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Monday, Oct 06, 2008
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Bits & Bytes |
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| San Francisco lures Seattle visitors for arts, opera, cabaret, sex festivals; SFO 'sends' two productions to Seattle | |
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by Milton W. Hamlin -
SGN A&E Writer For nearly five decades, San Francisco visitors have arrived in The City By The Bay with Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" playing in their heads. Whether stepping off the Greyhound bus (this writer's first Seattle-to-San Francisco visit), driving across the Golden Gate Bridge (an oft repeated experience for this scribe) or arriving at San Francisco airport or nearby Oakland for a quick BART ride into town, San Francisco always promises excitement and mystery. For GLBT visitors, The City offers a special lure - the Gay Mecca of the West Coast. A combination of arts and sleaze often highlights a weekend visit for many Seattle-based visitors. Bits&Bytes returned to San Francisco - often voted the most popular tourist city for GLBT travelers in national polls - for a magical weekend. Read on: 'HEY, SAILOR, NEW IN TOWN?' STARTS FLIGHT It seemed a routine morning flight on Alaska Air as this scribe arrived at the airport, whisked through security (it does happen) and grabbed a cup of coffee to carry onto the plane. Alaska Air was having another in a long series of "sales" and the plane was nearly full. Settled into an aisle seat, it was only a minute before a very handsome, very outgoing young man bounded down the aisle and greeted everyone (it seemed) with the standard tongue-in-cheek, "Hey, Sailor, new in town?" He was off to San Francisco and the Folsom Street Fair, considered by many to be the world's largest gathering of leather and fetish enthusiasts. And he wanted everyone to know it. While that event is now a distant memory, San Francisco always seems to be having a wild and welcoming street fair or national event - the mid-February International Bear Convention is the obvious next opportunity for such a weekend. The Folsom Street Fair was not the reason for this scribe's visit, but it proved to be an incredible diversion for the planned arts-and-opera focus. But more of that later&. SAN FRANCISCO OPERA MIXES WORLD PREMIERE, WORLD FAVORITE TITLES San Francisco Opera (SFO) - one of the most important opera houses in the country - operates on a rotating repertory system. Unlike Seattle Opera (and most opera companies in the U.S.) which offers one work for a set number of performances and then, several months later, presents another staging, San Francisco stages up to three operas at one time in a fall season. That format allows a weekend visitor to see three productions, sometimes in just two days. San Francisco Ballet operates on the same rotating rep schedule and often lures Emerald City dance fans down for a weekend of ballet immersion during its winter season. SAMSON AND DELILAH SCORES ON STAGE AND AT THE BALLPARK SFO, celebrating its 85th anniversary, opened the year with an intriguing mix of old and new. A lavish, "Cecil B. DeMille" production of Samson and Delilah returned to the War Memorial Opera house and delighted fans of old fashioned "grand" opera. Hundreds of extras, blazing fire pots, dazzling costumes (who knew that the ancient Babylonians invented sequins?), heroic choruses, seductive solos all mark Saint-Saens' masterwork as grand opera. Russian soprano Olga Borodina returned to SFO to recreate her 2001 triumph as the Biblical temptress, a role which is one of her career trademarks. (SGN reviewed that performance and will probably review her next encore appearance - she is terrific in the part, physically and vocally.) Seattle Opera fans will have a chance to see the opulent and often overdone production for themselves this winter when SFO starts a series of screenings of taped SFO productions in national movie theaters. Obviously inspired by the tremendous success of the Live From The Met theatrical telecasts in movie theaters, SFO is relying on filmed versions of earlier productions to lure opera fans into the big screen theaters. The Metropolitan Opera has the resources - and fame - to stick with the live broadcasts. SFO is taking a chance on the taped format. This scribe thinks both approaches will work beautifully. Watch this space for details. Samson and Delilah may have been an old school production, but SFO added modern technology to its gala opening. A live simulcast from the Opera House to AT&T Ballpark, home of the SF Giants, drew a capacity crowd of screaming, yelling opera fans. "Opera For The People" seems to be the cry of musical lovers throughout the country. (Seattle Opera, following the trend, lowered its least expensive tickets to just $25 this season.) TANNHAUSER STUMBLES IN JUMBLED PRODUCTION, 'WAGNER WILL SURVIVE' A new production of Wagner's Tannhauser lured members of the Seattle Wagner Society to SFO for its opening performances (many attended the production twice in three days - it is that kind of group). Beautifully sung (Bits&Bytes has probably never heard a stronger Wagner production) but erratically and distractingly staged, the production was a mixed blessing. The first production from SFO's new artistic/general director, David Gockley ("stolen from Houston Grand Opera," a Texas-based "opera queen" buddy of mine sobbed), this new Tannhauser was under the magnifying glass from local and national opera critics. The stylized "Euro Trash" production - a downfall of the recently departed "new" SFO opera director - was a mixed bag of images and confusing staging. Tenor Peter Seiffert, one of the world's finest interpreters of the title role, was in magnificent voice, but the production betrayed him time and again. Petra Lang sang beautifully as Venus, but she was forced to play the role in a blond, Marilyn Monroe wig wrapped in a white bed sheet. When she finally completes her seduction of the heroic knight, a ring of fire broke out of the dirt bed of the seduction and encircled them. As any Wagner fan knows, a Ring Of Fire belongs in a different Wagner opera. Earlier, the extended ballet sequences in Venus' palace found the women miming oral sex on the holy knights. "Euro Trash" indeed. Beautifully sung, tastelessly staged. But, as one Seattle friend quipped, "Wagner will survive." WORLD PREMIERE OF GLASS' APPOMATTOX LURES SEATTLE VISITORS The world premiere of Philip Glass' Appomattox, for many "the" event of the national opera scene this year, lured many Seattle visitors (including a music and opera reviewer for another Seattle weekly paper who, strangely, never writes about SFO for Emerald City readers). While it is hard to judge any new work on a single viewing/hearing, Appomattox seemed, at best, a disappointment. Emerald City opera fans will have a chance to see Appomattox in the upcoming SFO filmed opera series in movie theaters this winter and judge for themselves. Taking the historic end of the Civil War as a launching point, Glass and Christopher Hampton, the British playwright who created the libretto, trace the history of the American civil rights movement from the 1860s to modern day. While the history of the civil rights movement and the GLBT human rights movement share common themes - and even certain events - the ramshackle approach, especially in Act Two, limited any universal themes in the finished work. Strong performances, occasional passages of intense musical success, striking staging often compensated for the weak passages, the colorless characters. Staged by SFO but not as a co-production (which is usually the case of world premieres, guaranteeing a new work a second staging the following year in a different company), Appomattox may come into its own as a result of the upcoming theatrical taped showings. It could also slip through the cracks and disappear. "The trouble with Philip Glass," one New York critic noted after seeing Appomattox, "is that he writes too fast." The writer went on to explain that the highly talented, energetic composer readily accepts dozens of commissions and "whips them out" at an alarming rate. Clearly, Appomattox needed more work, more revision, more workshopping before it was ready for prime time, especially at San Francisco Opera. Interestingly, the SFO crowd for the opening night of the world premiere was a disappointing one - no where near capacity. Strange. Bits&Bytes was delighted to experience the new work - just wish it had been stronger. SFO offers a full fall season of nine or more operas each year. Check out the 2008 titles at www.sfopera.com or call the box office folks at (415) 864-3330 and ask for a free, full-color season brochure. CABARETS, ACT, NEW CONSERVATORY, SLEAZE NEXT IN SGN Bits & Bytes continues his exploration of the San Francisco arts scene - SF's ACT, Seattle actors at the Berkeley Rep, the GLBT programming at the New Conservatory Theatre, cabaret events at the old and new Empire Plush Room - and "tells all" about the sleaze fest at the Folsom Street Fair in an upcoming issue of SGN. Watch this space. |
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