Music and Context - Mark Alburger

The success of any musical or opera is dependent on the excellence of its score and the dramatic framework in which it is placed. These basic notions were again very clear in recent performances of Kurt Weill's Happy End and John Adams's Nixon in China, respectively given on June 23 and 26, at Live Oak Theatre, Berkeley (Goat Hall Productions), and the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco (SF Opera).

While Bilbao Song, The Sailors' Tango, Mandalay Song, and Surabaya Johnny are classic Weill numbers -- the musical, with words by Bertolt Brecht and book by Elizabeth Hauptman, is less well-known. The songs, which more than justify the revival of this worthy work, are at the same time made more vivid by being placed in their dramatic context. And dramatic this production was, with standout performances by Michelle Jasso (Hallelujah Lil), Zoltan DiBartolo (Beerhall Bill), and Alexis Lane Jensen (The Fly) in this story of crusaders and criminals that in some ways feels like The Threepenny Opera II, predating Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls.

From the arresting opening Hosannah Rockefeller!, director Harriet March Page brought flair and pacing to an engaging production that featured a carnival of carnal talent including Jose Hernandez (The Governor), Nikola Printz (Mammy), Carl Lucania (The Reverend), Maria Mikheyenko (The professor), Crystal Philippi (Baby Face), and Thalia Beradozzi (The Barmaid). The mission-side of reality was well-represented by Rachel Warner (Major Stone), Don Hardwick (Hannibal Jackson), Kate Mathews (Sister Mary), Maggie Tenenbaum (Sister Jane / Mrs. Pigeon), Ignacio Zulueta (Ben Ownes / Mr. Pigeon), and John Paul Olsen (The Cop) -- in soulful consort with spirited pianist Skye Atman.

If the costumes and set were a little rustic... well, it suited the situation.

Similarly, the opulence of the San Francisco Opera's production was eminently appropriate for the Adams Nixon, with a comic and surrealistic libretto by Alice Goodman.

While it seems incredible that this amazing post-minimal score -- arguably the Berkeley composer's most excellent opera -- should not have been presented in San Francisco until now, this was a production that was worth the wait. Setting the tone was conductor Lawrence Renes polish and presence in the overture, against beautiful, crafty, and heroic visions of Air Force One touching down on the Chinese scene. Chen-Ye Yuan's Chou En-lai, Brian Mulligan's Richard Nixon, and Simon O'Neill's Mao Tse-Tung enriched the legacies of these important roles, the standard having been set quite high already by Sanford Sylvan, James Maddalena, and John Duykers in the 1987 Houston premiere. Similarly, Maria Kanyova (Pat Nixon), Patrick Carfizzi (Henry Kissinger), and Hye Jung Lee (Madame Mao Tse-tung) brought honored the traditions established by Carolann Page, Thomas Hammons, and Trudy Ellen Craney. Both Madame Maos in particularly provided the over-the-top disjunct coloratura climax required for the visceral end of Act II, here stunningly staged with Madame standing upon a pile of dead bodies.

The comic minimalist-stuttering of Nixon's News aria, the delirious chordal-choral divertissements of the Cheers! chorus, the reality-bending Red Detachment, the saxophone-synthesizer inflected score with allusions to everything from Asian pop to zeitgeist Wagner, the dreamy transformation of Adams's own The Chairman Dances concert piece into the subdued context of Act III...

Context? Did we say context? Yes -- to have known this music since the 80's and at last seen it staged locally... what a joy. Aside from a few silly dance moves, here, as with the Weill, the dramatic denouemonts maximalized the music, while at the same time the sounds remained the primary solace.

Valentines in Season / Elizabeth Agnew

20th- and 21st-Century art music composers have had a lot to say about anger, excitement, fear, happiness, and sadness over the last 110 years.

But what about love?

Perhaps, not at much, when compared to the vast number of popular-music manifestations created within the same period on the same subject.

That made Goat Hall's "Pick Your Own Aria" Valentines Day Benefit show, on April 12 at Julia Morgan Chamber Arts House in Berkeley a must-listen-and-see.

And, sure enough, contemporary composers, older and newer, do have a lot to say on the subject. Giacomo Puccini, for one, whose long life ultimately made him a 20th-century composer by default, with such shining works as "O mio babbino caro" from Gianni Schicchi -- a work radiantly performed by the sweet-toned Kimberly Anderman, in concordance with Alex Katsman's sensitive accompaniment.

In more recent and comic vein's Mona Lyn Reese offered "Food for Love" from her Three Fat Women of Antibes (to a libretto of Thomas Hassing), in a lithe rendition by Cary Ann Rosko, followed by JJ Hollingsworth's resounding "Mr. Honor My Request", part of Cabaret Cantata, winningly sold thanks to the theatricality and musicality of Maria Mikheyenko.

One of the love duets of the night was charmingly enacted by Anderman, who joined with her husband Mark for another Hollingsworth crossover gem, "A Wrinkle in Time", drawn from her 70's era musical comedy Pomp and Circumstances. This was followed by a much darker account of love and loss from Mikheyenko and Alex Jerinic in John Bilotta's "I Know What Stillness Is" from Trifles, repeating roles so compelling realized recently in the work's dynamic full production. Bilotta was also heard through rich tones of Rosko, as she recounted This Autumn Day, as a valentine in- and out-of-season.

Rounding out the contemporary aspect of the program was Mark Alburger's "I Loved Him" from The Wind God, on a text by Harriet March Page -- the pair appearing as pianist and soloist for this beguinian stream-of-consciousness wandering through a surreal boatscape and landscape mapped on Giuseppe Verdi's Quartet from Rigoletto.

The recent work definitely got a run for its money when facing the older competition of Sarita Cannon's rendition of Claude Debussy's "C'est l'extase langoureuse", from Ariettes Oubliees (1887), which was indeed exquisitely lovely and languorous. Also on the delicious cusp was Page's soulful interpretation of Gustav Mahler's "Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz" ("The Two Blue Eyes of my Beloved") from Songs of a Wayfarer, lovingly accompanied by Allan Crossman. Similarly exquisite was Sibel Demirmen in Robert Schumann's Kennst du das Land, demonstrating this fine singer's versatility beyond the Kurt Weill repertory heard of late.

With love the order of the night, it was no surprise to hear more scintillating and excellent couplings -- Rosko and Eliza O'Malley in the Leo Delibes Lakme "Flower Duet" and another expert wife and husband team in the W.A. Mozart Magic Flute "Bei Mannern, welche Liebe" from Ann Callaway and Richard Mix.

Katsman provided his agile keyboard support as yet another committed couple held forth in splendor when the beauteous O'Malley was joined by new-music-clarinet-monster Peter Josheff in a sensitive rendition of Franz Schubert's classic Shepherd on the Rock.

What can we say? As with the rest of this program in the cultivated tradition, the music rocked.

Calendar for March 2012

March 1

Other Minds 17. Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Music Center, San Francisco, CA. Through March 3.

March 2

Other Minds 17: Gloria Coates's String Quartet No. 5 (1988), Harold Budd's It's Only a Daydream (2011), and Ikue Mori's Improvisations for Percussion and Electronics. Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Music Center, San Francisco, CA.

March 11

New York Festival of Song. Charles Trenet's La romance de Paris; Francis Poulenc's Voyage à Paris, La grenouillère, Parisiana : Joueur du bugle, and Vous n’écrivez plus?, Ned Rorem's For Poulenc, Aaron Copland's Pastorale, Paul Bowles's Letter to Freddy, Philip Lasser's Parisian Evening, Irving Berlin's Harlem on My Mind, Manhattan Madness, and Slumming on Park Avenue, George Gershwin's Hi-ho, Gabriel Fauré's Les roses d’Ispahan and Tarantelle, Maurice Delage's Un sapin isolé from Quatre poèmes hindous, Darius Milhaud's Mon histoire, Albert Roussel's Amoureux séparés and Réponse d’une épouse sage, Marc Blitzstein's In Twos and jimmys got a goil, and Richard Rodgers's A Tree in the Park. The Music Room, Rosen House, Caramoor, Katonah, NY. Repeated March 13, Merkin Concert Hall, New York.

March 19

Goat Hall Productions / San Francisco Cabaret Opera. Stagewerx, San Francisco, CA. Also March 20, Cafe Royale.

March 22

Erling Wold's Certitude and Joy. Bindlestiff Studio, San Francisco, CA. Through April 1.

Playing and Singing for Ringing In / Phillip George

For new-music enthusiasts, the year-end holiday season can be a fallow time, given over to the charmingly traditional in both classical and popular music circles, so what a joy to happen upon Goat Hall Productions' continuation of its Fresh Voices Festival of New Works, finishing its 11th year with a New Music New Year's Bash.

Hyperbole aside, this program proved to be an intimate gathering at San Francisco's Community Music Center Theatre, with a 10pm, January 31 start that almost guaranteed a celebratory 12th-hour conclusion.

Paradoxically the show was on the sober side, despite liberal amounts of bubbly, with composers often defaulting to the new-music-norm of the serious aspects of life, beginning with Nancy Bloomer-Deussen's lovely Adirondack Morn, performed by the composer-pianist in her winningly neoclassic signature style.

John Bilotta checked in with the soulful Yeats Songs cycle, in a powerful reading by Tristan Robben, accompanied dexterously by the composer in a music of atonal adventurousness. A related haunting quality -- though more postminimally tonal -- was found in Philip Freihofner's Where My Breathing Whispers, which found soprano Eliza O'Malley in rapturous counterpoint to Kelsey Walsh's sensitive pianism.

Along more traditional lines, Ji Yoo presented a poignant rendition of Motherless Child, followed by Annmarie Ballinger's vibrant take on Kurt Weill's Lonely House. Continuing the Weillian vibe, mezzo-soprano Harriet March Page provided a dramatic conclusion to the first half with First Threepenny Finale, bitonally accompanied by Mark Alburger.

Returning to matters instrumental, Martha Stoddard offered a punchy Duo for Bassoons, pointedly punctuated by Lori and Michael Garvey, magnified into a Quartet for Two Oboes and Two Bassoons, augmented by the plangeant tones of Friehofner and Alburger.

The new compositional discovery of the evening was Dylan Greengard, who provided solo guitar virtuosity in The Plight of Josef K. and Bullfight with Self, as a winning post-minimalist, who expanded his palette for The Wrath of Poseidon to include gorgeous violin playing from a colleague.

Alburger wrapped up the proceedings with Business As Usual, a live, pre-recorded, and electronic performance piece supplemented by new videos, first seen several weeks previously at Stage Werx, and apparently well-received in these strikingly different arenas.

At the witching hour, a medley of pre-recorded Auld Lange Synes drawn from performances by Guy Lombardo, The First Family, Andre Rieu, Harry Koizumi, Jack Ingram, Mairi Campbell, Kenny G., and Alfred Publishing -- and one live one (Alburger's Christmas Carrels: A - Lange Syne) performed communally as a Habanera combination of the New Year's standard with Georges Bizet's Carmen.

Fresh Voices X / Phillip George

This year San Francisco Opera will present no new operas, but Goat Hall Productions / San Francisco Cabaret Opera will produce ten this month alone.

Billed as Fresh Voices X, the extended weekend of June 17-20 features contemporary works "xploring" the dark sides of life yesterday and today in two programs styled as X at the Heart of America" and X in the Soul of Europe and Beyond.

The former theme, while including stories of loneliness and alienation, celebrates the spirit of adventure and the will to survive. The latter entails re-tellings of classic tales with new twists. All performances feature a panoply of talented singers, accompanied by pianists Hadley McCarroll and Keisuke Nakagoshi, under the direction of Harriet March Page.

Program A (8pm, Thursday, June 17, and Saturday, June 19) presents the world premiere of Trifles by John G. Bilotta, to a libretto of John F. McGrew, after the story and play by Susan Glaspell. The soulful five-member cast (Michael Desnoyers, Alexandra Jerinic, Nathan Kondrat, Nathaniel Marken, and Maria Mikheyenko) and six-piece chamber orchestra will be conducted by Martha Stoddard. The instrumental ensemble is additionally featured in Mark Alburger's Job: A Masque, where God (Nanette McGunness) and Satan (Crystal Philippi) play dice with human lives (Marilyn Pratt, Kate Bautch, Sarita Cannon, and Heather Lauren Klein)

The evening also includes a fantasy re-creation of an "Xpresident" in Chris Whittaker's George Bush: The Last Hundred Days,with Meghan Dibble, Chelsea Hollow, and Marken; the irony-soaked one-woman (Raina Simons) show Life is Fine by Edward Knight; and the Daniel Felsenfeld / Elizabeth Isadora Gold role reversals of The Bloody Chamber, where Bela Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle gets a new ending from Jo Vincent Parks, Indre Viskontas, and McGuinness.

Program B (Friday, June 18, 8:00 pm & Sunday, June 20, 7:00 pm) will leave one yearning for more in The Hunger Art, by Jeff Myers / Royce Vavrek, with a lean-and-mean cast of Joshua Beld, Justin Marsh, Eliza O’Malley, Sophia Santulli, and Dibble. David Garner's Medea Alone, with Kristen Brown, and Mark Narin's Theresa Kren, featuring Katherine Howell and Tristan Robben will give new meaning to danger, while the Alden Jenks / Frank Polite Letter from Linda (Viskontas and Cannon) and Robert Denham's Sutter Creek (where Wayne Wong is joined by Bautch, Cannon, and Klein) will provide poignancy and humor.

All performances will be held at Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. Advance tickets sales are $20 general admission and$15 seniors, students, and Theatre Bay Area members. Tickets at door are $25 and $20. Seats may be reserved online (goathall.org) or by calling 415-289-6877 or email (hartmpage@aol.com).