Ron Bierman - Page 4

David Bennett is now six years into his job as general director of the San Diego Opera Association. When hired, he faced shaky finances, a loss of major donors, and huge turnover in the membership of the board of directors. The new board hired him with the understanding that downsizing and reinvention of the organization were his priorities. Then, after getting off to a surprisingly good start, Bennett had the forced restrictions of COVID-19 to contend with. Perhaps a biblical plague of locusts is next?

What was a makes-you-jump BOOM!! doing in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue? Had someone mistakenly lit an 1812 Overture cannon? Were we under attack?! Oh wait! It was just a bass drum resonating through the San Diego Symphony’s spectacular new state-of-the-art sound system at the Rady Shell. And so, Rafael Payare’s initial in-person public concert during his first full season as music director, though a year late because of COVID-19, was a booming success.

San Diego’s classical music scene coped with the COVID-19 invasion by trading shuttered concert halls for parking lots and online media. Appreciative bravos and bravas were replaced by either honking horns, flashing headlights or painful silence. The city’s Mainly Mozart was an early adopter of drive-in performances. Its first was in July of last year with an audience of 150 vehicles voicing raucous automotive approval for San Diego Symphony Concertmaster Jeff Thayer and seven musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, including Concertmaster Martin Chalifour. The musicians, delighted to be playing in person under any circumstances, delivered lively versions of an early Mozart divertimento and the Mendelssohn octet.

The San Diego Opera continued its quixotic foray into parking-lot adventures with The Barber of Seville by Rossini, social distancing once again forcing substantial changes to a production's length and cast size. Revisions to libretto, costumes, set and lighting went all out for a zany farcical effect that even many staid opera lovers of a certain age would eventually realize harkened back to the free-wheeling spirit of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, complete with 'Sock it to me,' chicken jokes and Rowan's trademark closing 'Say goodnight, Dick.' This always said to his seemingly clueless partner Dick Martin. Lest you think it was a radically revised libretto, I offer assurances that most of the explicit references to the bygone TV show were displayed in hand-drawn lettering on cardboard placards held up by a man near the stage whose humble garb included a Santa Clause hat. This seemingly homeless but cheerful gentleman was teamed offstage with a gaggle of other extras. Some of them were chorus members, policemen and musicians usually on stage for Rossini's comic opera, but now, during difficult times, especially for opera directors and stage managers, they were singing, dancing and gesticulating wildly offstage, one of them mounted on a pickup truck.

As I write this, mezzo soprano Emily Fons is driving from her home in Milwaukee to San Diego to rehearse the role of Rosina, the wife of roving-eyed count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville by Rossini. Three years ago Fons sang Cherubino here in the related comic opera The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart. The switch to the count's wife from Mozart's Cherubino, a 15-year-old boy and randy rival of the philandering count, is an indication of the mezzo's acting and vocal versatility. I discovered when we met via Zoom (what else?) that her adventurous openness to new roles is typical of the mezzo's approach to life.

A connoisseur's bravos replaced by honkin' horns and flashin' headlights? Puccini's La bohème staged in a parking lot? Such is opera performance in an age of COVID-19. A sold-out fleet of 450 cars contained opera-starved San Diegans who showed their appreciation of the performance in ways never imagined by the composer or previously casts. The intrepid automotive adventurers were rewarded with warm, sometimes thrilling voices thanks to the daring initiative that salvaged a production originally planned for the San Diego Civic Center stage. Quite a feat given the challenge of new outdoor staging and libretto revisions required for social distancing among the performers.

British guest conductor Bramwell Tovey led the San Diego Symphony Orchestra in authoritative performances of William Walton's Crown Imperial (Coronation March), Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto and the Enigma Variations of Edward Elgar. Britannia indeed ruled on this night! In 1936 Walton was asked to write a ceremonial march for the coronation of King Edward VIII. And did he ever! Tovey pulled out all the stops (no pun intended) when a roaring organ joined pounding percussion, crashing cymbals and blaring brass in the work's thrilling climaxes, though the sound became a bit muddy with organ at full-blast.

The San Diego Opera's first Detour Series performance this season belonged to the new Bel Canto Trio, starring tenor Joshua Guerrero, soprano Julie Adams, and bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee. All are outstanding young award winners with impressive voices and resumes. Music director and pianist Christopher Allen was their accompanist.

Conductor Eun Sun Kim is the recently named musical director of the San Francisco Opera. In her debut with the San Diego Symphony she opened her program with Korean composer Texu Kim's playful Spin-Flip. Two hyperromantic works followed, the Sibelius violin concerto and Rachmaninoff's third symphony. In his program notes Texu Kim wrote, 'Spin-Flip is an eight-minute overture which is all about Ping-Pong: it conveys the driving energy of a (good) Ping-Pong match.'

Beethoven was born 250 years ago. The San Diego Symphony's most recent birthday present in its celebration of the anniversary was an engaging performance of his violin concerto by violinist Stefan Jackiw. Conductor Rafael Payare, as though beginning one of Beethoven's powerful symphonies, put some heft into the work's long introduction right from the timpani's opening five drumbeats. That made for an even greater than usual contrast with the violin's unassuming entry, a contrast reinforced by Jackiw's sweet tone. As the performance continued the violinist proved he could call on anything from disarming sweetness to considerable power. And he has technique to go with that emotional range. High notes were solid and accurate, trills rapid and precise, multiple stops clear and strong.

Composer Chou Wen-chung, who died recently at the age of 96, was honored at the most recent 'red fish blue fish' percussion concert. Chou's works have been performed by major orchestras throughout the world, and he mentored many who have gone on to successful careers of their own. Tan Dun and Chen Yi are among his best known students. Tan once called him 'the godfather of Chinese contemporary music.'

Engelbert Humperdinck's HANSEL AND GRETEL opened Saturday to an audience that included several dozen children, who followed their attention from beginning to end with color, movement, and singing backed by lushly orchestrated music. Even a five year-old girl sitting in front of me on a raised seat kept her eyes on the stage without a single fidget. Director Brenna Corner's playful production emphasized the fairy-tale nature of the story. During the overture a boy entered in front of the curtain, picked up a large book lying center stage and blew a cloud of dust from its cover. Fascinated, he dropped to the floor reading with a rapt expression while members of the San Diego Opera's children's chorus entered behind him, each with a letter on the front of their costumes. Once assembled the letters lit up to say, 'Once upon a time...,' and the story began. It continued after intermission with 'And then...' though not before a necessary rearrangement of the 'And...' brought a second laugh. The approving audience laughed again when the production closed with 'The end.'

Beethoven was born 250 years ago, and the world has been honoring the anniversary with a deluge of the great composer's music. The San Diego Symphony's celebration continued with strong, well-played performances of Beethoven's Egmont Overture and sixth symphony. Principal Guest Conductor Edo de Waart was once again at the podium. He was assigned most of the heavy lifting for this season's surfeit of Beethoven. The program also included Haydn's 92nd symphony, the 'Oxford.'

Brenna Corner started out with dreams of Broadway. It wouldn't be a big surprise if the versatile young director's dreams came true, but not in the way she'd originally pictured. I met with her to learn more about that and the San Diego Opera's upcoming production of Hansel and Gretel. 'Broadway was the original idea when I was very, very little. I grew up in the theater, my mom's a costume designer. My dad was a carpenter in the shop. I just grew up loving theater. I lived in a little town in southern Alberta with a community theater that did amazing shows that I got to see, and I started to understand what a wonderful thing storytelling could be for the community.'

Wondering how to celebrate Beethoven's 250th birthday? Well, to paraphrase Julie Andrews, the air is alive with the sound of his music. Take a European riverboat cruise that promises performances of his string quartets, stream Immortal Beloved with Gary Oldman's intensely romantic portrayal of the gnarly uncompromising genius, or just buy tickets for the next all-Beethoven concert at your favorite concert hall, probably next weekend given the enthusiasm for the anniversary shown by most symphony orchestras. The San Diego Symphony, for one, is all-in with a a?oeBeethoven Festival.a?? A dozen concerts will feature at least one Beethoven work this season, perhaps too much of a good thing.

The San Diego Opera's first Detour Series performance this season was 'One Amazing Night' with Soprano Ailyn Pérez, tenor Joshua Guerrero and accompanist Abdiel Vázquez. All are outstanding young award winners with impressive resumes. The first half featured operatic arias, enjoyable and worth the ticket price on their own. But the second half was something different--and special. In it the artists performed classic popular Mexican songs they grew up with, and their passionate affection was obvious. Vázquez was born in Mexico. Pérez and Guerrero are American children of Mexican immigrants.

The San Diego Symphony Orchestra's Conductor Laureate Jahja Ling returned again for multiple performances this season. In the first of these he was at the helm for Rimsky-Korsakov's Suite from The Snow Maiden, Prokofiev's third piano concerto, and Dvorák's eighth symphony.

The programming for Rafael Payare's first season as the San Diego Symphony's music director and conductor anticipates next year's celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.  The schedule includes four symphonies, three concertos and an overture by that great composer. The entire second half of this Friday's concert was devoted to his third symphony, the a?oeEroica.a?? That symphony was preceded by Mozart's 35th, the a?oeHaffner,a?? and Mahler's orchestrations of five of his own songs.

Rafael Payare's honeymoon with the San Diego symphony orchestra has barely begun, but I'm ready to predict a long and happy marriage. His energetic and emotional conducting brought unexpected excitement to even an ultra-conservative program of Schumann, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. The opening Overture to Manfred by Schumann may have been the only piece quite a few regular concert-goers haven't heard often enough to be able to conduct themselves. Composed while Schumann was going through one of his bouts with mental illness, the overture is a stormy brooding affair, with romantic swelling waves of sound, perfectly realized in Payare's interpretation. The orchestra has never sounded better.

The San Diego Opera's AIDA served Verdi's marvelous score without the usual extravagant sets and throngs of spear-carrying tunic led Egyptian soldiers. Although that conceded a bit of excitement, especially during the triumphal march scene, exceptional singers and musicians held the audience's attention from the mood-setting overture to the exquisite beauty of the closing duet.