Teens Against Fascism

The remains of a small march protesting Trump fascism ended in Civic Center this Saturday afternoon, drawing me towards them siren-like when I heard a beautiful soprano voice wafting across the plaza.

There was also a band setup with what looked like teenagers on various instruments.

Most of the anti-Trump marches this year have skewed older so it was a joy to see what looked to be 90% young people in the group.

The musicians were surprisingly skillful while playing a jazzy instrumental.

Popular movements blossom when the Cool Kids are participating, and this had a whiff of young influencers joining and leading the resistance, a welcome development.

The Schwabacher Summer Concert

The Schwabacher Summer Concert is an annual event that has aspiring opera professionals perform operatic scenes accompanied by a full orchestra. Created by the Merola Opera Program, which is a summer bootcamp for a couple of dozen young artists, the Schwabacher is usually a slapdash affair that features a few promising singers surrounded by others that are not quite ready for prime time. This year's outing from director Omer Ben Seadia at the SF Conservatory of Music, however, featured the strongest vocal roster and best staging that I have ever encountered at these concerts. The evening started with bass-baritone Justice Yates and baritone Gabriel Natal Báez in a silly scene from an early Donizetti comic opera, Il camponello, that was a delight. In particular, the young Puerto Rican baritone, Natal Báez, sang with a strong, richly warm voice that was a major highlight in all three of his appearances. (All production photos are by Kristen Loken.)

The first half of the program was a Donizetti-thon, with Il camponello followed by two scenes from the composer's Roberto Devereux. Donizetti's dramatic operas tend to be virtuoso vocal showcases, usually revived for operatic superstars, and there was a fear that the young singers would be overmatched. However, they all came through triumphantly, including mezzo-soprano Ruby Dibble as Sara, Roberto's beloved who has married the Duke of Nottingham on the orders of Queen Elizabeth.

Tristan Tournaud as the jealous Roberto has a pretty tenor voice that blended nicely with Dibble's fluent performance.

This was followed by a couple of scenes from Anna Bolena with a magnificent performance by Charlotte Siegel as the doomed queen who has to deal with former lover Percy, sung by tenor Jin Yu, and her lovesick page Smeton, beautifully sung by Anna Maria Vacca (not pictured).

The scene culminated in the arrival of Enrico (Henry VIII) who has everyone arrested before their eventual execution.

After intermission, the program veered away from Donizetti into Puccini's Suor Angelica with mezzo-soprano Sadie Cheslak as The Princess being horrible to her niece, the pathetic Suor Angelica sung by soprano Alexa Frankian. This was an audience favorite (not pictured), but I preferred what followed: soprano Ariana Cossette as Leonora and mezzo-soprano Anna Maria Vacca singing the difficult aria/duet from Act I of Verdi's Il Trovatore (pictured).

The concert ended with Act II of Donizetti's comedy Don Pasquale, with the title role sung in a gorgeously resounding bass by John Mburu, accompanied by a nice performance from baritone Joeavian Rivera.

The antic direction by Elio Bucky helped to ameliorate the sadistic, unfunny story of a group of conspirators out to torture a rich, pompous old fool, and though soprano Chea Kang was never quite convincing as a phony innocent from the convent, she was thoroughly in her element as a hellraising whirlwind, and she sang the role as if it was written for her.

The orchestra, seated onstage behind the singers, was led by conductor William Long and they sounded lively and lovely in the all-Italian music. Special mention should also go to Galen Till, credited as the "Formalwear Coordinator." The Schwabacher concerts over the years usually had a mishmash of formal dresses and tuxedos that often clashed with the characters they were playing, but this year everyone was garbed in complementary but differentiated black clothing that looked good on everyone. Congratulations to everyone involved.

Alebrijes & Nahuales at Yerba Buena Gardens

Huge, colorful, and fantastic sculptures appeared suddenly in Yerba Buena Gardens in early May and just as suddenly exited in late June. (Pictured is The Coyote by Efrain Fuentes.)

We had gone to see the free Circus Bella show when we stumbled across them. (Click here for Yerba Buena's roster of free summer performances.)

According to the Yerba Buena website, there was a huge cultural festival in Lille, France in 2019 called El Dorado that focused on Mexico. One of the major highlights of the festival were 10 large sculptures lining Lille's main street that were 22-foot enlargements of alebrijes, which are small wooden sculptures of imaginary animals that have long been created in Oaxaca, Mexico. (Pictured is The Dog by Adrián Xuana.)

The statues traveled to Paris for six months but went into storage when the COVID pandemic arrived. This U.S. tour of eight sculptures is a new version and they are extraordinary. (Pictured is The Happy Alien by Constantino Blas.)

A few of them are nahuales, spirit animals for human beings. (Pictured is The Cat Nahual by Angélico Jiménez.)

Check out this website to see where the sculptures are traveling next. The U.S. tour began in San Francisco and continues in Reno for the month of July, San Jose in August and September, Fresno in October and November, and the rest of the United States in 2026. (Pictured is Catbird by the famous Mexico City artist Leonardo Linares.)

Verdi's Requiem at the SF Symphony

The 2024-2025 SF Symphony season was scheduled to begin last fall with music for chorus and large orchestra by Gordon Getty (pictured above) and Verdi's Requiem. However, it was canceled at the last moment because management was threatening draconian cuts to the paid members of the Symphony Chorus and when there was pushback, management canceled the concerts. Nine months later, the concert was rescheduled with conductor James Gaffigan replacing the recently departed Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, who had his own issues with SF Symphony management.

I wrote a mean assessment of Gordon Getty ten years ago (click here) when the SF Opera presented his one-act The Fall of the House of Usher in 2015. In an older, more forgiving mood, let's just say that I am happy he donates so much money to musical institutions locally. That money probably helped to subsidize the Verdi Requiem performance Sunday afternoon that followed twenty minutes of Getty's three songs for chorus and orchestra with poetry written by the composer himself. He was even kind enough to pose for a photo with my spouse.

The Friday evening opener received mixed reviews from Michael Zwiebach and Joshua Kosman, but something came together two days later for a truly magnificent performance on Sunday afternoon. (All production photos are by Kristen Loken.)

The four soloists were soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, tenor Mario Chang, and bass Morris Robinson, and they were all in great voice which presumably was not the case on Friday evening.

Though I worship Verdi, I had never connected with his Requiem in a live performance before. It had always sounded overlong, bombastic, and dull in its quieter moments, but on Sunday afternoon everything clicked. Conductor James Gaffigan leaned into the operatic nature of the work and led a gripping rendition of of the mass's 90 minutes of meditation on heaven and hell. It was one of the best performances I have heard from him with this orchestra in some time.

It also helped that the soloists were so good. The voice of mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, in particular, carried over the huge orchestra and chorus while sounding like creamy butter, and Morris Robinson's bass was powerful enough that it sounded like he could personally open the gates of heaven or hell.

The chorus, saved from penury by an anonymous donor at the beginning of the season, was superb throughout, with a dynamic range from soft to loud that was remarkable.

Congratulations to everyone for making me fall in love with Verdi's Requiem for the very first time.

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.