June 2008 – Repeat Performances

June 29, 2008

Pamela Z Performs at Royce Gallery

Your fate swings from a point high above “When I was growing up, my mother often wrote long lists of questions about things that concerned her. She would then dangle a small object, such as a needle, key or trinket, on a...

Categories: theater

June 21, 2008

Solstice celebration at mausoleum

‘Garden of Memory’ Festival draws performer/composers in Oakland This year’s solstice celebration, Garden of Memory, was again held at the Chapel of the Chimes, a Julia Morgan designed columbarium and mausoleum whose...

Categories: music

June 8, 2008

‘Mordake’ at San Francisco Arts Festival

True Stories “One of the weirdest as well as most melancholy stories of human deformity is that of Edward Mordake, said to have been heir to one of the noblest peerages in England … His figure was remarkable for its grace, and his face—that is to say his natural face—was that of an Antinous. But upon the back of his head was another face, that of a beautiful girl, ‘lovely as a dream, ugly as a devil.’” Composer...

Categories: opera

June 3, 2008

‘Das Rheingold’ at San Francisco Opera

Much has been made of producer Francesca Zambello’s Americanization of Wagner’s Ring cycle. In theory, it makes a lot of sense to place this long quartet of operatic dramas, which examines and equates the lust for gold and power vs. sexual lust and love, within the context of our materialistically driven history. Practically, though, an Americanization of this monumental work seems a sad mix of narcissism and advertising appeal. Not so, though. S.F. Opera’s...

Categories: opera

June 1, 2008

San Francisco Lyric Opera’s ‘Turn of the Screw’

Without a doubt one of the best small opera companies in the Bay Area (and there are so many of them!), San Francisco Lyric Opera, opened its production of Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw on Friday at this season’s new venue, the Cowell Theater in Fort Mason. Turn of the Screw is one of the chamber opera gems of the 20th...

Categories: opera