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.

Keith Jarrett and Elizabeth's blue vein

I noticed her as I walked across the BART platform, waiting for a train to take me over to Berkeley to see Keith Jarrett perform his first solo improv show at Zellerbach in thirty years. Everyone noticed her. One couldn't help it- the girl, in her early 20s, with the straight, strawberry-blonde hair, blunt bangs, orange-sherbet-colored lace bustier worn as a blouse and a foam-green H&M-looking jacquard bolero jacket over it. The jacket, like the inexpensive and unflattering jeans she wore, didn't draw any attention from her breasts, which the bustier-as-blouse displayed as if they were extremely rare, exotic, honey-colored melons plucked from some fantastic Eden and placed upon the girl's chest by none other than Satan himself.

Not from around here, I thought, wondering if the girl appreciated the attention she was getting from both sexes, or if she found it annoying. She feigned obliviousness to the allure of the breasts quite well, as if there was a thought balloon over her head  which read What? These? Yes, aren't they nice?

I went over to sit down on an empty spot on a bench, opened up my book, and having ten minutes until the train arrived, read the same sentence about thirty times, all the while noticing people notice the breasts. While I was sitting there trying to read Understanding Toscanini, I was listening to Blue Oyster Cult's Secret Treaties album on my phone. "Career of Evil" came on, and I think I sang along with the line "I'd like... to do it to your daughter in a dirt road..." out loud without really thinking about what the small, elderly Asian woman seated next to me must have thought. She got up a moment later and wandered off.

The train arrived and the breasts were already on board when I stepped into the train, sitting on the seat next to the opposite door, illuminated by the harsh florescent lights of the train- lights that make 98% of the population look like cadavers, but only served to draw attention to a gorgeous blue vein that lay just beneath the stage-left breast, which I'll call Elizabeth. I found myself momentarily mesmerized at the sight of Elizabeth's blue vein- a glorious imperfection which made Elizabeth and her veinless twin all the more perfect in my eyes. So perfect in fact, I sat facing the other way, next to a heavy-set Latino man and across from a guy who looked like Refrigerator Perry who was talking on a cell phone. I went back to trying to understand Toscanini, but my attention was drawn to these two guys, who were obviously marveling at Elizabeth and her sister.

I felt somewhat sad- not only for these two pathetic guys, but also for the bearer of the objects of their desire. I'm judgemental that way. Elizabeth and her sister deserve better from everyone involved. I wish I had a picture of that vein. I'd put it on the wall of my bathroom.

At the Downtown Berkeley stop I got off, and so did the Blonde, who went in a different direction, followed like the Pied Piper by an assortment of admirers. I bet she's thinking about me at this very moment. Life is like that- sliding doors and all that kind of thing.

Zellerbach was packed with Jarrett's fans, a vast portion of which seemed willing to applaud anything he played as if it were the most brilliant music ever performed. And some of it came pretty damn close to that, but not all of it. It took him awhile to find the perfect groove, beginning with a Bach-infused mid-tempo workout which he slowed down to a ballad, with snippets that sounded like  "Someone to Watch Over Me" escaping at moments.

Jarrett paused, turned to the audience and said, "Sometimes subject matter gets in the way," before returning to the ballad, which increasingly took on bop elements, with Jarrett starting to rise from his seat and do his thing, moving into Brubeck territory as he increased the tempo.

He began the next part by slapping out a rhythm on top of the piano, setting a beat, which he sat down on followed on the keys, and here is where the set took off into the rarefied musical expressiveness the audience had come to hear, creating an increasingly dramatic yet melodic web of intricate flourishes drawn with his right hand while the left chugged along in an almost barrelhouse meditation. It soared into a beautiful ballad.

The next part began with a riff that sounded like "All Blues" and I realized the futility of trying to figure out where he was going as I couldn't quite believe that there was something like "Sweet Home Chicago" coming from the man's hands. At that point I just decided to roll along with him and see where it went.

Intermission was followed by an incredibly Romantic-era bit of classical playing that was stunning as much as for its beauty as for Jarrett's virtuosity and I had this crazy thought float into my mind that if a remake of The Seven Year Itch were made, with Jarrett cast in the Tom Ewell role, this is what he would play in the scene where Ewell imagines himself successfully seducing Marilyn Monroe by playing Rachmaninoff. And it would have worked.

After that, he drew a blank on what to play next- as if he had just peaked and he knew it. What followed in the remainder of the set never reached the same heights, but he came close during what proved to be five encores when he acquiesced to numerous shouts from the audience for "Over the Rainbow" and gave the crowd what it wanted and then some. It was gorgeous. Perfectly paced, he played it with a delicate, thoughtful beauty I can't describe in any other way. "Summertime" and "I'm Through with Love" were two of the other encores, and the former would have been more memorable had Jarrett not "sung" along with it. But that's what the man does, and all in all, it was worth it to watch a true master willing to wing it.

The ride back to the City was uneventful, and I managed to understand more Toscanini without Elizabethan interruptions. The concert was presented by Cal Performances. 

Setting the standard

Although no one has designated it as such, the performing arts season of 2011-12 may well end up being remembered as "the year of the pianists." An extraordinarily talented and legendary number of jazz and classical musicians have passed through the area lately and more are on the way. On the jazz front we've already seen McCoy Tyner, Brad Mehldau and Herbie Hancock. Ahmad Jamal will be performing in December. On the classical side Yefim Bronfman, Thomas Ades have already given stellar performances and in the weeks and months ahead Lang Lang, Marc Andre Hamelin, Alexander Melnikov, Christian Zacharias, Leif Ove Andsnes, Murray Perahia, Andras Schiff, Richard Goode and many others will perform locally. It's an abundance of riches, to be sure.

The Keith Jarrett Trio: L to R- Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Gary Peacock. Photo by Rose Anne Jarrett

The bar was seriously raised last night when Cal Performances presented the Keith Jarrett Trio at Zellerbach Hall. Comprised of Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums, these men have been performing together for more than 25 years and it shows at every turn. The notoriously picky pianist seemed in good spirits as he led them through a 2/12 hour performance of standards which held the full house rapt. With the piano situated onstage so his back was toward most of the audience, his head often bowed so far down toward the keys it couldn't be seen, Jarrett's improvisations were stunningly intricate, with developments you couldn't see coming but always went in the most natural direction, ending in denouements which only seemed inevitable once they arrived.

Peacock was always right there in the middle of it, extremely present yet never drawing attention his playing. His was one of the most subtle and complex performances on the instrument I've witnessed, filling in the empty spaces between the piano and drums with notes which made one pay close attention. At the age of 76 he shows no signs of slowing down.  DeJohnette's drum playing was magnificent, especially when he picked up the brushes during the second half. A fully-integrated component of the trio, not just the timekeeper, his timing and taste are impeccable. As the performance progressed, the trio just got tighter and tighter, each number sounding better than the last. This was jazz at its best.

The concert was comprised of standards, including a wonderful version of "Fever" in the first set and concluded with two encores, the last of which was a gorgeous, intricate take on "When I Fall in Love," which Jarrett dedicated to someone with whom he has recently done just that.

In a season of heavy-hitters, this performance set a standard which will be hard to top. The trio has a new album out called Rio and their tour concludes Tuesday night in Seattle.

Set list:
You Go To My Head
Yesterdays
Bob-Be 
Fever
Once Upon A Time
One For Majid
Life's A Bowl of Cherries
Balled (?)
Sandu (?)
Things Ain't What They Used to Be (Duke Ellington)

Encores:
I Didn't Know What Love Was
When I Fall In Love