Younis Raza – Page 45 – Repeat Performances

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

October 17, 2010

Sanford Dole celebrates vocal chamber music at St. Johns

Accomplished singers, lively program in Berkeley The Sanford Dole Ensemble, created out of a vocal tradition to explore contemporary music for voices and instruments, opened their new season with a chamber concert Sunday, October 17, the first in what they hope to be an annual tradition. The four singers, violin and piano were neatly matched by the intimate space of St John’s Presbyterian...

Categories: music

October 15, 2010

Madama Butterfly at SF Opera

A dream and a dream… San Francisco Opera’s production of Madama Butterfly, by Giacomo Puccini, stressed the magical surrealism of dream Friday night. Director Jose Maria Condemi and set designer Clarke Dunham created a miniature realm of fragile tranquility and stylized movement. The backdrops represented nature as if from a painted silk shoji screen, while the hilltop cottage, rotated by...

Categories: opera