April 2013 – Repeat Performances

April 27, 2013

Trouble in Tahiti in SF

Opera Parallèle takes no prisoners Nicole Paiement and Brian Staufenbiel rekindled their magic last weekend at San Francisco’s Z Space, with an unsparing production of Leonard Bernstein’s fraught suburban Trouble in Tahiti. This real-life couple is the creative powerhouse behind Opera Parallèle, Paiement as conductor and artistic director and Staufenbiel supplying the concept and stage direction. After a triumphant season...

Categories: opera

April 20, 2013

OEBS: Notes from the Middle East

Oakland Symphony meets the Middle East Where can an Israeli, Palestinian, and Egyptian feel comfortable together? The Paramount Theater, it seems. Last Saturday, the Oakland Easy Bay Symphony showcased Notes from the Middle East, presenting European and Middle Eastern instruments and compositions—not as your typical East – West dichotomy but as an organic exchange. In fact, there were no strict categories or cultural divides that evening. An...

Categories: music

April 19, 2013

Cypress String Quartet: world premier at Herbst

Bridging the gap: bringing classical music to youthful audiences… At last Friday’s concert by the Cypress String Quartet, gray-haired connoisseurs shared Herbst Theater with hundreds of enthusiastic middle and high school students. The “Call and Response” program of Dvorak, Schubert and contemporary composer Jennifer Higdon makes a fascinating story. But the back-story is even better. The Cypress Quartet currently tours all over the...

Categories: music

April 6, 2013

Bonjour M. Gauguin at West Edge Opera

At some point in life the desire to leave the familiar behind in exchange for the unknown has seemed liberating. But some discover that the grass is in fact not always greener on the other side, and escaping is not the answer to misery. Such is the story of French post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin. On Saturday, April 6, 2013, the West Edge Opera Company presented the American premier of Italian composer Fabrizio Corlone’s Bonjour M. Gauguin, a chamber opera...

Categories: opera