Jeff Dunn Archives - Aisle Seat Review: Independent Reviews and News on Bay Area Arts, Destinations, and Lifestyle.

October 3, 2024October 3, 2024

Pick ASR! ~~ Livermore Opera’s “The Daughter of the Regiment” is a Vocal and Comic Success!

by Jeff Dunn

I couldn’t get my fill of the regiment in Donizetti’s opera La fille du régiment. Why? Because Livermore Valley Opera’s regimental chorus was such a scene-stealer. Whenever the outstanding cast of principals had gloriously sung one bel canto aria too many, this eight-man posse of protectors would pop in and provide welcome comic relief. Kudos to chorusmaster Bruce Olstad and stage director Marc Jacobs!

Who is the octet protecting? The Daughter (Marie) is a foundling raised by the regiment she addresses as her “fathers.” We are in the Tyrol of 1809, and the French are battling Austrian sympathizers in an area then under Napoleonic control. The French occupiers are the good guys since Donizetti penned his tuneful theater piece for the Paris Opéra-Comique. No surprise that local boy Tonio changes sides and enlists in the regiment to go after his squeeze Marie. But it turns out she’s the child of the Marquise of Berkenfield, who wants her to marry into nobility.

” … highly recommended …”

Véronique Filloux warmed quickly into her demanding role as Marie, hitting her high notes with power and accuracy, but more importantly, conveying an impish sense of fun as a soldiers’ pal in Act 1 and as a would-be trainee in aristocracy in Act 2. Chris Mosz brought a uniquely sugary voice to the character of Tonio, effortlessly hitting all eight high Cs in Tonio’s famous Act 1 Ah! mes ami … aria, and even adding a higher-than-high C to the unwritten (by Donizetti) ninth one.

Marie and her Protectors. Photo Livermore Opera.

Eugene Brancoveanu’s rich and venue-filling voice and acting were perfect for his role as Sulpice, the sergeant in charge of the octo-posse. Finally, mezzo-soprano Lisa Chavez’ lovely voice was a joy to hear as she negotiated her Marquise’s character change from a snobby fussbudget to a woman who begins to display caring for her once-abandoned child at the cost of her reputation.

(L-R) Marie, Sarge, & Tonio. Photo Livermore Opera.

Jean-François Revon’s sets and projection designs were a marvel–simple, colorful, effective, and surprising when cannon-blast lighting effects popped out in distant background hills. Linda Pisano’s beautiful costumes, initially designed for the Utah Opera, were a pleasure to examine in detail during the more extended arias.

Music director Alexander Katsman’s tempos and dynamics were managed with aplomb in Francis Griffin’s reduced-orchestra score displaying little emaciation. This reviewer thought the horn section had a bit of difficulty handling the highly exposed overture opening in the September 28th performance, but the cello section was wonderful for the lead-in to the Par le rang et par l’opulence aria in Act 2.

Tonio and Marie at work at the Livermore Opera. Photo Livermore Opera.

The many laughs, endless melodies, outstanding voices, costumes, and sets make Livermore Opera’s version of La fille a highly recommended and inexpensive way to experience great opera. If you go before it closes on Sunday, October 6th, see if you can hear the clever reference to Rossini’s William Tell overture in Donizetti’s overture. Both operas take place in the Alps.

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ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor Jeff Dunn is a retired educator and project manager who’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera, Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.Contact: jdunn@mmalameda.com

Production	Daughter of the Regiment
Music by	Gaetano Donizetti
Libretto by	Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges & Jean-François Bayard
Director	Marc Jacobs
Producing Company	Livermore Valley Opera
Production Dates	Thru Oct 6th
Production Address	Bankhead Theater 2400 First St, Livermore, CA 94551
Website	www.lvopera.com
Telephone	(925) 373-6800
Tickets	$25 - $110

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4/5
Performance	4.5/5
Music	4/5
Libretto	3.5/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

October 2, 2024October 3, 2024

Pick ASR! ~~ The Perfect Concert — Composer Cornucopia Wows at SF Symphony

by Jeff Dunn

How many times do you go to a symphony concert where at least one of the pieces is boring or has issues of execution or interpretation, no matter how good the rest of it is?

If you’re an old, feisty music critic like me, it’s almost always. But last weekend’s SF Symphony concert, masterfully assembled by music director Essa-Pekka Salonen, was perfect in every respect, with enthralling, varied, and integrated repertoire giving all orchestra sections a chance to shine.

And shine, they did! To top it off, Salonen’s superb conducting maximized the selections’ inherent drama and dynamic ranges, leading to one standing ovation after another.

” … perfect in every respect … “

What integrated the four pieces performed was their consistent references to baroque composers set in the respective styles of the Romantic, Modernist, and 21st-Century composers Edward Elgar, Paul Hindemith, and Nico Muhly. The result was a splendid survey of many glories of the last 300 years of music history.

Muhly’s work was an SF symphony-commissioned premiere of his 2024 piano concerto. This was the most impressive of his works I’ve heard so far, one immediately pleasurable and worth many future listenings when recordings become available. Its three movements were played without pause over 25 minutes.

The first showed orchestrational evidence of Muhly’s eight years as an assistant to Philip Glass, along with tads of John Adams’ postminimalism. But the second conjured unique sounds, including eerie glissandi and a shattering central climax. The third is a brisk toccata. All movements successfully exuded touches of the baroque composers Rameau and Couperin in a thoroughly contemporary and dazzling orchestral setting.

Muhly, admittedly obsessed by soloist Alexandre Tharaud, designed the concerto around his unique pianistic skills: lightning-fast fingers, ultra-high energy, and masterful control (except for his left foot, which periodically shot out to the side as if kicking away a cuff-chewing dog–but this added to, not subtracted from the excitement).

The first piece after intermission was Elgar’s orchestration of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537, a superlative example of what became a fad with Leopold Stokowski’s transcriptions later in the 1920s. Elgar’s over-the-top conclusion to the end of the Fugue goes beyond anything Stokowski attempted. Even Richard Strauss, Mr. Excess himself, thought it went too far, but it’s a thrilling example of the Romantic spirit emanating from Berlioz.

The first and last works were Hindemith’s. When he died in 1963, he was considered one of the greatest 20th-century composers, along with Stravinsky, Bartok, and Schoenberg. That’s no longer true today, and in this reviewer’s opinion, it’s a shame.

His four-minute Ragtime (Well-Tempered) (1920) is full of robust good humor, immersing the theme of Bach’s C-minor Well Tempered Clavier tune in a sea of obstreperous fox trots, rags, and brass raspberries. And the concluding work, his masterpiece, Symphony, Mathis Der Maler, brought the audience to their feet for three long curtain calls. It’s incredible to this reviewer that symphony programmers have neglected this tremendous staple of music history for more than 36 years. How many lesser works have we heard countless times in that interval?

Compared to Mahler even, Hindemith’s symphony surpasses when you consider greatness per minute. The whole program, less than an hour of music, makes it a champion by that measure. Perfect!

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Production	SF Symphony cornucopia
Producing Company	San Francisco Symphony
Production Dates	Thru Sept 28th
Production Address	Davies Symphony Hall 201 Van Ness Ave, SF CA 94012
Website	www.sfsymphony.org
Telephone	(415) 864-6000
Tickets	$30-$149

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4.5/5
Music	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK?	YES!

September 19, 2024September 20, 2024

ASR Opera ~~ “The Handmaid’s Tale” Powerful But Bleak at SF Opera

by Jeff Dunn

If you’re in the mood for a well-done dose of despondency, Poul Ruder’s The Handmaid’s Tale, now playing at the San Francisco Opera, is just the ticket. Prepare with a quick re-read of 1984 and Animal Farm. Then, you’ll be ready to show up and experience an impressive array of artists doing their very best to show you some of the very worst that could happen to this country.

Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel posits a future (2014 in the book, 2030 in the current opera production) where a worldwide infertility disease, environmental degradations, and nuclear disasters have created enough social instability to allow a puritanical cult to mastermind a coup of the U.S. government. As a result, a “Republic of Gilead” is created and put under martial law.

Lindsay Ammann as Serena Joy (at left and projection) and Irene Roberts as Offred in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Photo: Cory Weaver.

Next, claiming that infertility is God’s punishment for women’s sinfulness, women are progressively deprived of most of their rights, including reading and writing, and forcibly separated into classes depending on their ability to procreate and other factors. Fertile women are designated as “Handmaids,” forced to have intercourse with upper-class men whose wives have been unable to produce children — and then forced to surrender their babies.

Irene Roberts at work in “The Handmaid’s Tale” at SF opera. Photo: Cory Weaver.

Ruder’s music is utterly appropriate to this dismal situation. Written from 1996 to 1998 in a late Modernist orchestral style, with drone bass lines, accretionary tone clusters, and periodic fusillades from the brass. Vocal lines are relatively simple in comparison, but nothing you’d want to sing in the shower.

A cultural icon of melody (“Indian’s Farewell,” now known as “Amazing Grace”) can be detected in several instances, where it adds a bitter irony to the cult’s pseudoreligion. For some, the music may become as hard to bear as the gross indignities and devasting losses suffered by the opera’s characters.

Irene Roberts as Offred and John Relyea as The Commander in Poul Ruders and Paul Bentley’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Photo: Cory Weaver.

Mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts portrays the central Handmaid sufferer “Offred.” In such a production I cannot imagine a better performance than the way she passes on her anguish, travails, failing hopes, and powerlessness to listeners. Bass John Relyea adds a rich sound and complexity to the bad-guy role of Offred’s Commander and would-be impregnator.

Mezzo-soprano Lindsay Ammann adds a special poignancy to her portrayal of the Commander’s jealous wife. Soprano Rhoslyn Jones’ sweetness is a welcome contribution to her part as Offred’s shopping partner Ofglen. And soprano Sarah Cambidge’s fearful stridency is perfect in her projection of how, given a little power, oppressed women are happy to subjugate other women.

Conductor Karen Kamensek carefully handled the score’s complexities and did not stint at providing a full dynamic range of occasionally terrifying sounds. Chloe Lamford’s sets were spare and utilitarian in foreground, but massive where needed in portraying the huge “Hanging Wall” where traitors’ bodies remind viewers of the cost of cult disobedience. Will Duke’s large projections were especially apt in personalizing the loss of Offred’s pre-coup daughter.

Sarah Cambidge as Aunt Lydia, Irene Roberts as Offred (bottom row, right) and members of the SF Opera Chorus at work. Photo: Cory Weaver.

The Handmaid’s Tale serves as a very unpleasant object lesson on the perversion of authority and psychology. San Francisco Opera’s production is true to Atwood’s vision. Fortunately, since the United States is still a free country, attendance is optional.

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Production	A Handmaid's Tale
Based on novel by	Margaret Atwood
Libretto by	Paul Bentley
Stage Direction	John Fulljames
Producing Company	San Francisco Opera
Production Dates	Thru Oct 1st, 2024
Production Address	301 Van Ness Ave, SF, CA
Website	www.sfopera.com
Telephone	(415) 392-4400
Tickets	$28-$426

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	3.75/5
Performance	4/5
Music	3/5
Libretto	4/5
Stagecraft	4/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK?	No.

** Editor — thanks to https://kglteater.dk

September 18, 2024September 19, 2024

PICK ASR! ~~ “Innocence:” The Magic in ‘The Magic Flute’

by Jeff Dunn

If magic is the art of making the impossible possible, the libretto for The Magic Flute opera is the Mission Impossible of believability.

Librettist Emanuel Schikaneder left posterity an impossible scenario: A Japanese prince in a deep forest in Egypt, thinking he’s been saved from a giant serpent by a rustic dressed as a giant bird, finds himself in a war between a screaming queen and a basso pharaoh running a Masonic cult. That artist-magicians strive to overcome this hodgepodge is a testament to one of the greatest of all musicians, Mozart.

” … Many in the cast contributed their … sorcery to the occasion …”

Thanks to Opera San Jose’s fine set of magicians, the hand they received from last Saturday’s audience was not at all slight–a standing ovation. Foremost among the magicians was Ricardo José Rivera as bird-man Papageno, whose rich baritone and superb comic acting thrilled the crowd.

But even more magical was conductor Alma Deutscher, fresh out of the Hogwarts of conservatories, the University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna. She’s 19 and has already written two lengthy concertos and three operas. Her bare-armed conducting was fluid and passionate and a joy to witness.

Many in the cast contributed their own bits of sorcery to the occasion. Tenor Sergio González was outstanding as the what’s-he-doing-in-Egypt prince Tamino. Emily Misch as the Queen of the Night pulled out high-F rabbits from her hat with aplomb in her famous aria. Her henchwomen Maria Brea, Melissa Bonetti Luna and Mariya Kaganskaya cast a delicious spell in their trios.

Melissa Sondhi paired expressively with Gonzáles as his love interest Pamina. Nicole Koh distributed a lot of delightful fairy dust as Papageno’s squeeze Papagena. The redoubtable Philip Skinner was imposing as the Speaker of the Temple. As Monostatos, tenor Nicolas Vasquez-Gerst was a master of the black arts and flip-flopping loyalties. Was there kryptonite in the large lollypop sun-staff that he had to keep holding that diminished Youngwang Park’s magic and vocal penetration as the pharaoh Sarastro?

Stage magic was most effective at the outset, when an elaborate serpent-dragon was carried about Chinese-style, replete with smoke from its jaws. Ryan McGettigan’s pyramid and palm stage-design motifs provided consistency, but this reviewer felt the neon-looking palms smacked more of 20th-century Las Vegas than 18th-century Vienna. Alyssa Oania’s costumes, however, were fascinating, and David Lee Cuthbert’s lighting interacted very effectively with stage structures.

A special bit of prestidigitation was accomplished by stage director Brad Dalton. The overture began with lots of action on stage as Tamino, dressed as an 18th-century aristocrat, is placed by servants and playful children in front of a proscenium to see a play in his honor. Tamino gets sucked into the action, and eventually the proscenium disappears, realizing the alternative reality of the opera. Strangely, while I admired the concept, I felt all the action interfered with the pleasure of listening to the overture. Is this yet another example of today’s fashion of elevating dramaturgy above music in opera?

Mozart and The Magic Flute represents the best kind of magic, the kind that lasts, so that generation after generation of artists can ride on its dragon’s back, and see if new tricks can woo the human heart.

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Production	Innocence
Libretto by	Emanuel Schikaneder
Stage Direction	Brad Dalton
Conducted by	Alma Deutscher
Producing Company	Opera San Jose
Production Dates	Thru Sept 29th
Production Address	California Theater - 345 S First St, San Jose, CA 95113
Website	www.operasj.org
Telephone	(408) 437-4450
Tickets	$57.50- $212.50

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4/5
Performance	4/5
Music	4/5
Libretto	3/5
Stagecraft	3.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

August 7, 2024August 8, 2024

ASR Opera ~~ “Bulrusher” An Opera of Character

by Jeff Dunn

There are many reasons to attend opera: resplendent spectacle, vocal pyrotechnics, unforgettable tunes, lavish costumes, and many other aspects of compelling theater. In the case of West Edge Opera’s Bulrusher, the reason is its depth and sensitivity of character development.

The lead character in Bulrusher (soprano Shawnette Sulker) is a former foundling, a young black woman who imports oranges for resale to the small Mendocino town of Boonville in 1955. She comes of age as she experiences her first love, develops racial consciousness, and encounters the truth of her parentage. But it is not just her journey that is impressively developed by the team of composer-librettist Nathaniel Stookey and playwright-librettist Eisa Davis. All of the major characters’ strengths and shortcomings become palpable as viewers become immersed in the story.

Shawnette Sulker (second from left) as Bulrusher

Bass Matt Boehler plays Schoolch, the local schoolteacher who found the baby Bulrusher in a basket stuck in a marsh along the Navarro River and raised her. Taciturn to a fault, he has taught her proper English (the locals have developed a special language known as “Boontling”) but little about life, which she seems yet to handle fairly well on her own. He and Logger (bass Kenneth Kellogg) are both permanently hung up on Madame (mezzo Briana Hunter), who has been running the town brothel for years and refuses to marry them.

” … the vocal performances are all outstanding. …”

Into this brew are injected two more characters. Logger’s niece Vera (mezzo Briana Hunter), walking the 30-mile road from the nearest train station in the rain, is picked up by Bulrusher in her truck. Vera has left Alabama and becomes the only other black person, aside from Logger, that Bulrusher has known. “Boy” (tenor Chad Somers) is a white teenager with a persistent, unreciprocated crush on Bulrusher. Carefully modulated in the libretto and music, these two interlopers transform everyone and themselves. Such care takes time, but it provides dividends in Act 2, where existing and developing conflicts flare and are finally ameliorated.

Rebecca Cuddy as Madame and Shawnette Sulker as Bulrusher in “Bulrusher” now running in Oakland.

Stookey’s music is appropriate to the tonal and pastoral setting,. The orchestration is for the most part delicate, subdued, and never monotonous, with sparky piano accents and ominous bass-drum rolls. It is most effective in accompanying Bulrusher’s mystic side, her spirituality with the Navarro River, and her emerging love for Vera. Rarely is the orchestra in the forefront, but it did elicit audience laughter when a snare drum was used to imitate the sound of an 1950s dial phone that Madame was using.

Kenneth Kellogg as Logger in “Bulrusher”

The libretto itself has some lovely poetic moments, such as when Bulrusher inexplicably recollects her experiences as an infant floating in her Moses basket. At other times, the poetry’s meaning may not be immediately decipherable to the average listener. Perhaps these poetic sections should be printed in future programs?

The vocal performances are all outstanding. There is also a chorus of five mysterious individuals who echo or accompany Bulrusher’s spiritual moments and soliloquys. Their voices were a great plus to the proceedings aurally, however obscure their function. Sulker’s portrayal of Bulrusher deserves special mention. Her voice is crystal clear, ethereal, innocent, yet somehow knowing—perfect for the role. Unfortunately, unlike those of her fellows, it did not project well toward the more distant seats, making the Scottish Rite Temple sound all the more cavernous.

I regret to conclude that for me, many excellence featuress of this production were undercut by the scenic and projection design of Yuki Izumihara. Bulrusher is a uniquely California story about a unique California community. Where were the golden hills and redwoods? Izumihara instead flooded the stage with watery projections that may have been evocative for Navarro scenes, but they almost never left the stage.

Furthermore there were a few other details this reviewer thought distracted from the piece. First there was an unattractive upside-down handsaw of a staircase that made sense for the brothel, however unrealistic, but nowhere else–especially the Rock scene at the beach. And why was the chorus carrying around glowing balls of different colors and sizes? Were these Bullrusher’s mood oranges? Finally, there were numerous benches that were noisily moved around at almost every scene transition. If there is a reason for this distracting exercise, Stookey should consider writing music to underscore it, for it breaks the flow, throwing a boulder into the Navarro, so to speak.

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Production	Bulrusher
Based on the play by	Eisa Davis
Directed by	NJ Agwuna
Producing Company	West Edge Opera
Production Dates	Thru August 15th
Production Address	Scottish Rite Temple 1547 Lakeside Dr, Oakland, CA 94612
Website	www.westedgeopera.org
Telephone	(510) 841-1903
Tickets	$22-$162

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	3.5/5
Performance	4/5
Music	3.5/5
Libretto	3.5/5
Stagecraft	2/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	No

July 22, 2024July 28, 2024

PICK ASR Opera! ~~ Team Effort Enlivens an Audience Favorite

by Jeff Dunn

No tears for Mimi’s death at the end of Puccini’s La Bohème Sunday afternoon? Because everyone in the cast of Pocket Opera was having such a raucous good time on the small stage of the Hillside Club in Berkeley!

And, doing such a great job of it, I felt it was time to celebrate—rush up and congratulate Pocket’s enthusiastic artists in the family-like atmosphere they generated.

” … This is a joyous, ideal family and opera lover fare … “

In that spirit, I wish to begin by congratulating William Young for the shortest and most heart-warming “aria” in the opera, his asking for a toy drum from the charming Caleb Alexander’s Parpignol in Act 2. It was Young’s operatic debut at age 8, and his voice was loud, clear, and on pitch, as were his six accompanying street urchins.

Nicolas Huff and Diana Skavronskaya as Mimi at work for Pocket Opera. Photo courtesy of Pocket Opera.

As for the rest of the cast, there were many standouts. Soprano Diana Skavronskaya was a gorgeously riveting and dramatic presence on stage as Mimi, excelling in her arias in Acts 1 and 3, but especially in the ensemble scene in Act 2. I only felt that in Act 4, despite her fine acting, her powerful voice seemed, well, a bit out of line for a person dying of consumption.

As her lover Rudolfo, Tenor Nicolas Huff contributed an arresting passion to the proceedings, especially in Acts 2-4. Daniel Yoder brought his rich baritone to Rodolfo’s fellow bohemian Marcello, and was fun to watch cavorting across the stage in the exuberant mock battles of Acts 1 and 4.

Melissa Sondhi portrayed the temperamental Musetta with verve and swagger. Bass-baritone Don Hoffman and baritone Michael Kuo rounded out the bohemian quartet engagingly. Hoffman was especially effective in his “Farewell Dear Coat” aria in Act 4. Gene Wright as Alcindoro and Michael Mendelsohn were hilarious as comic victims in Acts 1 and 2.

The cast of Pocket Opera’s production at work. Photo courtesy Brittany Law

For smaller theaters (like this one), Act 2 presents a bit of a problem of scale with street scenes, crowds, and a marching band. Stage Director Elly Lichenstein sent the urchins up and down the aisles to take full advantage of the venue and had the cast convey the imaginary sight of the band with joyful expression. Conductor Mary Chun’s reduction of the score for a 12-piece orchestra was just right for the intimate surroundings.

Pocket Opera will move to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco for its final performance of Boheme. This is a joyous, ideal family and opera lover fare. Don’t let it slip your schedule.

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ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor, Jeff Dunn, is a retired educator and project manager who’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera, Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.

Production	La Boheme
Composer	Giacomo Puccini
English Libretto	Donald Pippin
Director	Elly Lichenstein
Producing Company	Pocket Opera
Production Dates	Thru July 28th
Production Address	Legion of Honor, 100 34th St, San Francisco 94121
Website	www.pocketopera.org
Telephone	(415) 972-8934
Tickets	$15 - $79

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4/5
Performance	4/5
Music	4.5/5
Libretto	4/5
Stagecraft	4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

July 13, 2024July 28, 2024

PICK ASR Opera! ~~ Double Bill, Double Thrill

by Jeff Dunn

The two leading women in Festival Opera’s latest double bill have anguish in common — they both lose their lovers. Yet their stories couldn’t be further in style and emphasis. The 1958 La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice) by Francis Poulenc is an expressionistic tour de force for solo soprano, while the 1688 Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell is a Baroque, group-effort mosaic featuring 20 captivating chorus members, two dancers and eight soloists.

Nevertheless, the extreme contrast between the two operas works, thanks to some fine individual performances combined with superb direction, choreography, production design, and projections.

Festival Opera with Conductor-Pianist Robert Mollicone in Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine,” with Carrie Hennessey as Céline Ricci. Photos: Stefan Cohen.

La Voix details the morning a Parisian woman, “Elle” (“She”), has telephone calls with her lover, who is about to marry someone else. Elle tried to kill herself with pills the night before but was rescued by a friend. The calls don’t go well, as Elle, impressively portrayed by soprano Carrie Hennessey, wanders about her littered room in various states of dress and undress and displays every emotion imaginable.

” … Whether you prefer a dive-in-the-brain character study, or a fly-with-the-mob ensemble extravaganza, you can get both thrills at Festival Opera …”

Peter Crompton’s projections reflect her moods, from a Pink-Panther cheeriness of bright pinks and greens of decor and in giant cell phones to darker hues as Elle eventually chokes herself in telephone cables. With his on-stage piano instead of an orchestra, conductor Robert Mollicone sensitively rolled with Elle’s emotions from moment to moment.

Utilizing the recently authorized piano-only version certainly makes economic sense today. Yet, for this reviewer, the lack of Poulenc’s lavish orchestration considerably reduces the musical, if not dramatic pleasures to be found in this work. One main melody does come through near the end, a fateful reference to Chopin’s “Winter Wind” Etude, op. 25, no. 11.

Dido is the title character in Nahum Tate’s adaptation of the fourth book of Virgil’s Aeneid, but in Festival Opera’s spectacular concept of Purcell’s setting, the chorus is no stand-and-deliver entity. It is a murmuration, ever swarming around Dido as courtiers, or around the Sorceress as witches and demons, or carousing as sailors.

There is a lot of work for a lot of people besides singing, and director Céline Ricci and choreographer Fiona Hutchens deserve a Trojan boatload of credit for their contributions here. Mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich handled the role of Dido well, but the strongest impression was made by contralto-profundo Sara Couden as the Sorceress. Tenor Taylor Thompson also contributed a lovely voice to his role as the Sailor, and the rest of the cast, for the most part, performed with distinction. Again a wide range of projections, some of which appear AI-generated, periodically absorbs viewer interest.

Festival Opera with Zachary Gordin, Conductor and Harpsichord, in Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” with Kindra Scharich, Dido, Lila Khazoum, Belinda, Lily Bogas, Attendant, Matthew Lovell, Aeneas, Sara Couden, Sorceress, Courtney Miller, First Witch, Reuben Zellman, Second Witch/Spirit, Taylor Thompson, Sailor, and Céline Ricci, Director. Photo: Stefan Cohen.

Special credit needs to go to conductor, General Director, and harpsichordist Zachary Gordin, who assembled a Baroque orchestra of only seven players that filled the hall and perfectly balanced the voices on the Purcell stage. I could not miss the playing of Richard Savino, whose huge theorbo (brontosaur lute) lofted lovely bass notes to my attention.

Whether you prefer a dive-in-the-brain character study, or a fly-with-the-mob ensemble extravaganza, you can get both thrills at Festival Opera.

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Production	La Voix Humaine* / Dido & Aeneas
Based on the play by	Jean Cocteau
Directed by	Céline Ricci
Producing Company	Festival Opera
Production Dates	Thru July 14th
Production Address	Hoffman Theatre, Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Dr, Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Website	www.lesherartscenter.showare.com
Telephone	(925) 943-7469
Tickets	$55-$110

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.3/5
Performance	4/5
Music	4/5
Libretto	4.5/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK!	YES!

July 8, 2024July 8, 2024

ASR Theater ~~ SF Playhouse Launches “Evita”

By Team ASR

San Francisco Playhouse has a tradition of selecting and producing one classic musical blockbuster and running it all summer long. It’s a great gambit that takes advantage of tourist traffic in the Union Square neighborhood — and is a strategy other theaters might follow to their advantage.

This year’s offering is the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice phenomenon Evita, running at 450 Post Street through September 7th. Several ASR contributors were at the July 3 opener. We’ve collected their comments here to offer diverse viewpoints rather than running a singular review. Enjoy!

“… It should enjoy a successful run …”

The production overall:
Cari Lynn Pace: Evita begins with her funeral and ends with her casket surrounded by wailing mourners. In between, an homage to an ambitious woman driven by her unquenching thirst for power and adoration.

Susan Dunn: A difficult musical to fully embrace, but delivered with style, talent, and pizzazz for an exciting and compelling evening.

Barry Willis: First things first: the show is beautifully produced, no question about that. And its historical aspect is really intriguing.

But, the music (well performed by Dave Dobrusky’s backstage orchestra) is bombastic, repetitive, and atonal. Evita was the precursor to other atonal musicals, such as Next to Normal. Other than “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina,” one has, in this reviewer’s opinion, to search for another memorable song in the entire show. It didn’t make me want to rush out and buy the soundtrack recording.

Jeff Dunn: It’s very engaging, especially because of the pacing, artistic commitment, and Nicole Helfer’s choreography.

Staging and set design:
SD: Clever use of lights, movable sets, rotating floor, and projections transform a black box into the saga of an iconic figure. A critical moment occurs with all lights down when we just hear the roar and surge of the crowds reacting to their icon.

BW: SF Playhouse has long leveraged its big turntable stage for dramatic effects, especially with huge imposing sets by Nina Ball or Bill English. In this one, set designer Heather Kenyon opts for a more austere presentation, with roll-around scaffolds serving as set pieces, backed by black-and-white projections that give the show an early-1950s feel. It works very well with the mid-century costumes.

JD: Minimalist staging goes with the abstract nature of much of the show, and allows for quick changes.

CLP: Clever use of minimal stage settings allows the narrator Che to pop in and out, propelling the story line. The onstage news photographer lends credibility to the action, especially as Evita’s casket begins its mysterious 17-year disappearance.

Sophia Alawai as “Evita” at SF playhouse. Photo: Jessica Palopoli

Performance:
SD: Alex Rodriguez as Che and Sophia Alawai as Evita deliver non-stop power, superb vocals and sympathetic portrayals. The ensemble mutates appropriately from peasantry to Argentinean high society. Nicole Helfer’s choreography shows variety and polish.

JD: Alex Rodriguez is outstanding as narrator Che. Sophia Alawi, a superbly sweet Maria in Hillbarn’s Sound of Music last year, seemed to this reviewer to perhaps be a bit light for Evita. She’s wonderfully expressive, but has trouble with many of the high notes that Mr. Webber forces on the character. Ensemble is excellent. The orchestra is energetic but, perhaps, a bit unsubtle.

CLP: Voices are clear and enable most of the complex lyrics to be understandable, always a challenge in a Lloyd Webber musical. Sophia Alawi as Evita channels her calculating and controversial figure. Alex Rodriguez pours explosive energy into his role as Che. Chanel Tilghman has a haunting role and voice as Peron’s cast-off mistress.

The cast of San Francisco Playhouse’s “Evita,” performing June 27 – September 7, 2024. Photo: Jessica Palopoli

BW: The show is well performed, even to the point of this reviewer believing that some of the leads were somewhat outclassed by some of the supporting cast. Malia Abayon and Jura Davis are especially compelling. Peter Gregus as Juan Peron embodies the style and look of an autocrat but his recitativo vocalizing left this reviewer wishing for a bit more… Helfer’s athletic choreography is superb — as always.

Script and storyline:
BW: Evita is a tale of celebrity worship driven to the realm of religiosity. Many of Eva’s fans called her “Santa Evita” and even asked for her blessings. But — it’s also a cautionary tale about grift on a massive scale. Argentina once had one of the world’s strongest economies. In the post-Peron era, the nation has regularly been on shaky financial ground. This is depicted effectively in a scene where soldiers are passing packets of cash hand-to-hand across the stage, symbolic of the Peron policy of taking national assets private.

SD: In this reviewer’s opinion, one weakness in Evita is the essentially narrated storyline which often prevents events from fully coming to life. The complex and fascinating historical details come to us through Che, whose narration is a bit like getting historical postcards instead of really being there. The ensemble does help to fill out social divisions, which become stepping stones for the ascension of Eva Peron.

The crowd cheers for Eva & Juan Perón in San Francisco Playhouse’s “Evita,” performing June 27 – September 7, 2024. Photo: Jessica Palopoli

JD: This reviewer found this production to be a bit hard to follow if you’re not familiar with the narrative. Almost all the words are sung, making this really a rock opera. The sound design seems perhaps to obscure some of the text. Tip: for newcomers, it would improve the play going experience to gain some familiarity with the show in advance.

CLP: Evita Duarte Peron will always remain a controversial figure. Beloved for her selective charities and adored by the shirtless as a glamorous leader, “Santa Evita” started Argentina on the path towards bankruptcy, a politically muzzled press, and chronic food shortages. In this production, she expresses love for all her people, proclaiming “Every word that I say is true.”

Aisle Seat Takeaway:

Evita might be considered an atypical undertaking for SF Playhouse, but this production — wins our recommendation. It should enjoy a successful run!

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For this review, Team ASR’s members consists of: Cari Lynn Pace, Susan Dunn, Jeff Dunn, and Barry Willis — all voting members of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.

Susan Dunn	4.0 out of 5.0
Jeff Dunn	3.8/5.0
Cari Lynn Pace	3.8/5.0
Barry Willis	3.5/5.0
Average is...	3.8/5.0

June 14, 2024July 28, 2024

PICK ASR Opera! ~~ Music Demoted in “Innocence”

by Jeff Dunn

About his 2000 opera Dead Man Walking, composer Jake Heggie wrote that his librettist Terrence McNally “recognized that an opera is about the music and that he would do whatever he could to serve that.” 24 years later, on the same San Francisco Opera stage, composer Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence, just like Heggie’s Dead Man, grips audiences in a story about a horrific crime and its relation to participants, victims, and society.

But Saariaho’s work is so less about the music, that I doubt it would fit McNally’s characterization of opera. Instead, the score, brilliant in mood-setting, character delineation, and orchestration, remains a handmaiden to staging and acting. With the notable exception of the music for Marketa, a slain student, it avoids song, that mainstay of the operatic past. It’s more of a film soundtrack with voices as instruments.

” … Performances by the 21 principals are excellent … “

Nevertheless, opera or not, Innocence is a powerful experience. Sofi Oksanen’s libretto begins with Tuomas’s wedding to his Romanian bride, Stela, in Helsinki. She doesn’t know that her groom is the younger brother of a school shooter who killed 10 of his fellow students and a teacher a decade earlier. Things unravel as she learns the facts from the mother of Marketa, one of the murdered students.

Chloe Lamford’s mesmerizing set for “Innocence.”

Chloe Lamford’s mesmerizing set is a variably rotating, two-story collection of chambers doing double duty as hotel facilities of the wedding’s present and school rooms of the shooting’s past. Survivors, along with the murdered, wander through the set like rats in a maze, telling or singing their heartbreaking stories. The shooter himself never appears. While one side of the massive set faces the audience, 29 stage crew members quickly and silently refurbish the back rooms to match the setting of upcoming scenes.

It is a tribute to Oksanen’s genius that the progressive introduction of 11 vocalists and eight actors rarely makes one wonder who’s who in the story. As more and more is revealed about the tragedy, one is dragged deeper into the pain of the participant’s despair, aptly underlined by Saariaho’s underscore. At the same time, one discovers that hardly anyone can be deemed innocent of wrongdoing.

The drama forces us to contemplate that from the point of view of today’s society, innocence is not only an ironic misnomer but an impossibility for adolescents and anyone older. There are tiny glimmers at the end that a few survivors are moving on with their lives, but Saariaho provides no obvious indication of it in her dour music, despite what the text indicates—a blow to optimists.

Performances by the 21 principals are excellent, especially those by the shooter’s father, Henrik, sung by baritone Rod Gilfry, and Marketa, sung in an unforgettable folk-song-like manner by soprano Vilma Jää. Conductor Clément Mao-Takacs does a fine job of sensitively guiding the 64 orchestra and 40 offstage chorus members.

Cast of “Innocence” at work at SF Opera.

Innocence is meticulously engineered to put its audience in an empathetic thrall with the precursors and consequences of school massacres. Even traditional opera lovers should attend — once. Even if it isn’t about the music.

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Production	Innocence
Musical Direction	Clément Mao-Takacs
Stage Direction	Louise Bakker
Producing Company	San Francisco Opera
Production Dates	Thru June 21st
Production Address	301 Van Ness Ave, SF, CA
Website	www.sfopera.com
Telephone	(415) 392-4400
Tickets	$32-$426

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4/5
Music	3.5/5
Libretto	4.5/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK?	YES!

May 27, 2024July 28, 2024

PICK ASR Opera! ~~ “Before It All Goes Dark” –Paintings, Music, and Deprivation in a New Art Form

By Jeff Dunn

A new art form graced San Francisco’s Presidio Theatre one night before moving on to Chicago.

For lack of a better word, I would call it an conversalonera—a collaborative work that interweaves related themes via three “acts”—a 30-minute semi-scripted “conversation,” a 25-minute salon, and a 35-minute opera. In less expert hands, such a concept might result in merely a time-filling hodgepodge.

” … Before It All Goes Dark is worthy of many more performances …”

Not so in this case! Five brilliant collaborators have created a structure that allows for a compelling theme—art deprivation as the result of the Holocaust—to resonate to the maximum.

Joined by many others on the production end, the chief collaborators on the creation side were Mina Miller, founder of Music of Remembrance; Jake Heggie, composer; Howard Reich, former arts critic with the Chicago Tribune; and Gene Scheer, librettist.

The “interview” act began with Miller prompting first Heggie and then Reich to tell their stories: Heggie about receiving an open-ended commission from Miller, searching for a subject, and finally contacting Reich; Reich informing Heggie of a series of articles he had written 20 years previously about The Jewish Museum in Prague trying to find relatives of Holocaust victim Emil Freund. Freund’s valuable art collection had been seized by the Nazis and sequestered by the Czech Communist government.

Only some time after democracy was restored in the Czech Republic was restitution to descendants of original owners being considered. The Jewish Museum asked Reich to see if Freund’s two sisters had established family lines in the U.S. They had indeed. Reich found one, Gerald “Mac” McDonald, an ailing PTSD vet who had no idea that he had a grand uncle who was Jewish or an art collector. Reich traveled with McDonald to Prague to see and obtain Freund’s legacy. McDonald’s story became the substance of Scheer’s libretto.

It was Miller’s idea to make the second “act” a salon-style performance of instrumental works written by composers murdered in the Holocaust. The “salon” was a projected intimation of Freund’s pre-war apartment with its impressive display of art. The music was instrumental—one duet each by David Beigelman and Robert Dauber; and two duets, a piano solo, and a trio by Erwin Schulhoff. The Beigelman piece, the song Mak tsu di eygelekh (“Close your little eyes”), a Schindler’s List-like lament played by clarinet and piano, was the most moving of the fine set.

The salon morphed seamlessly into McDonald’s apartment for the beginning of the opera, accompanied by a small but effective ensemble (flute, clarinet, string quartet, piano) conducted by Joseph Mechavich. Bass-baritone Ryan McKinny did a superb job of characterizing the tattooed, burly, angry, and dying vet sparring with his neighbor Sally (effective mezzo Megan Marino) about why he must head off to Europe despite his condition. Heggie wrote a great riff-leitmotiv for McDonald, inspired, as he told me, by the imagined bass line of a heavy-metal band.

Later, in the Jewish Museum, the short opera climaxes when curator Misha (also Marino) opens a figurative door to a gallery where the Freund collection has been assembled for McDonald’s examination. The first sight of Freund’s collection blows McDonald away—and the music and lighting do the same to the audience. The sound is suffused with Heggie’s version of a lament tune passed around the chamber orchestra. Masterpieces of the Freund collection zoom out in projection one after the other. Finally, an array of searing gold spotlights rotates slowly from the stage into the auditorium, flooding the audience.

McDonald empathizes with Freund’s tragedy: “Emil, Uncle Emil, these are the last things you saw … before it all went dark.” Scheer then wonderfully conflates McDonald’s parents’ neglect, where he acted up to try to be “visible” to them, with Freund’s need for his collection to be “chosen, seen, and loved.”

Unfortunately for McDonald, the Czech government ruled that the best of the Freund collection could not leave the country. He returns home to Chicago at the end, with a cheap painting he bought at a Prague art fair. He’s not a millionaire, but he has been touched by beauty and the revelation of his ancestry.

This was the second of four performances sponsored by Music of Remembrance, an organization dedicated to “honoring the resilience of all people excluded or persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, gender or sexuality.” The first was in Seattle May 19th; the third and fourth will be in Chicago May 25th and 26th.

I believe Before It All Goes Dark is worthy of many more performances, and would be effective even if actors play the roles of Heggie and Reich. I only wish that the program notes would include more about the ultimate fate of the Freund collection. The current notes give the impression that McDonald was Freund’s sole heir, but two children and two cousins survive and should have some claim to compensation.

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Production	Before It All Goes Dark
Based on Chicago Tribune articles by	Howard Reich
Director	Erich Parce
Producing Company	Music of Remembrance
Production Dates	May 19 (Seattle), May 22 (SF), May 25-6 (Chicago)
Production Address (SF)	Presidio Theatre 99 Moraga Ave, SF, CA 94129
Website	www.musicofremembrance.org
Telephone	(206) 365-7770
Tickets	$40-$85

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4/5
Music	4.5/5
Libretto	4.5/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

May 10, 2024May 13, 2024

PICK ASR! ~~ A Firehose of Neo-Romanticism: “Florencia en el Amazonas” at San José Opera

by Jeff Dunn

In one of Lisa Kleypas’ bestselling romance novels, the leading character Lillian, gives advice to her younger sister about the act of love: “You wouldn’t want to swoon, or you might miss something.” In Daniel Catán’s 1996 opera, resplendently on stage in San Jose on May 3rd, a long-unfashionable surge of romanticism floods out of mouths and instruments with the force of a firehose. A lot is missed in the process, but does it matter?

“… (this opera) …will flow far into the 21st century….”

Soaring Pucciniesque vocal lines, shimmering woodwinds out of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé augmented by marimbas, swashbuckling brass pronouncements recalling Wolfgang Korngold’s opera and film scores–all of these inundate the audience at considerable volume throughout Act 1 like the Amazon itself in flood. Only a few quieter moments allow much time for breathers until Act 2. But by that time, in spite of the over-intensity, I was beginning to realize I was experiencing a new masterpiece performed in a forgotten style: an opera where melody takes precedence over system, where music takes precedence over libretto, and, with thanks to Stage Director Crystal Manich, where librettos are respected and not mauled (i.e., regietheater).

Passengers (from left to right: Efraín Solís, Aléxa Anderson, Guadalupe Paz, and César Delgado) on the El Dorado riverboat play a rousing game of cards in the Bay Area premiere of Daniel Catán’s “Florencia en el Amazonas,” presented by Opera San José. Photo credit: David Allen

Manich neatly summarizes the river-journey plot as the evolution of three kinds of love in three couples: “blossoming” (Arcadio & Rosalba), “rotting” (Alvaro and Paula) and “lost” (Florencia and the deceased Cristobal). The journey is mediated in the physical realm by the ship’s Captain (sympathetic bass-baritone Vartan Gabrielian) and in the spiritual by deckhand Riolobo (warm baritone Ricardo José Rivera). Tenor César Delgado was a fine, youthful Alvaro; soprano Alexa Anderson a standout as Rosalba—I want to hear more from her ASAP. Baritone Efrain Solis and mezzo Guadalupe Paz were emotionally and musically on the money as the sniping couple Alvaro and Paula. And Elizabeth Caballero’s uplifting Florencia seemed like a gift from soprano heaven—her concluding aria melted all the plastic in the house.

Paula (Guadalupe Paz, left) and Alvaro (Efraín Solís, right) board the El Dorado riverboat to the Amazon and join Riolobo (Ricardo José Rivera, center) and the Captain (Vartan Gabrielian, upper right) in the Bay Area premiere of Daniel Catán’s “Florencia en el Amazonas”. Photo credit: David Allen

This reviewer felt Liliana Duque-Piñeiro’s stage design was far superior to the recent Metropolitan opera’s overly abstract and distancing version. Its dangling jungle, like the music, was embracing rather than pictorial. The performance I attended was led by Assistant Conductor Johannes Löhner, who did passionate justice to the 30-pound score. As he put it in a subsequent interview:

“I will die on any hill for this score … The orchestration, it’s massive. … It’s like Puccini meets [Richard] Strauss, but it never feels plagiarized. It always feels genuine. It comes from the heart.”

I blame Catán, not him, for the music that made an iguana in an early scene sound like a brontosaurus.

I predict that Florencia en el Amazonas, with its voluptuous river of sound, will flow far into the 21st century.

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ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor Jeff Dunn is a retired educator and project manager who’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera, Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs

Production	Florencia en el Amazonas
Libretto by	Marcela Fuentes-Berain
Stage Direction	Crystal Manich
Producing Company	Opera San Jose
Production Dates	Thru May 5th
Production Address	California Theater - 345 S First St, San Jose, CA 95113
Website	www.operasj.org
Telephone	(408) 437-4450
Tickets	$50- $175

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4.5/5
Music	4.5/5
Libretto	4.0/5
Stagecraft	4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

May 7, 2024May 7, 2024

ASR Theater ~~ Lamplighters’ Delightfully Baffling Interactive “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”

By Jeff Dunn

The best way to enjoy Lamplighters’ production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood is not to be embarrassed by making a fool of yourself.

Why? Because 19 actors will be wandering around in the audience from time to time. Sooner or later, they will be in your face begging you to boo and hiss at them, clap and cheer for them, and even … think this coming November … vote for them. Do this, and you’ll help recreate the heady atmosphere that reigned for generations in British music halls—until alcohol was banned in them starting in 1914.

“…Brett Strader’s first-rate music direction is a pleasure …”

Edwin Drood disappears in Charles Dickens’ last novel, confounding the book’s other characters and readers as well. The novel was published in installments, but Dickens died suddenly after only half of them were written. Only Dickens knew how it was to end, though some hints were given to a friend of his.

Rupert Holmes wrote the book, lyrics, and music for this musical version, which premiered on Broadway in December 1985. To add levity to the rather dismal original, Holmes placed the mystery as a play about Drood presented in a Victorian/Edwardian music hall with actors who love to interact with the audience.

Jill Wagoner does a great job as the lead actor (“Chairwoman”) explaining to the audience that they are to vote for possible conclusions to Dickens’ work, and even choose Drood’s murderer (if he indeed was murdered). The actors immediately fly into the audience, vying for attention and audience-members’ votes, to be collected in Act 2.

The Cast at work for “The Lamplighters”. Photo by by Joe Giammarco.

The play then proceeds, but with the actors periodically breaking the fourth wall as livelier Victorian actor personalities with their own hopes and dreams, vs. their more dour Dickens roles. The three levels—21st-century actor, Victorian/Edwardian music-hall actor, and Dickensian character can get a tad confusing at times. (I found myself going back and forth between my 21st-century program and the Victorian/Edwardian “Dramatis Personae” handout to keep a handle on who’s who.)

Among the many cast members, Nathanael Fleming does a great job as the unstable and unseemly Jekyll/Hyde Jasper. Natalia Hulse exploits her lovely light, child-like soprano as Rosa, Jasper’s ward and music student. The song he forces her to learn, “Moonfall,” is the best in the show, with creepy lyrics oozing harmonies worthy of 1986’s Phantom of the Opera. Wayne Wong’s comic talents grab the audience as he portrays the “slosh”buckling alcoholic, Durdles. And Noah Evans delightfully overacts as the minor character Bazzard, who hopes for a better role by upstaging fellow cast members. Peter Crompton’s attractive set design provides the right milieu, and Brett Strader’s first-rate music direction is a pleasure.

Peter Crompton’s set designs set the right milieu. Photo by by Joe Giammarco.

The entire ensemble under M. Jane Erwin’s direction does its best to entertain over the nearly three-hour duration of the show. If you attend, make the most of it by challenging them to stay in character when they approach you and demand your vote. Later, they will line up for you in the lobby, where you can ask them what they think really happened to Edwin Drood.

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Production	The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Written by	Rupert Holmes
Directed by	M. Jane Erwin
Producing Company	Lamplighters Music Theatre Co.
Production Dates	Through May 19th
Production Address	Presidio Fine Arts Center 99 Moraga Ave SF 94129
Website	www.lamplighters.org
Telephone	(415) 392-4400
Tickets	$65-$80 with Discounts available.

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4/5
Performance	4/5
Book/Lyrics	3.5/5
Music	3/5
Stagecraft	4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	----

April 10, 2024April 12, 2024

Pick ASR! “Birds and Balls:” Opera as Spectator Sport

By Jeff Dunn

Sports spectators usually take sides. So can opera composers—say, Puccini in that heavyweight match, Scarpia vs. Tosca. But what do composers do when an opera is a spectator sport taking place on stage?

On April 5th, Opera Parallèle provided two fascinating examples of sports opera and the “sides” promoted by two composers, David T. Little and Laura Karpman. Little took on an obscure Belgian bird-call competition called Vinkensport, and Karpman had a swing at exhibition tennis with the King/Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” match of 1973. Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel brilliantly collaborated with the composers to subsume Little’s opera into the 1973 ABC Wide World of Sports broadcast moderated by immoderate Howard Cosell. Parallèle publicized the combination cleverly as Birds and Balls.

… I was happy to be a spectator …

The upshot was that Karpman’s sympathies (and librettist Gail Collins’) were with Billy Jean King, but the music was rooting for Riggs. In contrast, Little’s music and Royce Vavrek’s libretto were rooting for all the competition participants, especially the birds.

The evening began with Little’s 45-minute Vinkensport, or the Finch Opera, which premiered in 2010 and was revised in 2018. In it, six contestants with sticks sit in a line with their trained chaffinches in boxes and count each series of chirps their birds emit. (You can hear the sound at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COllwlh-jXo.)

Each count is supposed to be marked with chalk on the sticks; the trainer with the most counts at the time limit wins. Although sticks were present, no chalk marks were made, nor were calls heard, so audience members not reading up on the details of this bizarre activity were probably confused about the rules. The six contestants did sing a chorus depicting the calls and marks: “Susk-e-wiet, Susk-e-wiet, Susk-e-wiet, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tally.”

Not that the contest itself mattered. Like the musical A Chorus Line, Vinkensport is really about the hearts and souls of the contestants. Each has a backstory and an attitude. These are absorbing, utterly human, and superbly conveyed by the libretto, projected videos, and especially, the rhythmic and orchestral variety found in Little’s music. A testament to the effectiveness of characterization is that the audience cares for the two cheaters of the six as much as for the four others: a sex-starved yet religious wife, a dutiful son who hates the sport, an alcoholic trophy wife, and a principled yet lonely man who ends the opera with a moving farewell to his bird, “Atticus Finch,” whom he releases to the skies after a decade of service.

In contrast to the depth of Vinkensport was the glitz and bang of the second opera Balls, a premiere which I suspect needs a bit more polish. In it, honoring of women’s political progress by the victory of Billie Jean King is undercut by the extended satire of Seventies styles and fashions, “Laugh-in” funny as they are. The over-the-top self-promotion by the Bobby Riggs character is accompanied by music with a disjointedness that seems undistinguishable from King’s music, which should convey a more steady and subdued determination. Rather than highlighting a Seventies moment in time, the opera contrarily includes the appearance of Susan B. Anthony in 19th-century dress. Perhaps this underlines women’s striving for progress and the continuing failure of the ERA to cap it today.

However these two operas fare in the future, either together or separately, I must vouch for the incredible job the entire Opera Parallèle team did in mounting them under Nicole Paiement’s and Brian Staufenbiel’s supervision and creative input.

All performers were outstanding, most especially Nathan Granner as both Hans Sachs’ cocaine-hypered trainer in Vinkensport and Bobby Riggs in Balls. David Murakami’s projections and Lawrence Dillon’s videos greatly enhanced the proceedings. The impressive Nikola Printz sang Billie Jean King. Jamie Chamberlin, Daniel Cilli, Chelsea Hollow, Shawnette Sulker, and Chung-Wai Soong wonderfully embodied their distinct Vinkensport characters.

Finally, Mark Hernandes did a fine job sporting Howard Cosell’s unique approach to English. And I was happy to be a spectator to the whole operation.

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ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor Jeff Dunn is a retired educator and project manager who’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera, Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.

Production	"Birds" (Vinkensport) and Balls
Directed by	Brian Staufenbiel
Producing Company	Opera Parallèle
Production Dates	Thru April 7th
Production Address	SF Jazz Miner Auditorium 201 Franklin St, SF, CA 94102
Website	www.operaparallele.org
Telephone	(415) 392-4400
Tickets	$40- $180

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5.0
Performance	4.5/5.0
Music (Vinkensport)	4.5/5.0
Music (Balls)	3.5/5.0
Libretto (Vinkensport)	4.5/5.0
Libretto (Balls)	4.5/5.0
Stagecraft	4.5/5.0
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

February 27, 2024March 1, 2024

ASR Opera ~~ Political Incorrection at San Jose’s California Theater

By Jeff Dunn

In 1832, Victor Hugo had a play produced in Paris about a serial rapist and murderer, a brother-sister pair of cutthroats, a gang of kidnappers, and a hunchbacked provocateur who berates everyone and imprisons his daughter. All of these characters escape the law. Is this politically correct? It wasn’t in 1832 when it was banned in France as an insult to the monarchy, nor was it in 1851 when Verdi and his librettist Piave retold the same story.

Hugo’s rapist was the King of France, who hung the Mona Lisa in his bathroom, and the play was called The King Has Fun. Verdi and Piave squeaked by Austrian censors in Venice by making all the characters Mantuan instead of French, and naming their opera Rigoletto. Far from being banned, the opera has spread throughout the world like Covid, its many jaunty tunes inoculating audiences into enjoying themselves while at the same time being reminded of how abuse of power is the chief ill of civilization.

… Conductor Jorge Parodi did a fine job of pacing the proceedings …

Among the range of interpretations for this constantly reproduced staple of the repertoire, San Jose Opera’s take is somberly traditional. Howard Tsvi Kaplan’s dark and musty costumes evoke the 16th century. Steven C. Kemp’s sets are nondescript black and dingy, except Rigoletto’s brilliant white-and-red home or, instead, keep, that is supposed to protect his innocent daughter from the Duke of Mantua and his court. Director Dan Wallace Miller adds two gruesome deviations from the norm: Rigoletto’s congenital hunchback is instead a hideous red scar branding his bald pate, and the Duke has syphilis.

Count Ceprano (Glenn Healy, back center) and courtiers have no pity for the jester Rigoletto (Eugene Brancoveanu, front center) in Opera San José’s production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto”. Photo credit: David Allen

Performances fit well into Wallace’s gloomy vision. Eugene Brancoveanu’s obnoxious grizzly bear of a Rigoletto makes the courtiers and the audience wince, but his notes are spot on. At the conclusion, his grief is a Niagran force of nature. Edward Graves, a newcomer to the role of the Duke, also fits the director’s tone with his accurate voice, despondent more than joyfully playing the field. Melissa Sondhi, as Gilda, conveys innocence as puzzlement while negotiating her complex music.

The Duke of Mantua (Edward Graves, left) and his jester Rigoletto (Eugene Brancoveanu, right) at work. Photo credit: David Allen

Standout performances were contributed by Philip Skinner as the wronged Count Monterone and Ashraf Sewailam as the principled murderer-for-hire Sparafucile. Melisa Bonetti Luna’s expressive acting was a great plus, though, in this reviewer’s opinion, her voice was occasionally overshadowed by others. Conductor Jorge Parodi did a fine job of pacing the proceedings. Most impressive was the Opera Chorus of courtiers and kidnappers, meticulously prepared by Johannes Löhner.

The jester Rigoletto (Eugene Brancoveanu, center) entertains the Duke of Mantua’s courtiers in Opera San José’s production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” playing thru March 3, 2024 at the California Theatre in downtown San Jose. Photo credit: David Allen

While Miller’s approach is undoubtedly defensible, I wonder if Verdi’s message would be better conveyed by even greater present-day incorrectness. If a director pretended to endorse the duke’s and courtier’s predations with cheery carryings-on and bright colors, if women happily allowed men to have their way, that murder was a trip to the nearest 7-11 in a Death of Stalin milieu, maybe some in the audience might question power structures more strongly.

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ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor, Jeff Dunn, is a retired educator and project manager who’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle member and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera, Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won photography prizes and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.

Production	Rigoletto
Based on a play by	Victor Hugo
Libretto by	Francesco Maria Piave
Stage Direction	Dan Wallace Miller
Producing Company	San Jose Opera
Production Dates	Thru Mar 3rd
Production Address	California Theater - 345 S First St, San Jose, CA 95113
Website	www.operasj.org
Telephone	(408) 437-4450
Tickets	$50- $195

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	3.5/5
Performance	3.5/5
Music	4.75/5.0
Libretto	4/5
Stagecraft	3/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	No

February 17, 2024February 17, 2024

PICK! ASR Opera ~~ Unfinished Business at West Bay Opera

By Jeff Dunn

For a long time, I was wondering if Corpus Evita was the correct title for West Bay’s latest offering in Palo Alto. It’s a sequence of scenes—roughly connected, suffused with contradictory elements—that swirl in the past, present, and future about the troubled 1974-76 presidency of Argentina’s Isabel Perón and the legacy of Juan Perón’s previous wife, Eva.

It was Isabel’s mistakes and ouster that began the murderous military dictatorship of 1976-83, El Proceso. In the opera’s strongest scene, Isabel begs for forgiveness, an act the now 93-year-old has never performed publicly. The opera’s librettist claims that were she to do so, it “would be cathartic for a society that’s still divided about what happened back then.” Yet the opera is not named Isabel, not Eva, but Corpus Evita, the embalmed corpse of Eva. Why?

Scene 5. (L-R): Isabel, Ministro, Ghosts of Eva and Perón. Background, members of WBO chorus. Photo credit Otak Jump.

The answer gradually dawned on me: There are two Eva Peróns. There is the myth of Evita as “patron saint of public spending, labor pampering, and largesse to the underprivileged” (The Atlantic, October 1952). Then there is her literal, trundled-about corpse representing a past that can never be recreated. The opera depicts both with two singers, respectively, lovely soprano Jessica Sandridge and the imposing Laure de Marcellus. But the title betrays the creators’ preference. In the words of the librettist, “People keep returning to the myth and they keep voting for it. And politicians keep handing out benefits that the country’s economy can ill afford, in a never-ending downward spiral.”

… When hope is suffused with nostalgia, as in the Evita myth, the result can be dangerous, unfinished business …

And who are the creators? Lorenz Russo–concept, Carlos Franzetti–music, and Jose Luis Moscovich, West Bay Opera General Director, Music Director, Stage Director–Librettist. All were present at the performance, and there was no question it was a labor of love, resplendently executed by a terrific set of soloists and chorus.

Scene 6. (L-R): Isabel and Ministro’s ghost. Photo credit Otak Jump.

White-suited tenor Patrick Bessenbacher was particularly impressive as sinister “Ministro” Lopez Rega, the Svengali with mystic influence over Isabel. Sara LeMesh was outstanding as Isabel, along with Casey Germain as Perón and Anders Froehlich as the Doctor.

Of all the wonderful aspects of the evening, the most stunning was the set and projection design by Peter Crompton, with gorgeous overlapping projections on three screens. Example: the final scene culminates in an apotheosis of Evita glowing with light with Statue of Liberty rays that suddenly morph to blood red as armed guerillas march out by Sandridge’s side.

Projections showing their magic in “Corpus Evita”. Photo credit Otak Jump.

When hope is suffused with nostalgia, as in the Evita myth, the result can be dangerous, unfinished business. When I heard Fanzetti’s gorgeous orchestrations in a 100-year-old Ravel-like milieu, I was at first confused until I realized they could apply to the Evita and not the Corpus. A bit more modernism in the Corpus music might have been helpful in emphasizing the temporal distinction.

Scene 4. (L-R) Isabel, Ministro, WBO Orchestra, Maestro José Luis Moscovich. Photo credit Otak Jump.

I could not justify in my mind a different, unfinished structural aspect: the abrupt breaks between scene changes, and the intermission break after, not before, a so-called Entr’Acte, a pantomimed scene in a torture chamber.

And finally, I feel a deeper impression would be made on audiences if additional transition music were composed and this compelling opera were performed without a break.

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ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor Jeff Dunn is a retired educator and project manager who’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera, Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.

Production	Corpus Evita. Based on a concept by Lorenz Russo.
Music by	Carlos Franzetti
Libretto & Stage Direction by	Jose Luis Moscovich
Producing Company	West Bay Opera
Production Dates	Thru Feb 25th
Production Address	Lucie Stern Auditorium
Website	www.wbopera.org
Telephone	(650) 424-9999
Tickets	$43- $115

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4/5
Performance	4/5
Music	3/5/5
Libretto	4/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

November 13, 2023November 13, 2023

ASR Theater ~~ Sounds of the Whale: “Moby Dick” at Stanford

By Jeff Dunn

In 2009, blogger Eric Lanke reported after his sixth full reading of Moby Dick that “the novel is clearly a White Whale in and of itself, denying in its aloofness our attempts to define and understand it.”

This year, yet another Ahab is trying to figure out the monster: filmmaker Wu Tsang. She and her collective have created a 75-minute film that requires a live-orchestra accompaniment. Released early this year, it has graced many venues from Zurich to Sydney.

Her interpretations of 20 or so chapters of the book’s 136 are beautiful, challenging, and complex. The work has already moved on to L.A. after a single performance at Stanford on November 8th—I will not provide an overall review. (An excellent one by Duncan Stuart is here: https://exitonly.substack.com/p/on-not-reading-herman-melville-or.)

… beautiful, challenging, and complex …

Instead, the question: Is a movie with live music better than one with a soundtrack? In the case of Wu Tsang’s Moby Dick, or The Whale at Stanford’s Bing Auditorium, both were a part of the production, and can be compared. Live music by the New Century Chamber Orchestra was the winner.

Reasons were many:

Number one was the natural string-section acoustics that no electronic version could match. Talkies were the death knell of pianos, organs and orchestras that used to accompany films in the 1920s. Lip synching and the removal of intertitles increased realism and audience engagement, trumping any concerns about the degradation of acoustic quality. On November 3, 1987 however, musical immediacy was restored when Andre Previn and the L.A. Philharmonic accompanied Eisenstein’s subtitled film Alexander Nevsky with Prokofiev’s original music for it. Since then, particularly in the last 15 years “live to projection” concerts have become an audience hit. Improved technologies have made the process considerably easier to produce.

Number two was the quality of the string music itself, composed by Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee. Never did it distract from the action on screen, but often its subtleties enhanced the emotionality of the moment. I was particularly impressed by the hymn-like effect of the music for Tsang’s interpretation of the “Cabin-table” chapter, where Ahab presided over dinner with his officers “like a mute, maned sea lion.” Also, in the “Queequeg in his coffin” chapter, glissandi in the basses and cellos struck me with eerie effect. My only disappointment in the music was when it had to accompany nearly 10 minutes of credits at the end. That was the time when the banality of the proceedings on screen demanded something more alluring to the ear.

Number three was the superb conducting by Christopher Rountree and faultless intonation of the 18 members of the chamber ensemble. Number four was the acoustics of the Bing, enhanced by the giant whale shape gracing its ceiling.

Number five was one of the worst defects of the film: the soundtrack itself. Acoustically, like so many tracks in theaters today, it was loud and woofer-heavy. This was okay for some of the mysterious electronica added by Asma Maroof, but it undercut the frequent voice-overs and lips-synchs by collective member Fred Moten, who plays a somewhat audience-confusing, non-Melvillian character called the Sub-Sub-Librarian. According to Tsang, this person magically “tackles the novel’s subterranean currents” while living in a library inside the whale.

From time to time, Moten recites Melville or Moten’s own poetry. Unfortunately, his words are not subtitled; this reviewer found about half of them unintelligible and not favored by the recording. The result is inadequately justified confusion that can distract from the work’s many other strengths — including, of course, the on-stage music.

When Tsang produces a commercial video of her mostly wonderful and stimulating film, some of the lovely live-music qualities will no doubt be lost, but at least, I hope, more sense will be made of the “subterranean” mariner.

-30-

Production	Moby Dick; or 'The Whale'
Based on the book by	Herman Melville
Directed by	Wu Tsang
Producing Company	Schauspielhaus Zurich
Production Dates	Thru Nov 8th
Production Address	Bing Concert Hall, Stanford CA 94305
Website	www.live.stanford.edu
Telephone	(650) 724-2464
Tickets	$48

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	3.5/5
Performance	4.0/5
Screenplay	3.5/5
Music	3.5/5
Stagecraft	4.0/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	-----

October 10, 2023October 11, 2023

Pick! ASR Theater ~~ Hefty Main Course at Livermore Opera’s “Of Mice and Men”

by Jeff Dunn

Suffocated puppies, broken necked strumpets, agitated posse flashlights blinding the audience—people could easily fault Of Mice and Men for being too melodramatic.

But do they know they are also disparaging the meat and potatoes of opera? Carlisle Floyd’s gripping adaptation of Steinbeck’s famous novella offers a heavy dish of steak-and-spuds emotion, and a crew of uneasy ranch hands as a bonus. Moreover, the opera is couched in a near-perfect set of production values from the creative teams at Livermore Valley Opera.

To begin my multi-course menu of praise, try the superlative performance of tenor Matthew Pearce as the mentally challenged Lennie. He has mastered the character’s physical behaviors and childlike mental condition, but best of all, unlike some of the others who have faced the part’s musical difficulties, he hits his several high notes like hot butter melting into the toast of Floyd’s phrases. Baritone Robert Mellon, as George, Lennie’s companion and minder, clears the air with vocal authority–all suffused with a nervous anxiety appropriate to knowing the potential damage Lennie can cause with his inhuman strength.

Overseer Curley’s nasty disposition and cock-of-the-walk power parades are strikingly portrayed by tenor Chad Somers’ spot-on reedy voice and balletic body movements. Curley’s unhappy and lustful wife is not treated kindly by Floyd’s music, yet coloratura Véronique Filloux deftly negotiated her often see-saw extremes of lyricism.

Baritone Matthew Worth offered his sympathetic voice to the role of Slim; bass Kirk Eichelberger excelled as a maimed farm worker trapped in a box-canyon life; and the rest of the ranch hands under chorus master Bruce Olstad added societal weight to the proceedings. Superb acting in all quarters was directed by Marc Jacobs. Conductor Alexander Katzman deftly handled Floyd’s constant metric changes in the score, a reduced but mostly effective orchestration by Jim Meduitz.

…a near-perfect set of production values…

Rather than refer specifically to the Depression-era’s mass migrations, Jean-François Revon’s set, video, and tech team were absolutely top-notch in creating a rural California ambiance of summer oaky hills, rivers, barns, and woods. Not only were there large collections of background projections, but also animation effects of moving stars, suns and moons. The moon in the last scene was scaringly reminiscent of the last scene of Berg’s Wozzeck.

Steinbeck’s drama and pathos might be hard to take for some, but the story about the human need for companionship and something to call one’s own is a verity worth everyone’s revisiting. The issue of what right we have over others’ lives is also paramount in this work. Floyd’s music is up to the task in mirroring the explosive emotions and events in his unflaggingly concise libretto.

In a 2011 interview, he opined that a libretto is 60% or more of what makes an opera successful. I certainly agree in the case of Of Mice and Men: its music does not have the melodic or harmonic immediacy that will bring audiences back for many repeat visits. Artists who must live with an opera to bring it to life find ways to make sense of lyric lines, and end up praising the effectiveness of melodies that even sophisticated audience members will never hear on first, second, or even third hearings.

Floyd’s music is more like a film score that enhances emotive moments. These moments are so compelling in this opera–especially in this superbly crafted and executed production–that attendees should treasure their exposure to Floyd’s aesthetic, even if the meat and potatoes are mostly in the libretto, and the score is an impossible burger.

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ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor Jeff Dunn is a retired educator and project manager who’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera, Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.

Production	Of Mice and Men
Story by	John Steinbeck
Director	Marc Jacobs
Producing Company	Livermore Opera
Production Dates	Thru Oct 15th
Production Address	The Bankhead Theater 2400 First St, Livermore, CA 94551
Website	https://livermorearts.org/
Telephone	(925) 373-6800
Tickets	$20 - $105

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4.5/5
Music	3/5
Libretto	4.5/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

October 2, 2023October 2, 2023

PICK! ASR Music/Opera! ~~ San Francisco Opera’s New Wave

By Jeff Dunn

Steve Jobs rode the crests of waves of computer technology that have transformed society.

In The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs we experience his growth, wipeout, and spiritual arrival on a farther shore. The opera is a triumphal result of Mason Bates’ continually engaging, effervescent score; Mark Campbell’s tersely masterful 18-scene libretto; the design teams’ fabulous blending of set, lighting, sound, and projections; and flawless orchestral and vocal performances under the direction of Michael Christie. It is not to be missed.

Bille Bruley as Steve Wozniak and John Moore as Steve Jobs. Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Most significant to me was Bates’ mastery of orchestration, and deepening range of emotive expression. Rather than use melodic leitmotivs as Wagner did to distinguish characters, he uses groups of instruments: guitar and percussion for Jobs (superb baritone Joseph Lattanzi), strings for his wife (luscious mezzo Sasha Cooke), flutes for his earlier girlfriend (plaintive soprano Olivia Smith), saxophones for his Apple 1 partner (powerful tenor Bille Bruley), and Asian gongs and other flavorings for his Zen mentor (rich bass Wei Wu).

…Most significant to me was Bates’ mastery of orchestration…

In Bates’ earlier orchestral music, I heard an heir to John Adams’ post-minimalist aesthetic leavened by experimentation with added electronica. But in Jobs, Bates has matured beyond Adams with the use of tonal and triadic effects to inject warm-heartedness into the mix via the string section, much as the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara did in his ground-breaking Cantus Arcticus and later symphonies.

Members of the SF Opera Chorus in “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.” Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Campbell’s dramatic and often ironic instincts are ever present. Jobs is worth its price in gold for Scene 12 alone. In it, Jobs browbeats his Apple 1 co-creator into quitting, denies siring his live-in girlfriend’s child, rejects seven proposals from seven different designers, refuses to support the girlfriend financially, even after DNA proof, and gets kicked to tech “Siberia” by his company’s board. Jobs tries to explain it all in the next scene to his post-mortem spiritual advisor, “I was only seeking perfection.” All of this is peppered with Bates’ most frenetic accompaniments.

The staging by Victoria Tzykun is simplistic, with giant monoliths silently wheeled around by (mostly) unseen “mover” stage staff. On these are projected a dazzling array of computer-board circuits, lighting effects, and contemplative outdoor scenes. This eye candy has many calories, appropriate to the vast fortunes swirling about Silicon Valley.

Sasha Cooke as Laurene Powell Jobs and John Moore as Steve Jobs in Mason Bates and Mark Campbell’s “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.” Photo: Cory Weaver/SF Opera

Finally, near the close of the opera, Campbell has Job’s wife deliver a moral to a communication-obsessed society: “Glance at the smile of the person sitting right there next to you. Look up, look out, look around. Be here now.” I did so and wondered, will technology take us safely to a New World beach, or will we too wipe out, even more permanently? I think Surfer Steve tells us in this opera that we will make it.

-30-

His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.

Production	The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs
Musical Direction	Michael Christie
Stage Direction	Kevin Newbury
Producing Company	San Francisco Opera
Production Dates	Thru Oct 7th
Production Address	301 Van Ness Ave, SF, CA
Website	www.sfopera.com
Telephone	(415) 392-4400
Tickets	$33-$426

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4.5/5
Libretto	5.0/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK?	YES!

September 10, 2023September 12, 2023

ASR Music & Opera ~~ Rare Treat Gone Too Soon: Delightful Family Opera Buoys the Spirit

By Jeff Dunn

This summer, we’ve had hot and muggy days. But overnight, a front can move through quickly and by sunrise we’re treated to clear, cool air with gentle breezes. Such was the refreshing joy of Solo Opera’s production of The Three Feathers. With delightful music by Lori Laitman and a well-crafted libretto by Dana Gioia, this 85-minute fairy tale opera was loaded with eye candy and star-powered performances.

The story is from the Brothers Grimm collection of 1812 about an aging king (the resonant baritone Eugene Brancovenanu) who wants to pass on his kingdom to one of his three offspring who best fulfills a series of challenges. In the Laitman/Gioia adaptation, these descendants are princesses rather than princes. The youngest, shiest, most naïve yet loving daughter Dora (the sweet soprano Shawnette Sulker) ends up the victor thanks to an underground frog king (the stentorian bass Kirk Eichelberger) that she finds via her magic feather, along with families of rats, bats and snakes.

…The pleasures are many…

Laitman’s music was charming and superbly orchestrated. I particularly admired her use of percussion and brass. While the music was rich in melodic evanescence, I must admit to wishing for at least one substantial aria. Gioia’s text added considerable depth to every one of the cardboard characters from the Grimm tale, and it did so such that it reads like music itself.

The Frog King’s Court with the San Francisco Girls Chorus.

And three of these characters really stood out, doubly boosted by the talents of coloratura Chelsea Hollow as the frivolous shopaholic princess Gilda, mezzo-soprano Hope Nelson as the she-woman princess Tilda, and Sam Faustine as the Frog Prince. Hollow’s voice was thrilling in its scamper. Nelson’s no-nonsense athleticism and vocal clarity would easily land her an executive position in a Silicon Valley startup. Finally, though a late arrival on the scene, Faustine’s frog brought down the house. His transformation from an idiotic frog to a loving and still idiotic prince still brings me tears of laughter.

All of the above excellence was couched in the transformative projections and most of the stage design by Peter Crompton. (I, for one, do wish the trap door to an underworld from the Grimm tale and the 2014 Virginia Tech production could have been retained somehow. Instead Gilda goes through a vertical panel behind her father’s throne. C’est la vie!) Callie Floor’s costume designs were resplendent, and the respective stage and music direction by Sylvia Amorino and Alexander Katsman left nothing to be desired.

The Three Feathers is not just a zoo of princesses, frogs, rats and bats, As Amorino pointed out in her program notes. “The opera invites us to be more inclusive, open our hearts and minds, and work to connect with those who are different than us.”

Sadly, the last performance of this rare treat occurred on September 10th, and with this show’s departure, mugginess returned to the Bay Area. That said, if you ever hear of a company producing this show, “hop to it” and see The Three Feathers.

-30-

Production	The Three Feathers
Stage Direction	Sylvia Amorino
Musical Direction	Alexander Katsman
Producing Company	Solo Opera
Production Dates	Sep 8th, Sep 10th
Production Address	Hofmann Theatre, Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Dr, Walnut Creek 94596
Website	www.soloopera.org
Telephone	(925) 943-7469
Tickets	$25-$55

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.3/5.0
Performance	4.4/5.0
Libretto	4.5/5.0
Music	4.0/5.0
Stagecraft	4.5/5.0
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	N/A

July 31, 2023July 31, 2023

ASR Theater ~~ Meta-American Dreams: “Thanks For Playing: The Game Show Show” in San Jose

By Jeff Dunn

Game shows are the American Dream. “It could be me on that stage; Imagine winning all that money!” you might think. Well imagine attending San Jose Playhouse’s revival of their Thanks for Playing! The Game Show Show—you might think, “I love musicals! This one might be fun!” Not only might it be fun–in this one, you too might be contestant! And win an ironic box of Ramen.

The show is the brainchild of Scott Evan Guggenheim, with book and lyrics by his wife Shannon Guggenheim, and music by Shannon, her brother-in-law Stephen Guggenheim and Thomas Tomasello. It is billed as the “final revision” of the musical that premiered in 2010 and was reexamined by its creators in 2012 and 2020. I did not see the first version, although a few excerpts on YouTube indicate that while some songs have been dropped/replaced, the sets and props remain fairly much the same.

…Historical Note: 390 backers pledged $51,648 on Kickstarter to help bring this project to life, back in 2012-14…

And the best part of the show does seem to be the same: the high energy and accurate singing of its eight on-stage performers, the feeling they project of having a jolly good time together and wanting to carry the audience happily along with them in a slurry of upbeat tempos. And Julie Engelbrecht’s sets intensify the atmosphere with its palette of colors borrowed the from late 60’s show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, not to mention her inventive costumes, one collection of which turned the cast into a giant slot machine.

Photo credit to Dave Lepori. — The cast at work as a collective slot machine!

The more problematic part of the show is the first act. Shannon herself plays Frankie Marks, a Game-show-history buff. We are told she’s attending the 70th anniversary of the first TV game show at Studio 84 in NYC (this would be in 2008). Very quickly, she is given the offer to play a mysterious “game” by an unseen godlike Announcer. She accepts, and is magically sent back into the beginning of a game show called “Secret Square” starting in the early 1950s.

As the show evolves, the Announcer periodically offers options to change history or even revise game-show personalities. I don’t know if this Meta-Announcer business is new to this revised version, but this reviewer found it confusing at first, and didn’t feel that changing history or personalities added much to the humor. (Suggestion to the Playwright: a straight-line “How to Succeed…” plot starting in the 1950s might be easier to grasp. Just sayin’.)

By the second act, after the show runs into trouble with revelations of cued contestants a la the $64,000 Question, the story becomes easier to follow and more enjoyable.

Photo credit to Dave Lepori. — Schannon and Scott Guggenheim as Frankie Marks and Bill Todson.

A love interest emerges between Frankie and Secret Square’s producer Bill Todson (Stephen Guggenheim), making me wish a bit more had been done in Act One to generate empathy with the protagonists. Such empathy might have required a ballad which might have the salutary effect of adding additional variety to the musical style. (As it was, only the last song, “Thanks For Playing,” really stuck in my memory.)

Hopefully, future attendees will not experience the sound issues that had the prerecorded orchestral track outbalance the singers, and younger gamer-attendees, used to computer role-playing scenarios, will have less trouble Meta-time-traveling.

-30-

Production	Thanks For Playing: The Game Show Show
Stage Direction by	Scott Evan Guggenheim
Producing Company	Guggenheim Entertainment, Inc.
Production Dates	Thru Aug 20th
Production Address	3Below Theaters, 288 S Second St, San Jose, CA 95113
Website	www.sanjoseplayhouse.org
Telephone	(408) 404-7711
Tickets	$25-$55

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	3/5
Performance	4/5
Book/Lyrics	2.5/5
Music	2.5/5
Stagecraft	4/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK?	----

July 31, 2023July 31, 2023

ASR Music ~~ Iolanthe: Fairies and Lords Walk the Boards

By Jeff Dunn

Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta Iolanthe is about two groups hidebound by rules who battle it out on stage. One group has power over the other because they’re magic, but both groups have definitely lost their marbles–just read what they sing!

CHORUS OF FAIRIES

Tripping hither, tripping thither,

Nobody knows why or whither;

We must dance and we must sing

Round about our fairy ring!

CHORUS OF PEERS (LORDS)

Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!

Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow, ye masses!

Blow the trumpets, bang the brasses!

Tantantara! Tzing! Boom!

Imagine the silliness of it all–female fairies having power over men, forcing their favored half-fairy male candidate to run parliament houses. Fortunately, all the men and women marry each other at the end, and 19th-century normality is restored. There are other reasons than plot to enjoy Iolanthe, mainly Gilbert’s barb-aplenty text coated by the pill of Sullivan’s inoffensive music.

Lyric Opera has put many of their marbles into their chorus, and the result is a major strength in Music Director Michael Taylor’s department. Kathleen O’Brien’s colorful fairy costumes along with Shirley Benson’s stunted light-saber wands are another plus. Larry Tom’s set designs are spare, but not inappropriate. The single forest projection in Act 1 was so gorgeous, however, it made this reviewer wish there were more of them to follow—a hope unrealized.

…”Iolanthe”, or “The Peer and the Peri”, opened at the Savoy Theatre on November 25, 1882…

I was also hopeful that the soloists’ best efforts would match the consistent delights of the chorus, but no luck. However, voices improved as the operetta progressed opening night.

Bobby Singer was a standout as Private Willis, as was Katie Francis as Queen of the Fairies. Minju Jeong’s light but lovely voice was always on pitch as Phyllis. Tenor Eric Mellum grew well into his role of Lord Tollroller. Jeffrey Lampert’s Lord Chancellor was fun to watch in his famous “headache” patter song (where his jet pace even outpaced the orchestra for a moment!)

For a title character, G&S surprisingly gave Iolanthe only one aria, but Kaelyn Howard carried it off well, with the enthusiasm characteristic of the rest of the cast.

Iolanthe is ranked highly in the Gilbert and Sullivan canon by many commentators. To me, it was a good reminder of why our American Experiment did away with titled nobility. As to the current value of what replaced it, that’s a matter for later discussion.

-30-

Production	Iolanthe
Stage Direction by	Doreen Finkelstein
Musical Direction by	Michael Taylor
Producing Company	Lyric Theatre
Production Dates	Thru Aug 6th
Production Address	Hammer Theatre Center, 101 Paseo De San Antonio, San Jose, C 95113
Website	www.lyrictheatre.org
Telephone	(408) 986-1455
Tickets	$25-$40

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	3/5
Performance	3/5
Libretto	4/5
Music	2.5/5
Stagecraft	3/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK?	----

July 25, 2023July 31, 2023

ASR Music~~ “Tosca” Quartets: A Critic Learns From Four Very Different “Toscas” In Four Months

By Jeff Dunn

As an opera lover, I’m lucky to live in the Bay Area. Already, I’ve seen Tosca produced by four different opera companies this year: Livermore Opera’s in March, San Jose Opera’s in April, Cinnabar Theater’s in June, and Pocket Opera’s in July. What did I learn from the experience?

Lesson One: To my surprise, “lotsa Tosca” never wore me out. This was due to each company’s success in generating a Quartet of Joys from Bernard Shaw’s definition of opera: “… the story of a soprano and tenor who want to sleep together, and a baritone who tries to stop them.”

The joys were namely: 1-3, feeling the infusion of life into one or more of the three principal singing roles (Tosca, Cavaradossi, and Scarpia) and 4, relishing inspired stage-direction. Sure, there are other things that could have gone right or wrong in these performances, but:

- Musical direction was excellent across the board.
- Costume design was uniformly fine.
- And the sets, though ranging from magnificent to bare-boned, seemed to matter so much less compared to the force of the Joy Quartet.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if these masters of their art could all be together someday in a future production?

Lesson Two: You can’t beat powerful intimacy when it comes to Tosca. Yes, Act 1’s Te Deum is designed for Grand Opera, and San Jose’s full-sized orchestra was magnificent, but Tosca is about outsized personalities, not crowds or elephants.

The joint productions of Cinnabar and Pocket Opera were a revelation in terms of intimacy, with first-class actors and vocalists almost within spitting distance. Seeing the same casts at Cinnabar’s opening in Petaluma and at Pocket’s first venue in Mountain View after five more performances at Cinnabar was a chance to witness how the principals had perfected their artistry. Michelle Drever had evolved her exceptionally passionate Tosca into a uniquely buttery sound reminding me of Placido Domingo. Spencer Dodd’s well-voiced Scarpia had become more self-assured and less cartoonish. And Alex Boyer, who was also Cavaradossi in the Livermore production, had somehow grown from superb to stupendous.

Oh, and you must read about critic Eddy Reynolds’ goosebumps at https://theatreeddys.com/2023/07/tosca-2.html.

Lesson Three: Creative stage direction is a hit or miss proposition. Cinnabar/Pocket director Elly Lichenstein had three hits with having Tosca accidently find her knife to kill Scarpia inside a cross, having two young sisters sing the shepherd’s role on stage to open Act 3, and having kids on stage to open Act 1.

Bruce Donnell for Livermore did a great job of fight direction between Tosca and Scarpia in Act 2.

Tara Branham for San Jose had an interesting idea to put a bed in Scarpia’s Act 2 apartment where the fight with Tosca took place, but in this critic’s opinion it was too far upstage. In perhaps another miscue, she had the churchgoers in Act 1 walk in front of Scarpia during his Te Deum aria. And her worst idea, in my opinion, was having Cavaradossi have a tryst with a woman (Attavanti?) to open Act 1. While intellectually justifiable, I feel the cost of diminishing Cavaradossi’s stature in the hearts of the audience is not worth the innovation.

Lesson Four: Hearing three world-class singers is unforgettable. Maria Natale’s debut as Tosca in San Jose, with her physical and aural beauty, acting chops and clarity, put all other Toscas aside for me.

The same went for Livermore’s Scarpia, Aleksey Bogdanov.

And Alex Boyer, among all his other excellences, brought forth the rarely conveyed fact in the story that he is a noble, not just a handsome hunk.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if these masters of their art could all be together someday in a future production?

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Jeff Dunn is ASR’s Classical Music Section Editor. A retired educator and project manager, he’s been writing music and theater reviews for Bay Area and national journals since 1995. He is a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle and the National Association of Composers, USA. His musical Castle Happy (co-author John Freed), about Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst, received a festival production at the Altarena Theater in 2017. His opera Finding Medusa, with librettist Madeline Puccioni, was completed in January 2023. Jeff has won prizes for his photography, and is also a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs.

Production	Tosca
Stage Direction	Tara Branham
Producing Company	Opera San Jose
Production Dates	Thru Apr 30th
Production Address	California Theater - 345 S First St, San Jose, CA 95113
Website	www.operasj.org
Telephone	(408) 437-4450
Tickets	$50- $175

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4.5/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

June 13, 2023June 13, 2023

ASR Music ~~ Symphony, Set, Singers and Shadow: SF Opera Tackles Weighty Fairy Tale

By Jeff Dunn

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of nurses? The Empress doesn’t know, because she doesn’t have a shadow. But in the course of Richard Strauss’s opera Die Frau ohne Schatten, she develops empathy for other human beings while seeing her nurse shamelessly manipulate one of them, and gets a shadow as a reward.

Start with this basic plot, but then add 20+ more characters, 10 scene changes, nearly 100 musicians, 78 choristers, 7 dancers, and an elusive concoction of spirit world, symbolism, allegory, and late romantic melancholy, and you might be headed for trouble.

…Top honors are richly deserved for Sir Donald Runnicles’ conducting of the Opera Orchestra …

Fortunately, astute casting, terrific orchestral playing, and occasionally gorgeous sets by David Hockney allow Strauss’s nearly 3 hours of often inspired music to shine. Reactions may vary, however, with respect to Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s libretto, with its interpretive challenges for puzzle-solvers and bewilderment for realists.

Linda Watson as the Nurse, Nina Stemme as the Dyer’s Wife, and Camilla Nylund as the Empress in Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s “Die Frau ohne Schatten.”
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera.

Top honors are richly deserved for Sir Donald Runnicles’ conducting of the Opera Orchestra through thundering climaxes and deftly coordinating his army on and offstage. Nina Stemme as the Dyer’s wife powerfully matched the model proposed by Hofmannstahl himself. That is, Strauss’s wife Pauline: “Earthborn, impetuous yet unselfconfident and beautiful.” Linda Watson’s Nurse, purportedly a servant and aide to the Empress, revealed well her character’s true nature as a Mephistophelean Nurse Semi-Ratched trying to wheedle Stemme out of her shadow.

Linda Watson as the Nurse and Stefan Egerstrom as the Spirit Messenger in Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s “Die Frau ohne Schatten.”
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera.

The hapless Dyer Barak was resonantly characterized by bass-baritone Johan Reuter. Camilla Nylund as the Empress aptly evolved her character and voice from a transparent gazelle to a caring human being. David Butt Philip as the Emperor, Stefan Egerstrom as the Spirit Messenger, and the rest of the cast did fine work handling the virtuoso lines Strauss gave to large and small parts alike.

Hockney’s backdrops ranged from an exquisitely beautiful color-changing evocation of hills, rivers and flowers of the opening scene on the Emperor’s roof to Barak’s home and dye shop with a wide range of vertical paint-can-like streaks of earth tones. Another striking set was the door to Keikobad’s temple in Act 3. At the end of Act 2, a Götterdämmerung-like event in the score was weakly characterized on stage. An earthquake is supposed to break the walls and a flood roar through them while Barak and his wife sink into the earth. No flood, just some hangings lifted.

Johan Reuter as Barak and Nina Stemme as the Dyer’s Wife in Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s “Die Frau ohne Schatten.” Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera.

The beginning of Act 3 had the couple separated in large tear-drop holes in a backdrop rather than the “subterranean vault divided by a thick wall” called for in the libretto. Some dramatic orchestral interludes where characters hang about on stage with little or nothing to do would have benefitted by projections, but Hockney’s design dates from 1992, when projection technologies were primitive by today’s standards.

Google the symbolism of shadows, and you’ll get a number of meanings as large as the forces bringing Die Frau back to life here. Hofmannstahl meant it to mean the ability to bear children, which prompted one recent critic to declare that Die Frau “is an opera that ultimately condemns its womenfolk to lives of obeisant child-bearing.” While the conclusion of this massive undertaking must be taken in historical context of a Europe depopulated by World War One and the flu in a strongly patriarchal society, who knows for sure what will lurk in the hearts of viewers who experience this opera today?

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Production	Die Frau ohne Schatten
Directed by	Roy Rallo
Producing Company	San Francisco Opera
Production Dates	Thru June 28th
Production Address	301 Van Ness Ave, SF, CA
Website	www.sfopera.com
Telephone	(415) 392-4400
Tickets	$26-$422

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4/5
Performance	4.5/5
Libretto	2.5/5
Stagecraft	3.5/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK?	----

June 12, 2023June 12, 2023

Pick! ASR Music ~~ Living Room “Tosca” – Cinnabar Theater Brings Opera Home

By Jeff Dunn

The Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma is small enough to be somebody’s living room, a lucky thing. Author Alexandra Adornetto reminds us that for kids, imagination and invention go hand in hand there. “Shift a few pieces or furniture around,” she says, “and you have yourself a fort.”

Or an opera.

Intimacy was a laudable goal for Cinnabar’s production of Puccini’s Tosca. Vocal artists could maximize beauty by not having to strain to reach distant back walls. The audience could be moved by facial-expression details without a need for TV monitors. Surtitles would not distract from the action since the opera was sung in English. But to capitalize on intimacy, voices had to be great, singers had to act, and pronunciation had to be clear. Furthermore, the small chamber orchestra had to consist of musicians of soloistic quality.

Fortunately the Elly Lichenstein’s and Mary Chun’s respective stage and music direction helped to bring the advantages of intimacy home in almost all respects.

Michelle Drever as Tosca in Puccini’s “Tosca,” (Courtesy of Cinnabar Theater/Pocket Opera).

Michelle Allie Drever was an exceptionally passionate, fiery, and expressive Tosca, with a gorgeous and accurate voice to boot. Alex Boyer’s Cavaradossi was superb in all respects. I was particularly impressed how he included an often neglected aspect to his character–the slight aloofness of his aristocratic origins combined with a yet heated passion for Tosca and republicanism.

…Elly Lichenstein’s and Mary Chun’s respective stage and music direction helped to bring the advantages of intimacy home..

Spencer Dodd’s Scarpia was on the money vocally. His strikingly evil expressions were melodramatically boo-worthy, but detracted from subtlety of character that could have been mined from his backstory as a man under pressure in a complex political environment.

Michelle Dever (right) as Tosca and Spencer Dodd (left) as Scarpia in Cinnabar’s “Tosca.” (Courtesy of Cinnabar Theater)

Jordan Eldredge as Angelotti and Gene Wright as the Sacristan fulfilled their roles admirably, as did the rest of the cast.

The Cinnabar theatre program neglected to credit the Italian librettists Illica and Giacosa and the English translation by co-producer Pocket Opera’s Donald Pippin. In English, the beauty of the Italian is largely lost, but the immediacy of the story is enhanced, for the most part (though I quibble with “muori, muori” being said as “damn you, damn you” instead of “die, die” as Tosca faces the writhing Scarpia). Boyer was a champion in that all his English was utterly understandable. (He confessed that it was hard to unlearn the Italian, which he has sung five times previously.) Occasionally, however, this reviewer found the other vocalists were difficult to understand in their higher ranges at dramatic moments.

Lichenstein’s non-verbal additions to the stage directions were some of the joys of this production. The opera opened with children in the church before Angelotti’s usual arrival. Act 2 added two women amusing Scarpia at his meal, and a secret hiding place for the killer knife Tosca surprisingly discovers. Act 3 begins with two girls instead of a shepherd boy.

Another joy opening the act, BTW, was Susanne Chasalow’s perfect horn solo (full productions use 4 horns, one or more of which always see to make a boo-boo).

Michelle Dever (right) as Tosca in Cinnabar’s “Tosca.” (Courtesy of Cinnabar Theater)

A final advantage of Tosca in Cinnabar’s living room is you can chat with the artists afterward. Pretend that their characters were relatives who had misbehaved at a family dinner, and suggest a name of a good therapist they could see, and bring a smile to their lips!

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Production	Tosca
Based on the play by	Victorien Sardu
Directed by	Elly Lichenstein
Producing Company	Cinnabar Theater
Production Dates	Through June 25th
Production Address	3333 Petaluma Blvd North Petaluma, CA 94952
Website	www.cinnabartheater.org
Telephone	(707) 763-8920
Tickets	$30 – $50

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4.5/5
Script	3.5/5
Stagecraft	4/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK?	YES!

June 6, 2023June 7, 2023

PICK! ASR Theater ~~ The Shining: Ghostly Extravaganza Enlivened Onstage

By Jeff Dunn

Most of us attend opera hoping for a transformative experience. No matter what happens, in the end, we are left only with its memories flitting in our being, like ghosts. Opera Parallèle’s production of The Shining features a dozen or so hotel-haunting ghosts that lodge in short-term memory, but I suspect the long-term ghosts in my memory of the opera will be only three: its engaging staging, its cinematic score, and wishing it had possessed more than the ghost of a good old-fashioned aria.

The most compelling reason to experience The Shining is the respective projection, lighting, and sound effects by David Murakami, Jim French and Andrew Mayer. The ESP of young Danny Torrance (Tenzin Forder) manifests as peripatetic static flashes. A projection on the entire set characterizes the Overlook Hotel as a malevolent system of throbbing internal organs. Choral eeriness emerges from various locations, etc., etc., making the audience beg for more.

Opera Parallele’s production of “The Shining” in San Francisco.

Stephen King’s story of the descent into madness of Danny’s father Jack while caretaking the Overlook in the dead of winter with his wife and son is inventively orchestrated in Paul Moravec’s music. A reduction from the original full orchestra to 21 musicians sounded more than sufficiently weighty, thanks to Nicole Paiement’s precise yet dramatic music direction. Lush outdoor music underscores their happy fall arrival, but stranger sounds emerge with the hotel’s ghosts of former murderers. Action sequences are punctuated by catchy rhythms. I’m surprised that Moravec’s descriptive mastery has not yet led to film scores.

Brian Staufenbiel’s stage direction left nothing to be desired. Jack’s transformation from daddy to baddy was superbly and humanely characterized by Robert Wesley Mason. His wife Wendy was lovingly portrayed by Kearstin Piper Brown. Kevin Deas was a vocal and acting standout as cook Dick Halloran. Among the many minor roles, David Walton’s clear and insinuating tenor as the tempting ghost Delbert was especially riveting. Daniel Cilli was a looming presence as Jack’s abusive dead father Mark, aided by shoulder pads from the versatile costume designer Alina Bokovikova.

Stephen King’s story of the descent into madness…is inventively orchestrated in Paul Moravec’s music.

Will this opera last? A superficial horror story with effects would have been supplanted by yet another in time. To Moravec’s and librettist Mark Campbell’s credit, their mining of the novel rather than the movie added some gravitas to family relationships. What I fervently wished for on first hearing, however, was more emphasis on what has been said to be what opera is all about: the singing voice, not just the acting voice.

On stage is Robert Wesley Mason (Jack Torrance), Kearstin Piper Brown (Wendy Torrance) and company members.

Only two vocal segments might be called proper arias, Wendy’s “I never stopped loving you” in Act 1, and Dick’s “These woeful days will be over” at the end of the opera. It seemed that only the music for the latter flattered the voice with the grace of potentially memorable melody. It seems so rare these days that new operas can give us stronger music to take home in our hearts. The last one I can remember is John Adams’ “Batter my heart” from Dr. Atomic.

And may it remain there, even more than a ghost!

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Production	The Shining
Based on novel by	Steven King
Directed by	Brian Staufenbiel
Producing Company	Opera Parallèle
Production Dates	Thru June 4th
Production Address	Blue Shield of CA Theater at YBCA 700 Howard St, SF, CA 94103
Website	www.operaparallele.org
Telephone	(415) 392-4400
Tickets	$20-$180

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4/5
Script	4.5/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

May 20, 2023May 22, 2023

PICK! ASR Music ~~ Silence Graces Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem”

By Jeff Dunn

Euripides was proved right at Davies Hall Thursday night, May 18: that silence is the best response to true wisdom. For 90 minutes, the nearly filled auditorium was as quiet as I’ve ever heard it. A clapping of one hand. And after the last chord, another 35 seconds of utter noiselessness. Shock, prayer, mourning for our human condition? Then, three long curtain calls amid a somber standing ovation. How could it be else, in the face of a magnificent performance of a 20th-century milestone in music that is utterly relevant today?

The enormous work calls for three soloists, two choruses, two orchestras, and an organ, each of which are associated with different aspects of the causes and meanings of death and war. The mixed San Francisco Symphony chorus, soprano solo and full orchestra and proclaimed the Requiem texts of the Latin Mass, with sin as the cause of the Day of Wrath and salvation as the antidote.

…I urge readers to experience the immeasurable empathy of the War Requiem…

Baritone and tenor soloists, accompanied by a chamber orchestra and singing the poetry of Wilfred Owen, portrayed warring soldiers on opposite sides, yet on the same side with regard to ironic and often bitter critiques of war and its abnegation of pacifistic Christianity. From a distant balcony at the rear, the Ragazzi Boys Chorus, accompanied almost solely by organ, occasionally chanted the more innocently hopeful verses from the liturgy.

All of eight intertwined elements above were meshed in near-perfect combination by conductor Philippe Jordan. The originally scheduled baritone, Iain Paterson, had to withdraw due to unexplained visa issues, but his replacement, the equally experienced Brian Mulligan, added a gorgeous Wotan-like gravitas to his superior performance. Tenor Ian Bostridge filled the hall with his perfectly attuned instrument, but even more thrilling, to patrons in nearer rows, were his exquisite, masterfully varied, and often wrenching facial expressions.

I will never forget his stabbing rendition of the following Owen lines at the end of the Dies Irae movement:

Was it for this [war and death] that the clay grew tall?
O what made fatuous, fatuous sunbeams toil.
To break earth’s sleep at all?

Soprano Jennifer Holloway did a fine job in an angelically silvery dress from the chorus benches in the rear. Conceptually, her position makes sense, considering the far remove the Sixth Commandment has from the battlefields, but Britten’s wonderful music for her needs to be heard at equal volume as the other two soloists, especially in the Lacrymosa section.

In terms of Jordan’s tempo choices, all were acceptable to my taste, if slightly on the slow side. Also, I wish he had given more weight to the snare drum crescendo in the media-prescient setting of the words “The scribes on all the people shove/And bawl allegiance to the state.”

Silence is not the best response to false wisdom, so I must report Harold Schonberg’s uncompassionate NY Times review of the War Requiem at its U.S. premiere in 1963:

“It may turn out that “A War Requiem” will not, in the long run, have staying power because of a certain obviousness. The effects are a little too heart-on-sleeve, the sorrow is a little too sorrowful, the melodic content a little calculated.”

I urge readers to experience the immeasurable empathy of the War Requiem and consider, in thoughtful silence, where we are headed as a species.

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Production	Britten's "War Requiem"
Producing Company	San Francisco Symphony
Production Dates	Through May 20th
Production Address	Davies Symphony Hall 201 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94102
Website	https://www.sfsymphony.org/
Telephone	800-295-5354
Tickets	$36-$165

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review PICK?	YES!

April 19, 2023April 21, 2023

PICK! ASR Music ~~ “Tosca:” Creative Turns and a Fabulous First

By Jeff Dunn

How can you make your production of Tosca memorable to experienced audience members when it’s performed worldwide more than 500 times every year? Certainly a must: Employ one or more unforgettable singers. After that, you must either (a) try for a big-bucks, blow-them-away, gargantuan scenic design (Robert Dornhelm 2015, here: https://vimeo.com/171417034 ), or, more usually, (b) come up with creative turns here and there that leave a lasting impression.

Creative turns are what Stage Director Tara Branham and her team have attempted with Opera San Jose’s Tosca. All are memorable, and many succeed. But, as Nancy Pelosi remarked three years ago, the devil, as well as the angels, are in the details.

…Joseph Marcheso’s conducting and his excellent and substantial orchestra…

Maria Natale, in a fabulous first appearance in the title role, is the unforgettable singer, along with a fine-voiced, ominous Kidon Choi (Scarpia), and Adrian Kramer (Cavaradossi), who really blossomed in Act 3 opening night.

Floria Tosca (Maria Natale) is eyed by the predatory Scarpia (Kidon Choi – left) in Opera San José’s vivid production of Puccini’s thriller “Tosca,” April 15-30 at the California Theatre. Photo Credit: David Allen

Natale fills the auditorium with her voice, never shrieking even in the highest range. It amazed me the way her voice wafted into the onstage action when she sings as part of an offstage cantata–it’s usually unintelligible in other productions. Furthermore, she’s a consummate, expressive actor–you must witness, for example, her masterly shudder as Scarpia barrages her with predatory demands.

The list of creative turns is long; Audience effectiveness may vary. On the positive side:

- Great direction, with emotional intensity
- Tosca’s many, enthusiastic knife stabs into Scarpia–and an earlier slap in his face.
- A large anachronistic head-shot portrait of the girl Cavaradossi was painting—for once, you could see her blue eyes!
- Christina Martin’s irresistibly passionate wig for Tosca. It went everywhere while staying in place.

Adrian Kramer as Cavaradossi in Opera San José’s “Tosca”. Photo Credit: David Allen

Plusses that are also minuses:

- Lots of stage action just prior to the Te Deum in Act 1. Probably interesting to some, distracting to other audience members.
- Cavaradossi making out with another woman in the church at the beginning of Act 1. Indicates he’s a hot-blooded Italian and justifies Tosca’s intuitive jealousy, but decreases his customary heroic stature.
- Scarpia’s Farnese Palace chamber in Act 2 has an upstage bed in it, an understandable if uncommon furnishing among productions. This emphasizes Scarpia’s goal regarding Tosca, but when Tosca sings her famous “Vissi d’arte” aria on it, which should begin quietly, she still has to reach the audience. From my position in the third row, its beginning seemed too loud.

Kidon Choi as Scarpia in Puccini’s thriller “Tosca”. Photo Credit: David Allen

Some minor minuses:

- Too often, it seemed characters were having intimate conversations from opposite ends of the stage. Disconcerting.
- Congregants in the Te Deum marching in front of Scarpia, obscuring him while he’s singing his “Va, Tosca!” aria.
- Baron Scarpia’s anachronistic horseshoe mustache, rare for the 1800 date, and more suitable for a spaghetti western. Fortunately, Elizabeth Poindexter’s terrific costume gave him appropriate class.
- Supertitles were out of synch much of the time on opening night.

Finally, some lasting impressions that were not necessarily unusual, but simply top-notch:

- Joseph Marcheso’s conducting and his excellent and substantial orchestra. I was especially pleased with how the horn section handled the opening to Act 3.
- Igor Vieira taking on a deformed foot to add to the bumbling character of his well-voiced Sacristan.
- Robert Balonek’s strong voiced and desperate Angelotti.
- Choreography by the Napoleon of fight direction, Dave Maier.

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Production	Tosca
Stage Direction	Tara Branham
Producing Company	Opera San Jose
Production Dates	Thru Apr 30th
Production Address	California Theater - 345 S First St, San Jose, CA 95113
Website	www.operasj.org
Telephone	(408) 437-4450
Tickets	$50- $175

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4.5/5
Stagecraft	4.5/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!

March 28, 2023April 21, 2023

ASR Music ~~ “Prospero’s Island:” Good and Evil at Herbst Theater

By Jeff Dunn

The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place.—Alexander Solzhenitzyn.

In Prospero’s Island, an evil Nazi biologist has escaped retribution for his Dr.-Moreau-like experiments on human subjects. One day, after surviving by circumstance for 15 years on a deserted Falkland island, with his daughter along with two of his cross-species creations, the scientist executes an elaborate plan to turn himself in to authorities. Has his line dividing good and evil changed place?

… Prospero’s Island offer(s) many pleasures…

Such is the nut of the new opera by librettist Claudia Stevens and composer Alan Shearer, presented in a single performance at the Herbst Theater on March 25. Its shell is Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the many parallel details of which may delight, amuse, distract, and annoy aficionados of the Bard.

Those unacquainted with the play may be confused at times, but are perhaps better off. On its own terms, the new work offers us a qualified redemption for humanity’s past evils. As we meet him on the day of his plan, the Nazi Prospero is loved by his daughter, respected by his human/starling Ariel, worshipped as Leader by modified, speaking penguins (one of whom has had fingers grafted on so it can play a violin), and reviled by Caliban, a sport that is half sea squirt.

Prospero (Andrew Dwan) and his short-wave radio/TV-remote-like device. Photos courtesy Herbst Theater.

Prospero exercises unlikely but supreme power via psychology, a short-wave radio, and a TV-remote-like device that can incapacitate from a distance. Using the remote, he downs an aircraft carrying four special agents he already knew were coming to arrest him (kudos to Jeremy Knight’s video projections here). Prospero then hopes that one of the agents will fall in love with and marry his daughter Miranda.

His plan works out to perfection, except that Miranda, learning of her father’s crimes, cannot “bestow quality of mercy” on him, saying “It is not mine to bestow.” And Ariel reminds him, “There must be truth for all to hear, … all to bear.”

In this production by InTandem and Ninth Planet, Prospero’s Island offered many pleasures. Shearer’s music diligently followed the plot twists in semi-modernist style, occasionally bursting into references to Handel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Cole Porter, folk dance, bebop, and Elvis. While his own melodies might elude first-time listeners, Shearer’s highly varied and transparent chamber orchestration, superbly realized by Nathaniel Berman and his players, was a treasure chest of invention.

Members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus were irresistible as chirping penguins. Rubber-limbed Bradley Kynard was a delight as a grumpy Caliban in a fabulous sea-squirt costume by Joy Graham Korst.

Members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus at work at Herbst Theater. Photos courtesy Herbst Theater.

Shawnette Sulker (Ariel) and Amy Foote (Miranda) were in excellent voice. The four special agents, Sergio Gonzalez, Julia Hathaway, Angela Jarosz, and Michael Mendelsohn, all in fine form, rounded out the cast, all under the wise direction of Philip Lowery.

Andrew Dwan’s rich bass-baritone would have well served the god-like Prospero of Shakespeare. In Stevens’ and Shearer’s reimagining, however, he is having his last day as a free man, and is reverting to the nerdy nobody that he would have been without Hitler’s help—as symbolized by the dingy khakis and sweater vest he wears and his relatively static stage actions.

This concept matches Hanna Arendt’s conclusion regarding Adolf Eichmann, about the “banality” of evil. But does banality belong in opera to a towering character, Shakespeare’s Prospero, one that has impressed itself on the history of the arts for 400 years?

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Production	Prospero’s Island
Composer Librettist	Alan Shearer Claudia Stevens
Directed by	Philip Lower
Producing Companies	Ninth Planet, InTandem
Production Dates	Single performance, March 25t
Production Address	Herbst Theater 401 Van Ness Ave SF, CA 94102
Website	https://www.prosperosislandopera.com

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4/5
Performance	4.5/5
Script Libretto	4/5 3.5/5
Stagecraft	4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	----

March 7, 2023April 21, 2023

PICK! ASR Music ~~ Opera to Die For: Tosca in Livermore

by Jeff Dunn

Never have I been so disappointed at Scarpia’s dying as I did during Livermore Opera’s production of Tosca in Act 2. Why? Because Aleksey Bogdanov’s portrayal of the lecherous 1800 Police Chief of Rome was so world class, I wanted to scream for a new version of the plot where he avoids the knife of Tosca (lovely-voiced Ann Toomey), and goes on in person to further evil deeds in Act 3.

(L-R) Ann Toomey and Aleskey Bogdanov in “Tosca”.

The Odesa-born Bogdanov immigrated to San Francisco in 1992, and has received many accolades since his debut with the Opera Theater of St. Louis in 2008. His Scarpia has been honed, not only in accuracy, clarity, and beauty of voice, but also in dramatic facial expression and gesture. Lesser Scarpias growl out their notes so much that many listeners don’t realize that Puccini gave the role real arias to sing. All of them were there for us to revel in, thanks to Mr. Bogdanov and Bruce Donnell’s stage direction. Facially, I must point out Bogdanov’s mastery of Scarpia-mouth, a fishy circle somehow combining both sneer and command. Hypnotic.

…an unforgettable evening reviving an operatic standard…

And there were blessings beyond the must see/hear Bogdanov. Alex Boyer’s always outstanding tenor graced the role of Tosca’s lover Cavaradossi. Bojan Knežević elicited vocal resonance, physicality and audience chuckles in his characterization of the Sacristan. Kirk Eichelberger conveyed forceful desperation as the escaped prisoner Angelotti. Lily MacDonald contributed a plaintive tinge to her offstage shepherd to open Act 3. Susan Memmott Allred’s costume designs were historically appropriate, and especially lavish for Tosca and Scarpia.

(L-R) Alex Boyer and Ann Toomey in “Tosca”.

Jean-François Revon’s set designs for the first two acts were another highlight, with video mapping and effects by Frédéric Boulay. There was an almost subterranean take on the dark arches of the Church of Sant’Andreadella Valle veering off at an odd angle in Act 1, and a surprise computer manipulation of projected curtains to shut off Tosca’s offstage cantata in Act 2. The set for Act 3 seemed a bit too Spartan, with no cell for Cavaradossi. That, coupled with a lack of action on the part of the guards, made the opening of the act seem too long.

Finally, there was conductor Alex Katsman’s careful handling of the chamber orchestra and chorus, including the excellent Cantabella Children’s Chorus. I only wish he had added a little more oomph to accents in the ominous, chaconne-like accompaniment at the end of Act 2 while Tosca ponders her future and discovers the murder weapon.

Otherwise, he and all the Livermore Opera artists put together an unforgettable evening reviving an operatic standard. Even if Scarpia had to die, Bogdanov, receiving a vociferous standing ovation at the end of his act, did get to go home early to prepare more evil juice for his Sunday matinee.

-30-

Production	Tosca
Composer	Giacomo Puccini
Librettist	Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica
Director	Bruce Donnell
Producing Company	Livermore Opera
Production Dates	March 4, 5, 11, 12, 2023
Production Address	The Bankhead Theater 2400 First St, Livermore, CA 94551
Website	https://livermorearts.org/
Telephone	(925) 373-6800
Tickets	$20 - $98

Reviewer Score	Max in each category is 5/5
Overall	4.5/5
Performance	4.5/5
Script	N/A
Stagecraft	4/5
Aisle Seat Review Pick?	YES!