October 2010 – Repeat Performances

October 30, 2010

Pianist Alice Sara Ott at Davies Hall

Perfection in Liszt… After a fabulous blue-themed gala opening and quick trip to Europe the San Francisco Symphony has settled down to some serious music making, some of it with guest conductors. On Saturday, October 30, a young Spanish conductor was paired with a very young—and accomplished—soloist in a program with memorable moments. The 33-year-old Pablo Heras-Casado conducted and 22-year-old Alice Sara Ott gave a sharply chiseled rendition of Franz...

Categories: music

October 29, 2010

English Touring Opera presents Goehr’s “Promised End”

Promised End Taking on King Lear is no small matter. Not simply because it was written by Shakespeare—what could be more daunting?—but also because the...

Categories: opera

October 27, 2010

Placido Domingo in Cyrano at War Memorial Opera House

In a rare appearance world-renowned tenor Placido Domingo took the stage at the SF Opera House in the title role of Cyrano de Bergerac. It was a mesmerizing performance. Set to Edmond Rostand’s immortal text, composer Franco Alfano premiered the opera in 1936, and though it was successful it disappeared from the repertoire for many years. Domingo encouraged its return, and the...

Categories: opera

October 24, 2010

Jeremy Denk at Cal Performances

From Ligeti’s fiendish fingerings… An eagerly awaited program by pianist Jeremy Denk held revelations and disappointments Sunday October 24 at Hertz Hall on the UC campus. In a last-minute program change Denk substituted Franz Liszt’s Dante Sonata for György Ligeti’s second book of piano...

Categories: music

Lark Quarte+ on Peninsula

New York sophistication at Kohl Mansion There is a spectrum from small salon to huge orchestra hall. The Great Hall at Kohl Mansion is so live that it is barely on that scale. At a concert there by the Lark Quarte+ on Sunday, October 24, that magical space, first built by Freddie Kohl for his wife Bessie, was beyond intimate. With eyes closed one could drown in that sound. And open? Well, I was...

Categories: music

October 22, 2010

Flight and CBS in San Francisco

CBS does Purcell and Handel to a turn Paul Flight, in his fifth season as artistic director of the California Bach Society, led a full program of two baroque works, Henry Purcell’s Hail! Bright Cecilia and Handel’s delightful oratorio, Acis and Galatea, at St Mark’s Lutheran Church in San...

Categories: music