On Wings of Song with "Partenope"

The San Francisco Opera is finishing up its summer season with Handel's 1730 Partenope, a three-and-a-half-hour comic romp about the title character being besieged by marriage suitors and the ensuing complications. The six-member cast all sings well and seems to have a real sense of cameraderie onstage, with two star turns by Europeans making their American debuts. Julie Fuchs as Partenope is not only a spectacular singer who makes difficult, ornamented music sound effortless but she is also gorgeously believable as the hostess of a 1920s artistic salon in Paris, where the story has been updated and relocated from ancient Naples by director Christopher Alden. (All production photos are by Cory Weaver.)

Her musical performance is matched note for note by Carlo Vistoli, the Italian countertenor (male soprano) singing Arsace, Prince of Corinth.

The renaissance of Handel operas and other lyric works from the 16th and 17th centuries is a modern phenomenon. Partenope, for instance, had its American premiere in Omaha in 1988, a development which was strangely foreshadowed by the 1979 sci-fi novel On Wings of Song by Thomas Disch. In that book, set in the mid-21st century, the United States has bifurcated into an authoritarian Christian fundamentalist regime in the Midwest and decadent liberal zones along the coast where the rage for castrati singers have made a comeback.

Baritone Hadleigh Adams (top left, with Julie Fuchs in the center)) sings Ormonte and it was lovely to have his lower register balancing out the many soprano voices in the opera. It was never quite clear in this staging who his character was supposed to be, but in compensation he did get to wear the most amusing costumes of the evening. Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack (top right) was Rosmira, Princess of Cyprus, who spends 95% of the opera disguised as a man. She has tracked down Arsace after he jilted her at the altar and makes life hell for him over the course of the opera.

There is another suitor, Emilio, Prince of Cumae, who in the original libretto arrives with an army to reinforce his betrothal bid. In this version, he is based on the artist Man Ray, running around taking lots of photographs. Director Christopher Alden has a great visual sense but his concept productions don't usually make much sense, and Partenope is no exception. Instead of a battle scene between the forces of Partenope and Emilio that are clearly depicted in the Act Two musical score, there is instead just a lot of confusion. Tenor Alek Shrader, seen here with Daniela Mack in drag, nonetheless did a fine job playing the surrealist artist.

There is yet another countertenor suitor, Nicholas Tamagna, singing Armindo, Prince of Rhodes, and he was delightfully piquant as the shy, recessive guy who eventually wins the girl.

The final scene sets up a duel between Arsace and Rosmina in male drag, but the altercation is stopped when Arsace takes off his shirt to fight and demands that Rosmina do the same. Her disguise is revealed and instead of trying to kill each other, they kiss and get married instead.

Between the swift, fabulous conducting of Christopher Moulds and the superlative cast, this production is a diva worshiper's treasure, and I have a few friends who have seen it repeatedly. Chenier Ng, above left, was seeing this production for the third time, and posted this selfie with Carlo Vistoli at the stage door after this Tuesday's performance. There is one more chance to attend this Friday the 28th, and since you probably won't have many more chances to see Partenope in this lifetime , it's highly recommended.

San Francisco Mayoral Candidate Debate

A debate between five candidates for San Francisco Mayor was held Monday evening at the new UC San Francisco Law Center building at the corner of McAllister and Hyde.

Supporters of all five candidates marched about on the sidewalk with signage, with Daniel Lurie having the largest turnout.

The gleaming new building is just a stone's throw away from one of the seedier blocks in the Tenderloin but the doorman for the free, fully booked event was genially competent.

San Francisco is a one-party town for Democrats, who were hosting the debate...

...and various schismatic organizations were represented...

...including the San Francisco Young Democrats who were represented by the amiable, not-young volunteers above.

The basement auditorium held about 500 people, and I was reminded once again what a small village San Francisco can sometimes be. I ran into a lovely ex-colleague I had not seen in 30 years who was there to support Mark Farrell. "I went to the same school as him," she explained, and I replied, "Oh, right, you were part of what I used to call the Convent of the Sacred Heart Girls School coven."

The moderator was KRON-TV reporter Terisa Estacio, who did a fine job keeping the answers to their time limits and firmly shutting down a few of Mayor Breed's more boorish supporters. For one of the better descriptions of the political implications of the debate, check out this article at Mission Local by Junyao Yang.

The first candidate to open with a 90-second opening statement was Mark Farrell, former Supervisor from the Marina District and interim mayor for 6 months when Ed Lee dropped dead while in office. In her rebuttal to an accusation by Farrell, London Breed sarcastically called him "temporary mayor" more than once. Farrell's major theme seemed to be "I'm a native-born San Franciscan and have lived here all my life," and "we need police officers who are native-born," which didn't make much sense.

Ahsha Safaí, the District 11 Supervisor from the Southeast, spoke well and presented his boilerplate speeches with skill. San Francisco has a ranked choice voting system so it's possible he could win with enough third place votes.

Daniel Lurie is an heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune and has been involved with left-leaning nonprofits through his adult life. He's being accused of trying to buy the election, but I think his motives are less about power and more about trying to fix the incompetence and corruption of San Francisco government under Mayor London Breed. Lurie, however, projects zero political charisma even though he seems like a smart and thoughtful person.

That incompetence and corruption certainly didn't start with London Breed. It's structural and she's merely been its caretaker. To give her credit, surrounded by white guys in dull suits and ties, she behaved and looked like a charismatic star and she projects pugilistic power which none of her competitors do.

District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin has seemingly been around forever, but he only turned 60 on this debate night. I'll be voting for him strictly on the basis of competence. He knows how this government works and he's honest. Will he be able to change the old-fashioned pay-for-play corruption? Probably not, but at least he might make a difference.

"Innocence" at SF Opera

The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's final opera, Innocence, had its American premiere at the San Francisco Opera this month and it's a stunner. There are three more performances next week on Sunday the 16th, Tuesday the 18th, and Friday the 21st. If you have not seen it yet, buy a ticket now (click here) because this production is destined to become legendary. (All production photos are by Cory Weaver.)

I didn't know much about the opera beforehand other than it involved a wedding party and a school shooting, and that's all you need to know too. The multilingual libretto is a brilliant work by the Finnish-Estonian novelist Sofi Oksanen in collaboration with Aleksi Barrière, Saariaho's son who has been creating librettos for choral mini-operas for his composer mother since he was a teenager (click here for a WiseMusic article). The opera's complex, multilingual ensemble of characters bleed into each other seamlessly through time and trauma, and though it's confusing at first trying to keep track of them, by the shattering last act of the opera you know something about everyone.

The production by Australian director Simon Stone is a brilliant, shape-shifting wonder, helped immeasurably by the gorgeous, two-story creation of UK set designer Chloe Lamford. The huge structure rotates in both directions throughout the intermissionless, hour-and-three-quarter opera, which is completely destabilizing in a way that physically underlines the many themes of the opera.

A small, invisible stage crew army were given their own bow at the curtain calls and deserved it. They were responsible for the exact, noiseless rotations while slowly stripping the rooms of furniture and props as the story advanced.

Two of the more striking performances are by singers whose music was written specifically for them by Saariaho, and which they have repeated at the four previous European productions over the last three years. The legendary 80-year-old contemporary music soprano Lucy Shelton spoke, sang, whispered and howled as The Teacher whose vocation is destroyed by the school shooting. The Finnish ethno pop singer Vilma Jää sings the role of Student #1 (Markeeta) and she commands the stage every time she appears (check out her music videos here). She is also given the prettiest music in the opera.

Saariaho's original interest was in a multilingual story with many kinds of voices, and she composed a score that contains multitudes with every kind of singing and speaking and language combined. This could easily have been an incomprehensible mess but instead it's a masterpiece that's not like any opera that has come before it.

The operatic soloist characters from the wedding party were all excellent. My favorites were the women: mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Donose as the outraged Waitress (not pictured), Claire de Sévigné as the impossibly chic Mother-in-Law, and Lilian Farahani as The Bride who is one of the few truly innocent characters in the opera.

The orchestra was conducted by Clément Mao-Takacs who has been with this opera since its conception, and the San Francisco Opera orchestra sounded exquisite. My favorite music in the opera was for a large offstage chorus that alternates between commenting, underlining and creating background soundscapes. The SF Opera Chorus, above, was superb.

Nick Dong at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts hosted an opening party last week for their new summer art installation, Nick Dong: 11 to 88.

The Taiwanese/Oakland sculptor Nick Dong (above right) has envisioned a huge project of 88 transcendent art works, and this exhibit is the initial batch of 11.

It is requested that attendees take off their shoes or put on slip-coverings and to otherwise stay quiet.

Most of the sculptures are also engineering marvels involving slow illumination and motion.

Mirrors are also a big part of the equation.

There is a curtained room containing the above piece which has a tiny rotating object in the center of the suspended circle and an evolving light show on the walls and ceiling.

There are four unobrusive chairs where you can sit down and let your mind float into the cosmos.

The piece de resistance is a mirrored room monitored by an attendant outside. You sit on a circular seat in the middle for a three-minute light and mirror show that's strange, psychedelic, and awe-inducing.

The room was too busy last week at the opening so we returned for Free Admission Wednesday today and revisited the near-empty gallery. Check it out.