October 2012 – Repeat Performances

October 26, 2012

“Einstein on the Beach” at Zellerbach Hall

When dreams come knocking on the portals of perception There is a space between waking and sleeping when ones’ thoughts gain a symbolic and surreal brightness, and when images are as small and vivid as the far-off sounds of children in a schoolyard. That hypnagogic state came to life last night at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. Part act of rebellion, part musical portrait, Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach fused synthesizers,...

Categories: opera

October 14, 2012

West Bay Opera performs Les Contes d’Hoffmann

Led by José Luis Moscovich, the spunky West Bay Opera hosted Jacques Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann Oct. 12 and 14, and will finish its run this weekend. At last Sunday’s matinee, this Palo Alto troupe brought a massive opera to the modest stage of Lucie Stern Theater, and did so with confidence and immediacy. Moscovich led a fine ensemble with wit and conviction—a number of the instrumentalists appear with other Bay Area symphonies....

Categories: opera

October 12, 2012

The Bad Plus at Herbst Theatre

Makeovers—taking Stravinsky out on the town The Bad Plus, a Minneapolis-based jazz trio, came to San Francisco last week with a fascinating creation that they have been polishing for a year at New York’s Lincoln Center. Their approach to Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was a potent jazz treatment of a revolutionary work. In 1913 Stravinsky’s piece, written for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky,...

Categories: music

October 6, 2012

La Bohème at Livermore Valley Opera

The little opera that could… The tiny Livermore Valley Opera delivered a coup last Saturday, Oct. 6, at the Bankhead Theater in downtown Livermore. Their season opener, Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, is an enduring and popular opera, and is, in fact, the single most performed opera of all time. A punchy libretto by playwrights Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa had pin-turn mood swings that battered the audience time and again and...

Categories: opera

October 4, 2012

Carneiro leads Berkeley Symphony at Zellerbach

Season opens, Symphony hunting for “Innovators.” What does a fifth Century B.C. numerologist have in common with a contemporary musician and inventor? Quite a bit, actually. Along with the theorem that bears his name, Pythagoras was the father of harmonic theory and ancient Greek tuning. ...

Categories: music