Favorites of 2010-2019: Live performances

When listing my favorite live performances of 2010-2019 I wanted to focus on the performing arts organizations that have immeasurably enriched our lives over the past decade. So in alphabetical order, the organizations to which we are grateful together with a favorite live performance sponsored by each:

Rebecca Myers Hoke (Sémélé) and Sara LeMesh (Junon) in Sémélé. Photo: Gas Lamp Productions

American Bach Soloists: Under the leadership of founder Jeffrey Thomas, each year ABS produces a full season plus a summer festival showcasing young artists from the ABS Academy.

• Favorite performance: Marin Marais: Sémélé
  Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, August 14, 2015.
  
  After its initial 1709 run Marais' Sémélé remained unperformed for nearly 300 years. To have the opportunity to hear this magnificent and unjustly neglected score was truly a privilege, and Thomas and his musicians and singers performed it beautifully.

Kindra Scharich as Rosaura in Ermelinda. Photo: Teresa Tam/Ars Minerva

Ars Minerva: Astonishingly creative productions of forgotten Baroque operas rediscovered, edited, and restaged by indefatigable Artistic Director Céline Ricci.

• Favorite performance: Ermelinda
  Nikola Printz (Ermelinda), Sara Couden (Ormondo/Clorindo), Kindra Scharich (Rosaura), Justin Montigne (Aristeo), Deborah Rosengaus (Armidoro). Period-instrument orchestra conducted by Jory Vinikour; stage direction by Céline Ricci. ODC Theater, San Francisco, seen November 24, 2019.
  
  The success of Ars Minerva's Ermelinda was due not only to Ricci's painstaking archival research, but to her unerring eye and ear, her highly imaginative staging, and her ability to pull together singers, musicians and a creative team who were wholly committed to her vision. Ermelinda was a triumph.

David Hansen (Nerone) and Amanda Forsythe (Poppea) in L'Incoronazione di Poppea. Photo: BEMF.

Boston Early Music Festival: This venerable biennial festival (founded in 1980) brings the best early music performers to the Boston area for concerts and exhibitions, and to international audiences through their excellent recording series.

• Favorite performance:  The Monteverdi Trilogy
  Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs, musical directors; Gilbert Blin, stage director and set designer; seen June 12-14, 2015.
  
  In 2015 the Boston Early Music Festival staged of all of Monteverdi's extant operas: L'Orfeo, (Orpheus, 1607), Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria (The return of Ulysses to his homeland, 1640), and L'incoronazione di Poppea (The coronation of Poppea, 1642). The musical and vocal performances were exceptional, and the stagings ranged from good (Orfeo, Ulisse) to excellent (Poppea); for details please click the links to my original posts. It was a privilege to be able to see these three masterpieces performed on successive days. 

Lesley Garrison and Durell R. Comedy in Layla and Majnun. Photo: Susana Millman.

 

Cal Performances is the UC Berkeley-based sponsor of concerts in the past decade by Joyce Di Donato, Philippe Jaroussky, Mark Morris Dance Group, Dorothea Röschmann, Jordi Savall & Hesperion XXI, Takács Quartet, Tallis Scholars, and many others.

• Favorite performance: Layla and Majnun
  Mark Morris Dance Company, with Alim Qasimov (Majnun), Fargana Qasimova (Layla), and the Silk Road Ensemble, commissioned by Cal Performances. Seen in its world premiere performance at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, Friday, September 30, 2016.
  
  This was a very tough call because Cal Performances sponsors so many wonderful concerts each year. Layla and Majnun, like Juliet and Romeo, are lovers tragically separated by their families and united only in death. Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli's 1908 opera was adapted and condensed into an hour-long work for two singers accompanied by a chamber orchestra mixing Western, Azerbaijani and Asian instruments; Mark Morris choreographed the accompanying dances. But it was the music—particularly the melismatic microtonal mugham singing of Alim Qasimov and Faragana Qasimova—that was especially stunning.

Shreya Ghoshal

Friends of the San Francisco Public Library sponsors programs at every branch throughout the year and is a leading advocate for sustainable funding for the library.

• Favorite program: Shreya Ghoshal
  Bollywood Song and Dance with Dhaval and Gunjan and friends, Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Public Library main branch, March 3, 2018.
  
  In a basement auditorium at my local public library one spring afternoon I happened across a performance by the playback singer Shreya Ghoshal. If you aren't a Bollywood fan, perhaps you don't realize how improbable that is. Shreya Ghoshal has performed on the soundtracks of something like 500 films, including E & I favorites Vivah (2006), Godavari (2006), Dor (2006), Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006, one of my Favorite Bollywood Films from the 2000s), Aaja Nachle (2007), 3 Idiots (2009), Band Baaja Baaraat (2010), Love U...Mr. Kalakaar! (2011), PK (2014), and four of my Top Ten Shah Rukh Khan movies: Devdas (2002, for which she won the RD Burman Award for New Music Talent and the Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer), Paheli (2005), Om Shanti Om (2007), and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2009). What a privilege to be able to see her in such an intimate setting.

Cesare (Sarah Connolly), Cleopatra (Joélle Harvey), and members of the Glyndebourne Chorus in Giulio Cesare. Photo: Glyndebourne.com

Glyndebourne Festival Opera: The original country house opera festival, Glyndebourne (begun in 1934) continues to present great singers in striking productions.

• Favorite performance: Giulio Cesare
  Sarah Connolly (Giulio Cesare), Joélle Harvey (Cleopatra), Christophe Dumaux (Tolomeo), Patricia Bardon (Cornelia), and Anna Stéphany (Sesto), John Moore (Achilla), the Glyndebourne Chorus and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by William Christie, seen June 20, 2018.
  
  Director David McVicar's production of Cesare comments on the lengthy history of British imperialism in the Middle East and India. It's also very funny and moving, and with a cast of committed performers and Handel's great music the evening was, in a word, sublime.

Sylvestris Quartet performing at SF Music Day 2017. Image: Sylvestris Quartet

InterMusic SF: Sponsor of the annual free musical cornucopia SF Music Day, as well as grants and programs throughout the year.

• Favorite performance: Sylvestris Quartet
  SF Music Day, Education Studio, War Memorial Veterans Building, San Francisco, September 24, 2017.
  
  SF Music Day is an astonishing event. Each year over the course of a single day in four different venues around the vast Veterans Building, InterMusic SF presents more than 30 groups playing jazz, international, classical and/or contemporary music. On SF Music Day 2017 I was most impressed by the program of the period-instrument Sylvestris Quartet performing "250 years of French string music in 30 minutes." The pieces ranged from Marc-Antoine Charpentier's 17th-century Concert pour 4 parties de violes to a meltingly beautiful rendition of the slow movement from Camille Saint-Saëns' String Quartet No. 1 from 1899.

Kindra Scharich with the Alexander String Quartet.

Lieder Alive! supports the teaching, performance and appreciation of art songs.

• Favorite performance: The Mahler Song Cycles
  Kindra Scharich with the Alexander String Quartet, Noe Valley Ministry, San Francisco, September 10, 2017.
  
  To open Lieder Alive's 2017/18 Liederabend Series rich-voiced mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich, accompanied by the Alexander String Quartet, presented a program of three song cycles by Gustav Mahler arranged by Zakarias Grafilo, first violin of the ASQ. The quartet versions offered both intimacy and fullness, and Scharich's voice floated beautifully over the strings. Their recording of these works was one of my Favorites of 2010-2019: Music.

Andreas Scholl, Anne Sofie von Otter and conductor Nicholas McGegan (rear center). Image: Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra: North America's premier period-instrument orchestra, directed for the past 35 years by Nicholas McGegan.

• Favorite performance: Anne Sofie von Otter and Andreas Scholl
  Weill Hall/Green Music Center, Sonoma State University, May 14, 2016.
  
  We drove 60 miles north to the Green Music Center on the campus of Sonoma State University to see two of the greatest singers of our era perform arias by Handel. But it was the second half of the program, featuring hauntingly performed contemplative songs by Arvo Pärt and Caroline Shaw, that made this one of the most memorable concerts of the past decade.

Dajeong Song (Unulfo) and Molly Boggess (Bertarido) in Rodelinda at SFCM.

San Francisco Conservatory of Music: This renowned conservatory, founded in 1917, presents an almost daily series of concerts from the next generation of musicians and singers; most are free.

• Favorite performance: Rodelinda, Regina de' Longobardi
  Karen Notovitz (Rodelinda), Matheus Coura (Bertarido), James Hogan (Grimoaldo), with the SFCM Baroque Ensemble conducted by Corey Jamason. Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, SF Conservatory of Music, seen March 11, 2018.
  
  With both Historical Performance and Opera & Musical Theatre programs, SFCM presents (at low or no cost to the audience) fully staged operas rarely produced elsewhere. Rodelinda is the widowed queen of Lombardy, who is sexually blackmailed by Grimoaldo, her husband Bertarido's usurper and murderer. But is her husband really dead. . .? Karen Notovitz gave a lovely, moving performance as Rodelinda, with excellent support by Matheus Coura, James Hogan and the other members of the cast.

San Francisco Early Music Society: Sponsors of the biennial Berkeley Festival and Exhibition of early music, plus an annual series of concerts and workshops.

• Favorite performance: England's Orpheus: Iestyn Davies & Thomas Dunford
  Iestyn Davies' sweet-toned countertenor was ideal for this program of songs by John Dowland, Henry Purcell, and George Frideric Handel, accompanied by Thomas Dunford's lute. Davies' performance as David on DVD in Handel's Saul from Glyndebourne was one of my Favorites of 2018: Recordings.

San Francisco Opera: Founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola, SF Opera approaches its 100th birthday with the difficult dual mission of remaining both artistically vital and financially viable.

• Favorite performance: Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Tales of Hoffmann)
  Matthew Polenzani (Hoffmann), Christian Van Horn (Councillor Lindorf, Coppélius, Dr. Miracle, Dapertutto), Hye Jung Lee (Olympia), Natalie Dessay (Antonia), Irene Roberts (Giulietta), SF Opera Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Patrick Fournillier, stage direction and costume designs by Laurent Pelly, SF War Memorial Opera House, seen June 5, 2013.
  
  Exactly what we'd love to see more of at the San Francisco Opera: a striking production of an uncommon opera with a superb cast. Laurent Pelly's visually arresting staging of Jacques Offenbach's late masterwork employed a virtually flawless cast featuring tenor Matthew Polenzani as an ardent Hoffmann, thrillingly sinister bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as the four villains, the lovely (and lovely-voiced) mezzo Angela Brower as the Muse/Nicklausse, the (almost literally) stratospheric Hye Jung Lee as the doll Olympia, and Natalie Dessay as the tragic Antonia. It's difficult to imagine a more compelling production of this dark, eerie, and beautiful work.
  
  It's easy to complain about the company's sometimes unadventurous repertory choices—and I haven't resisted the temptation. But amid the diminishing-return revivals of Tosca and Madama Butterfly in the past decade the company has mounted strongly cast and often brilliantly conceived productions of Handel's Partenope (2014 & 2019), Berlioz's Les Troyens (2015), Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (2010, 2015 & 2019), Richard Strauss's Arabella (2018), and Dvořák's Rusalka (2019). We're looking forward to the new season announcement next month.

Image: San Francisco Girls Chorus

Voices of Music: The San Francisco early music ensemble has increased the audiences for its excellent concert series by posting professionally filmed and recorded videos to its YouTube channel.

• Favorite performance: Dido and Aeneas
  Mindy Ella Chu (Dido), Jesse Blumberg (Aeneas), San Francisco Girls Chorus, Voices of Music conducted by Hanneke van Proosdij, produced by the San Francisco Early Music Society 2018 Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, First Congregational Church, Berkeley, seen June 7, 2018.
  
  Henry Purcell's great tragic opera Dido and Aeneas (1688?) was written to be "perform'd at Mr. Josias Priest's boarding-school at Chelsey. By young gentlewomen." There is strong evidence that in the original performances at Priest's school the young gentlewomen took all of the roles, including that of the Trojan hero Aeneas; for a debate on this question between yours truly and Voices of Music co-director and lutenist David Tayler, please see The Mysteries of Dido and Aeneas and its comments thread.
  
  For the San Francisco Early Music Society's 2018 Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, Voices of Music joined forces with the SF Girls Chorus to offer a hint of what such a performance might have sounded like. Members of the Girls Chorus took on all except the title roles, which were sung by soprano Mindy Ella Chu and baritone Jesse Blumberg. Especially delightful was Allegra Kelly's boozy Sailor, but all of the chorus members performed with exceptional skill and assurance. How closely Voices of Music and the SF Girls Chorus re-created Dido's original performances is ultimately immaterial; this production succeeded wonderfully on its own terms.

Ryan Belongie (Arsamene) and Angela Cadelago (Romilda) in Xerxes (Serse) at Berkeley West Edge Opera. Photo: Ching Chang

West Edge Opera: An adventurous company producing underperformed and contemporary operas under the artistic direction of Mark Streshinsky.

• Favorite performance: Xerxes (Serse)
  Paula Rasmussen (Serse), Angela Cadelago (Romilda), Ryan Belongie (Arsamene), Anna Slate (Atalanta), Berkeley West Edge Opera Orchestra conducted by Alan Curtis, El Cerrito High School Performing Arts Theater, seen November 21, 2010.
  
  WEO Artistic Director Mark Streshinsky's bold, campy production effectively emphasized the farcical elements of Handel's opera. And with internationally-acclaimed conductor Alan Curtis in the pit and a strong cast of new and established singers—Rasmussen also took the title role in what remains the best version of this opera on DVD, and newcomer Anna Slate almost stole the show—the musical quality of this production was extremely high (a standard the company has maintained since).

Other Favorites of 2010-2019:

• Movies and TV
• Bollywood and beyond
• Music
• Books

Favorites of 2019: Live performances

Ars Minerva Artistic Director Céline Ricci. Photo: Martin Lacey Photography. Image source: sfgate.com

On this Thankgiving weekend I'm grateful for the amazing live performances we've seen over the past year. Our favorites in the categories of opera, concert and recital, and dance:

OPERA

Ermelinda. Libretto by Francesco Maria Piccioli, composed by Domenico Freschi. Nikola Printz (Ermelinda), Sara Couden (Ormondo/Clorindo), Kindra Scharich (Rosaura), Justin Montigne (Aristeo), Deborah Rosengaus (Armidoro). Period-instrument orchestra conducted by Jory Vinikour; stage direction by Céline Ricci. ODC Theater, seen November 24, 2019, produced by Ars Minerva.

Nikola Printz as Ermelinda. Photo: Valentina Sadiula. Image source: SF Examiner

My idea of heaven is a Baroque opera where all the leading roles call for voices in the mezzo-soprano or contralto range; watching Ermelinda I was in a state of sheer bliss. The latest discovery of Ars Minerva director Céline Ricci, Ermelinda may have been the group's best production yet.

Composer Domenico Freschi wrote Ermelinda to be performed at the villa of the powerful Contarini family near Padua in the Veneto, where Marco Contarini had built two orphanages and a large private theater. Like the famed Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, Marco's orphanages took in girls who were foundlings—often children born out of wedlock, sometimes to noble families—and provided them with musical training. (Given what we know of the behavior of rich men towards vulnerable young women, we have to wonder whether Marco also had motives other than the musical for his benevolence.) Ermelinda, performed at the Villa Contarini in 1681 for a visiting Polish prince, has no tenor, baritone or bass parts because it was likely sung by an all-female cast drawn from the orphanages. More than three centuries later, Ricci found the score in the Contarini music collection, now housed in the Marciana Library in Venice; the San Francisco performances were likely the first since the work's première.

The story features disguise, feigned madness, star-crossed lovers, imprisonment in chains, false reports of death, attempted suicide, and a happy ending snatched in the final moments from the jaws of tragedy. In other words, Ermelinda has all the elements of a typical Baroque opera. But what was far from typical was Ricci's inventive direction and the inspired work of her superlative cast, which made it all work brilliantly onstage.

Prince Ormondo of Phoenicia (contralto Sara Couden) travels to the remote countryside in disguise as the rustic "Clorindo" in search of his lover Ermelinda (mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz), who has been sequestered there by her suspicious father Aristeo (countertenor Justin Montigne). "Clorindo" encounters a nobleman, Armidoro (mezzo-soprano Deborah Rosengaus), who invites him home. Armidoro himself is in love with Ermelinda, and his sister Rosaura (mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich) is quickly smitten with "Clorindo."

Scharich offered a scintillating comic turn as the lovelorn Rosaura. Her gorgeous voice and compelling stage presence were known to me from previous Ars Minerva productions such as The Amazons in the Fortunate Isles and La Circe as well as from her superb lieder recitals and recordings, but I had no idea that she was such a terrific comedienne. Her reactions were priceless, as in Act I where she is beginning to bemoan the "madness" of "Clorindo" and to her annoyance is prompted (or mocked) by the orchestra with famous laments from later operas by Handel and Gluck. It's a moment in which director Ricci signals that Rosaura is both genuinely distressed, but also getting secret pleasure from watching her own performance of her feelings.

This is the sort of theatrical duality that is a key to Baroque opera, where stock situations give rise to real emotions. Ricci and her singers and musicians skillfully enhanced the opera's humor but also gave due weight to its genuine pathos. The sorrowful arias sung by each member of the central love polygon in the second half were affecting and beautifully performed. Freschi's music is filled with striking melodies, and the many musical pleasures of this score were showcased by the fluent playing of the musicians under the leadership of harpsichordist Jory Vinikour.

Every element of the production enhanced the whole; special mention has to be made of Matthew Nash's costumes (especially Rosaura's flamboyant gown, a visual correlative to her flamboyant personality), Entropy's scene-setting projections, and Thomas Bowersox's lighting, which created distinct spaces and moods with minimal means.

In Ermelinda Ricci unearthed a true gem. But its rediscovery was only the first step in realizing this delightful production. The success of Ars Minerva's Ermelinda was due not only to Ricci's painstaking archival research, but to her unerring eye and ear, her highly imaginative staging that turned what might have been limitations into virtues, and her ability to pull together singers, musicians and a creative team who were wholly committed to her vision. Ermelinda was a triumph.

Rusalka. Libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil, composed by Antonín Dvořák. Rachel Willis‐Sørensen (Rusalka), Brandon Jovanovich (Prince), Kristinn Sigmundsson (Vodník, the Water Goblin), Jamie Barton (Ježibaba), Sarah Cambidge (Foreign Princess), with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Eun Sun Kim; production by David McVicar. War Memorial Opera House, seen June 23, 2019, produced by San Francisco Opera.

Rusalka (Rachel Willis‐Sørensen) and her father Vodník, the Water Goblin (Kristinn Sigmundsson) in 

San Francisco Opera's production of Rusalka. Photo: Cory Weaver. Image source: San Francisco Opera.

Complaining about San Francisco Opera is an irresistible pastime to which this writer isn't immune (see "Pounding us over the head with Tosca"). However, in the 2018-19 season General Director Matthew Shilvock programmed three great but rarely-performed operas, Richard Strauss's Arabella, Handel's Orlando, and Dvořák's Rusalka. All offered excellent singers and magnificent music, but Rusalka had the added bonus of a generally well-conceived and visually striking production by David McVicar. Note to Shilvock: more operas beyond the "twelve chestnuts," please!

CONCERT AND RECITAL

Tallis Scholars: Music Inspired by the Sistine Chapel. First Congregational Church, Berkeley, April 4, 2019. Produced by Cal Performances.

Photo credit: Clive Barda. Source: Cal Performances

By my count this concert was the seventh time the Tallis Scholars had appeared at Cal Performances in the past 10 years, and they will appear again next May. I confess that sometimes when seeing them listed in the season brochure I've felt a twinge of Tallis Scholars fatigue (I know, this is the sort of problem that many people would love to have). The Early Music series usually only features three or four groups, and it feels as though one slot is almost always reserved.

But every time I attend a Tallis Scholars concert I am amazed anew by their sound, which is both extremely precise and beautifully blended, and by the sheer aural magnificence of their chosen repertory. This program featured music inspired by the Sistine Chapel, including compositions by Palestrina, Festa, Carpentras, Morales and Josquin written to be performed in it (often the composers were members of the choir themselves; in 1998 a worker discovered Josquin's name carved into a Sistine Chapel wall).  And of course, the concert 's peak was the performance of best-known work associated with the chapel, Allegri's Miserere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBxL5Mi0mH0

Iestyn Davies and Thomas Dunford: England's Orpheus. First Congregational Church, Berkeley, May 19, 2019. Produced by the San Francisco Early Music Festival.

Image source: SFEMS.org

Iestyn Davies' sweet-toned countertenor was ideal for this program of songs by John Dowland, Henry Purcell, and George Frideric Handel, accompanied by Thomas Dunford's lute. The second half of concert was especially striking, when Purcell's "Music for a while shall all your cares beguile" was followed by Dowland's "Come again, sweet love doth now invite," Purcell's "O solitude, my sweetest choice," Handel's "Oh Lord whose mercies numberless" (from Saul), and Purcell's "An Evening Hymn." The movements from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 that Dunford played between songs seemed out of context, as though they belonged to a different concert program, but they had the virtue of separating and highlighting each of Davies' superb performances. The last encore (of three!) was a special surprise, suggesting an affinity that none of us had suspected (especially those of us who had never heard the song before):

https://youtu.be/Kc8bjO2nUsw?t=15

Vocalists and Orchestra from the American Bach Soloists Academy: Bach, Lotti, Handel. Elijah McCormack, soprano, and Allison Gish, mezzo-soprano, with the Orchestra of the ABS Summer Academy conducted by Jeffrey Thomas, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, August 9, 2019. ABS Festival & Academy.

Image source: SFCV.org

The ABS Festival & Academy is a wonderful two-week-long event every summer that gives audiences the opportunity to see young players and singers showcased in repertory that's often performed nowhere else. This concert featured some beautiful sacred music in the first half: J. S. Bach's unusually scored "Trauerode" (Mourning Ode) for the Electress of Saxony, and Antonio Lotti's celebratory "Mass for Three Choirs," featuring elaborate vocal and instrumental effects.

But the best was saved for the secular second half: Handel's Terpsicore, a prologue written for the 1734 revival of his opera Il Pastor Fido (The Faithful Shepherd). Terpsichore is the Muse of Dance (as viewers of the Rita Hayworth movie Down to Earth know well), and Terpsicore's many dance interludes were designed by Handel to highlight the innovative skills of the French danseuse Marie Sallé. Alas, there was no room on the stage at the SF Conservatory of Music for a dancer, but the interludes were brilliantly performed by the young musicians. Even better, though, was the musical dialogue between Apollo, the god of music and dance (Allison Gish), and Erato, the muse of lyric and erotic poetry (Elijah McCormack). Gish's rich mezzo-soprano and McCormack's brighter soprano were well-matched. Both were capable of handling florid runs, but could also bring out all the emotion in the slower music. The words they sang together in praise of dance applied just as well to their own performances: "Col tuo piede brilla Amor, e fa l'anima goder! Co' tuoi giri incanti 'l cor stupefatto dal piacer." Or, "With your steps Love shines, and makes the soul rejoice! Your every turn enchants the heart stupefied with pleasure."

Voices of Music: Concerto delle donne. Sophie Junker and Sherezade Panthaki, sopranos, with Voices of Music directed by Hanneke van Proosdij and David Tayler. St. Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco, seen October 12, 2019. Produced by Voices of Music.

Sophie Junker (left) and Sherezade Panthaki. Image source: Voices of Music

Speaking of being stupefied with pleasure, that was pretty much our state after this program of music written for or influenced by the concerto delle donne. The Consort of Women, a group of virtuoso singers at the court of Duke Alfonso II d'Este of Ferrara in the last decades of the 16th century, was renowned for its performances of "secret music" (musica secreta). The music was secret in multiple senses: it was private, and only those invited by the duke could hear it; and because it was in a new style, it was kept closely guarded (it was only published after the duke's death in 1597 ended d'Este rule). The music featured ornate vocal lines and vivid word-painting with expressive dissonances at key moments, and much of it was written by the court composer Luzzascho Luzzaschi. Other composers came to Ferrara from across Italy to hear the group, write music for them, and take back these innovations to their own courts (one such visitor was madrigalist and murderer Carlo Gesualdo). Soon the style that Luzzaschi had pioneered became the seconda practica, or "new [second] practice," adopted and developed even further by Monteverdi and other composers from the generations that followed.

In the program note Voices of Music implies that composers of instrumental music also took up the seconda practica, writing pieces with "'dueling' treble parts with competitive imitations and ornamentations." To perform these virtuosic pieces by composers such as Salomone Rossi and Dario Castello the Voices of Music continuo group of Hanneke van Proosdij on harpsichord and organ, David Tayler on archlute and baroque guitar, and Elizabeth Reed on viola da gamba were joined by Elizabeth Blumenstock and Alana Youssefian on violin. Youssefian visibly responded to the sounds she and Blumenstock were producing with a wide-eyed wonder that was shared by the audience.

The instrumental music alone would have made this concert one of our favorites of the year, but even better were the vocal pieces by Luzzaschi and later composers such as Monteverdi, Marco Uccellini and Barbara Strozzi, performed by sopranos Sophie Junker and Sherezade Panthaki. Panthaki has appeared often with early-music groups such as the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; Junker, who performs largely in Europe, was a voice new to us and a wonderful discovery. In the surpassingly beautiful duets their voices were exquisitely intertwined.

From the concert, Salomone Rossi's  Sonata quarta 'l'arie di Ruggiero':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxitvIvkgRg

DANCE

Mark Morris Dance Company: Mozart Dances. Mark Morris Dance Company with Inon Barnatan and Colin Fowler, pianos, and the Berkeley Symphony conducted by Fowler.   Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, seen September 22, 2019. Produced by Cal Performances.

Image source: Cal Performances

I wrote about the "austere (but often quite beautiful)" movement in Mark Morris' Mozart Dances when it was new (it was only the eighth post on E & I). Seeing it again after more than a decade confirmed my initial impression that this is one of Morris' strongest works. While in the allegro sections Mozart's music has a bright and sunny quality, the dancers repeat movements that express supplication, rejection, and pain. As I wrote in 2007, "in many places in Mozart Dances the music is suggesting one thing while the dance is telling us another. For a choreographer who is sometimes accused of slavishly illustrating musical structure, Morris has done something striking here: he uses the structure, but alters the emotional meaning." Many thanks to Cal Performances for bringing this modern masterpiece back to Berkeley.

Other favorites of 2019:

• Movies & television
• Recordings
• Books

Favorites of 2018: Live performances

Soprano Aura Veruni, Ifigenia in Ars Minerva's Ifigenia in Aulide. Photo: Olivier Allard

Live performances

We're incredibly fortunate to live in a place where so many wonderful musical events are available to us. What follows are brief descriptions of a dozen favorite live performances from 2018: five that haven't already been discussed on this blog, followed by links to my posts about another seven that I've already written about. And limiting myself to a choice of a dozen was arbitrary; the list could easily have been much longer. In chronological order:

Capella Romana: 12 Days of Christmas in the East (St. Ignatius Cathedral, San Francisco, January 7)

On Epiphany in the festively decorated St. Ignatius Cathedral, Capella Romana performed ancient and modern compositions for the Christmas season from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. One of the things that I find especially powerful about Byzantine chant is that even at its most celebratory there is always a mournful undercurrent. It is as though in the midst of joy we are being reminded of the inevitability of suffering—also the theme of my favorite Christmas carols.

From the concert we attended, Capella Romana performing "Prokeimenon for the 1st of January":

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjcWvNDf4Oo

This year Capella Romana will be performing concert series in Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco.

Shreya Ghoshal, Bollywood Song and Dance with Dhaval and Gunjan and friends (San Francisco Public Library, March 3)

It was advertised simply as "Bollywood," buried in small print in the San Francisco Public Library's monthly newsletter of events; some digging brought me to this blog post, which invited us to "come sing along with the greatest melodies of all time" on a Saturday afternoon at the main branch of the library.

When I arrived the event was in full swing. There was a modest but appreciative audience of about 75 people watching Indian film songs being performed karaoke-style to synthesized versions of the original music. But then a woman was invited up on stage; I wasn't able to catch her name. She announced her thanks that she had been given permission to perform the next song to the actual music from the film soundtrack. I fleetingly wondered how it was that she had access to the original soundtrack without the vocal; and as she performed, the song and her voice sounded familiar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cawgTCskMgs

It wasn't until I got home and popped in a DVD or two that I confirmed that, in a basement auditorium at my local public library, I had just seen a performance by the playback singer Shreya Ghoshal. If you aren't a Bollywood fan, perhaps you don't realize how improbable that is. For her singing Shreya Ghoshal has won four National Film Awards, six Filmfare Awards, and nine Filmfare Awards South (the Filmfare Awards are often described as the Indian equivalent of the Oscars). She has performed on the soundtracks of something like 500 films. [1]

Click on the link below for the filmed version of "Mohe Rang Do Laal" from Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Bajirao Mastani (2014), picturized on Deepika Padukone and sung by Shreya Ghoshal. (The live performance video excerpt picks up around the 2:51 mark of the film version.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU3eFkY1BTI

Deepika Padukone in "Mohe Rang Do Laal" from Bajirao Mastani.

Even through the public library's sound system Shreya Ghoshal sounded great; what a privilege to be able to see her in such an intimate setting.

Rodelinda (San Francisco Conservatory of Music, March 11)

The SF Conservatory of Music Opera and Musical Theatre Program is a wonderful resource for Bay Area music lovers. We get to see talented young singers on the verge of professional careers perform in fully- or semi-staged productions accompanied by a full orchestra of talented young players on the verge of professional careers—all for free or a very low cost. And the programming by director Jose Maria Condemi and his SFCM faculty collaborators is adventurous, featuring lots of Baroque, 20th-century and contemporary opera along with excellent Broadway shows like Urinetown and Sondheim's Company.

The Spring 2018 production was Handel's Rodelinda (1725), one of his greatest works. Rodelinda is the widowed queen of Lombardy, who is sexually blackmailed by Grimoaldo, her husband Bertarido's usurper and murderer. To force Rodelinda to yield to him, Grimoaldo threatens her son, and she spends most of the opera either in sorrow or defiance. But is her husband Bertarido really dead. . .?

Handel wrote some of his most beautiful arias for Rodelinda. To give you a taste, here is Sophie Daneman performing the opening aria, "Ho perduto il caro sposo" (I have lost my beloved husband), accompanied by the Raglan Baroque Players conducted by Nicholas Kraemer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fde0REPVRA0

At SFCM soprano Karen Notovitz gave a lovely, moving performance as Rodelinda, with excellent support by Matheus Coura (Bertarido), James Hogan (Grimoaldo), and the other members of the cast. In a year that for us was filled with great opera productions, Rodelinda is still a vivid memory.

Mark Morris Dance Group: Pepperland (Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, September 28)

The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is not the best rock album ever recorded. It's not even the best rock album released in 1967: that would be The Velvet Underground & Nico, which came out two months before Sgt. Pepper (and which had been recorded almost a year previously). [2]

But of course Sgt. Pepper is a pop culture landmark, and last year Mark Morris was commissioned by the City of Liverpool to do a piece commemorating the album's 50th anniversary. As he said in a preconcert talk, "I misunderstood enough [of the project] to be interested in it." He was apparently intended to choreograph a piece to one song, and instead wound up doing most of the album. The Mark Morris Dance Group performs only to live music these days, so Morris in turn asked Ethan Iverson to re-imagine six songs from the album, and also compose some interstitial music to bridge the Sgt. Pepper sections. For Pepperland Iverson's group The Bad Plus (keyboards, brass, percussion and theremin) was the pit band.

Iverson's versions are recognizable but deliberately a bit askew, to enable us to hear this overfamiliar music with fresh ears. For "When I'm Sixty-Four" he sets the familiar melody over cross-rhythms of 4/4, 5/4 and (yes) 6/4. This being a Mark Morris piece, different groups of dancers moved in sync with each of the rhythms at the same time, to hilarious effect. I will never hear that song in the same way again. Elizabeth Kurtzman's costumes applied the spectrum of bright solid colors from the brass-band jackets worn by the Beatles on the album cover to clothes evoking the clean lines of Swinging London designers such as Mary Quant. As Morris also said during that preconcert talk, "I'm not interested in nostalgia. I'm interested in history."

The result was utterly delightful. Here is a brief excerpt of the "Allegro" section, which bridged "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Within You Without You":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwqjq8LXz0w

Ars Minerva, Giovanni Porta's Ifigenia in Aulide (ODC Theater, December 1)

In the 18th century opera seria productions required the best singers and instrumentalists in the world (not to mention the best stage and costume designers and state-of-the-art theaters). Only kings and princes had enough money to sponsor opera seria, and at times even their resources weren't enough: in London in the 1730s both Handel's opera company and its rival the Opera of the Nobility went bankrupt.

I mention this to put the achievement of Ars Minerva in perspective. This fall the group, led by indefatigable Artistic Director Céline Ricci, revived Giovanni Porta's Ifigenia in Aulide, an opera seria that had not been performed in full since its premiere in 1738. For a group without the deep pockets of a major opera company to take on this task is itself astonishing; that Ars Minerva did so successfully is simply staggering.

Ifigenia in Aulide takes place just before the Trojan War. The Greek ships, massed to attack Troy, are becalmed in port after the Greek king Agamemnon kills a deer sacred to the goddess Artemis. The oracle of the gods demands the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, before favorable winds will blow. In some versions of the story Iphigenia is sacrificed; in others, Artemis descends in a cloud, rescues Iphigenia and takes her to the island of Tauris. The libretto of Apostolo Zeno for Ifigenia offers a third version that enables the "happy ending" traditional in opera seria, but which unusually retains aspects of tragedy: another character dies in place of Ifigenia. [3]

Ifigenia is remarkable not only for its semi-tragic libretto but for its music, which also defies convention. Opera seria is often thought to be highly formalized, a series of solo da capo arias after which each singer in turn exits the stage. [4] But in Act II, Ifigenia (the superb Aura Veruni) begins an angry aria addressed to Achilles (Céline Ricci), who she thinks has fallen in love with the captive Elisena (Cara Gabrielson). Ifigenia is so hurt that she abruptly leaves the stage after the first section of her aria. Achilles immediately takes up her melody and in essence completes her aria—a striking moment that suggests that, despite the breach between the characters, they are growing emotionally closer.

Porta also disrupts our expectations early in Act III, where Agamennone (a commanding Nikola Printz), Clitennestra (a fierce Shawnette Sulker) and Ifigenia sing a moving trio; in opera seria ensembles are usually placed only at the end of an act. But this trio dramatically symbolizes the situation of Ifigenia, torn between her father's demands for sacrifice and her mother's pleas to escape.

And although Porta is not nearly as well known today as his younger contemporaries Vivaldi and Handel, he wrote some beautiful music for Ifigenia. Especially notable for me were Agamennone's aria immediately following the Act III trio, in which he expresses the inner conflict he can't reveal to his daughter or wife, and Ifigenia's aria "Madre diletta, abbracciami" (Dearest mother, embrace me), in which, as her sacrifice looms, she tries to comfort her anguished mother.

Here is Joyce DiDonato performing "Madre diletta," accompanied by Il Complesso Barocco conducted by Alan Curtis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCZXigqK_is

Incidentally, Ars Minerva's performance was described in the program as semi-staged. But the setting of each scene was distinguished by Nicole Spencer Carreira's evocative projections and Jack Beuttler's atmospheric lighting, the singers were wearing Matthew Nash's postmodern costumes, and they interacted with a dramatic intensity focussed by Ricci's stage direction. She employed the clever device of a robed and masked silent Greek chorus from which characters would emerge and to which they would then return. I've seen fully staged operas in which the singers were less engaged with one another and the stage movement was less integral to the drama.

Ars Minerva should be enthusiastically applauded for the excellence of Ifigenia's musical values: the fine cast (especially the leading quartet of Veruni, Printz, Sulker and Ricci) and accompanying 10-piece orchestra led by conductor and harpsichordist Derek Tam and concertmistress Cynthia Black. But it is close to miraculous that on a tight budget Ricci and her colleagues were able to realize such an ambitious and thoughtfully-staged production. Bravi tutti!

Seven additional favorite performances that I've already written about, in chronological order:

Image: Cal Performances

Dorothea Röschmann and Malcolm Martineau (Cal Performances, Hertz Hall, February 16): A magnificent recital by these two artists that included unforgettable performances of four great song sequences: Schubert's Four Mignon Lieder, Mahler's Rückert-Lieder, Schumann's Maria Stuart Lieder, and Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder.

Image: San Francisco Girls Chorus

Dido and Aeneas, with Mindy Ella Chu (Dido), Jesse Blumberg (Aeneas), the SF Girls' Chorus and Voices of Music (Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, First Congregational Church, June 7): Collaborating with SF Girls Chorus on this semi-staged version of Purcell's great opera was a stroke of genius on the part of Voices of Music codirectors Hanneke van Proosdij and David Tayler; after all, the opera was premiered at a girls' boarding school.

Cesare (Sarah Connolly), Cleopatra (Joélle Harvey), and members of the Glyndebourne Chorus in Giulio Cesare. Photo: Glyndebourne.com

Der Rosenkavalier and Giulio Cesare (Glyndebourne Festival Opera, June 19 and 20) Striking productions of two of our favorite operas at Glyndebourne, a place we never dreamed we'd actually be able to attend.

Charles Sy (Agenore), Cheyanne Coss (Aminta), Patricia Westley (Elisa), Zhengyi Bai (Alessandro), and Simone Macintosh (Tamiri) in the Merola Opera Program's Il Re Pastore. Photo: Kristen Loken/Merola

Il Re Pastore (Merola Opera Program, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, July 21): A playful production of a rarely-performed opera by the teenaged Mozart, crisply conducted by Boston Early Music Festival co-artistic-director Stephen Stubbs and superbly sung by its young cast.

Juyeon Song and Roy Cornelius Smith in Act II of Tristan und Isolde. Photo: David Perea/Claude Heater Foundation

Tristan und Isolde (Claude Heater Foundation, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, August 26): A pickup orchestra under conductor Jonathan Khuner and a group of singers unknown to me took on Wagner's rapturous masterpiece in a performance that reached peak after peak.

The Avengers performing on the steps of the SF Public Library October 20.

The Avengers (San Francisco Public Library, October 20): Decades after opening for The Sex Pistols' final concert at Winterland, The Avengers are keeping punk rock's creative do-it-yourself ethos alive with vital and impassioned performances like this one.

Ellie Dehn as the title character in Arabella at SF Opera. Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Arabella (San Francisco Opera, October 28): A rare chance to see a performance of one of Richard Strauss's most passionately lyrical scores, gorgeously sung and played.

More Favorites of 2018:

• Books
• Recordings
• Movies and television 

 

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1. Ghoshal's films include E & I favorite Vivah (2006), Godavari (2006), Dor (2006), Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006, one of my Favorite Bollywood Films from the 2000s), Aaja Nachle (2007), 3 Idiots (2009), Band Baaja Baaraat (2010), Love U...Mr. Kalakaar! (2011), PK (2014), and four of my Top Ten Shah Rukh Khan movies: Devdas (2002, for which she won the RD Burman Award for New Music Talent and the Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer), Paheli (2005), Om Shanti Om (2007), and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2009).
2. You don't agree? Of course not. Every generation, and indeed every person, has their own candidates for "greatest rock album," a question that can never be settled. But if you think Sgt. Pepper is the best rock album ever because it incorporated elements of musique concrète, minimalism and Indian music, The Velvet Underground & Nico got there first. And speaking of great albums, 1967 was also the year of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Are You Experienced?, The Doors, and Aretha Franklin's I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You. 
3. Very few opere serie end with the death of one of the characters. I'm aware only of Vivaldi's Bajazet and Handel's Tamerlano, versions of the same libretto, in which the captured sultan Bajazet commits suicide.
4. A da capo aria typically has three sections: a first section that establishes an emotion, a shorter second section that contrasts with the first section, and then a return "to the top" (da capo) for a repeat of the first section with added vocal ornamentation.