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1st appeared 01 June 2000 NINA'S ARTS NOTES Ostwald Lecture and Recital Peter F. Ostwald was a prominent member of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry for 40 years. He was also a gifted violinist and writer who combined his disciplines in ground-breaking psycho-biographies of composer Robert Schumann, dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, and pianist Glenn Gould.
Ostwald also founded and directed the UCSF Health Program for Performing Artists, a pioneer group of UCSF clinicians dedicated to the study, diagnosis and treatment of ailments commonly encountered by performers. Ostwald died in 1996. On June 7 and 8 the second annual memorial lecture and recital to honor him are being sponsored by the UCSF Department of Psychology and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. This year’s events will also pay homage to Johann Sebastian Bach on the 250th anniversary of his death, and to Albert Schweitzer, Nobelist and preeminent Bach scholar and performer. Below is the schedule: Wednesday, June 7: Grand Rounds, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., Toland Hall Moderator: Craig Van Dyke, Chairman, UCSF Dept. of Psychiatry The Emergence of the Creative Self: Albert Schweitzer’s Reflections on the Life and Genius of Bach, Leonard Zegans, Director of Education, UCSF Department of Psychiatry Glenn Gould’s Interpretation of Bach, Lise Deschamps Ostwald, pianist Perspectives on the Goldberg Variations, Paul Hersh, pianist, James D. Robertson Chair in Piano, SF Conservatory Reminiscences by Leon Epstein, Emeritus Professor, UCSF Dept. of Psychiatry Admission is free. Reception follows at Faculty/Alumni House, 745 Parnassus. Thursday June 8, 8 p.m., Hellman Hall, SF Conservatory, 1201 Ortega at 19th Avenue. Admission $10. (Benefit for the Conservatory’s Peter F. Ostwald Scholarship Fund.) Johann Sebastian Bach: Partita and Chaconne in D minor for solo violi; Goldberg Variations for piano Performers: Lise Deschamps Ostwald, Stefan Hersh, Paul Hersh Information: 415/759-3475. OPERA SEASON BONUS Wonderful news for opera lovers and those who would like, perhaps for the first time, to experience this most thrilling kind of live, large and lavish spectacle with glorious sound: the San Francisco Opera season did not end last December! There is now grand opera in June and July at the War Memorial with elaborate productions and international casts of first-rate singers, just as in the fall season. This year there is an extraordinary opportunity to see and hear three of the most famous of all operas, each from a different century.
Production staged by SFO general director Lotfi Mansouri and Graziella Sciutti, conducted by Daniel Beckwith, with baritones Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Alfonso Antoniozzi, and David Okerlund; sopranos Carol Vaness, Monica Colonna and Anna Netrebko. Sung in Italian with English supertitles. Eight performances, from June 3 through July first. The Rake’s Progress by Igor Stravinsky, libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman. Return of marvelous production designed by David Hockney, staged by John Cox. Conductor Markus Senz leads soprano Rebecca Evans as Anne Trulove, tenor Raymond Very as Tom Rakewell, bass-baritone Bryn Tefel as the diabolical Nick Shadow, and countertenor Brian Asawa as Baba the Turk, in this 20th century landmark opera about a young man who leaves the country for a life of pleasure and debauchery in London until, like Don Giovanni, he finally has to pay the price. Sung in English with English supertitles, six performances from June 10 through June 29. Richard Wagner’s last titanic work is Parsifal, which continues the story of the Holy Grail through the wounding of Amfortas, protector of the Grail, in the epic struggle between Christian knights and the pagan sorceror Klingsor, until the young hero Parsifal finally triumphs. In this new production, staged by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, SFO music director Donald Runnicles, renowned for his Wagner interpretations, conducts the superb Opera orchestra and chorus. Acclaimed soprano Catherine Malfitano is being heard for the first time as the enchantress Kundry. Tenor Christpher Ventris makes his company debut in the title role; baritone Tom Fox is Klingsor and baritone Franz Grundheber sings Amfortas. Sung in German with English supertitles, six performances, from June 18 through July 2. Tickets at Opera Box Office at Van Ness & Grove. Phone 415/864-3330, online. AMERICAN MAVERICKS Unless you get around by blinkered limo, you won’t have missed the signs and posters all over town announcing one of the most adventurous of Michael Tilson Thomas’ SF Symphony special seasons.
"They were free-spirited people," MTT says. "They were interested in sound for sound’s sake. They were not writing music for a concert society....This is the group of people who, in retrospect, contributed the majority of the original musical ideas of the 20th century." The Mavericks range from John Adams, Aaron Copland and Duke Ellington to the Bay Area’s Lou Harrison, to Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, and Frank Zappa. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to open ears and mind and spirit to brilliant performances of music that may shock you, music you may fall in love with -- or not -- music that belongs to your world and will enrich your life. American Mavericks concerts are June 7-24, Davies Symphony Hall, Van Ness at Grove. Tickets also available in three- and four-concert packages at special savings. SF Symphony Box Office, 415/864-6000, online. 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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Don
Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. With moments both tender and
terrifying, full of swordplay and seduction, Mozart’s most powerful
opera is the story of an arrogant love ‘em-and-leave ‘em swashbuckler
who refuses to repent until it’s too late. 
It’s
called "American Mavericks" because you will hear music of
composers who worked outside the mainstream (until in some cases they
later became the mainstream): they were mold-breakers, iconoclasts,
pioneers of the American sound.