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1st appeared 26 October 1998 Reminders: UCSF Chancellor's Concert #3: Lisa Lhee, violin; Mark McCray, piano, Thursday, October 29 at 12 in Cole Hall. (For more information, see Artists Among Us from Oct. 12 and Oct. 19) Beautiful and Damned The story of Manon is so intriguing that many composers have turned it into opera, most notably the Frenchman Jules Massenet in l884, simply as Manon, and Giacomo Puccini as Manon Lescaut in l893. The more beautiful is the French opera, not seen here since l986, which is being given a ravishing production at the War Memorial Opera House. There are two more chances to enjoy Manon: on October 29 at 7:30 p.m. and on November 1 at 2 p.m. John Copley directs with his usual superb skill and the conductor is Julius Rudel, an expert in this repertory. The title role is exquisitely sung by one of today's superstar sopranos, Ruth Ann Swenson, a graduate of SF Opera's training program. She has all the freshness and charm of the young Manon who falls for the Chevalier des Grieux, sung with fervor by tenor Jerry Hadley, in a coup de foudre, a stroke of love-lightning, and she is equally enchanting later as Manon the courtesan, who chooses wealth and pleasure over love but regrets it and seduces Des Grieux once more, only to meet a sad end. Also outstanding are baritone Rodney Gilfry as Lescaut (Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire earlier this season), and veteran French tenor Michel Senechal as a very funny and pompous old lecher. The entire cast is very good, the sets beautiful, the 18th-century costumes fabulous. * * * * * Passion and Inquisition Don Carlo is one of Verdi's most powerfully dramatic operas and it requires exceptional voices and acting. For its new production, designed by Zack Brown and conducted by Emmanuel Joel, SF Opera has assembled a topflight international cast to enact the opera's passionate scenes of love and jealousy against a background of political intrigue among the royal families of 16th-century France and Spain. The opera has everything that makes Verdi's mature masterworks so thrilling: men and women who are historical characters but whose passions and predicaments move us today; glorious arias and ensembles; deeply resonant choruses and big rich orchestral sound; the dances and grand processions that make opera so exciting on the stage, and in the case of Don Carlo even the ghost of a Holy Roman Emperor and an auto-da-fe, a burning of heretics by the dreaded Spanish Inquisition. The great American bass James Morris returns to the War Memorial as Philip II, King of Spain, who has one of the most poignant scenes in the opera when he realizes that his wife Elisabetta has never loved him. Instead, Elisabetta, sung by soprano Nina Rautio, is in love with his son Don Carlo, who is Sergei Larin, possessor of a strong and beautiful tenor voice. Carlo's friend Rodrigo is baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore, so loyal that he would give even his life for Carlo. The role of Princess Eboli, who has one of the opera's best known arias "O Don Fatale," in which she curses her own fatal beauty, is sung by mezzo Markella Hatziano in her local debut. Victor von Halem, a deep bass who has just sung King Mark in Tristan, is the Grand Inquisitor. Don Carlo will be performed six times from October 27 to November 14, including a matinee on November 8. All operas have English Supertitles. An hour before
most performances, interesting and illuminating lectures are given in the Opera House for
ticket holders, so check on times and plan to get there early. * * * * * Uncommon Conversation Writer and actor John Cleese, the very tall one of the Monty Pythons, the very tall frustrated one in Fawlty Towers, and the very tall wet one in A Fish Called Wanda, will be in town on November 18 to converse with Richard Dawkins, biologist and author of The Selfish Gene, Climbing Mount Improbable, and Unweaving the Rainbow. Ought to be a fascinatingly unusual conversation. City Arts & Lectures has just announced this new event added to its fall schedule (see the Sept. 28 Artists Among Us). Cleese & Dawkins on November 18, 8 p.m. at the Herbst Theatre on Van Ness at McAllister. Reserved seating $17 from City Box Office, 392-4400. * * * * * From the Ridiculous to the Sublime A.C.T. American Conservatory Theatre opened its l998-99 season with Fool Moon, the hilarious non-speaking vaudeville comedy by and with Bill Irwin and David Shiner (see Sept. 14 Artists Among Us). For its next production A.C.T. turns to the Trojan War, one of the climactic events in Western history, whose triumphs and tragedies are the subject of Homer's Iliad and have been told and retold to awestruck audiences for thousands of years. The outstanding actress Olympia Dukakis, winner of many awards for her stage, film, and TV roles, returns to the role of Hecuba, widow of Priam, King of Troy, and mother of Hector, its slain hero. A.C.T.'s artistic director Carey Perloff stages the play, which has been translated and adapted from Euripides by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Music is by David Lang, performed live by Kitka, seven women singers who act as the Chorus. The towering tragedy Hecuba by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides brings us the sorrows of that war and the defeat of Troy not through the eyes of heroes but those of their mothers, wives, and children, the losers in that war and all wars before and since. We see a daughter of Hecuba sacrifice her life rather than become a slave to the victorious Greeks, and then the desecrated and drowned body of her last and youngest son is carried to her. Hecuba and her Trojan women, powerless though they may be, cry out for justice, refuse to surrender, and find a terrifying means of wreaking revenge. The Greek victors appear in brief but crucial moments and are powerfully acted by Marco Borricellli as Odysseus, L. Peter Callender as Agamemnon, and Apollo Dukakis as a servant of the Greeks. The corrupt King of Thrace, where the Trojan women are exiled, is Steven Anthony Jones. Hecuba is being performed to deeply moved and enthusiastic audiences, judging by that of my performance on Oct. 21. The weak element in an otherwise remarkable rendering is the Chorus: their chants sound like lazy New Age wailing rather than echoing the intensity of the drama. Hecuba runs for only five weeks, closing November 22, in the beautifully restored Geary Theater, 415 Geary at Mason. Tickets from Geary Box Office phone 749-2228 (ask about any special deals for students) or BASS outlets. Online at www.act-sfbay.org. On November 2 from 7 to 9, Olympia Dukakis and several other speakers will hold a free public symposium about Hecuba and related issues at the Geary Theatre. And there's a new Hecuba Message Board for playgoers to share their thoughts with others, day or night. Go to www.citysearch.com/sfo/act and register your views or question A.C.T. Director Carey Perloff. Based in San Francisco, the Kronos Quartet is one of America's and the world's most accomplished and celebrated contemporary music groups. The adventurous musical travels of the Kronos' four superb players have taken them back to the Renaissance and forward again through the ages to jazz, rock, serialism, post-modernism, and into music of Africa, South America, and Asia. Kronos enjoys its reputation as a hip group wearing unconventional clothes rather than the usual staid black of classical concerts. To mark their 25th anniversary, the Kronos is presenting a festival called "400 Candles " to illustrate the vast range of their repertory and to celebrate the creation of over 400 string quartets that have been commissioned, written, or arranged for Kronos during the quarter-century, more than twice the number composed by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms combined. On October 29, 30, 31, and November 1, four special celebration concerts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts will be performed by David Harrington, violin; John Sherba, violin; Hank Durr, viola, and Joan Jeanrenaud, cello. As part of the anniversary celebration, a 10-CD boxed set chosen from the hundreds of Kronos recordings is being released this month by Nonesuch Records. The opening festival concert on October 29 features contemporary composers whose work and relationships have been meaningful to Kronos: Steve Reich, with Different Trains, Ben Johnston's Amazing Grace, Terry Riley's Mario in Cielo, and U.S. Highball by Harry Partch with guest vocalist David Barron. On October 30 the Kronos performs the complete string quartets of Alfred Schnittke, one of the former Soviet Union's most prominent composers, who died last August. Schnittke also composed nine symphonies and three operas, along with numerous other works. On its recent world tour, the Kronos played the quartets at the Moscow Conservatory to warm response from the Russian audience. October 31 Halloween: Diamanda Galas and Kronos in a concert starting at 9:30 p.m., the singer will be heard in a solo set from her acclaimed CD Malediction and Prayer -- Concert for the Damned. Kronos Quartet will perform the staged version of George Crumb's Black Angels, inspired by the Vietnam War, and portraying in music and theater the three stages of a voyage of the soul. Day of the Dead -- November 1 Mexican
composer Gabriella Ortiz' Altar de Muertos, written for Kronos is on the program
along with the world premiere of Lament of My Chau: Songs of Farewell and Death
of My Chau, by the Vietnam native P.Q. Phan, who was born in l962 and came to the US at
the age of 20. He won the l997 Rome Prize for musical composition and now teaches at the
University of Illinois. The Chau is a Vietnamese instrument, played with a bow. Tickets for Kronos' 25th Anniversary Festival can be purchased as a series or single tickets. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater is at 700 Howard Street at Third Street. For tickets and information call 978-ARTS or 776-1999 or 510/762-BASS. A San Francisco resident for 20 years, Nina Beckwith is a longtime arts writer and music critic and a former Time magazine overseas correspondent. She was founding editor of the UC Berkeley Library newsletter Bene Legere and worked for six years with the late Dr. Peter Ostwald, Director of the UCSF Health Program for Performing Artists. |
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