the little match girl passion

Anastazia Louise as the little match girl

After a three year hiatus, San Francisco Lyric Opera made a triumphant return to the City this Friday night with a sold-out performance of David Lang's the little match girl passion. The contemporary, Pulitzer-winning piece was a bold choice for the company's re-entry in the local opera scene and it paid off well. In the past three years the two driving creative forces for the company, Chip Grant and Barnaby Palmer, have been keeping busy with other projects- Grant launched Urban Opera and has been involved with numerous vocal groups while Palmer been conducting pieces around the world, from Budapest Festival Opera and Bohemian Opera to The Crucible in Oakland. Now back together with SFLO, which started off in the 1990s presenting scaled down productions of standard rep, the company has a new mission to "produce fresh, inventive opera in intimate settings" and to "cultivate and nurture the future of the art form by providing a forum to champion innovative chamber opera." Hence the choice of Lang's work, one which owes almost as much to the oratorio tradition as the operatic.

Perfectly scaled for the ODC Theater, which is designed for dance performances and thus affords the audience a perfect view of the entire stage from any seat, the little match girl passion features bass/baritone Eugene Brancoveanu, tenor Eric Maggay Tuan, alto Celeste Winant, soprano Ann Moss and performance artist Anastazia Louise in the most pivotal role as the title character.

The instrumentation is sparse, with most of the piece performed a capella, at times accompanied by glockenspiel and bass drum, with the occasional appearance of assorted bells, a brake drum (yes, that's right- as in from a car), and other percussion instruments. Brancoveanu, the award-winning former Adler Fellow and Merola alum provided an excellent foundation from which the other singers took off. Tuan's singing was fascinating- his voice has a range that's almost hard to comprehend. He crossed lower than Brancoveanu at one point and at others came off effortlessly like a countertenor. Winant has some of the most challenging parts, repeating phrases within the whole at the top of her range, and handled them well. Moss's voice is one of sheer beauty- I would listen to her all day, given the chance.

All four were in sartorial splendor- with the women looking especially elegant, creating a stark contrast to Louise, whose self-designed costume was created from the tablecloths of her grandmother and other women close to her, creating a real-life link in her portrayal of the match girl. Louise's performance is so integral to the production its almost impossible to see how it would work  without her- or at how the company could have created something that wouldn't have felt completely different and still have the strong emotional pull evident from the beginning which didn't let go until the end.

The production's design features lighting and projected effects which alternate between cold, antiquarian urban photographs superimposed with slowly drifting snow during the match girl's narrative, and lightly-hued solid backgrounds during the choral sections- a contrast between the girl's inner story and how she's seen (or ignored, or judged) by those passing her by on the street- the witnesses, both blind and seeing, creating a visual equilibrium to match the score's own balancing act between hope and despair, alienation and acceptance.

It works extremely well. This is a smart, moving production and the dedication to it is felt from all the participants. There are two more performances this weekend.

The company returns again in the fall with Benjamin Britten's rarely performed Owen Wingrave, a two-act opera based on the story by Henry James. Anastazia Louise's company, Bad Unkl Sista will be premiering its new work First Breath-Last Breath at Z-Space on April 27-28.

About last weekend...

Anastazia Louise

Last weekend actually began on Thursday night and pretty much ran all the way through Sunday evening. I don't recall ever cramming so much into so little time. Besides the Mavericks concerts on Thursday and Sunday, Jeremy Denk and I had cocktails on Friday night. Denk is a charming and funny guy, full of anecdotes, gossip, and questions. More I'll save for another time, but it was serious fun chatting with him. After taking my leave of him at Jardiniere I met up with Isabella and headed over to Herbst to attend the Cypress String Quartet's Call and Response program, which featured the world premiere of Phillipe Hersant's String Quartet No. 3, a piece I'm sure is going to be featured on many future programs. Cypress also performed a Haydn Quartet and Beethoven's Op.127, but Hersant's work was the highlight of the concert.

The next morning I met up with Chip Grant (founder of Urban Opera) and Barnaby Palmer over breakfast to discuss the upcoming SF Lyric Opera production of David Lang's "the little match girl passion" and from there I went with them to observe a rehearsal. The production has a palindrome structure, which the audience will be able to follow by listening to the different voices and noticing the lighting by Matthew Antaky, who recently did exceptional work on Ensemble Parallele's The Great Gatsby. I also had a chance to meet the very intriguing Anastazia Louise of Bad Unkl Sista and watch as she rehearsed her Butoh-style performance with the singers present for the first time. She said she's been absorbed in little but this project lately and it showed. She's an intense performer and I think this is going to be a moving performance. All four singers are excellent- I've heard Eugene Brancoveanu numerous times and every time I do I wonder how much longer Bay Area audiences will get to see him in small, intimate productions like these before he completely succumbs to the temptation of the larger houses for which he seems destined. Ann Moss is an exceptional soprano, and Celeste Winant, a chorale member of Philharmonia Baroque as well as Volti, also possesses a gorgeous voice. But I was particularly curious about Eric Maggay Tuan, who seems to be capable of singing almost anything. There are only three performances at the ODC theater in the Mission this weekend, and though the scale is small (the four singers double on instruments and it will run less than an hour) the return of San Francisco Lyric Opera is a major event on the local arts scene.

Later in the afternoon I attended the American Orchestra Forum at Davies, where a group of panelists including composers John Adams and Mason Bates and San Francisco Symphony's General Director Brent Assink helmed a three-hour chat on creativity in the arts, focusing on classical music, current culture, and especially, delivering content to audiences online. I didn't plan on staying for the whole thing, but it was so interesting that I did just that. They'll have another one on May 13th featuring Alan Gilbert discussing audiences (which should be highly interesting in light of the recent I Phone incident), while the NY Phil is in town for the American Orchestras series. The event is free.

Afterward I went over to the Paramount in Oakland to hear Chrissette Michelle's SFJazz gig, a show that was so poorly mixed I left my seat in the seventh row to go sit in the very back near the sound board, which only helped a little. I left after an hour, dismayed about so many things I don't even want to write about it. Making my way home through the throngs of amateurs celebrating St. Patrick's Day, I was immensely pleased not to be in a bar on this night, or even worse, to be one of those idiots actually lined up outside of a bar waiting to get in- in San Francisco (where there is a bar on practically every corner).

Sunday afternoon was the last concert of the American Mavericks Festival, which ended at 4:20, leaving me just enough time to make it a few blocks down the street to hear "A Celebration of Bay Area Music"- a concert organized by clarinetist Brenden Guy featuring musicians mostly from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (as well as Sarah Cahill, Miles Graber and Barnaby Palmer) performing a diverse program. Cahill performed John Adams' China Gates, a work dedicated to her and she brought along the original score. Also on the program were two delightful works by composer David Conte, including a highly engaging sextet. Although everyone onstage possessed a high level of talent, the show was stolen by the extraordinary violin playing of Kevin Rogers, whose solo in Ernest Bloch's Nigun- No. 2 (from the Baal Shem Suite) was stunning.

You don't really want to know what I did after that, do you? I didn't think so.

Coming up: the little match girl passion

Tickets are now available for San Francisco Lyric Opera's upcoming production of David Lang's the little match girl passion. You don't want to miss this.

Casting details for SF Lyric Opera's little match girl passion

As I previously mentioned, San Francisco Lyric Opera returns next month after a three year hiatus with a new production of David Lang's "little match girl passion," done in a shear, minimalist style with a quartet of singers doubling on percussion. The quartet is Ann Moss, Celeste Winant, Eric Tuan and Eugene Brancoveanu. Matthew Antaky is the production's lighting designer, whose brilliant work was just seen in Ensemble Parallele's The Great Gatsby,.

The story will be told Butoh-style, with choreography performed by Anastazia Loiuse/Bad Unkl Sista. Barnaby Palmer will conduct and Grant will direct the production. the little match girl passion will be performed in the intimate ODC Theater on March 23, 24, and a matinee on March 25.  Consider it not to missed.

San Francisco Lyric Opera rises again with David Lang's "the little match girl passion"

After being dormant for the last three years, San Francisco Lyric Opera returns next month with David Lang's the little match girl passion. Tonight I unexpectedly ran into Chip Grant at a rehearsal for Ensemble Parallele's upcoming The Great Gatsby and I asked him what he was up to lately. Grant is the driving force behind the brilliant Urban Opera, whose Dido and Aeneas and The Witch of Endor were highlights of the Bay Area opera scene in recent years. Dido made both mine and the SF Chronicle's Joshua Kosman's top ten list in 2009. Urban Opera rose from the ashes of SF Lyric, and now events have come full-circle. This is good news for people in the Bay Area looking for well-staged, intelligent, provocative opera productions.

Lang's work, based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, won the Pulitzer for music in 2008. Co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the Perth Theater and Concert Hall, the work is inspired by Bach's Matthew Passion and the recording on Harmonia Mundi won a Grammy in 2010 for Best Small Ensemble performance. Tim Page of the Washington Post wrote "I don't think that I've ever been so moved a new composition as I was by David Lang's the little match girl passion, which is unlike any music I know."

Grant just finished casting the show, which will feature a shear, minimalist style with a quartet of singers doubling on percussion. The story will be told Butoh-style, with choreography performed by Anastazia Loiuse/Bad Unkl Sista. Barnaby Palmer will conduct and Grant will direct the production. Casting details will be forthcoming.

the little match girl passion will be performed in the intimate ODC Theater on March 23, 24, and a matinee on March 25.  Consider it not to missed.