Eschenbach conducts Beethoven's 9th

This is a live stream on medici.tv of Christoph Eschenbach's final concert as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Program

• Bright Sheng, Concerto for Orchestra, "Zodiac Tales"
• Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125

Soloists:
Leah Crocetto Soprano
J'Nai Bridges Mezzo-soprano
Joseph Kaiser Tenor
Soloman Howard Bass

We need Beethoven more than ever.  He was a great soul who told us to walk our paths with joy.  We send a kiss to the whole world.  It always gives me great joy.  Eschenbach is an excellent conductor.  I don't know if a replacement is announced.

The concert can be viewed in delay.

Luisa Miller

Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Production: Francesca Zambello

Luisa Miller: Leah Crocetto
Miller, her father: Vitaliy Bilyy * 
Rodolfo: Michael Fabiano
Count Walter, his father: Daniel Sumegi
Federica: Ekaterina Semenchuk (Marina to René Pape,'s Boris at the Met)
Wurm: Andrea Silvestrelli

I wish I liked Verdi's Luisa Miller, presented last night at the San Francisco Opera, but how can you like an opera where everyone is a shit?  The following rant has been curtailed as much as possible.

You know as well as I do that members of the ruling class are never permitted to marry commoners.  Absolutely not permitted.  The commoners also know this.  So Rodolfo goes sneaking around among the peasants disguised as one of them trying to pick up girls.  When the Duke in Rigoletto does the same thing, you know exactly what kind of a shit he is.

Rodolfo's father, Count Walter, wants him to marry Federica, a royal who is exactly the sort of person he should marry and would be permitted to marry.   She is OK.  Rodolfo threatens to tell that his father has murdered his uncle to become Count.  What a pair of jerks.

Count Walter has a sidekick named Wurm, which everyone knows is worm in German.  He is in love with Luisa, but instead of being sweet and respectful to her in an attempt to woo her, he drags her father off to jail.  He is a worm as well as a shit.

In order to get her father (he seems OK though nothing too great) out of jail Luisa writes a note saying she has never loved Rodolfo.  Rodolfo responds to this by poisoning her.

This is simply too many shits for one plot for me.  One prefers the bad guy to be just one baritone instead of two baritones and a tenor.  Verdi doesn't seem to be any too inspired by them either.  There are no hit tunes.  Go see Nabucco or Macbeth instead.  I sincerely apologize if you happen to like this opera.

The above is not a performance review.  You would want this for the singing.  Michael Fabiano is developing into a truly fabulous Verdi tenor with a gorgeous, even thrilling tone, though one can't help wishing he would sing something one liked.

Leah Crocetto is still someone I like very much with a big beautiful dramatic soprano voice full or warmth and intensity.  Could we hear her do a Leonora, perhaps?

Leah

Leah Crocetto will be singing this, Liu in Turandot, at the Met next season.  The simulcast will be Stemme and Hartig.

La Bohèmes I have Known

Conductor: Giuseppe Finzi
Director: John Caird *
Production Designer:  David Farley

Mimì, seamstress:  Leah Crocetto (soprano)
Rodolfo, poet:  Giorgio Berrugi *
Musetta, singer:  Ellie Dehn
Marcello, painter:  Brian Mulligan
Colline, philosopher: Christian Van Horn
Schaunard, musician: Hadleigh Adams
Benoit, Alcindoro: Dale Travis

I certainly don't mind seeing Puccini's La Bohème, seen last night at the San Francisco Opera, over and over, but I don't have anything new to say about it.  Leah Crocetto has a bigger voice than the average Mimi, and as a result I heard her in the Cafe Momus scene.  I don't think I even noticed Mimi there before.

I liked the production, especially the fast scene changes.  If you've ever been to Paris in the winter, you know that it's rather dark and drab.  The drabness improved the atmosphere of this piece about intense poverty.

Opinions about the conducting were all over the place.  It was ok, but I've heard better, though not from most of the list below.  I don't suppose Beecham will come back.  I would prefer that conductors took this piece more seriously and raised their expectations.

The singing was very nice indeed.

Since I began blogging, I have reviewed versions of Puccini's La Bohème listed below.  Only the Zeffirelli production is a repeat.  None of these were my first La Bohème which may possibly have been Pavarotti and Freni in San Francisco.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005La Bohème -- the glorious recording with Björling and de los Angeles.

Saturday, March 24, 2007Opera SW

Saturday, April 05, 2008Surprise in HD with Gheorghiu and Vargas in the Zeffirelli production.

Sunday, October 04, 2009La Bohème the Movie with Netrebko and Villazon.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011La Bohème at Santa Fe.

Thursday, May 24, 2012La Bohème in Los Angeles.

Saturday, April 05, 2014La Bohème in HD Zeffirelli again.

Thursday, November 20, 2014 La Bohème at the San Francisco Opera last night.

Leah Crocetto at Mondavi

Leah Crocetto with her accompanist Mark Markham appeared at Mondavi Center in Davis last night.  She sang:

"All the things you are" by Jerome Kern
"Rejoice greatly" from Handel's Messiah

Three songs by Samuel Barber
"Sleep now, oh sleep now," "Sure on this shining night," and "Nocturne"

Three songs by Richard Strauss
"Die Nacht," "Morgen" and "Cäcilie."  I apologize for having a coughing fit in the middle of this group.  I got out as fast as I could.  My cough drops didn't work.

Marietta's Lied from Korngold's Die tote Stadt.  This piece is becoming common for me.

Intermission.

Eternal Recurrence by Gregory Peebles.  This is a piece written for Leah.

Three songs by Fernando Obradors
"Con amores la mi madre," Del cabello mas sutil," and "Ciquitita la novia."

Encores
"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" by Jerome Kern
"Have yourself a merry little Christmas" from Meet me in St. Louis.

Leah has a voice of operatic proportions, and she chose pieces which suited both her voice and her musical loves.  The music included classic American pop songs, including one done expertly in dialect.  I'm seeing a lot of Obradors lately.

The new cycle by Gregory Peebles would have been helped by printed text.  We couldn't tell when the songs ended.  I would describe the style of this group as post modern.

She sang what she loves, and we loved it too.

Leah and Luisotti

This is opera in the park with Leah Crocetto singing "O mio babbino caro" and Nicola Luisotti conducting. Watch how he watches her. This right here is why his Italian work is so spectacular. I love him to pieces. And her. This is just her stuff. Nice long slide at the end.

Maometto II

This was the world premiere of the new critical edition of Rossini's Maometto Secondo to be published next year.  In his liner notes Dr. Philip Gossett goes out on a limb and says, "...Maometto II is one of the greatest serious operas written during the 19th century."

In my youth there was no serious Rossini in the repertoire.  I feel especially blessed to be living in the era of Rossini revival.

I thought I detected the Gossett touch in this performance--not just in the perfection of the score but also in the ornamentation of the singers.  And sure enough, he was here helping with the preparation.  And for me what is the Gossett touch?  Ornamentation suitable for each voice and powerful self-confidence in its execution.

The odd thing about Maometto is all the ensembles.  By 1820 we are living in the dying ends of opera seria, a form that is more pure in Handel, a time when da capo arias are almost the whole thing.  In Maometto II everyone gets an aria, Anna gets a lot more, but that still leaves a lot of ensembles. 

It is a monumental opera, more like something by Verdi and not at all the kind of opera usually taken on by Santa Fe.  This season the excellent chorus is especially prominent.

This opera requires four magnificent singers, and it got them.  My fellow bloggers, who have already come and gone, seemed critical of these singers.  Bah humbug!  They were all wonderful.

At the top is Luca Pisaroni as Maometto.  According to Wikipedia he is from Venezuela but moved to Italy when he was 4.  That's Italian enough for me.  I also understand that he is Thomas Hampson's son in law.  Hampson was in our audience.

In the picture above we have our other three artists.  Left is Patricia Bardon as Calbo, a contralto almost in the Ewa Podleś tradition.  This part is wickedly difficult with lots of notes on either extreme of the range, and she handled it well.

Center is the magnificent Leah Crocetto as Anna, an individual fanatically devoted to duty.  In one night I am suddenly a fan.  It is a very long and difficult role which Leah executed with increasing assurance.  Right is the tenor Bruce Sledge as Erisso.  He was also excellent.  I stood for Leah.

There is a glaring flaw in this production.  At the end Maometto faces stage left and Anna faces stage right.  This puts Maometto's sword on his upstage side, so when Anna uses it to stab herself, this is completely invisible to the audience.  Obviously if you reverse where they are standing, all this changes.  We were warned.

Thank you for this wonderful experience.

Leah Crocetto

This is what we have for Leah Crocetto, Adler Fellow.




She is rising fast. She is strong in the ham department which should take her far.