Ma queer immortelle
San Francisco Opera hosts an exuberant tribute to queerness past and present.
Michael Tilson Thomas
13 pieces since 2014 — at 3 companies, most often at San Francisco Symphony.
13
pieces
3
companies
13
years
La voix surhumaine
Barbara Hannigan mesmerizes as both a brilliant vocalist and a proficient opera conductor in a double bill of Strauss and La voix humaine with the New York Philharmonic.
One is silver, the other is Golda
In an all-Mozart program with the San Francisco Symphony, Golda Schultz shows that her soubrette days are behind her.
Color me impressed
Bay Area audiences starved for vocal fare during its opera’s winter/spring hiatus recently experienced two exceptional concerts with distinguished singing at the Davies Symphony Hall.
“You must change your life”
This was a wonderful concert because MIchael Tilson Thomas approached every moment of it with an air of expansiveness and gratitude.
Regal and distinguished beauty
On this day in 1936 the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with a revival of Die Walküre featuring the debut of contralto Kerstin Thorborg.
Uninvited ghost
Trove Thursday sends best wishes to Michael Tilson Thomas, currently recovering from a recent surgery to remove a brain tumor, and presents him in a broadcast leading the UK premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mlada with Makvala Kasrashvili, Felicity Palmer, Jon Frederic West and Sergei Leiferkus.
Pilot program
Once again we got a very frustrating performance of Orlando; this time a beautiful and completely coherent production marred by some sub-optimal singing.
Thousands cheer
Although Gustav Mahler never wrote an opera, his colossal Eighth Symphony “The Symphony of a Thousand” may give us some glimpses of what a Mahler opera might have sounded like
Hop on pops
Carnegie Hall’s season opener last night fetched the usual glitterati.
Double exposure
San Francisco Opera opened their 2018-19 Season Friday with a double bill of Italian verismo operas, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, which made a welcome return to War Memorial Opera House after 15 years.
All shook up
Subtitled by its creators as “A Fearful Radio Show,” this opera reminded Jerome Robbins of Orson Welles’ 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds.
West coast story
I fall on my knees before this new live recording
issued by the San Francisco Symphony.