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.

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 Point of View

I don't know what I shall do; I feel so undraped, so uncurtained, so uncushioned; I feel as if I were sitting in the centre of a mighty "reflector." 

- Henry James, The Point of View

After the Bostonians vacated the hall a Finn named Esa-Pekka Salonen arrived to take charge of things for the weekend. He brought three pieces with him: a souvenir from his homeland, another from Germany (he's recently admitted to being fascinated with these heavy German items), and a substantial work of his own hand, for which he was recently awarded a handsome prize. Isabella and I had looked forward to his visit for some time, in no small part due to his bringing two illustrious visitors with him, both women- a musician and a singer.

As we neared the entrance to the hall I my eye caught someone I once knew standing alone under the harsh lights near the curb, furtively looking down.  I had known such a thing would occur at some point, but the foreknowledge didn't prevent an unpleasant stain from spreading through my consciousness. It was the unexpectedness of it happening at this particular moment that took me by surprise, though in hindsight I could have easily deduced the odds if I had considered her past behavior. But who has the time for such things? I turned my gaze, unaware of whether if she saw us or not, and entered the lobby, whispering in Isabella's ear that a jackal was present in the garden.

As we waited for the Finn to take the podium I saw the jackal enter the terrace, followed by her elderly warden, and watched as they took seats in the back row, almost directly across the hall from us. It wasn't until the next morning an amusing but sad irony about the entire scene occurred to me as Isabella and I were having breakfast. As I've said before, it's a small town.

Salonen strode to the podium looking like he still lived in Southern California. He reminded Isabella of a certain pop singer my sister was involved with until my mother put her foot down, thus ending the absurd sight of a white Rolls Royce frequently parked at the curb of our house after school when we were teenagers. The quiet strains which open Sibelius' Pohjola's Daughter (Daughter of the North) rose from the bass and cellos. The piece, one of many by the composer inspired by Karelian poetry, is based on the story of a wise man who falls under the spell of a dangerous yet alluring female spectre while searching for a wife in the northern hinterlands.

The spectre requests the hero perform several impossible tasks in order to win her hand and the music grows louder and darker as his failures and frustration mounts, chugging along to an impressive climax which the brass took brilliantly. At the end, the wise man gives up and moves on and the music dissolved into a silence signalling an unequivocal, sad defeat. The orchestra has played the piece only once before, in 1948. It would be nice to hear more of these Sibelius tone poems, of which there are a dozen.

During the break I noticed the jackal and her warden rise and exit through the rear door of the terrace. I thought they were leaving but they soon reappeared on the side of the terrace and talked an usher into letting them sit in seats that didn't belong to them. I watched the jackal put on her glasses. Isabella, who has a keen eye for such things, had some interesting observations about their body language.

Leila Josefowicz walked onstage in five-inch heels wearing a gown accommodating her obvious pregnancy. The combination worked for me on a number of levels. There's something incredibly bold about Josefowicz which manifests itself in so many ways. She performs fearlessly. A serious advocate for contemporary composers, she's had some brilliant pieces written specifically for her, including Salonen's Violin Concerto which came next.

Salonen recently won the presigious Grawemeyer Award for music composition for the piece and I was present at its world premiere at Disney Hall- it was one of the bests concerts I've ever attended and I was looking forward to hearing it again. Salonen breaks all kinds of "rules" with the piece but hews to a traditional model. It begins with the soloist who then continues to play almost all the way through it. There's also a complete drum kit onstage, which drives the rythmic heart of the piece found in its third movement, called "Pulse II"- an evocation of the vitality of life in Los Angeles. The fourth movement is about as long as the first three combined.

Josefowicz tore through the half-hour long work with obvious relish, aggressively taking on the dizzying fast parts, sections full of double stops and loaded with notes that tumble on top of one another like an avalanche. Her performance, as I expected it would be, was thrilling, even if the orchestra didn't seem to fully gel with Salonen in the intricasies of the final movement.

The lack of cohesion between conductor and orchestra became more apparent after the intermission which featured music from Wagner's Gotterdammerung. Soprano Christine Brewer, whose career has taken her increasingly away from the opera house after a knee injury sidelined her for awhile, was on hand to sing Brunnhilde's immolation scene. The strings sounded wonderful throughout, with concertmaster Alexander Barantschik taking a seat onstage after Josefowicz' departure, but the brass were limpid during the dawn and journey down the Rhine. The funeral march was taken at very fast tempo, robbing it of a lot of its drama, and Brewer struggled to make herself heard over the orchestra. Though there were moments of beauty scattered throughout (how could there not be with some of the most gorgeous music ever written?), the overall execution was surprisingly a train wreck, all the more inexplicable because I've witnessed all of these artists give terrific, even stunning, performances of Wagner's music in the past.

We left without seeing the jackal again and stepped out into crisp, cold evening, admiring the almost-full moon shining brightly over the gilded dome of City Hall. Neither of us had to work the next morning, so we stayed up late, listening to sections from different versions of Gotterdammerung- Solti and Boulez's, discussing the evil of Hagen, the prescience of the Norns, and slowly everything receded into the twilight.

Oundjian and Biss, Beethoven and Brahms, and Marcher's peculiar peccadillos

Peter Oundjian, Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, began a three-night stand with the San Francisco Symphony tonight with a program featuring Christopher Rouse's The Infernal Machine, Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto (Emperor) and Brahms' 3rd Symphony.

This was the first performance by SFS of Rouse's piece, which is now part of a larger work called Phantasmata. It's a delightful bit of crazy business, GG described it as a "musical Rube Goldberg machine" and that's a pretty apt description. There are many interesting percussion elements and rhythms that chug along at a Looney Tunes clip. It went by in a flash and the only thing I can really say is it made me want to hear more- especially the entire work.

Now I'm going to take a detour. Beethoven's piano concertos are what really drew me into classical music. I vividly remember sitting in my living room one night in 1995 getting ready to listen to my weekly assignment for the Music 101 class I was taking at the time.  That week it was the 3rd Piano Concerto and I went and bought a recording by Emmanuel Ax with the Royal Philharmonic, conducted by Previn, of the 3rd and 4th. I put the CD in the stereo and proceeded to half-listen to it at a moderate volume until I heard the piano make its entrance in the 3rd's first movement.

"What the hell was that?" I thought to myself. I went over to the stereo, turned up the volume and started it over. When the piano came in again I went "whoa," smiled, and knew I was listening to something fundamentally different than what I expected. It felt like rock and roll. Hard rock and roll. It was like hearing Black Sabbath for the first time all over again. I cranked the stereo. Cranked it like I was back in 8th grade listening to Kiss Alive! when my mom wasn't home. It turned me into a Beethoven fanatic, a fate which was forever sealed once I started listening to the late quartets a couple of years later. To this day I still don't understand people who think there can possibly have been a greater composer.

However, the problem was I fed myself a steady diet of Beethoven recorded via modern methods and played at Metallica-level volumes. It was thrilling to say the least. Maybe you can see where I'm going with this.

This of course leads to a problem in the concert hall, because with the standard orchestra for Beethoven's works it's just not very loud. It should be, but it's not- there's only so much you can do with what is essentially a small orchestra compared to what Wagner and Strauss call for. And yet in my head the music has this enormous volume and that is how it should be heard. The reality is different in the hall. So in my opinion the conductor and the orchestra have to make up for the lack of volume by playing Beethoven with a fervor that borders on the ecstatic. Sometimes this happens, most of the time it doesn't. When it does, it's like doing really good drugs or having really fantastic sex. In other words, it's exhilarating beyond anything else. I've only experienced this a few times, most notably with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the LA Phil in an amazing performance of the 5th Symphony two years ago, the SFS with Nigel Kennedy performing the Violin Concerto, and the SFS led by MTT in revelatory 9th a few years ago. Usually I enter the hall with great hopes and am prepared to leave disappointed.

Tonight Jonathan Biss was the soloist for the Emperor and from the first chord I knew it was going to be disappointing. I told GG beforehand, who was unfamiliar with the piece, that the 5th was the classical equivalent to what Eddie Van Halen did on his band's eponymous debut album. In other words, it's extreme rock and roll, except it's dressed in classical clothes. What we heard tonight was stately, reserved, mannered and while it wasn't bad per se, it wasn't the balls-out performance the 5th requires to make it work live in the hall. It was a museum piece.

Biss, who has the most enormous hands I've ever seen on a human being (ladies take note), can play, but he also exhibits the excessive performing mannerisms so prevalent in musicians his age that always strike me as just so much showboating. He holds his left hand aloft as the right works the keys in a way that seems to be making some statement but what that statement means is beyond my comprehension.

Oundjian didn't help matters by leading the orchestra through a performance I heard as plodding and perfunctory. But what do I know? Biss and the orchestra received quite an ovation from the full house so don't listen to me- I obviously don't know what I'm talking about.

After intermission came the Brahms. I have to admit to being mentally distracted during this part of the night. April really is the cruelest month and for me it has been a doozy. My mind wandered during this, but try as I might, I really couldn't find a way into what Oundjian and the orchestra were doing after the first movement, which was quite beautiful, if highly mannered.

For an encore, they performed one of Brahms' Hungarian Dances. I thought this odd, and it was the second thing Oundjian did that was unusual- the first being addressing the audience before the Brahms (and giving shout-outs to Eric Idle and an old lady), the second performing an encore. Is he campaigning to be the successor to MTT? I certainly hope not- I've made it clear I think Petrenko should get the job.

And there you have it. Weird. Not what you expect. But that's life- right?

The best of 2009

This past year I saw over 70 different performances, most of which I wrote about, though some were so uninspiring they didn't even merit the time it would have taken to criticize them. However, a number of them were so terrific for one reason or another that I'll probably never forget them.

Listed below, in chronological order, are ten performances I attended this year that in my mind were the best:
LA Opera's Das Rheingold: Director Achim Freyer's first installment of Wagner's Ring cycle was nothing less than a revelation and it was easily the best opera I saw this year. In fact, it's probably one of the five best opera productions I've ever seen. This is opera for the 21st Century: bold, innovative and unafraid of risk, while keeping true to the spirit of Wagner's intentions. While Die Walkure and Siegfried didn't thrill me as much (probably because Rheingold is my favorite opera above all others), LAO's Ring is not to be missed. When they do the entire cycle this summer, the naysayers will surely have their comeuppance.

Anne-Sophie Mutter performing Gubaidulina's Violin Concerto No. 2: What can you say, one of the world's premier violinist's performing a challenging contemporary work dedicated to her. It was enthralling. The Ravel in the second half didn't quite measure up, but really, what could have?

Martha Argerich and Ligeti's Requiem at San Francisco Symphony: Thrilling in every sense of the word. Ligeti's Requiem had both the orchestra and the SFS chorus performing at their absolute peak in a haunting work that heard live is an unforgettable experience. Argerich actually showed up for once, and gave the audience a bravura performance of the Ravel concerto that was loaded with emotion and skill, meriting perhaps the longest ovation I've ever heard in that hall. You should have been there.

Leila Josefowicz and Esa-Pekka Salonen at LA Phil: Josefowicz is the most fascinating violinist on Earth. There is nothing she can't play to perfection and she constantly challenges herself. This concert, part of Salonen's swan song as he departed the LA Phil after one of the most influential and successful tenures ever in the history of American orchestras, was a primer on what classical music is and where it's going. Salonen's Violin Concerto, dedicated to Josefowicz, Ligeti's Clocks and Beethoven's 5th Symphony were flawlessly performed with gusto and meaning. Two artists that should not be missed when they hit your town.

Urban Opera's Dido and Aeneas: The little company that could, and did. This new company rising out of the ashes of San Francisco Lyric Opera, took everyone by surprise this summer by giving us something different, unique, and indigenous to the City. We can only hope for more from Chip Grant and the incredible team he put together for what was one of the most delightful surprises of the year. Come on, Urban Opera- do it again!

August: Osage County: Three hours of the most theatrical dysfunctional family values since Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolff? By turns uproariously funny and frightening. Estelle Parsons can come to a party at my house anytime- hopefully in character, because I love that kind of drama though I always feel bad the next morning. Tracy Letts' play lived up to the Tony hype and then some.

San Francisco Opera's Il Trovatore : For my money, Trovatore is 2nd rate Verdi, but when it's done like this there is nothing to complain about. Sondra Radvanovsky gave a star turn in a production that was perfect at every turn, bringing this tired warhorse to life in a way I thought couldn't be done. The rest of the all-star cast and the superb sets by Charles Edwards made the conservative era of SFO under Gockley more than palatable. If this is what the future looks like for SFO, so be it.

Paulina Rubio at the Fox Theater: Paulina in a great venue, up close and very personal touring in support of Gran City Pop- one of the year's most delighful records. Pure pop bliss.

San Francisco Opera's La Fille du Regiment: Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Florez made me realize I actually do like Donizetti, at least when he's done like this. The pair combined to deliver an evening of vocal beauty and comedic timing in one of the most perfect bel canto evenings I've ever experienced. It left me wanting more, more, more.

La Damnation de Faust at the Met: Robert Lepage's production is a thrilling spectacle. He and Freyer are taking opera in an entirely new direction. The singing on the night I went didn't quite measure up to the production values at hand, but if this is the future, I want to be seated up front. Give kudos to Peter Gelb and the Met for putting on an audacious and thrilling Faust. Lepage's upcoming Ring cycle, like LAO's, is not to be missed based on the sheer brilliance of invention and imagination on display here.

Other performances that gave these a run for their money:

SFO's Porgy and Bess
KISS's Alive 35
Nadja Michael in SFO's Salome
Nino Machaidze in LAO's Elixir of Love
Fela!
With appreciation to Deborah Voigt, a very gracious and talented singer:

And finally, to KD- who would have guessed this moment would lead to so many others...

November Rain

Actually there is no rain- it's an incredibly warm and clear evening in San Francisco as I write this but the Guns 'n' Roses song seemed like the most apt title for the post. It's the kind of night which reminds me of summers long past spent in the San Fernando Valley when I was a teenager. There's a full Harvest Moon in the sky and after having dinner at the Ferry Building with my mother, watching the moon rise over the Bay Bridge, things seem hopeful and yet nostalgic at the same time.

There's no real point to this post other than that I wanted to note there may not be much on this blog for the next couple of weeks and then there's going to be so much to write about I wonder how I'll actually get it all done.

Friday I'm going to the San Francisco Symphony for an all-Rachmaninoff program conducted by Simon Bychkov featuring the Second Symphony and The Bells. Talk about romantic overload, but I think this concert is going to be one of the highlights of the SFS's season. I'm going to ask a fellow blogger to accompany me because the romance will just have to wait another week, when MG and I go to New York. It will be the first time I've gone back since I went to see Cristo's Gates. I've really missed these annual trips and I'm pleased to have resurrected this tradition of seeing at least a couple of things a year at the Met.

We're going to see the LePage production of La Damnation of Faust with Borodina and her hubby, conducted by Conlon. I was actually a bit dismayed to see Idlar was part of the cast because in my one encounter with both of them, SFO's terrible production L'Italiana a few years back, I walked away thinking if he hadn't been in it Olga would have been as great in the role as she was when I saw her perform it at the Met some seven or so years ago. That's probably wrong and ridiculous, but once you formulate a prejudice they can be unreasonable things to let go of. Still I think it will be worthwhile and it will be MG's first Met experience, which I'm pleased to partake in.

The next night we are going to see what is likely to be the buzz production for the entire year. Almost every opera geek I know on the West Coast is making a trip all the way to the Met in November or December primarily to see Janacek's 100-minute opera From the House of the Dead. The highly-acclaimed Chereau production, originally done at the Aix-en-Provence festival and conducted by Salonen in his Met debut, is available on DVD but I haven't watched it. Instead I've been listening to the Mackerras recording to prepare for it. It sounds like The Cunning Little Vixen, but inverted, with that score's joy and naturalism replaced by equal amounts of despair and human frailty. It's mesmerizing and I have high hopes surrounding it. Kudos to Peter Gelb for bringing something special like this to the States that at one time would have made sense for SFO to stage but we no longer have that kind of opera company in this City.

Then MG and I are going Broadway-bound to see the Bill T. Jones directed Fela! about the life and music of the only musician who can be said to be an equal to James Brown: Nigeria's father of Afrofunk, Fela Kuti. We're seeing a preview because of the timing, but this too promises to be an evening of solid grooves and amazing dancing.

Friday we return home and the following night we are off to see Johan Botha in Verdi's Otello, conducted by Luisotti. If this production is any good (and there really is no possible way it can be worse than the last Otello to grace the War Memorial stage, which was Pamela Rosenberg's only admitted artistic regret), then I'm afraid I'll have to admit Mr. Gockley's plans for this season have been a resounding success despite my initial deep skepticism and ridicule. That's going to be a very untasty bit of crow to eat, but the play's the thing, and so far the Gock has had a winning fall season way beyond anyone's (except perhaps his own) expectations.

Sunday night is the other big event besides the Janacek opera: KISS's Alive! 35 tour rolls into the Oakland Arena. I was at the first Alive! tour when it hit LA in 1976 (yes, I know the math is off) and was present for the recording of Kiss Alive II at the LA Forum a couple of years later. That was my first concert and if you can't understand how someone goes from being a teenage KISS fan to an opera geek, well, my goal is to make you "get it" by the time it finally rains in November.

Salonen & Leila Josefowicz Thrill Disney Hall

There's an ocean of ink being spilled over Esa-Pekka Salonen's departure as music director of the LA Philharmonic and if you've never seen this man lead this orchestra you've missed an opportunity to experience music performed at the highest level. Friday's performance of the penultimate program featured Ligeti's Clocks and Clouds, Beethoven's 5th Symphony and the world premiere of Salonen's own Violin Concerto, written for visiting soloist Leila Josefowicz. It was one of the best concerts I've ever seen.

Clocks and Clouds was pure Ligeti- haunting, compelling and strange but beautiful. The Women of the Los Angeles Master Chorale provided gorgeous harmonics to accompany the orchestra's perfect rendition of Ligeti's aural depiction of Dali's melting clocks dissolving into wispy clouds. Or something like that. Salonen, under which the LA Phil first performed this piece in 1993 (six other Ligeti pieces have been introduced during his tenure) was completely in control of this difficult work, guiding the orchestra with fluid hand movements.

Next came the four-part Violin Concerto, written for Leila Josefowicz, which was only completed last month- so close to the premiere the notes on the piece had to be inserted into the program. That Josefowicz committed this hugely demanding piece to memory in such a short time and played it with thrilling brilliance, solidifies my opinion of her as one of today's top-tier musicians. She's in a class by herself.

Salonen's program notes describe this music better than I can, so I'll leave that to him, but Josefowicz was a woman on fire. Her left hand stalked her violin's neck like a tarantula loaded on adrenaline and crack, playing with an intensity that was thrilling to watch and hear. She tore through the fast parts and then the orchestra's strings would answer her in huge sweeping swell of minor chords. The use of a full drum kit in the 3rd movement, Pulse II was an exhilarating addition. The orchestra was marvelous throughout, especially the bass and horn players. The only time I can remember being so enthralled by a new work was at the premier of John Adams' El Nino.

During the intermission I wondered how Beethoven's 5th was going to work after what preceded it. I remembered a performance I once attended in SF where Temirkanov led the SFS through a blazing account on Shostakovitch's 8th, then followed it with the 5th and Beethoven actually seemed puny in the comparison rather than complimentary. The programming worked however. The LA Phil performed the 5th as a kind of straightforward, this needs no fuss from us because it's already perfect showcase of how well this orchestra can play. The tempos were consistent, every nuance emerged but was never fussy or precious. There were no winks, nothing cute. Just musical muscle being flexed. They made Beethoven sound relevant and contemporary.

There were well-deserved standing ovations after every piece. Hopefully KUSC will re-broadcast it and if they do, don't miss it. A lot of the LA Phil's live work is also able on Itunes. This was only third time I've seen Salonen conduct the LA Phil. The previous times were the Tristan Project two years ago and a Beethoven's 9th awhile back. These performances rank among the very best I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

And so a great era concludes this week.