A 1/2 dozen picks from SFJazz's 30th annual festival

Buika. CAMI photo.

As usual, SFJazz presents a tempting array of diverse artists spanning multiple genres- it's hardly strictly just jazz. There are 28  different shows this year- and while it would be easy to select twelve, selecting almost half the schedule seems gratuitous, so I've narrowed it down to a 1/2 dozen. I'm passing on some huge names- Branford Marsalis, Ornette Coleman, and Gilberto Gil among them, and focusing instead for the most part on shows I think will be rewarding or different enough to take a risk on checking out. This leaves out many of the "traditional" jazz concerts on this year's schedule, but I'm betting there'll be plenty of those to check out when the SFJazz Center new building opens next year, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (January 21st), 2013.

The picks are in order of preference, starting at the top:

The Robert Glasper Experiment  November 1
Listen to Robert Glasper for just a few minutes and it becomes obvious he's absorbed a lot of music on a profoundly deep level. His last SFJazz show was one of the best concerts I saw all year and I'm looking forward to his return in support of his excellent recent album, Black Radio. He fronts two bands, and this one leans toward a harder, hip-hop influenced sound. Casey Benjamin is along on the sax, Mark Colenburg takes the drums (why no Chris Dave this time around?) and the formidable Derrick Hodge anchors on bass.

Buika  November 16
One of NPR's "50 Great Voices," the MaJorcan native (pronounced "BWEE-kah") appeared in Almodovar's last film and has recently released a double album titled En Mi Piel- a fusion of Spanish, Roma, flamenco and jazz influences. She's collaborated with Cucho Valdez, Chick Corea and Anoushka Shankar, Seal and Nelly Furtado to name just a few. Heading West after completing a four-night stand at NY's Blue Note Cafe for her first SFJazz gig, she's come a long way from her days impersonating Tina Turner in Vegas.

Marc Ribot and David Hidalgo  October 24
This description from SFJazz sounds really enticing, and Hildago is an incredibly talented and versatile musician: 

The West Coast debut of the Border Music project brings together two supremely cosmopolitan guitarists, Marc Ribot and David Hidalgo, the latter of Los Lobos fame. As lead guitarist and vocalist of the legendary East LA band, Hidalgo has been a creative force straddling the border of rock, R&B, cumbia, Tex-Mex and country for four decades. Ribot, meanwhile, is a celebrated denizen of New York’s wild and wooly “Downtown” scene, where his Los Cubanos Postizos (The Prosthetic Cubans) devised ingeniously bent arrangements of classic Arsenio Rodriguez tunes. In creating the Border Music project, Ribot and Hidalgo have mashed up their two primary bands, with Los Lobos drummer Cougar Estrada joining Ceramic Dog bassist Shahzad Ismaily, keyboardist Anthony Coleman and percussionist EJ Rodriguez. The amalgam is rootsy and mercurial, thoughtful, soulful and hugely entertaining.

Sounds good to me.
Sonny Rollins  September 30
He's Sonny Rollins. Enough said.

Eliane Elias  October 19
SFJazz brings the Brazilian-born New Yorker to town in support of her new album Swept Away, a collaboration with bassist Marc Johnson, who'll be joining Elias onstage with Rubens de la Corte on guitar and Rafael Barata on drums for a night of smoldering bossa nova.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers  November 10
The first time I saw and heard Lavay Smith was in the upstairs room of the now-defunct Paradise Lounge, a long, long time ago. I had never seen anything quite like her. Here was a woman of the moment singing the sounds of the past and doing it with authority, authenticity, a whole lot of sass and no small amount of sex appeal. All these years later, the lady and her band are still going strong, and have only gotten better with time.

Christian Tetzlaff shreds my stats



Christian Tetzlaff. Photo by Matthew J. Lee of the Boston Globe

 Thanks to a profile in the August 27 issue of The New Yorker (well worth reading, btw), my post from January about Christian Tetzlaff's stunning performance of Ligeti's Violin Concerto with the SF Symphony has been read quite a bit in the last week. This might be a good time to make sure you don't miss his next Bay Area appearance when he returns on February 12 to perform works by Bartók, Ysaÿe, Kurtág, Paganini, and J. S. Bach. The solo recital will take place at Berkeley's First Congregational Church and is presented as part of Cal Performances Koret Recital Series.

A dozen picks from Cal Performance's 2012-13 season

Esa-Pekka Salonen. Photo by David Fray.

Talk about an abundance of riches- Cal Performances is offering more than 60 different programs this year and truly have something for every age and taste. There are visiting circus troupes, theater, dance and ballet companies, orchestras, musicians, and singers from around the world. Despite the attempt to judiciously narrow down the list of contenders in a second pass through the schedule, two dozen choices still remained. What to do? I decided to go with a mix of performers I've never seen and those whose past performances make me loathe the idea of missing the chance to see them again. Such a methodology leaves out a lot- it's so haphazard. It will certainly result in omissions that will embarrass me later. To mitigate that embarrassment I'm going to hedge just a bit and list the top 12 in my own personal order of preference, and then include another dozen in no particular order that I would certainly see if I could. Even stretching the rules to this extreme there shall remain omissions that you, dear reader, would include in your own top 12. But it's my list, and if you're so compelled, the comments section awaits you to add yours.

I've decided not to include what should unequivocally take the number one spot on the list (and is probably the major event of the performing arts season throughout the entire Bay Area, if not the state), because if you don't already have a ticket for Einstein on the Beach you are just about out of luck- at the time of this writing there were only six or seven seats left for the entire run. I'm also not including what would be my third choice, which is the return of the Ojai North! festival next June under the artistic direction of Mark Morris. These performances should be considered a "must" for any classical music enthusiast (and the program has yet to be announced).

Here's the dozen, starting at the top:

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra  November 9,10 & 11
Salonen leads the British orchestra in three different programs: the first night features his own Helix, Beethoven's 7th, and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. The second night is Berg's Wozzeck. The third night is a performance of Mahler's 9th. I would see all three- but if I had to prioritize it would be Wozzeck first, then Mahler, and finally Beethoven. But I'd hate to miss any of it.

The Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra: Swan Lake  October 10-14
This should really not require any explanation, but if you've never seen Swan Lake, you should, and why not see it performed by some of the world's most renowned (and many would argue best) dancers?

Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott  January 24
A musician who needs no introduction, a concert guaranteed to sell out, get a ticket- the program for this evening of duos is a small miracle in its alluring grouping of Stravinksy, de Falla, Brahms, Messiaen and more. If you have never seen Yo-Yo Ma perform before, you really should. Really.

Christian Tetzlaff   February 12
Tetzlaff, a truly interesting musician recently profiled in The New Yorker (Aug. 27, 2012), returns to the Bay Area in this solo recital featuring works by Bartók, Ysaÿe, Kurtág, Paganini, and J. S. Bach. His last local performance (with the SF Symphony) was stunning. Not to be missed. 

Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra   March 17
Hate the name all you want, but this is the biggest jazz event of the season.

Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela  November 29 & 30
Conductor, music director, & sex symbol Gustavo Dudamel brings 200 of his El Sistema charges to the U.S. to perform ¡MUSICA!, two programs featuring music from Latin American composers Chávez, Orbón, and Revueltas on night the first, followed by works from Benzecry, Villa-Lobos, and Estevan on the next. Though I haven't seen Dudamel conduct these performers, just about everyone I know who has raves about their performances. 

Les 7 Doigtsde la Main Circus (The Seven Fingers of the Hand Circus)  May 3-5
The Canadian cirque nouveau troupe brings their fourth production, PSY to Berkeley, which the Boston Herald described "is like having the front row seat to someone else's fever dream. Les 7 Doigts raises the bars on what cirque nouveau can do- not just physically, but emotionally."

Nicolas Hodges  January 27
Hodges returns for another provocative and intriguing recital featuring the world premiere of Harrison Birtwistle's Gigue Machine alongside works by Mozart, Debussy and Stravinsky.

The Calder Quartet performs Nancarrow   November 3
Cal Performances, in collaboration with Other Minds, celebrates the music of Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997) in his 100th birthday year. The remarkable Calder Quartet performs Nancarrow's string quartets, as part of a weekend of performances celebrating Nancarrow's incredible, unexpected, and visionary musical voice. To quote Frank Zappa on Nancarrow's music: "The stuff is fantastic...You've got to hear it." 

Composer Portrait: Esa-Pekka Salonen  November 8
I say go "all in" during the Finn's visit and attend this performance of works composed by Salonen performed by pianist Gloria Chang and others during an evening which also features a discussion between the composer and Cal Performances' director Matias Tarnopolsky.

Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour  January 19
Celebrating 55 years of the festival by taking some great performers on the road, the line-up for this show is about as close to a guaranteed night of great music as can be had, featuring vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christian McBride on bass, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, Benny Green on the drums, sax player Chris Potter, and Lewis Nash on drums.

The Secret Garden  March 1-3,9,10
A collaboration between Cal Performances and San Francisco Opera, this is the world premiere of Nolan Gasser and Carey Harrison's adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's novel. Cast TBA. Sung in English and suitable for the entire family.

The other highly worthwhile dozen (in no particular oder): Theatre de la Ville's production of Ionesco's Rhinoceros, Mummenschanz, the Delfeayo Marsalis Octect, Mark Morris Dance Group's The Hard Nut, Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca, Mohammed Reza Shajarian, Simon Trpčeski, Susanna Phillips, Eric Owens, Australian Chamber Orchestra.

And don't forget Free For All, a day long event of free performances of all types and for all ages, taking place across the UC Berkeley campus on Sunday, September 30. More than two dozen companies will be performing, including Kronos Quartet, Cypress String Quartet, harpsichordist Davitt Moroney, pianist Shai Wosner, carillonist Jeff Davis and the University Chorus and Symphony. Jazz musicians will include saxophonist George Brooks, Brazilian pianist Marcos Silva and Intersection, Pamela Rose’s Wild Women of Song and multiple performances by the UC Jazz Ensembles. Theatrical performances will be given by Eth-Noh-Tec Asian-American Story Theater, Shotgun Players, storyteller Dianne Ferlatte and accompanist Erik Pearson, shadow puppeteer Daniel Barash and UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies. A wide variety of ethnic traditions will be on display by the Lily Cai Chinese Dance Company, Chitresh Das Dance Company performing kathak dance from India, San Francisco-based Gamelan Sekar Jaya, the University’s Gamelan Sari Raras, Kitka singing Eastern European songs and San Francisco Taiko Dojo performing Japanese drumming. All performances and events are free.

Phew.

A dozen picks from SF Performances 2012-13 season

Anne-Sophie Mutter

San Francisco Performances, the City's leading presenter of visiting artists, has some fantastic performers lined up this year, including three of the most prominent violinists in the world (who happen to be female).

The selections are listed in chronological order.

Jonathan Biss (piano), Mark Padmore (tenor), Carey Bell (clarinet), Scott St. John (viola)  October 4
Biss is a young pianist making a name for himself as a musician as well as a thoughtful writer. A featured artist this season, he brings four different programs and line-ups with him (headlining his own series) emphasizing the music of Schumann and his influence. All seem worthwhile, but the presence here of Carey Bell, Principal Clarinet of the San Francisco Symphony and a truly marvelous musician, makes this one a must. Program: Schumann: Märchnerzahlungen, Fantasy; Kurtag: Homage à Schumann; Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte

The Bad Plus  October 12
Reid Anderson, Ethan Iverson and David King comprise one of the most adventurous and intriguing jazz ensembles of the last decade. Rolling Stone magazine said they're "about as badass as highbrow gets." I wish I'd said that. Program: The West Coast Premiere of Rite of Spring (a re-working of Stravinsky's in celebration of its 100th anniversary) and other works.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet  November 4
Thibaudet has been on the scene for so long it's easy to take him for granted. At least I recently felt that way, and had only a marginal interest in seeing him perform with the Symphony last season. Well, I left that concert more impressed with Thibaudet than ever before, and I'm really looking forward to hearing him again in this solo recital featuring some of Debussy's most beautiful compositions. Program: Debussy: Préludes, Book II; Suite Bergamasque; Estampes; L'Isle joyeuse.

Kate Royal and Malcolm Martineau  November 10
In May of 2011 the soprano was to perform a program called "Lesson in Love" but it was cancelled for health reasons. Now she's returning to tell us "The Truth About Love," - a love story told through song featuring works by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Faure, Debussy, Bridge and Britten. She'll be accompanied by the excellent pianist Malcom Martineau.

Pavel Haas Quartet  November 13

Performances of Janáček's masterful first string quartet are rare enough, and though it was recently performed during last June's Ojai North! festival, here's an opportunity to hear it without any of the added distractions that concert featured. That's reason enough to go, but the scheduling of Beethoven's Op. 130, complete with Grosse Fugue, makes this an especially inviting program. Brahms' Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 is also on the schedule.

Hilary Hahn and Valentina Lisitsa  February 9
Hahn and Lisitsa will perform Beethoven's Sonata No. 4 in A minor, Opus 23; Bach's: Sonata No. 2 in A minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1003 and selected shorts commisioned by Hahn from Mason Bates, David Lang, Edgar Meyer, Krzysztof Penderecki, Valentyn Silvestrov, Mark Anthony Turnage, Du Yun and others in the intimate Herbst Theatre. What more do you need to know?

Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis  March 4
Anne-Sophie returns to Davies Symphony Hall for the first time in four years to perform Lutoslawski's Partita; Schubert's Fantasie in C Major, D. 934; Previn's Sonata No. 2; and Saint Saens' Sonata for Violin and Piano in D minor, Op. 75. Again, what more do you need to know?

Jonathan Biss  March 17
Biss' solo recital features Schumann's Fantasiestücke, interspersed with selections from Janáček's On an Overgrown Path and Davidsbündlertänze. What this really means I'm not sure, but Berg's Sonata No. 1 is also on the program and it's always interesting to see this daunting work performed.

Midori  March 23 & 24
Midori performs Bach's Partitas and Sonatas for solo violin. The first evening features Sonatas 1 in G minor and 3 in C Major along with Partita No. 2 in D minor. The second features (yes, this is obvious, but still, for those who can't do the math, here it is-) Partitas No. 1 in B minor and No. 3 in E Major, along with Sonata No. 2 in A minor. Both evenings take place at St Mark’s Lutheran Church, San Francisco.

Luciana Souza  March 30
The unique jazz singer is joined by Romero Lubambo on guitar in a program of Brazilan duos behind the release of Duos III, which commemorates her ten year journey through this musical terrain.

Philip Glass at 75: Koyaanisqatsi  May 26
Godfrey Reggio’s iconic film will be screened with a live performance of its soundtrack by the composer and his ensemble. A truly special event.

Finally, let me just say that if they weren't scheduled for Saturday mornings at 10:00 AM, the Alexander String Quartet's programs during San Francisco Performance's upcoming season could easily have taken up a third of the dozen picks through the combination of their formidable talent, the quality of their programs (Schubert and Britten are prominently featured this season), and the presence of historian/lecturer extraordinaire Robert Greenberg. But they are at 10:00 AM, and that's too early for me to include on this list (I follow my own arbitrary rules)- but if that doesn't sound too early to you, I bet they're going to be wonderful. 

Individual tickets go on sale August 20; series are on sale now. Single tickets may be purchased by calling the main box office at (415) 392-2545 or by visiting the website at sfperformances.org.

A dozen picks for the San Francisco Symphony's 2012-13 season

When the San Francisco Symphony announced their upcoming 2012-13 season back in early March just as the American Mavericks Festival getting underway, I thought the timing was certainly odd. Season announcements are big deals, yet the Symphony chose to do it just as one of the central events (perhaps the central event) of their centennial season was about to begin. It struck me as competing against one's self for attention. It didn't seem to draw a lot of attention or commentary from the usual channels. I took a quick perusal of it, thinking, not surprisingly, hmmm, can't compare to this year (but what could have?) and set it aside. A couple of months later, as the centennial was winding down, I took a second look, this time more in-depth, and was surprised to see discover how much of it I wanted to see- which was almost all of it. In fact, minus the Mavericks festival and visiting orchestras, the upcoming season looks about as good on paper as its predecessor, which is no small accomplishment. On top of that, it's probably the quirkiest schedule they've ever come up with, featuring some extremely alluring concerts that are only scheduled for one or two nights. This makes the task of coming up with a dozen top picks for next season quite difficult. In years past the season was made up of 24 different programs, plus the chamber series, Great Performers, and holiday concerts. Next year there are 37 (at last count- it still seems to be changing) to choose from, plus the usual extras, of which there seem to be even more than usual. It's almost too much to ponder. To complicate things further, after combing through the schedule a few times there are at best only a half-dozen programs that I would skip (due to the music or the conductor featured on the program). That makes it pretty difficult for the average concert-goer, who might attend 3 to 6 performances during the season, to decide on what to attend. I guess that's a good problem to have, but still- I had serious trouble narrowing it down to twelve.

For example, some people will be torn between the October 31st and the November 1st and 2nd concerts. Both feature Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony. But the Halloween gig has Yuja Wang peforming Prokofiev's 2nd piano concerto while the other nights feature Lang Lang playing Bartok's 2nd instead. It's an easy choice for me (Yuja), but I'd still feel like I was missing out one way or the other and I'm sure the folks who choose Lang might also feel conflicted. There are two versions of an all-Stravinsky program featuring The Rite of Spring, both for two nights only, one features Agon and Gil Shaham performing the Violin Concerto, the other has Les Noces and a Russian folk ensemble. I'd want to see both versions, but not back-to-back performances of The Rite of Spring. The Missa Solemnis returns for a mulligan, and for only two nights. Renée Fleming comes into town sing French composers, and Susan Graham joins her for one night only in a different, all-French program. Then there are the "regular" subscription concerts, which also offer plenty to choose from this year.

There's also a healthy dose of Beethoven this year, which in my opinion is never a bad thing, and a great selection of standard rep performed by some world-class soloists and conductors. For relative newcomers to the Symphony and staunch lovers of the "three Bs" and standard rep, this is a fantastic year to splurge and see as much as you can. Yet there's also plenty for those whose ears crave new or more obscure music. All in all, there's a lot to look forward to this year at Davies.

So, with just a couple of exceptions, I'm leaving most of the odd-ducks mentioned above out of contention and selecting mostly picks from the subscription programs, meaning they'll be performed at least three nights. They appear in chronological order and it's just coincidence the majority of them appear in the season's second half.

MTT conducts Mahler's Fifth  September 28-30
Just when you think MTT has shown us just about everything he can possibly do with Mahler, he proves how wrong that assumption is- last year's performance of Mahler's 3rd was one of the very best concerts I've ever witnessed. At this point it might be considered foolish to miss a performance of Mahler's work led the conductor who can arguably lay claim as its most persuasive living interpreter. The West Coast premiere of Samuel Carl Adams' Drift and Providence is also on the program.

Vladimir Jurowski conducts Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev, featuring Khatia Buniatishvili, Elena Zaremba, and Andrey Breus  October 18-20
The Principal Conductor of the London Phil makes debut with the orchestra in a program featuring the Georgian Buniatishvili playing the Rach 2nd (which is reason enough to go), but the main event is the U.S. premiere of Levon Atovmyan's arrangement  of Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible, which the SFS hasn't performed since 1979, as well as the SFS's first performances of Scriabin's Reverie.

MTT and Yuja Wang  October 31st
Yuja performs Prokofiev's 2nd Piano Concerto and MTT leads the orchestra in Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony. On Nov. 1st and 2nd, Wang is replaced by Lang Lang performing Bartok's 2nd Piano Concerto, again with Rach's 2nd Symphony. Kinda strange, especially when you add in the concert of October 27th, when Yuja performs Rach's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the orchestra plays an encore of the Mahler 5th. Confused? Just go on Halloween (assuming you can score a ticket).

MTT and Yefim Bronfman  December 5-8
My personal favorite at the keys, Bronfman's local performances these past years have been consistently stunning. He returns to Davies to play Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. This is a bit of a disappointment because Fima was supposed to perform a new work by Jorg Widmann, but word is it won't be ready on time, so we get the Emperor instead. I can easily live with that. Also on the program is the world premiere of Assistant Concertmaster Mark Volkert's Pandora and R. Strauss' tone poem Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks.

MTT and Renée Fleming  January 10, 12, 13
It's Renée Fleming. That's really all you need to know.
And on January 16 it's Renee Fleming and Susan Graham singing French stuff accompanied by Bradley Moore. Like Christmas, only better.

MTT and Yuja Wang  March 6-9
Yuja returns for Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto, my favorite of the five. Also on the program are Berio's Eindrucke and Brahms' First Symphony. This year features a lot of Yuja and a lot of Beethoven. That's a good thing-especially when it's at the same time.

MTT conducts Mahler's 9th  March 14-17
See comments above for Mahler's 5th. Then get a ticket to hear this.

Blomstedt conducts Wagner, Beethoven and Lidholm  April 11-14
Last season Blomstedt lead truly great performances during his two weeks at the podium. This year he's conducting core rep and modern classics. These concerts, featuring the Eroica symphony, the Prelude from Tristan un Isolde (perhaps the greatest fifteen minutes of music ever written) and Ingvar Lindholm's last twelve tone work from 1963, just may be the one I'm most looking forward to hearing.

Blomstedt and Julia Fischer  April 17-20
The second week of Blomstedt's visit features Fischer as the soloist for Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Nielsen's Symphony No. 5 by one of the composer's best interpreters. This will be a night of incredibly rich music.

Christoph Eschenbach and Matthias Goerne  April 25-27
Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1 is a draw unto itself, and there also the ever-popular From the New World by Dvořák, but the real attraction here is Goerne, whose recitals last year drew raves from coast-to-coast. I missed his last local performance, but won't make that mistake again. He'll be singing "Die Frist is um" from The Flying Dutchman and Wotan's Farewell from Die Walküre. 

MTT conducts Beethoven's Missa Solemnis  May 10, 11
Last year this didn't quite work. Let's try it again.

West Side Story in concert  June 27-30, July 2
I don't even care that the cast hasn't been announced yet. Nothing would keep me from seeing this one. Nothing.

Tickets are now on sale for all concerts. Call (415) 864-6000 or buy them online.

LA Opera's 2012-13 season: Bunt!

Marina Poplavskaya

If you ever played Little League baseball, surely you remember some parental troll in the bleachers yelling "A bunt's as good as a hit!" But everyone on the field knew that wasn't the truth- nothing feels better than a solid hit. LA Opera announced their next season today, and it's definitely a mixed bag, the programming equivalent of a bunt- good enough to keep the game going, maybe even score a run or two, but it seems like the safe way out- and disappointing in the long run. With the exception of the Verdi rarity I Due Foscari, the season is wall-to-wall warhorses. Well-cast warhorses for the most part, but there's something dispiriting about a season in which the most intriguing thing on it is an opera by Verdi. Don't get me wrong- the notion of Domingo, Marina Poplavskaya and Franceso Meli in a Verdi opera no one around these parts has seen in forever is tantalizing to be sure, but after that? Lots to see, but little to be truly excited about except for Sondra Radvanovsky as Tosca, which is somewhat undermined by having Domingo conduct.

On the plus side, none of these productions have previously been seen in LA, though I've seen a couple of them here in San Francisco, so let's begin with those.

Raimund Bauer's set design for Die Fliegende Hollander was one of those productions people either loved or loathed, and I loved every minute of it and would happily see it again. So this is a plus, though I also really liked the Julie Taymoor Dutchman I saw in LA a few years back and would have been pleased to see the original version make a return. As for the cast, Jay Hunter Morris as Erik is obviously a good thing, though Elisabete Matos as Senta is an unknown quantity, as is Tomas Tomasson, whom I saw in SFO's production of The Queen of Spades, but frankly I don't remember much about his performance.

The other SFO production is Butterfly- not the most recent, which was imported from Chicago I think, and a total disaster, but the Michael Yeargan production which was seen so many times in SF that it needed to be retired from sheer exhaustion. But it's a good one if you've never seen it. The cast is an embarrassment of riches and can I just say right now that it's something of a travesty to see a singer as fine as Eric Owens cast in the role of Sharpless? Mr. Owens, fire your management team- you should be headlining operas world-wide- not taking secondary roles in warhorses. The magnificent Brandon Jovanovich is Pinkerton (he's great in this role) and Oksana Dyka should make for an interesting Butterfly.

LAO's production of Don Giovanni in 2003 with Erwin Schrott (conducted by Nagano) was as good as it gets, so we'll have to see if Ildebrando D'Arecengelo in this production from Chicago can eclipse that. Having Soile Isokowski as Donna Elvira will certainly go a long way toward making that happen and it's nice to see the phenomenally talented Joshua Bloom return to the West Coast. Go on a night when Conlon is conducting.

I know nothing about the cast or production for La Ceneretola, but LAO has a good track record with Rossini these past few years and though it's too bad Nino Machaidze isn't on the schedule this season (what's up with that, by the way?), I'd say based on the recent past this is a safe bet since Conlon's on the podium. If any company can make a claim to doing right by Rossini in recent years, it's LAO.

So that brings us to Tosca. On the one hand it has Radvanovsky in it, along with the excellent Marco Berti as Cavaradossi. This alone is reason to be excited, but I sure wish Conlon was at the helm of this one. Still, Sondra is Sondra, and how can you miss this?

Overall, it's the cautious programming being seen almost everywhere, but at least in this case what's on the stage promises to be good. A step back for what has been an adventurous company in recent years, but not a mis-step. 

San Francisco Opera: the 2012-13 season

Interior of the War Memorial Opera House. Photo by David Wakely

San Francisco Opera's General Director David Gockley has done the improbable and created an upcoming season I'm actually excited about for the first time during his tenure. Eight operas are scheduled for 2012-13 (I'm not including the world premiere co-production with Cal Performances of The Secret Garden since that's being staged at Zellerbach), and though the season largely follows Gockley's established pattern of presenting a stable of recently staged warhorses, he's also included two premieres of contemporary, English-language operas, with another on the way the following year (based on Stephen King's Dolores Claibourne). That's a bold move in the current climate and the riskiest thing he's done in San Francisco so far. After the two premieres, the appeal of 2012-13 is in the well-cast standard rep not seen locally for a long time. It's the best schedule SFO has announced since Rosenberg's era and hopefully it works as well onstage as it looks on paper.

Rigoletto brings back Michael Yeargan's well-worn production ('06, '01, and '97) for 12 performances. The title role is shared by Zeljko Lucic and Marco Vratogna. His daughter Gilda will be performed by Aleksandra Kurzak and Albina Shagimuratova.  Lucic was good the last time the company staged Verdi's La Forza, but the presence of David Lomeli in the role of the Duke of Mantua makes my choice the cast led by Vratogna. On the other hand, Kurzak recently won great accolades in LA Opera's Cosi, so one probably can't go wrong with either cast. It's a dark and claustrophobic production which I've enjoyed the previous times I've seen it. My one question for director Harry Silverstein is will there be breasts this time- or  is the San Francisco audience too provincial? Luisotti conducts one of Verdi's very best.

Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues) has only been seen on the War Memorial stage once before in 1991. Conductor Riccardo Frizza (last year's Lucrezia) returns  to lead an excellent cast featuring Joyce DiDinato, Eric Owens, Saimir Pirgu (another singer well-reviewed in LA's Cosi) and Nicole Cabell, who seems poised for the next level. The presence of DiDonato and Owens are reason enough to attend, even if a Bel Canto version of Romeo and Juliet isn't necessarily your thing.

Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick makes its local debut after receiving a tremendous reception at its world premiere in Dallas. Ben Heppner and Jay Hunter Morris (Siegfried) share the role of the obsessed Captain Ahab. While Heppner's the more more established singer, the quickly-rising Morris is the one to see. Depending on the state of Heppner's voice, Morris may well end up performing more than the two performances for which he's scheduled. Patrick Summers conducts.

Puccini's Tosca was last staged here in 2009 and its the same Thierry Bosquet set and costumes seen previously for what seems like the last 100 years, but is in fact only the fifth time since 1997. Should still seem fresh, right? Twelve performances with two casts and a battle of the divas between Patricia Racette and Angela Gheorghiu in the title role. Racette's the local favorite, but Gheorghiu's appearances are rarer and she strikes me as the more interesting of the two in the role, which neither have sung in San Francisco before. So personally I'd go with Angela, assuming she actually shows up, but if you've never seen Tosca go with Racette- the supporting cast of Brian Jadge and Mark Delevan certainly trumps Massimo Giordano and Roberto Frontali. Luisotti conducts all performances.

Wagner's Lohengrin hasn't seen the War Memorial stage since 1996 and it returns with what may end up being the strongest cast of the season. The marvelous tenor Brandon Jovanovich sings the title role for the first time. The presence of Kristinn Sigmundsson, Petra Lang, and Brian Mulligan in the tale of the lustful knight all bode well, and though Camilla Nylund is an unknown in these parts, she'd have to muck it up pretty badly to keep this from being first-rate all the way around. The production is new to San Francisco and the only iffy thing about it is whether or not Luisotti can conduct Wagner. He did very well with Strauss two years back, so that's a good omen of what will come from the pit.

The allure that Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) holds for many has thus far eluded me, but I've never seen it performed before. This should be an excellent introduction- Natalie Dessay plays the four loves of Matthew Polenzani's title character, with Alice Coote and Christian Van Horn along for the telling. Conductor Patrick Fournillier ably led Cyrano recently and Laurent Pelly's productions are usually a delight (La Fille du Regiment).

Cosi Fan Tutte is the one opera of Mozart's I absolutely love, so who cares if this is the same production from way back in 2005. It was great then and with a young, vibrant cast featuring Ellie Dehn, Heidi Stober, Susannah Biller and Phillipe Sly, it should be quite fun. Luisotti hasn't convinced me yet that he has any facility with Mozart, but if there's one opera where he can prove himself, it's Cosi.

The world premiere of composer Mark Adamo's The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is bound to be somewhat controversial- or at least it should be if it's done well. Mary has a strong cast featuring Sasha Cooke finally appearing on the other side of Grove Street in the title role, barihunk Nathan Gunn as Jesus, and William Burden, whose singing was the only thing I found worthwhile in last year's Heart of a Soldier, as Peter. Everything else is new, including conductor Michael Christie, making his SFO debut. Everything except the story, that is.

Ranking them in order of personal anticipation, top to bottom:
Lohengrin
Moby-Dick
The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene
I Capuleti e i Montecchi
Les Contes d'Hoffmann
Cosi fan tutte
Rigoletto
Tosca