Jaime Robles – Page 53 – Repeat Performances

June 20, 2009

San Francisco Symphony’s ‘Iolanthe’

Tripping hither, tripping thither ... When the San Francisco Symphony’s chorus members enter the stage at Davies Hall, they are all in formal black. The women, though, are sporting huge, dressy hats, shaped in brightly colored semi-transparent netting. One woman seems to have a swan perched on her head. It’s all perfectly in keeping with the bright pink patterned sections where they are sitting—the women on one side, the men on the other—divided by a bright...

Categories: opera

‘La Traviata’ at San Francisco Opera

Demimondaine to flapper The current production of La Traviata at the San Francisco Opera was developed for the Los Angeles Opera, and it bears all the qualities of that company’s artistic style: it is elegant and spacious, with lighting and set designs that are dramatic yet spare and that project profound wealth through a sure physical allure. The production is directed by Marta Domingo. Married to Plácido, she is yet another member of that outrageously talented...

Categories: opera

June 12, 2009

San Francisco Opera’s ‘Porgy and Bess’

Sing the luxurious voice It’s a little known but not secret fact that bass-baritone Eric Owens is a killer Ping-Pong player. All those years backstage—waiting for technical crews, directors, costumers, repetitions of songs and scene changes,...

Categories: opera

June 6, 2009

Bolshoi performs ‘La Bayadère’ at Cal Performances

Demi, demi, grande plié, relevé... Behind a lavish scrim of Oriental patterns lies an exotic world figured and reconfigured in over a century’s worth of imaginings by some of ballet’s most legendary dancers and choreographers. Palm trees and waterfalls, sacred fires, airborne scarves of evanescent lightness and rhinestone-bedecked costumes are only the outward manifestations of the great Bolshoi Ballet’s production of La Bayadère that was performed at...

Categories: dance

June 2, 2009

‘Tosca’ at San Francisco Opera

Jealousy, the Undoer In the first act of Puccini’s Tosca, the painter Mario Cavaradossi and his lover, singer Floria Tosca, squabble over her jealousy. His painting of Mary Magdalene in the church has filled her with doubts over the fidelity of the...

Categories: opera

May 16, 2009

Smuin Ballet’s Spring Concert at Yerba Buena

Naughty Boy ... It’s spring, and that means love is everywhere for the Smuin Ballet Company. Of the three pieces that make up the spring concert, which opened May 8 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and will move this coming weekend to the Dean Lesher in Walnut Creek, two were choreographed by the company’s late director Michael Smuin. Bouquet and Suite from St. Louis Woman were essential Smuin—romantic, sexy, accessible and entertaining. More...

Categories: dance