the sophistication, energy and sheer fun of the piece, and this Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra was just as thrilling.

For an encore, Chan played his own transcription for marimba of a familiar tune that I was on the verge of identifying but never quite did. It was a delicate, lovely sorbet after the wild main course.

After intermission, Stoddard conducted the 1902 Sibelius Symphony No. 3. She must know and love the work well because the performance was surprisingly good. The trombone and trumpet sections were having a rough time in terms of intonation all evening, but the rest of the orchestra did a splendid job. Especially impressive were the flute section of Linda Watkins, Alan Berquist, and Matt Opatrny, and congratulations to violist/president Laurence Lewis (standing next to Stoddard) for presenting such a challenging program.

Esa-Pekka Salonen's Resurrection

The San Francisco Symphony is closing out its season this weekend with three performances of Mahler's gargantuan Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection." These are also the final performances of the orchestra with Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, who declined to extend his contract after the Symphony Board of Directors completely alienated him with their penny-wise, pound-foolish fiscal austerity. So Friday evening's performance was both an extraordinary artistic triumph that people will be referencing for years to come and a bittersweet farewell between the conductor and an adoring audience.

The Symphony Board also proposed to radically cut compensation last year for the brilliant Symphony Chorus under the direction of Jenny Wong, but thankfully an anonymous donor came through recently with a $1 million gift to make sure the ensemble had a halfway decent contract. They sounded gorgeous tonight, slowly, softly and then powerfully taking us to heaven in the final movement.

The two soloists were mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and soprano Heidi Stober, both in beautiful voice.

The entire performance was Esa-Pekka Salonen at his best and most illuminating, and the hall radiated a communal joy among performers and audience. Thanks above all to writer Lisa Hirsch who offered a last-minute ticket when her date could not make it. And for a wonderful piece on Thursday's performance, click here for Patrick Vaz's take.

La Boheme at San Francisco Opera

In the many productions I have seen over the decades of Puccini's perennially popular opera La Boheme, I have never once laughed at its young characters' antics or cried at its sad ending, but did both on Tuesday evening at the San Francisco Opera. (All production photos by Cory Weaver.)

One of the reasons was that the ensemble playing young Parisian bohemians in the 19th century looked and behaved like friends who would actually hang out together. Tenor Pene Pati as the writer Rodolfo, bass Bogdan Talos as the philosopher Colline, baritone Samuel Kidd as the musician Schaunard, and baritone Lucas Meachem as the painter Marcello played off of each other with wit and charm, and instead of the opening scene's usual mugging schtick there was precise and understated humor. All credit to British director John Caird who created this production which was first seen here in 2014, and to the revival director Katherine M. Carter.

Another reason was the sweet, gentle chemistry between the two leads, Pene Pati and Karen Chia-ling Ho as Mimi, the poor seamstress who eventually becomes a kept girl. Pati displayed some vocal uncertainty in the big, high climaxes of his famous arias but otherwise he sounded beautiful. So did Karen Chia-ling Ho whose soprano voice is exquisite in this role. Even better, both vocalists sang their roles rather than belting them.

Soprano Andrea Carroll was a nice surprise as Musetta, the on-again, off-again girlfriend of Marcello when she's not being squired around town by rich old men. Her star turn in Act Two at the Cafe Momus was nicely sung and genuinely funny.

For once, she actually seemed to be an integral part of this young circle of friends.

Mimi and Rodolfo's going from falling in love at first sight in Act One to breaking up months later in Act Three has always confused me. What happened, exactly?

The supertitles by director John Caird are unusually good, and it finally became clear that the reason for the breakup was because Rodolfo was pathologically jealous and a jerk about it and it all got too ugly, which he finally confesses to his friend Marcello. Pene Pati seems too kind to be that kind of asshole, but it's not unusual behavior.

Musetta meanwhile breaks off with Marcello, announcing that he's the worst kind of lover, "which is somebody who acts like a husband."

In warm reviews of the opening performance by Joshua Kosman at On a Pacific Aisle and Lisa Hirsch at SF Classical Voice, they had polar opposite feelings about the Spanish conductor Ramón Tebar. Joshua wrote: "the weakest, most ill-judged conducting the War Memorial has witnessed in a long time" while Lisa praised Tebar's "flexible, generous conducting." I'm siding with Lisa, and thought the orchestra sounded fabulous. Tebar's slightly eccentric, slower than usual tempos worked for me.

I am not a Puccini fan, partly out of resentment that his handful of operas have hogged the repertory for all of my operagoing life, and the pathetic dying heroine sentimentality of his plots is not a favorite. The music is gorgeous and complex though, and occasionally a performance will be a reminder of how potent his work can be. This is one of them.

Ruth Asawa Retrospective at SFMOMA

SFMOMA is presenting a huge retrospective this summer of artist Ruth Asawa (1926-2013), an important artist in San Franciscan and American history.

She was born into a large Japanese-American farming family in Southern California which was sent to an internment camp in Arkansas during World War Two. She was later quoted about the experience: "I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the internment, and I like who I am."

On a trip to Mexico in her last year of Teachers College, she took an art class taught by Cuban designer Clara Porset, a friend of artist Joseph Albers. In a 1981 interview Asawa stated, "I was told that it might be difficult for me, with the memories of the war still fresh, to work in a public school. My life might even be in danger. This was a godsend, because it encouraged me to follow my interest in art, and I subsequently enrolled at Black Mountain College in North Carolina." (Pictured is Untitled, Abstraction [Dogwood Leaves], 1946-1949.)

The post-war avant-garde arts college in North Carolina was in the midst of an historic moment, with an extraordinary roster of students and teachers that included John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, and R. Buckminster Fuller. The experience was transformational for Asawa. She also met her husband, architect Albert Lanier, at the college and they moved to Noe Valley in San Francisco, since the only states where interracial marriage was legal were California and Washington. Along the way, they proceeded to have six children together. (Pictured is Untitled [Wall-mounted Paperfold with Horizontal Stripes], 1953.)

Asawa's work uses the humblest of materials, from rubber stamps to sticks and leaves and folded paper, that is intricate, obsessive and inspirational.

During a 1947 visit to Toluca, Mexico, she became fascinated with the way villagers made baskets from galvanized wire, and the inspiration for her looped-wire sculptures was ignited. She stated: "I was interested in it because of the economy of a line, making something in space, enclosing it without blocking it out. It's still transparent. I realized that if I was going to make these forms, which interlock and interweave, it can only be done with a line because a line can go anywhere."

In the 1950s and 1960s, her hanging wire sculptures became emblematic midcentury modern images, and were quite successful in the art market.

One room of the exhibit is a recreation of the family's bohemian Noe Valley house, an Arts and Crafts treasure that looks like a huge, all-encompassing art project.

According to Asawa's granddaughter Lilli Lanier, who grew up nearby, "She always had an idea. Come over tomorrow. We're going to draw eggplants. And then we're going to eat them. We'd draw food...and then it would turn into a cooking lesson--how you make Japanese noodles with cilantro and the eggplants you've just drawn." (Pictured is Untitled, Eggplants on Orange Background, 1958.)

In a post on The San Francisco Standard, Erin Feher makes the case that one of Asawa's greatest contributions was her dedication to childrens' arts education (click here). She begins: "Ruth Asawa couldn’t hide her rising anger. As her youngest son, Paul, proudly showed off the hand-traced turkey drawing he had completed at school, Asawa was taken aback. It was autumn 1967, and Paul attended Alvarado Elementary, just down the block from their Noe Valley home...To Asawa, who had studied with Robert Rauschenberg, Josef Albers, and Willem de Kooning, the turkey was an abomination. Asawa acted swiftly, rounding up a small cohort of fellow mothers and PTA members to elevate the arts program at the school. Calling themselves the “Valley Girls,” they scrounged up $50 in donations and launched an experimental summer school in the cafeteria, run completely by volunteers. Students were taught to weave on looms made from packing crates and to make sculptures from papier-mâché."...“My mom was a bulldozer. The things she really wanted, she got them done,” says Paul Lanier, the creator of that maligned turkey art.

The retrospective will be traveling to MOMA in New York and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, so check it out this summer while you have a chance.