Cal Performances 2013-14 season: a dozen picks

Mitsuko Uchida.

As usual, it is extremely difficult to choose among the bounty of riches offered by Cal Performances this coming season. My original list still numbered 20 shows and the only way I whittled it down was to first remove performers one had a chance to see elsewhere, including such favorites as Yefim Bronfman, Stephanie Blythe, YoYo Ma, and Joshua Redman. That still left a lot on the table, so in the end I went with the rare, the exotic, and the too good to pass up. However, I encourage you to check their entire schedule to see what I left out, which is a diverse lot of performers well worth seeing. Below are the twelve I wouldn't want to miss, listed in chronological order. Since many of these are performers I haven't seen, in some cases I've used Cal's description of the event.

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette. Oct 4.
The most formidable living jazz trio, now performing together for 30 years, returns. Who knows what they'll play? It doesn't really matter. Guaranteed to sell out.

Nederlands Dans Theater. Oct 23, 24
From Cal: The highly influential and stylistically innovative Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) has boasted some of the most daring choreography, conceptually compelling drama, and technically dazzling movement in modern dance history. NDT's 2011 groundbreaking Berkeley visit featured unforgettable work by the company's resident choreographer team of Paul Lightfoot and Sol León. Now, the company returns with more of Lightfoot and León's signature magic with two West Coast premieres. Sehnsuchttakes place in a surreal revolving cube, set to the music of Beethoven. Clever and hilarious, Schmetterling finds dancers revealing their personalities against a score by the Magnetic Fields. "They are the world's most magnificent dancers, a retina-shredding spectacle of passion and power" (Sunday Herald, Glasgow). 

Mariza Oct. 30
If you've heard Ana Moura perform, then you know the sensuous appeal of the fado singer. I've never seen Mariza, but I'm pleased more of this music is making its way here. From Cal: No living singer conveys the achingly beautiful, nostalgic, ecstatic music of Portuguese fado with more style and passion than superstar fadista Mariza. Dubbed "the Sade of fado" by the New York Times, Mariza is a regal and alluring presence onstage, able to make a large hall feel as intimate as a tavern, with "a voice schooled in fado's depths" (The Independent, London). Mariza refreshes classics of the genre and adds modern repertoire from Brazil, Cuba, and beyond, backed by a band that effortlessly weaves the music's African roots with contemporary styles.

Union Tanguera: Niut Blanche. Nov. 17
Tango time. From Cal: Combining the sensuality and intimacy of social dance with the formal expressivity of grand theater, Unión Tanguera's latest work features a cast of virtuoso tango dancers and musicians in a story set in a nightclub over the course of a single sleepless night, or nuit blanche. The French Argentinian ensemble is co-directed by Claudia Codega and Esteban Moreneo, who studied with the greatest tango maestros of the 1980s and 1990s, and who now represent a new generation of tango choreographers whose work "intelligently reinterprets the vocabulary of pure tango" (Danseur). The company visits on its first American tour, with an ensemble of first-call Buenos Aires musicians and a production "perfect in rhythm and spirit" (Ballet 2000).

Wu Man.  Jan 26
I first saw Wu Man perform with Kronos a couple of years ago. I never wrote about it, but it was one of the best performances I saw that year. Man, who plays the pipa, is a musician of stunning dexterity and imagination. She lit a fire under Kronos and in the audience with her contagious enthusiasm. I'm really looking forward to seeing her in this solo recital.

Calder Quartet.  Feb 23
The more I see these musicians the more they intrigue me with their virtuosity and repertoire selections- they perform with a heady mix of talent and intellect. From Cal: The Calder Quartet is at the vanguard of an exhilarating new generation of American string quartets breathing renewed life into classic repertoire and forging new paths forward through close relationships with living composers. The Los Angeles-based ensemble, fresh off its post as the Juilliard Graduate Resident String Quartet, returns to Cal Performances for Schubert's masterful rumination on mortality, the Death and the Maiden quartet; and a rarely performed Schoenberg quartet featuring soprano. "These four players exuded a kind of rapture in which they were very much in tune with not only the pulse on the page or the score's moody melodies and richly somber harmonies, but also of each other" (Los Angeles Times). 

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.  Mar. 7-9
A truly special event. Three performances, each with a different program and conductor, to hear one of the world's best orchestras. I would choose the Sunday concert led by Franz Welser-Möst, but I doubt one would one be any less great than the others. From Cal:

 No other musical ensemble is more closely associated with the history and tradition of European classical music than the Vienna Philharmonic. Over a formidable 170-year history, the musicians of this orchestra have maintained a tradition of beauty and excellence in music-making—enjoying close associations with many of the most influential composers—Wagner, Verdi, Bruckner, Brahms, Liszt, Strauss, Mahler—and conductors—Richter, Furtwängler, von Karajan, Bernstein—in the history of music. The Vienna Philharmonic visits Berkeley for a three-concert residency with repertoire shining a light on the orchestra's deep connection to its famous musical legacy. 

Highlights include Italian conductor Daniele Gatti, a renowned Mahler interpreter, in a program including Mahler's 4th Symphony; Brahms's Third Symphony (premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic in 1883) conducted by stellar Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons—"the next big thing among young conductors" (New York Times); and an exploration of enduring scores by influential Viennese composers (and a contemporary work from a composer who is creating in Vienna today), conducted by Franz Welser-Möst—a rare chance to experience his magnificent music-making beyond Cleveland where he is music director of The Cleveland Orchestra. 
The Vienna Philharmonic's residency will also include extensive activities in the community and with UC Berkeley students, including master classes, chamber music, and a special symposium focusing on the history of the orchestra.

Trey McIntyre Project. Mar. 21 &22
Based on what I've heard over the past couple of years I'm beginning to feel I'm really missing out on something for not having seen this company perform on their last visit. Time to change that, with this program featuring the music of Henry Cowell. From Cal: Choreographer Trey McIntyre creates innovative, fun, and technically daring contemporary ballet that speaks uniquely of the American moment. With more than 90 works to his credit, McIntyre's choreography has been praised for its "singular connection between movement and spirit" (Los Angeles Times), an athletic style that is both winningly clever and earnestly soulful. McIntyre's works reflect on timeless human themes like loss, wonder, and innocence, and he has been inspired by topics as far-ranging as Shakespearean tragedy, the 1970s children's record Free to Be...You and Me, and post-Katrina New Orleans. The company returns after its warmly received Cal Performances debut two seasons ago, with McIntyre's (serious), a gripping work that explores emotional alienation and social tension. 

Mitsuko Uchida. Mar 25
Finally, a chance to see this legendary pianist, and in the smaller, more intimate Hertz Hall. She'll be performing Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and Schubert's Sonata in G major, Op. 78. Not to be missed, but the tickets start at $100 (!) ... so if that's a bit pricey, also on the same night there's Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (from Cal): "The extraordinary skill of the Trocks proves that to undo ballet, one must first be able to do ballet" (The Telegraph, London). The all-male drag ballet company, affectionately known as the Trocks, specializes in a loving critique of the conventions and traditions of ballet: campy and hysterical, but informed and beautifully executed. The company has become an international dance phenomenon, performing canonical works alongside more obscure ballets, dolled up in fabulous costumes, thick makeup, and sporting Ken-doll wigs—all en pointe. The fact that men dance all the parts—heavy bodies delicately balancing on toes as swans, nymphs, princesses—enhances, rather than mocks, the spirit of dance as an art form, delighting knowledgeable ballet audiences and novices alike. 

Kronos Quartet with Combat Paper Project: A Meditation on the Great War. April 6
A new collaboration project from Kronos, which is constantly pushing the boundaries. This looks very promising. From Cal: A Meditation on the Great War, a collaboration with Iraq war veteran-turned-visual artist Drew Cameron of the Combat Paper Project, commemorates the centennial of the outbreak of World War I with a new multimedia work exploring history and its haunting of the present: a newly commissioned score by composer Aleksandra Vrebalov inspired by anti-war narratives of that era, and new film by Bill Morrison that draws from archival WWI footage. Kronos, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, is an incubator of ideas, always ready to ask us to reflect on our role in world events, and the history we are all creating. 

Christianne Stotijn, Rick Stotijn & Joseph Breini.  April 13.
From Cal: One of the great mezzos of our day, blazing a trail in Europe and more recently in the U.S., mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn joins forces with double bassist Rick Stotijn and longtime collaborator, pianist Joseph Breinl, for a program of intimate solo, duo, and trio works embracing lush Romanticism, cabaret humor, charming folk song, and unbridled virtuosity. Christianne, a charismatic and passionate interpreter of art songs, has earned an international reputation for her performances of Mahler in particular—she is "that artist in a thousand whose personality shines through everything she does" (BBC Music Magazine). Rick, celebrated for his performances of Bottesini's bass repertoire, is principal bassist with Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The recital includes arrangements of Ravel, Bolcom, and Glinka, plus two works composed especially for the trio: Ned Rorem's song cycle based on Shakespeare's sonnets, and a new piece by Dutch composer Michel van der Aa. 

Mark Morris Dance Group and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale: Acis and Galatea.  April 25-27
You don't want to miss this. From Cal:  Cal Performances, Mark Morris Dance Group, and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra present their latest joint undertaking, the world premiere of a production featuring Mozart's brilliant arrangement of a Handel score. An epic love story from Ovid's Metamorphoses set along the pastoral banks of the Mediterranean, Acis and Galateais performed in English by four vocalists and the Mark Morris Dance Group, joined by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale. Handel finished the opera in 1739 and Mozart later arranged it in the classical style, expanding the instrumental colors of the score and adding his signature clarity of orchestration. A feast for the eyes as well as the ears, the new production features sets and costumes by Adrianne Lobel and Isaac Mizrahi, previous collaborators with Morris on King Arthur and Platée. 

Don't forget Cal Performances begins every season with their free, family-friendly, and day long celebration of the performing arts, Free For All, which takes place all over the Berkeley campus on Sunday, Sept. 29. Also, leave room on your calendars for next year's Ojai North! festival, which takes place in mid-June and will be curated by pianist/writer Jeremy Denk.

Tickets for all performances are now on sale. Design-Your-Own and other subscriptions are available and include a discount of up to 25%. You can order online, by phone (510) 642-9988, or in person. The Ticket Office is located at the northeast corner of Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Ticket Office hours are: Tue - Fri, 12 - 5:30 pm; Sat & Sun, 1 pm - 5 pm, and approximately one hour prior to curtain. (Holiday and University break hours may vary; please call for updates before visiting the Ticket Office).  $20 rush tickets are often available ($10 for Cal students), announced three hours before the concert and notification seems to go up first on their Facebook page. Cal Performances is easily accessible via BART (Downtown Berkeley exit), with plenty of dining options nearby, book and record stores to browse in beforehand, and the weather often makes me question why I don't move back to Berkeley.

The Goat Rodeo Sessions (recovered)

On Saturday night Cal Performances presented Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer and Stuart Duncan, a collaboration that goes under the name The Goat Rodeo Sessions, to a thrilled full house at UC Berkeley's Greek Theater. While it was hardly strictly bluegrass, American roots music was the foundation upon which most of the evening's music built upon, though there were definite classical strains to be heard, and even what could be called "new-age" (before the term became associated with ersatz easy-listening). Though Ma is obviously a big part of the quartet's box-office appeal, what made the evening work is the musical parity between the participants.

In fact, it was Thile who emerged as the group's natural leader on the stage. The musicianship of each player draws attention, and each has numerous moments to shine individually, but it's Thile to whom one's attention constantly returns as he plays the mandolin at the extreme ends of the instrument's range, mesmerizing whether he's robustly plucking or gently strumming. Ma is the epitome of the gracious, warm performer, both toward the audience and his fellow musicians, and despite his status as the world's most popular classical musician, the Goat Rodeo Sessions is a real ensemble. Everyone shines and each possesses a distinct musical and personal charisma- obviously at ease with the audience and each other as they took turns trading quips, sharing anecdotes, and discussing the music between songs.

They played all of the tracks from their 2011 album of the same name. Beginning with "Quarter Chicken Dark," the melody of which so strongly resembles a pop song that's been lodged in my mind the for two days but I can't pull from its recesses, then strode deeply through bluegrass terrain, played with some Bach, and spent a healthy amount of time musically straddling both. Singer Aoife O'Donovan joined them for three tracks, adding her rich mezzo to the mix, blending well with Thile's vocals. Meyer, whom I've only seen perform on the double bass before this evening, proved an adept, thoughtful pianist and Thile provided one of the show's highlights when he switched with seeming ease (and gusto) to the violin.


The audience responded with a level of enthusiasm more often found at rock concerts and the musicians seemed both surprised and genuinely pleased by the warm reception. They shouldn't have been. While the Goat Rodeo Sessions isn't an evening of trailblazing music, it's good, authentic music performed with exceptional skill and obvious heart.

With special thanks to Lisa Hirsch for assisting in recovering this post.

About last month... Ojai in Berkeley

Let me ask you a question: do you do something you know you shouldn't and feel bad about doing it? And does doing that thing make you feel stupid? Or self-conscious? Then you unexpectedly see someone you admire, or who you know is not a loser, doing the very same thing and suddenly, while it doesn't make it okay, you know you're not the only idiot loser in the world?

I felt that way as I was walking up to Hertz Hall on the Berkeley campus for my second day of the Ojai North festival and saw Mark Morris outside of the building, ridiculously dressed in shorts, sandals, and dark grey socks, sitting there outside of the stage door on the edge of a planter smoking a cigarette. I had just bought my first pack after not having a single cigarette in five months and was about halfway through it, feeling a wave of self-loathing with each flick of my Bic. And there sat a genius, a man whose life should be so full and rewarding and interesting that it would be an absurd thought to think that such a person would even consider to do something as ridiculous as smoke cigarettes. It's a habit for losers. And Presidents. And yet there he was, puffing away in his anti-fashion that only geniuses can get away with wearing in public without fear or concern of derision.

Two nights before I had been there to see his troupe perform a powerful, mesmerizing Rite of Spring, accompanied by an explosive musical interpretation by the Bad Plus. Had Morris' group not led off the program with an amazing display of precision which included using the dancer's feet hitting the floor as percussion instruments accompanying the superb American String Quartet in a beautiful performance of Mosaic and United, the jazz trio would have stolen the show courtesy of David King's drumming, Reid Anderson's masterclass exhibition of what can be done with the bass, and Ethan Iverson's otherworldly piano skills. But Morris' troupe beat out a rhythm on the floor to Henry Cowell's string quartets of the same names, twitched their limbs like butterflies bursting from a chrysalis, and made me seriously regret missing some of their local performances during the past couple of years. Elements of the production reminded me of last year's Einstein on the Beach. 

Two nights later Sheila met me for the closing programs, which could have been subtitled More American Mavericks. Organist Colin Fowler came out shoeless and performed on the organ by Ives, Cowell, Vincent Perischetti and William Bolcom. The Ives piece, "Variations on America," written in 1892, was a revelation- the psychedelica of Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" pales in comparison to this intriguing and alluring blast of sound. Perischetti's "Sonatine" (1940), played with only the feet upon the pedals, struck me as more of a gimmick than anything else by the time it was over, but it was interesting to watch and realize how much sound can be made on an organ without using keys or knobs and whatever they have. Bolcom's "La Cathedralw engloutie (Rock of Ages)" from 1979 was like a 50's low-budget sci-fi flick scored by Ligeti- in other words, it was pretty great. If nothing else, Henry Cowell's "Hymn and Fuguing Tune No 14" (1962) exposed Deep Purple's Jon Lord as having very few original ideas, since Cowell seems to have encapsulated every great Purple keyboard riff in his own seemingly tossed-off tune long a few years before the band's formation, and the same thing can be said for Goblin, the Italian group on the soundtrack of who knows how many of Dario Argento's giallo horror flicks. In the second half Fowler put on some shoes and was joined by the red fish blue fish percussion ensemble for an interesting version of Lou Harrison's Concerto for Organ with Percussion Orchestra which started off great and then lapsed into merely interesting mode before wrapping it up with a Poppa-Ooo-Mow-Mow bang. It sounded like an entirely different piece than the one performed by the San Francisco Symphony last year. I liked the SFS version quite a bit more.

Speaking of the SFS, as we re-entered the hall for the final show of the festival, I noticed MTT enter the house through the stage door (quite nicely dressed, mind you). The show began with Cowell's "Heroic Dance For Martha Graham" performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group Music Ensemble, which is quite a mouthful, and it was okay. Frankly, I barely remembered it after what followed, which was the jaw-droppingly freakadelic orgasamajam of Cowell's Atlantis (1931), performed by the MMDGME with soprano Yulia Van Doren, mezzo Jamie Van Eyck, and barefoot bass-baritone Douglas Williams. I'm not even sure how to really describe what initially seemed to be a bizarre display of grunts, growls, gasps and ecstatic sighs performed by each singer into microphones morphed into one of the most delightful and alive musical performances I've witnessed in quite some time, but that pretty much sums it up. That each singer performed their part with enthusiastic abandon (though Van Eyck seemed a bit hesitant at first) only made it that much more delicious. If you ever get the opportunity to attend a live performance of this, do not miss it. Unfortunately I can't find a full-length recording of it to share with you, but perhaps that's for the good because it really is one of those things one must experience live.

The second half, featuring the music of Lou Harrison, couldn't top the first, though it wasn't for lack of trying as red fish blue fish performed "Fugue for Percussion"(1942) and then Fowler returned with some shoes on and joined the Gamelan Sari Raras for "Concerto for Piano and Javanese Gamelan." Harrison's score for the latter work calls for a non-standard tuning for the piano to sound more in tune with the gamelans, but I found it distracting and eventually displeasing- I have no idea if that's due to the timbre of the piece or perhaps the piano tuning didn't quite hit the right spot, but with the second of three movements consisting mostly of the mistuned piano, it was like listening to something which just sounded wrong. However, it blended well with the gamelans in the first and (especially in the) third movements. Still, while the variously sized gamelans produced an interesting array of sound textures, what I really wanted by that point was something that could top Atlantis, and this wasn't it.

This was the third season of Ojai North! presented by Cal Performances and the Ojai Music Festival, and I'm already looking forward to next year's model which will be planned by my pal Jeremy Denk.

Eric Owens in Berkeley

Eric Owens possesses a pleasingly stentorian speaking voice, with a warmth and welcoming tone behind its imposing depth and authority. That warmth has been magnified, in my mind at least, by his appearances during intermissions during the Met’s Live in HD broadcasts, where he somehow strikes that perfect balance between confidence and diffidence. Recent years have brought Owens’ to that point where he seems on the verge of achieving something big, especially since his appearance as Alberich in the Met’s recent Ring Cycle, where he delivered a performance (and interpretation) that others will be measured against for a long time.

Balance is a key element running through Owens’ career. In an Opera News feature from January 2012 he discusses appearing in new, contemporary works against those of more standard rep, trying to counter every appearance in an Adams opera with one by Verdi or Mozart in order to avoid being pigeonholed by directors and audiences.

In his recital with pianist Warren Jones last weekend on the UC Berkley campus, he took this balancing act to a more immediate and personal level in a bifurcated program of German and French composers, the first part of which was largely Sturm und Drang, followed by a second half of joie de vivre.

I arrived to the 3:00 PM concert slightly late (ah, BART, how I love thee), so I went upstairs to the viewing galley, where I almost stepped on a strange woman splayed out in the dark on a yoga mat with her eyes closed. Even by Berkeley standards this was a bit odd. She surrendered her occupation of the space with a bit of attitude, as if my late arrival was a rude intrusion- not to the performer, but to her yoga practice.

Owens, sporting a massive and mostly grey beard, stood stiffly before the piano and sung songs of Wolf, Schumann and Schubert with deliberate gravity that was undermined by an exceptionally stiff stage demeanor. As I mentioned, I was late, so if Owens introduced the material or said anything at all to the audience beforehand I missed it. What I saw was a succession of stoically delivered songs, without comment and with little acknowledgement of the audience. It felt stilted and uncomfortable to me, as if Owens, who can clearly sing this material and sing it quite well, was somehow struggling with how he wanted to come across as a performer.

After the intermission an altogether different Owens walked onstage, said “Hi” with a sheepish grin and a quick wave, and proceeded to talk with the audience a bit before launching into Debussy’s Three Songs. It was a bit of shock to see this fellow after the earlier one, and I liked this guy a lot more. Not only does he sing wonderfully in French, but he also looks like he’s enjoying himself a lot more than the dour guy who was onstage during the first half. With a little more work (or some coaching) Owens could be one of the most magnetic performers to grace a stage. The barrel-bodied man has incredible presence but he’s not capitalizing on it- at least on this afternoon, where the house was shockingly and inexplicably only about half-full (maybe it’s the 3:00 start times?).

Owens performed two encores, the first was Purcell’s “Music for a While” which he described as one of his favorite songs, which he followed with the spiritual “Shall We Gather by the River” which was simply marvelous, but served to illustrate how much potential was left unfulfilled by the afternoon’s performance.

The concert was presented by Cal Performances.

Yo-Yo Ma & Kathryn Stott

Oh, shut up- you already know what he looks like. Besides, doesn't the background in this photo of Kathryn Stott by Lorenzo Cicconi look like a Gerhard Richter painting? 

A couple of weeks ago I saw Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott perform together in UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall. I can't decide if being Yo-Yo Ma would be a wonderful or terrible thing. I do know it sort of sucks to write about one of his performances. What can one say that hasn't been said already? Is possible to separate the man's abilities on a given night from his aura and reasonably critique his performance at this point in his career? To say something negative, anything at all, would make one appear petty, spiteful and small, because not only is Ma such an extraordinarily gifted performer, but his spirit and sense of generosity toward the audience, and his fellow artists, pervades every moment he's onstage.

Even if it were true there would be very few people who would even believe you if you ever said, "Yo-Yo Ma? He was just okay." I wonder when the last time was when that was actually true. He's gotta have an off night too, right?

Maybe. Maybe not. Because Yo-Yo Ma is just a little bit different that you, I or your everyday classical musician. I suspect he knows this to some extent, and it's how he wears this knowledge like a loose garment that is so incredibly damn flattering. What I find complelling about the world's most famous and recognizable classical musician is he is always willing to share the spotlight. He knows he can't avoid it, he can't escape it, so he might as well share it. And that's the mark of a uniquely confident and generous soul. And a class act.

Because Stott and Ma have a long history together, she seemed as comfortable as one could be for being in the decidedly unenvious role of the musician no one is paying to hear. However once the music started none of that really mattered and if one couldn't quite view them as equals on the stage, they were certainly peers and partners, which yielded a number of rewards since it never felt like "The Yo-Yo Ma show, accompanied by Kathryin Stott." Credit the canny selections performed by the duo, beginning with Stravinsky's Suite Italienne, which allowed Stott ample time to ingratiate herself with the audience before Ma tore into the Tarantella and reminded everyone who they came to see.

Of the three pieces which followed, all from the Latin world, only Piazolla's Oblivion stood out to me as particularly noteworthy, perhaps because none were originally scored for the cello, though the mournful craving of Piazolla's tango-infected music is perfectly suited for the instrument's voice.

That same lack of conviction was felt in Manuel de Falla's "Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas," but only when it came to the cello. Stott was fantastic with these songs, especially in Seguidilla Murciana and the Albeniz-flavored Asturiana. Ma appeared to become almost giddy as he watched her dominate the songs- not ceding the stage to her, but happy to let her take the wheel and drive the performance.

After the intermission came what was for me the highlight of the scheduled programming, Louange al'Eternite de Jesus from Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time (Quatuor pour la fin du Temps), which was followed by the evening's most traditional selection, a Brahms sonata (No. 3 in D Minor for those of you keeping score). There's not much to say about either except they were exceptionally played. If you thought my earlier comments were some sort of intimation on my part that Ma was "just okay," well, no- he was as wonderful as we all expect him to be.

Yet for all that, the best part of the concert was still to come during three generous encores. The first was "The Last Song" by Clarice Assad, whose father was in the audience and graciously introduced by the star. Next came Ma's own Cristal, which felt like straight-up Brubeck and found him fiendishly following Stott's own alternating lead hands on the piano's keys like a leopard chasing down a gazelle.

The final piece of the evening was Saint Saen's The Swan, and even this familiar, gorgeously decadent piece, which the pair have performed numerous times together, had an air of freshness and possibility. The sold-out house departed happy, dazzled and delighted once again by the classiest man in the business. The concert was presented by Cal Performances, who have a number of noteworthy concerts coming up, including a recital by the magnificent bass Eric Owens this coming Sunday, and especially the upcoming solo recital next Tuesday by the white-hot violinist Christian Tetzlaff, which promises to be a highlight of the year.

The Best of A Beast: 2012

Napoleon.

It's been quite a year.

If you've read this blog steadily over the last four years, and especially between the lines, I imagine you can't help but notice that this was the year when people and things started disappearing. Penelope, the Femme Fatale, Isabella, the Manhattans, most of the known associates,The Little Chinese Man, and the frequency of posts- where did they go? I've decided not to reveal all of the reasons behind this just yet, but eventually I probably will when I feel enough distance exists. Amidst all of this carnage (and believe me, it was carnage), I didn't even get around to writing posts about two performances listed below, and really didn't do the justice I intended to a third. Having spent most of the last twelve months changing some things and attempting to right others, I can only tell you it is my full intention to remedy this in the new year.

Looking back, it was also a different year for what made the list. Opera, which was nearly absent last time, came back to dominate this year's model, and even though my Number 1 isn't an opera it truly felt like one, so add one more for a total of six of the ten slots being taken by operas.  It was also a good year for Cal Performances, which presented three of the top ten performances and three of the honorable mentions. San Francisco Opera returned to the list after being absent last year, thank goodness, because let's face it- there is nothing better than opera and when SFO is putting junk on the stage life becomes a bit dull. However, it wasn't a great year for theater- at least the theater I saw, though there were some good things going on at Berkeley Rep which got honorable mentions.

I also saw fewer recitals, attended less dance, films, pop, and jazz performances and little of what I did attend in these areas impressed me this year, so there hasn't been much mention of these.  It's not that I'm getting lazy, at least I hope it's not that, but this has been a year of change and transition and I needed to take some time away from attending performances and writing about them to actually sort some things out. So without any further blather on my part, though  reserving my right to elaborate further on any or all of the items mentioned above or below at a future time, here are the best performances I experienced as an audience member during the last year:

1. Napoleon
Rarely, if ever, have I had the pleasure of experiencing something so completely immersing and engaging on every level of artistry. Abel Gance's 5 and 1/2 hour silent film from 1927  is more than a masterpiece- it's visionary, epic in the truest sense of the word, and fascinates from beginning to end. But the experience was really made sublime by the accompanying performance of the Oakland East bay Orchestra under the baton of Carl Davis conducting his own heroic score. To experience it all inside the exquisitely restored art deco Paramount Theatre was just icing on the cake. This not only lived up to the "once in lifetime" hype- it exceeded it by every measure. I really regret not writing a post about this- maybe one day.

2. Nixon in China
Nixon was the best thing San Francisco Opera has put on the stage of the War Memorial since The Makropulos Affair, and easily stands as the highlight of David Gockley's (who commissioned the John Adams work while he was with the Houston Opera) tenure. Superb casting and a production which really brought the opera's nuances to the fore made for one of the most compelling experiences I've experienced in the house. I was lucky to see it twice during the run, and could have easily enjoyed a third viewing. I regret never going back to write about this in-depth because there is so much to say about it, especially the third act, which many observers seemed to view as a throw-away, but I felt was the heart and soul of the work, a beautifully executed denouement where the main characters gather and internally ask themselves "What do we now after we've changed the world?" and can only respond with "What is left to do?"

3. Certitude and Joy
Erling Wold's chamber opera based on the real events surrounding a woman who sacrificed her own children to God by drowning them in the San Francisco Bay stuck in my head for weeks afterward. Wold's compelling score, played by the recently Grammy-nominated Zofo Duet and the earnest commitment of everyone on the small stage to make this work created something which deeply moved me. I'll never forget how I felt when it ended.

4. Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra's Mahler's 9th
As I mentioned in the original post, this performance brought me to tears. Thinking about its effect still makes my eyes swell.

5. Einstein on the Beach
Cal Performances was instrumental in making this revival of the original production happen and as promised, it was something every opera fan should have seen. Like Napoleon, Einstein lived up to the hype. How lucky are we in the Bay Area to live in a place where not one, but two rarely experienced major works of art appear on local stages in the same year?

6. Lohengrin (no post)
If only every production offered by San Francisco Opera were this good. Brandon Jovanovich was perfect in the title role, with an excellent supporting cast, a thoughtful production, and extraordinary conducting from Luisotti as he popped his Wagner cherry. Magnificent on every level- the company should be quite proud of it.

7. Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra's Wozzeck
Had this been a fully staged production and taken place at the War Memorial Opera House it would have easily been number two on this list.

8. Joyce DiDonato and the Alexander String Quartet: Camille Claudel: Into the Fire
While I admired Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's Moby Dick in its San Francisco debut this past fall, I ultimately felt the second act didn't live up to the artistic level and expectations created in its first. It left me wondering what the team could have done with more time to work on the opera, which felt like it was lacking something at its core. On the other hand, this smaller scale work arrived onstage so fully realized in its conception and execution it made me yearn for a larger, full-blown opera to be developed from the material. DiDonato just had what was probably the best year of her career (so far) and in retrospect this concert performance seemed like a harbinger for what was to follow.

9. Christian Tetzlaff and the San Francisco Symphony
The epitome of a rock star performance by a classical musician, and a perfect combination of piece and performer.

10. The San Francisco Symphony's American Mavericks Festival
Last season's Centennial celebration by the San Francisco Symphony had no shortage of highlights, but the return of the American Mavericks festival highlighted so many elements of what makes this organization and orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas so great. Not every moment worked, but the sum of every concert worked extremely well, with each featuring at least one truly memorable and exciting performance, often much more. Criticized by some for not being mavericky enough in its programming, those who actually attended were thrilled to be a part of it- I certainly was, and the next version can't arrive soon enough.

Honorable mentions (in no particular order): An Iliad, Keith Jarrett, Ojai North!, Nameless Forest, You Killed Hamlet, The Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra, Hilary Hahn, and Khatia Buniashvili's dress.

On a personal note, I want to thank Isabella- for everything you've given both from a distance and up close. Thank you Sheila, for being a wonderful listener in many ways. And thank you Thaïs, for killing the Femme Fatale and in doing so forcing me to figure out what's next.

And finally, I'd like to thank you, whoever you are, for reading this. See you next year.

Einstein on the Beach

"I don't know. What do you think it means?"

1976. Troy Glaus, Reese Witherspoon, Audrey Tautou, Matthew Shepard, Elīna Garanča and Apple Computer are born. Chairman Mao, Agatha Christie, Martin Heidegger, Howard Hughes, Lotte Lehmann, Bob Marley and Benjamin Britten die. The first albums by The Ramones, The Runaways and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are released. "Dancing Queen" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" are the year's biggest hits. "Anarchy in the U.K." is released as a single, as is "Beth."  Jimmy Carter is elected president. My friend Mike and I spend our lunch period walking around the campus of our junior high school bumming change with the goal of buying tickets to see Blue Oyster Cult. When we've collected the needed $7.50 apiece, we head out to the school playground and get stoned on Colombian. An "opera" called Einstein on the Beach is performed twice to sold-out audiences at the rented-out Metropolitan Opera House in New York after debuting in various European cities. I am fourteen years old and have never traveled further east than Phoenix, Arizona. I remember the opera was a big deal, because I read about it in the paper.


1984. Troy Glaus' father and I are housemates, living in the San Fernando Valley. I purchase his 1981 Honda 900 Custom from him. Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Prince Harry, Katy Perry and Scarlett Johansson are born. Ethel Merman, Tito Gobbi, Marvin Gaye, Andy Kaufman, Meredith Wilson, Michel Foucault, Truman Capote, Francois Truffaut and Indira Ghandi die. British radio refuses to play "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. "Purple Rain" is released. Michael Jackson's hair catches on fire during the shooting of a Pepsi commercial. Reagan is re-elected in a landslide. Desmond Tutu wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Ricky Martin joins Menudo. Elton John marries a woman. My friend Mike marries a woman, too (both marriages will end in divorce). Run-DMC release their first album and I become huge fan of rap music. Einstein on the Beach is performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I am twenty-two years old. Salt Lake City, Utah is now the furthest distance from my home to which I have traveled. Most of my weekends are spent at Venice Beach. I have no idea about what is happening in Brooklyn unless it involves graffiti art or hip-hop music.


1992. Troy Glaus is old enough to drive. His father is now married to another woman and lives with her and their daughter. Boxxy, Miley Cyrus, and Frances Bean Cobain are born. Francis Bacon, Willie Dixon, Albert King, Eddie Hazel, Benny Hill, Marlene Dietrich, Robert Reed, Cleavon Little, Lawrence Welk, John Cage, Eddie Kendricks and Shirley Booth die. My friend Mike, now divorced, moves to Birmingham, Alabama. Charles and Diana separate. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown get married. Bill Wyman quits the Rolling Stones. I quit Los Angeles and move to the Bay Area, taking my 1983 Moto Guzzi V65 C with me. The cops who beat Rodney King are acquitted and L.A. erupts in riots. George H.W. Bush barfs in the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister. Bill Clinton is elected President. The Euopean Union is founded. Yugoslavia falls apart, then into war. The AIDS Memorial Quilt is unveiled. Pope John Paull II apologizes for the inquisition against Galileo. Both Jeffrey Dahmer and Mike Tyson are sent to prison. Nirvana top the charts with "Nevermind." Dr. Dre releases "The Chronic." Einstein on the Beach opens with previews in Princeton before performances in Brooklyn, Melbourne, and four European cities. I visit New York City for the first time, at the age of thirty. It is the furthest point east I have been, and a chance encounter on the Staten Island Ferry will prove to have great ramifications in my future. I take in a Knicks game and see Miss Saigon. I don't make it out to Brooklyn, but do I see Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono get into a limo at the Dakota.


2012. Troy Glaus is a retired Major League Baseball player, after a career which included being named MVP of the World Series in 2002. He was an All-Star four times and hit 320 career home runs. Last I heard, his father still lives in Southern California. We haven't spoken in many years, but his second ex-wife resides in Atlanta. We keep in touch via Facebook. They are grandparents. Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, Johnny Otis, Etta James, Duck Dunn, Adam Yauch, Gore Vidal, Helen Gurley Brown, Adrienne Rich, Dick Clark, Davy Jones, Jacques Barzun, Ray Bradbury, Gore Vidal, Earl Scruggs, Maurice Sendak and Whitney Houston die. Elton John is now married to a man. Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain just led their team to the World Series Championship. My friend Mike and his second wife have three children and the eldest recently celebrated her Bat Mitzvah. Now at age fifty, I have traveled as far east as Rize, a small Turkish town on the Black Sea coast, but that feels like a long time ago. It was just one ramification of that ride on the Staten Island Ferry back in 1992. I have been to Brooklyn. I have a 1992 Yamaha Seca II which once belonged to an ex-girlfriend, which I rode over the Bay Bridge to see Einstein on the Beach in Berkeley. This time I was well aware of its recent return to Brooklyn, for I had read all about it online. I am attending the performance with a woman named Sheila, whom I know as a result of writing this blog. Two things haven't changed since 1976: Mike and I are still friends, and Einstein on the Beach is still a big deal.

There are also two widely held beliefs regarding Einstein on the Beach with which I disagree: that it's an opera, and that it's not really about "anything."  Its composer Phillip Glass has said before that he and co-creator Robert Wilson decided to call it an opera because what else do you call something that has singing, theater and music and is performed in an opera house? Well, that does make a certain sense, but it doesn't necessarily make it so. Opera does indeed have all of those things, but so does Disney On Ice, and even if the stage of the Met was covered with ice... well, I don't even have to say it, do I? However, I don't mind that it's considered an opera. I'm just pointing out that it's not. It's greater than that, and yet smaller at the same time.

And it most is certainly about something, though not in the ways we commonly define what a thing is "about." The narrative is the experience of the performance itself, and how individual moments, or chunks of time, and what occurs within them, become something greater when their relationship with each other is considered from a distance, or more precisely in this case, the cumulative effect of those events, and how what may seem random and unrelated becomes part of greater whole and begins to make sense, even if it's intuitive rather than direct, over the course of time. And on that score, Einstein is brilliant.

The singing of Lisa Bielawa, the tenor sax solo of Andrew Sterman, and Jennifer Koh's insanely focused solo violin performance are individual elements which linger in the mind with the most presence long afterward. As for the rest of it- the music, dancing and theatrical elements, some felt familiar through recent Bay Area performances of Glass' Music in Twelve Parts (its immediate musical predecessor) and Lucinda Childs' Dance (created shortly afterward), and much of it felt new. Some things (the lyrics to Carol King's I Feel the Earth Move and the references to Patty Hearst,  brought on unexpected feelings of nostalgia for the past. As I said to someone only yesterday who asked me what Einstein was like, I clutched at adjectives to describe it, to try to give a sense of its enormity, to try to explain what it was like to experience it- to immerse one's self into a performance for four and a half hours, in which any single component of it may have its own distinct pleasures, but only becomes significant, understandable, and satisfying when considered as part of the greater whole.

Esa-Pekka Salonen in Berkeley

Is this guy the world's greatest living musician?  Probably.

Well-sung versions of "Si. Mi chiamano Mimi" aside, I've only been to two musical performances which brought me to the point where I found myself fighting back tears. The first was The Tristan Project- a multimedia, semi-staged version of Tristan und Isolde which I saw when it was revived at Disney Hall in 2007. At the conclusion of the first act, I sat there in my seat, completely blown away, demolished, really, fighting back tears and unable to speak to my date. I remember thinking to myself I'm not sure I'll be able to take two more acts of this. When I finally I did speak, after waiting to make sure I could do so without a sob in my throat, I said out loud to no one in particular, "How the fuck are they going to top that?" My girlfriend agreed, though she had only a minimal appreciation for Wagner at the time. Thankfully, the intermission gave me enough time to steel myself for the rest of it, and by the time the Liebestod unfurled a couple of hours later, I was ready.

The second time was yesterday (Sunday as I write this) in U.C. Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, listening to the closing minutes of the fourth movement of Mahler's 9th. After it was over, the feeling that if I spoke aloud I would lose it stayed with me for a good ten, possibly fifteen minutes after the performance. After I could no longer remain silent without seeming rude to my companion, I spoke, and found I still couldn't choke it back. How silly I thought I must have looked, but in hindsight I suppose it's better to be moved by such beauty than to be immune to it. To experience such things, rare as they are, is the reason we pursue art, isn't it?

Now the interesting thing to me is this- though the orchestras were different, the conductor for both of these performances, separated by five years and what feels like a lifetime to me, was Esa-Pekka Salonen.

I'm struggling to avoid hyperbole here, but after spending four consecutive nights listening to the results of the man's work, I can think of only a small handful of living musicians who may be Salonen's peers. It's one thing to create one's own dazzling, substantial body work and quite another to display a complete mastery of the works of others from the past two hundred years. Yet Salonen, over the course of four nights sponsored by Cal Performances, did just that. It's easy to name individuals who can do one or the other, but try naming musicians who can do both, and with such impressive results. I can only come up with one other name.

The first night, held in the smaller Hertz Hall, was a "Composer Portrait" dedicated to Salonen's own compositions, featuring four pieces of distinctly different character, all satisfying and exceptionally played. Salonen spoke at length with Cal Performances' Director Matias Tarnopolsky before cellist Kacy Clopton took the stage to perform knock, breathe, shine (2010), a three part solo work which starts off with unusual strains of jazz and rock woven into a pizzicato tapestry before the bow interrupts, as if answering the knock, then replaces the fingers as the means of expression, as if to answer "Who's there?" breathe possesses a plaintive tone that seems at once foreign yet familiar in its ability to transcend the boundaries of is commonly looked at as "classical music" (misnomer acknowledged), and shine is a bright and vigorous conclusion, during which Clopton used a number of playing techniques I've never seen to execute the piece, validating Salonen's comment that he seeks to challenge musicians while pleasing the audience with his compositions.

Next came the Calder Quartet, who stuck around town after performing a brilliant program of Nancarrow, Ades, and Bartok last Saturday night. They took the stage in their matching Beatle-esque suits (which prompted Isabella to exclaim how cute they were) to perform Homunculus (2007). Salonen describes the work as a miniature string quartet, containing everything usually found within the form's more traditional length, only smaller and more compressed, like the being referenced in the piece's title- a fully-formed, yet tiny little man inside of a single sperm cell (this was a very amusing description to hear, by the way). My favorite moment of this was when the Homunculus breaks free and takes its first tentative steps into a new existence. The Calders, over the course of their local performances this week, have proven themselves to be virtuosos of the highest caliber.

Salonen and Tarnopolsky chatted some more, and Salonen grew a bit rambunctious during this second exhange, exhibiting a wry sense of humor, especially with an anecdote about Mahler. Pianist Glora Cheng then performed Dichotomie (2000), a two-part work comprised of mechanical and organically inspired halves, which ends with the marvelous sensation of having a light extinguished and everything swallowed by darkness. The University's own Eco Ensemble, led by conductor David Milnes, performed Mania (2000), a chamber-sized cello concerto with Clopton as soloist. I didn't envy Milnes position here, conducting the work with Salonen seated in the audience, but the group pulled it off with aplomb, Clopton especially, who handled the almost ridiculous technical challenges (Salonen's titles aren't randomly selected) with consistent fluidity while the ensemble rocked repeating blasts of tripled notes which give way to icy, creepy slower parts.

The next three nights featured Salonen conducting London's Philharmonia Orchestra, of which he's been Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor since 2008. The first program began with his own Helix (2005)- a kind of Bolero-esque number which weaves two threads together for nine minutes of propulsive fun until they climax in an elongated, bright crescendo (Helix, Mania and Dichotomie have all been recorded, and a video featuring segments of knock, breathe, shine can be found here). He then led the orchestra through a rousing version of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 (1812) and a flawlessly delineated rendering of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (1830). This particular Berlioz composition is one I've never warmed to, and though oddly enough I had some rather strange dreams paralleling its plot earlier during an afternoon nap that day, it left me more admiring of the execution than the work. My companion, however, who has experienced countless performances of it during her lifetime, was deeply impressed by it, as was a certain music critic seated directly in front of me who quite uncharacteristically bobbed and weaved to much of the music in obvious delight. However, the Beethoven enthralled me with its transparency and brilliant sense of pacing, which illuminated everything without once flagging during the slower sections, and maintained a sense of rhythmic vitality without ever feeling hurried during the fast ones. Of the half-dozen times I've heard it performed in concert, this was easily my favorite, in no small part due to the thrilling clarity of the Philharmonia's string section. There were two encores- a work of Boccherini's arranged into an elegant waltz by Berio called Ritarata, followed by the prelude to the third act of Lohengrin, which oddly enough was probably being played at the exact same time across the Bay in the War Memorial Opera House. Salonen introduced the latter by saying "How about some Wagner- quickly!" to the amusement of the thrilled house.

The second night featuring the Philharmonia was a semi-staged version of Berg's Wozzeck and of the four evenings this was the one I was looking forward to the most. An exceptional cast of singers was assembled, all of whom acted out their parts at the lip of the stage in front of the orchestra, with the chorus placed at the rear. The limitations of this kind of presentation can be severe but that wasn't the case here. Although the dread and unease which builds over the course of the opera in a typical staging was largely absent, the cast's consistent efforts brought forth most of the story's drama. Johan Reuter was magnificent in the title role, perfectly capturing his character's confusion and anguish. Angela Denoke's Marie, sung with piercing clarity came off with unexpected depth and nuance. As the Drum Major, Hubert Francis turned the secondary role into an equal of the guinea pig soldier and cuckolding common law wife with his combination of excellent tone and dominating stage presence. Peter Hoare and Joshua Ellicott were strong in the supporting roles of the Wozzeck's goon-like tormentors the Captain and Andres. Only Tijl Faveyts had difficulty making himself heard over the orchestra, though he had a commanding physical presence. Some of the children in the chorus of at the end were spookily spot-on, especially a little blond boy who spat out his lines in perfectly enunciated German and looked like a tyrannical homunculus of Dolph Lundgren.

However, all of these pluses notwithstanding, it was the music that made the performance something extraordinary. Each of the five scenes of the three acts were clearly articulated, and the quasi Rondo music for Marie and the Drum Major at the end of Act 1 was gorgeously played, transforming a work thought (erroneously) widely considered musically difficult to fathom musically into something quite clear. I'll admit to being slightly disappointed Salonen took a brief break between acts to sit for a moment and take a deep breath, but only because it stopped the momentum which he was constructing. Listening to the performance was like looking at a German Expressionist painting, (Otto Dix especially comes to mind)- one can't help but feel slightly repulsed by the subject matter but the attention to detail and the art of its construction it makes it something not easily turned away from. Salonen and the orchestra let the entire score breathe, the individual moments all came through distinctly, as they had the night before, unexpectedly turning Wozzeck into an extended symphonic delight, except of course when the orchestra pummels the audience with one of the loudest, most horrific moments in all of the operatic repertoire, which was a visceral thrill.

The next afternoon, Sunday, came the Mahler and I was surprised to see so many empty seats. Salonen took everything he'd already shown us he and this orchestra could do- masterful pacing, an almost incredible level of detail without any hint of fussiness, complete openness of expression within each section of the orchestra, and then essentially turned it all up to 11. If you missed it, it really was everything anyone who was actually there said it was, and easily one of the finest orchestral performances I've had the pleasure of attending- even if it did bring tears to my eyes.

Thankfully there was no encore, but Salonen returned to the stage an hour later to lead the UC Berkeley Orchestra through a master class in Debussy's La Mer. Working with the students for about an hour and a half, and only leaving because he had to get to the airport, Salonen, in this more relaxed atmosphere, (for him at least) proved that all the strengths exhibited in the previous four performances were no fluke. The students soared under his direction and keen observations.

The Mariinsky Ballet's Swan Lake

Oksana Skoryk

There is a sizable contingent of Soviet émigrés where I work. For the most part they keep to themselves, but over they years I've infiltrated their group a bit, mostly because I frequently see them at concerts or the opera house. On the whole, it is safe to say they are much more knowledgeable about the arts, especially Classical music and ballet, than their American contemporaries.

When I see them at the opera house, it is always for opera, and never for the ballet. Repeatedly and consistently, they have told me they can't watch American ballet companies, even one as good as ours, having been raised on the Bolshoi and Kirov. They're adamant about it to an amusing extent. Want to get a rise out of a Russian? Start talking to them about ballet and tell them how much you like San Francisco's company.

All of this was in the forefront of my mind as I stood in the lobby of Zellerbach Hall last Thursday night, watching the audience filter in to see the Mariinsky (formerly the Kirov) Ballet and Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. The émigrés, unsurprisingly, were out in force and I saw a few familiar faces. It was my first time seeing a Russian ballet company, and I was curious to see if they were really as superior as their former countrymen claim.

They are.

The Mariinsky Orchestra got off to an alarmingly slushy start under Mikhail Agrest, though he soon brought it all into focus and for the rest of the performance a rich, lush sound emanated from the pit. The floor of the stage was covered in plastic or something, it wasn't wood, and the dancers visibly worked against this, creating a constant squeaking all night. At one point, Vladimir Schklyarov (Prince Siegfried) landed from a turn, grimaced, and grunted loudly, as if he'd hurt something, but he kept on and betrayed no sign of injury afterward. I'm certain the culprit was the floor. Apart from that, the performance was as magical as one could wish for, including the fairy-tale sets by Igor Ivanov and the exquisite costumes by Galina Solovieva.

Oksana Skoryk's Odette was one of the most graceful physical performances I've ever witnessed. Her arms indeed moved like wings, especially when she unfolded them, in an uncanny way, and  she executed the fouettée with awe-inspiring precision, drawing perhaps the loudest and most sustained applause from the appreciative audience. As the black swan Odile, Odette's evil doppelganger, her face and movement took on a steeliness and determination, but she possessed the same beguiling grace.

Schklyarov, whose face has a wonderful openness to match his physical expressiveness, was convincing from his first moments during the birthday party through the end, never flagging, and his   series of jetés produced audible gasps from the audience, justifiably so, but curiously I don't recall one lift of Skoryk.

Alexander Perish struggled with the floor more than anyone else, noticeably hedging some steps throughout the evening, and he seemed uncomfortable during the trio with Ekaterina Ivannikova and Nadezhda Gonchar (both, again, marvelous dancers), but he also had many fine moments. Siegfried's mother was the stately and beautifully costumed Elena Bazhenova, whose strong resemblance to Maria Callas gave her non-dancing role an additional presence and authority. The Evil Sorcerer Rothbart, whose costume topped them all, was well-executed by Andrey Solovyov with a highly menacing presence. The Jester was Ilya Petrov, whose lively spins and engaging manner made the most of the unnecessary role.

The swans were exceptional, almost always perfectly in sync, forming one gorgeous scene after another, and the national dance sequences were a delight, especially the Spanish one featuring Anastasia Petrushkova, Yulia Stepanova, Kamil Yangurazov and Karen Ionessian.

The Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra is part of the Cal Performances season.

Free for All next weekend

On Sunday, September 30th, Cal Performances presents its third annual Free For All- an all-day event which takes place on the UC Berkeley campus in a multitude of venues both indoors and out. Last year's  festivities attracted over 10,000 people, so this year the family-friendly event has been expanded to provide even more things to do, see and hear, including dance performances, concerts, puppet shows, and an instrument petting zoo. The event is completely free and if you RSVP online (which is not necessary to attend- you can just show up and have fun) you'll receive a 25% discount off tickets to any Cal Performances event during the upcoming season (you must purchase them at Free For All). 

Schedules by stage and by time, as well as list of all the artists who'll be performing are on the Cal Performances website. Food and beverage vendors will be onsite. Among the performers are the Chitresh Das Dance Company; Cypress String Quartet; Davitt Moroney; story tellers Diane Ferlatte and Eth-Noh Tec; shadow puppets with Daniel Barash; Gamelan Sekar Jaya; saxophonist George Brooks' jazz/Indian fusion music; Kitka; Kronos Quartet; Lily Cai Dance Company; Pamela Rose; Marcos Silva's Brazilian jazz; pianist Shai Wosner; Shotgun Players with songs from Stephen Sondheim's Assassins; San Francisco Taiko; plus ensembles from the UC Berkeley Departments of Music and Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; Student Musical Activities vocal and jazz ensembles, the Cal Band; and more. See you there?

Einstein on the Berkeley campus- Colloquium, Symposium, and Artists Talk info

All three Berkeley performances of Einstein on the Beach are completely sold out- there's a notification list on the Cal Performances website for those of you who snoozed before a single note was even played. Besides the perfomances of the opera, there are three significant auxiliary educational events taking place during the run, one each day. Here are the details (courtesy of Cal Performances):

The Department of Music at UC Berkeley is hosting a Composer Colloquium on Friday, October 26 at 3:00pm in 125 Morrison Hall. It will feature Philip Glass talking about his work, and Einstein on the Beach, with Assiciate Professor of Composition, Ken Ueno.

There will be a symposium, called Einstein on the Beach: Re-staging/Re-construction/Re-enactment, on Saturday, October 27, 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m., in the Zellerbach Playhouse. In 1976 Einstein on the Beach brought together the minimalism of composer Philip Glass with director/designer Robert Wilson’s non-narrative approach to performance to create a work that radically changed expectations about opera. In conjunction with an historic re-staging of Einstein on the Beach, this symposium examines what it takes and what it means to re-create and perform a seminal but rarely-seen work almost forty years after its premier with scholarly and behind-the-scenes reflection. This event is co-sponsored by Cal Performances and the Arts Research Center, The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, and The Department of Music at UC Berkeley.

As the final education event, there will be an Artist Talk on Sunday, October 28 from 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. in the Zellerbach Playhouse. It will be a unique opportunity to hear from all three creators of Einstein on the Beach: Robert Wilson, Philip Glass and Lucinda Childs.

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.