Best of Annecy 2010

Friday night's screening of Best of Annecy at the SF International Film Festival started 10 minutes late, due to a last minute rush of ticket buyers & a cumbersome ticketing process that required each ticket to be printed individually. However, the staff was clearly grateful for the full house. The program was a mixed bag of 7 shorts.

Lebensader (Angela Steffen, Germany 2009, 6 min)
Abstract film in which flat, colorful, totemic images of plants & animals morph into one another.

I Forgive You (Pierre Mousquet, Jérôme Cauwe, Belgium 2009, 5 min)
A deliberately tasteless gag cartoon in which 2 steroidal wrestlers teach a lesson in forgiveness. Pehaps they are a Belgian version of Beavis & Butthead.

Jean-François (Tom Haugomat, Bruno Mangyoku, France 2009, 6 min)
Psychological portrait in which a champion swimmer recalls his lost childhood instead of savoring his victory. The film has a lot of moody imagery but minimal animation. The sound was uncomfortably loud at the screening.

Don’t Go (Turgut Akacik, Turkey 2010, 4 min)
Combines live footage of a frisky cat chasing a small computer-generated character with the body of a pink bunny & a giant eyeball instead of a head. The most unexpected thing about this film is that it comes from Turkey.

Love & Theft (Andreas Hykade, Germany 2009, 7 min)
A series of cartoon faces morph into one another in tight synchronization to pounding music. Some of the faces are monstrous while others, such as those of Charlie Brown, Hello Kitty & Gromit, are benignly banal. The effect is hallucinatory & nightmarish.

Angry Man (Anita Killi, Norway 2009, 20 min)
Earnest story about domestic abuse, aimed at children & enacted by paper puppets. Its depiction of a child's fear of an abusive parent is painfully heavy-handed. The situation is resolved through a personal visit from King Harald of Norway, who appears as a kind of Santa Claus of deliverance. Perhaps this makes sense in a Norwegian context, but I did not get it. The tone is so thoroughly serious that one presumes the story is meant to instruct.

The Lost Thing (Andrew Ruhemann, Shaun Tan, Australia 2010, 16 min)
Shaun Tan's picture book of the same name transferred into computer animation. The whimsical & slightly sinister atmosphere of Tan's work is beautifully preserved in the film's deadpan style. The ambiguous story line has the feel of a parable.

§ San Francisco International Film Festival
Best of Annecy 2010

Friday, November 12, 7:00 pm
Landmark's Embarcadero Center Cinema

SFMOMA: Henri Cartier-Bresson

I was really excited to view the large Henri Cartier-Bresson retrospective at the SFMOMA. He is my god of photography, & I was glad that the show included a lot of images that I had never seen before, such as his color spreads for Life about China's Great Leap Forward. The photos are grouped by both chronology & theme. It was interesting to see that he was influenced by Surrealism early in his career. It is almost unbelievable that he managed to be in so many places at key moments, such as in China during the last days of the war or in the American south during some of the earliest civil rights actions. How did he end up photographing wrestlers in Ulan Bator in 1958 or getting right in the middle of Gandhi's funeral?

Even though most of his photographs fall into the category of photojournalism, there is a classical aesthetic at work that gives them a timeless quality. Many of his scenes look like they could have happened at any time. Because Cartier-Bresson does not explain what he shows, the images are open to multiple interpretations. I also think he is brilliant at capturing joy. His 1946 snapshot of a mother & son reunited in New York is typical in combining all these elements.

The prints are mostly relatively small, & many of the earlier ones in particular look faded compared to the high-contrast gallery prints one is used to seeing. Many of the prints come from the Foundation Henri-Cartier Bresson & represent how the images were distributed to print media. I suppose this gives the exhibit a stamp of authenticity. It also raises the question of what authenticity means in the context of a photo exhibition. The show also includes issues of magazines like Life & Match containing his images. The exhibit takes up the entire 3rd floor photo galleries & is really too large to take in at one go, so I hope I will have chances to visit again.

To finish our museum visit, we of course got coffee in the upstairs cafe. From the sculpture garden, we could peek in & see staff installing a fake museum shop in the 5th floor gallery. Items being stocked include colorfully packaged one dollar bills, priced at 99¢. Looks like fun!

§ Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century
SFMOMA
October 30, 2010 - January 30, 2011

SFO: Madama Butterfly

On Thursday night I heard SF Opera's Madama Butterfly, with conductor Julian Kovatchev taking over from Luisotti & soprano Daniela Dessì replacing the poorly-received Svetla Vassileva. The orchestra sounded light under Maestro Kovatchev, whom I thought dragged. Musically, it was a timid performance overall. The final act seemed to get slower & slower, & the singers often pulled at the orchestra. The principals Stefano Secco & Daniela Dessì have nicely Italianate voices, & Secco has very secure high notes. Ms. Dessì has a soft voice that suggests Butterfly's youth & fragility. She & Maestro Kovatchev did not seem to have agreed on a tempo for "Un bel di", so it did not quite build like it should. My favorite performances were from mezzo Daveda Karanas as Suzuki & Quinn Kelsey as Sharpless. Neither sounds underpowered, & both created strong characterizations.

The picturesque production may be starting to date & look a little kitschy. It features a single rotating set, providing the audience with constantly changing views of the interior & exterior of Butterfly's house. When I realized that the 6 hooded stagehands were only pretending to turn it, though, I thought them unnecessary. The transition between acts II & III is seamless, but the off-stage humming chorus sounded just a little too far away. I felt the same about Butterfly's off-stage singing entrance in Act I, though this may have been due to hearing it from the left side of the orchestra. As one would expect, the performance was well-attended. During the curtain calls, Ms. Dessì made sure that Rebecca Chen, playing Trouble, came forward to join her at the end. I may have fallen asleep during act III, because there are parts of it I don't remember.

Angel Island

On Monday I played tourist in my own city & visited Angel Island for the first time since I was a school kid. I accompanied an out-of-town visitor who constantly puts me shame by knowing more about what's going on in San Francisco than I do. There were only about a dozen people on the ferry that morning, so we barely ran into anyone while hiking around the island. I really enjoyed the quiet, with the significant exception of an annoying electronic beep, probably coming from some lighthouse.

Unfortunately the museum at the immigration station was closed, but we could walk around the newly renovated grounds. The decaying buildings at Fort McDowell are strangely picturesque. We hiked to Mt. Livermore at 788 ft & were rewarded with a spectacular 360° view of the bay. We totally lucked out with the weather, which was cool & clear with only a few fast-moving clouds. I am not much of a nature guy, but my companion was absolutely delighted.

The island offers amenities such as food service, tram rides & segway tours, but none of these were available on the day of our visit. The ferry was met by a park ranger, though, who handed out maps & gave directions. We encountered quite a few deer, who were not at all spooked by our presence. We also saw evidence of the fire which swept the island 2 years ago.

SFO: The Makropulos Case

Wednesday I was in standing room for the opening night of The Makropulos Case at SF Opera. All the elements come together beautifully in this production. Reading the convoluted synopsis before the lights went down, I wished I had done more homework beforehand, but the galloping overture with the off-stage brass band got my attention right away. There was always something amazing going on in the orchestra, which played brilliantly for Jiří Bělohlávek. The textures were vivid yet transparent. I enjoyed the sound of the flute solos & the tight brass playing. Kay Stern played a gorgeous violin solo in the 3rd act.

The cast was excellent, everyone giving equally strong vocal performances & each character having a clear personality. Karita Mattila's voice had the same force whether she was singing very high or very low. She has a kind of animal presence & frank sexuality onstage. In Act II she lifted her foot over her head, did the splits, & put her body into other strange shapes that I did not understand. Matthew O'Neill was grotesquely funny as the ancient Count Hauk-Šendorf, & the audience gave him a round of spontaneous applause at the end of his scene with Matilla in Act II. Susannah Biller, as the gawky young Kristina, sounded solid. Gerd Grochowski was totally convincing as the reptilian Baron Jaroslav Prus. Miro Dvorsky's Gregor was unsettling. Austin Kness & Maya Lahyani shined in their brief scene at the beginning of Act II.

The attractive black & white sets look like large architectural drawings with heavy cross-hatching. Each scene is dominated by a large clock that turns out to be keeping the actual time. All the sets are on a large turntable which we see rotate during the overture. Curiously, the curtain came down at the end of the Act I, causing the audience to applaud before the end of the music. When the curtain came back up, the set had already rotated for Act II.

I came to this performance knowing pretty much nothing about the opera, so I was kept very busy reading the supertitles. I also could not help paying a lot of attention to the orchestra, which drives, comments on & even mocks the action. I was confused by the off-stage men's chorus in the final act, but the effect was other-worldly. In the final moments, the audience gasped when Gregor grabbed the formula from Kristina & set it on fire, a staging which differs from the original scenario.

I arrived early enough to witness the Opera Tattler in the box-level bar as she helped her foppish opera companion get into his tie. SFMike was also in standing room for the 1st half. He had to leave at intermission, but not before bringing me an origami book with lots of great photographs. I should have expected that my favorite degenerate blogger had written the background essay in the program.

§ The Makropulos Case
San Francisco Opera

Conductor: Jiří Bělohlávek
Director: Olivier Tambosi
Production Designer: Frank Philipp Schlössmann

Emilia Marty: Karita Mattila
Albert Gregor: Miro Dvorsky
Baron Jaroslav Prus: Gerd Grochowski
Dr. Kolenaty: Dale Travis
Vitek: Thomas Glenn
Kristina: Susannah Biller
Count Hauk-Šendorf: Matthew O’Neill
Janek: Brian Jagde
A Stagehand: Austin Kness
A Chambermaid, A Cleaning Woman: Maya Lahyani

Wed Nov 10 2010 7:30pm
War Memorial Opera House

Mutter-Bashmet-Harrell Trio

John Marcher was kind enough to invite me to attend this evening of Beethoven string trios with him, so I arrived at Davies Hall straight from Volti's concert, with my ears still ringing from Flora Tristan. Fortunately these early Beethoven works quickly decompressed my ears. Mutter, Bashmet & Harrell have very different musical personalities, & they were clearly having fun performing together. I liked Lynn Harrell's efficient playing. His pizzicato in the Adagio movement of the Serenade was wonderfully plump. In the Scherzo, he played the short cello chords as if he were angry at Mutter. The audience laughed & was so delighted that it broke into spontaneous applause at the end of the movement. Anne-Sophie Mutter's playing, while very clean, can be rough & slightly harsh. I like how she uses full bow strokes & has an expressive vibrato with at least 2 distinct speeds. Yuri Bashmet was a bit self-effacing, but I enjoyed his soft, almost fluffy, sound. All 3 conveyed a sense of ease & spontaneity, & so I felt very happy too, simply enjoying the music from moment to moment.

The audience greeted the performers warmly, & many gave them a standing ovation at the end. Davies Hall was packed & looked just about sold out. Mr. Bashmet must draw a large Russian constituency, as I was surrounded by Russian speakers all evening. There was a great deal of loud coughing between movements that sometimes threatened to stop the proceedings. The elderly woman seated next to me nodded off at one point, but her husband gently prodded her awake.

§ Beethoven String Trios by the Mutter-Bashmet-Harrell Trio
Great Performers Series

Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin
Yuri Bashmet, viola
Lynn Harrell, cello

Beethoven: String Trio in C minor, Opus 9, No. 3
Beethoven: Serenade in D major for Violin, Viola, and Cello, Opus 8
Beethoven: String Trio in E-flat major, Opus 3

Sun, Nov 7, 2010 7:00pm
Davies Symphony Hall

Volti

Saturday afternoon's performance by Volti was delayed by 10 minutes to give people extra time to find the venue at the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. Those who lost their way may have included one of Volti's tenors, who slipped in after the 2nd piece on the program. During the opening announcements, another singer was reprimanded when she came in through the wrong door. The venue itself is a shoe-boxed shaped room with a tall ceiling. There were around 60 of us, seated in folding chairs, & this was close to the capacity of the room.

The 1st half of the program contained 4 pieces from different composers. All are in a modern style that is sometimes dissonant but never entirely atonal. They are mostly in 4 vocal parts & do not demand any exotic singing techniques. The composers were all present & looked rather academic. Mr. Flaherty & Mr. Lipten both said a few words before their pieces. The 20 singers of Volti make a very clean, unified sound & they easily filled the live, ringing space. Their ensemble is very close. Unless there was a solo, I could not pick out individual voices.

Soprano Kristen Brown began Frank Stemper's tribute to Senator Paul Simon with a startling, clarion call to arms. The piece, using trite phrases from the senator's writings, feels elegiac & beseeching. It ends dramatically with additional female voices singing to us from the upper gallery. Tom Flaherty set 5 poems by Stephen Crane in alternating fast & slow movements. Each song has a motion that matches the words of the poem, & there is an over-all feeling of story-telling. David Lipten's setting of poems by E.E. Cummings are spare, taut & suspenseful. The delicate "un(bee)mo" was time-stopping. Kirke Mechem set 5 poems about spring from different authors. Each song uses a different musical trope, & the final song -- loud, angry & full of disgust -- quotes the bouncy madrigal that opens the cycle in order to mock its cheeriness.

After the intermission, Kristen Brown & Paul Ingraham, reading from a script, explained the political background of Louis Andriessen's Flora tristan & noted its difficulties for both performers & hearers. We were also told that this performance was being done in conjunction with Artists Against Rape. The chorus is divided into a men's side & a women's side, which move on parallel tracks as they intone a multi-layered text in Spanish, English & French without benefit of melody, melisma or word repetition. The sopranos have to sing relentlessly high, & there are no places for the ear to rest, so the piece is a sonic assault lasting nearly 20 minutes. It ends with several loud climaxes that left my ears ringing. Curiously, a woman seated across from me occupied herself by knitting during the performance.

Unfortunately I had to pass up the dessert & wine reception afterward in order to get to an event at Davies Hall. I did at least grab one of the delicious brownies on my way out.

§ Volti
Robert Geary, Artistic Director

Frank Stemper: A Brief Message from Makanda, Illinois (2005)
Tom Flaherty: Delusional Paths (2010 Volti Commission, World Premiere)
David Lipten: Time's Dream (2003)
Kirke Mechem: Five Centuries of Spring (1964)
Louis Andriessen: Flora tristan (1990)

Sunday, November 7, 4:00 PM
Walt Disney Family Museum, The Presidio

Philharmonia Baroque: The Four Seaons

On Friday night I attended the Philharmonia Baroque concert at Herbst Theatre featuring Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. The 4 concertos, straddling the intermission & bracketed by instrumental suites, formed the core of the program. Soloist Elizabeth Blumenstock's playing was fleet & without much bite. She used music, which I thought compromised her virtuosity, but she was confident enough to ornament some of her lines & flirt a little with the music. The performance had many picturesque details, such as the humorously abrupt cut-off for the violin in the 1st movement of Summer. The orchestra played sul ponticello at the beginning of Winter & seemed to imitate the score to Psycho. There were some strange notes at the beginning of Autumn, as if the soloist had lost her place.

The rest of the program was filled out with chamber suites using the same forces as the Vivaldi concertos. The orchestra plays with an energetic cheeriness, & there is a lot of bobbing up & down. Conductor Nicholas McGegan looks the happiest of them all. I liked his lively gestures of twirling, stirring, tossing & even slapping the orchestra. The opening Corelli Concerto Grosso was stately yet lilting. The elegant Pergolesi Sinfonia sounded very much like the composer's Stabat Mater, the only other piece of his I know. The Zavateri Pastorale, with its 2 solo violins & its depiction of a rural idyll, seemed to continue on from The Four Seasons. Maestro McGegan turned to the audience & quoted Monty Python's "And now for something completely different" before ripping into the fierce Durante Concerto. On the final chord, he swiveled so forcefully that his shoe squeaked loudly.

I'm far from sold on historically informed performances, which I still consider to be experimental. This performance had intermittently wayward intonation, & I wondered whether it was worth it to use the theorbo as a continuo instrument. Though majestic in appearance, its contribution to the overall sound is feeble.

This concert was well-attended. I came with a group of friends with poor time management skills, & we took our seats just as Maestro McGegan stepped onto the podium. He may have noted the commotion & paused briefly before starting.

§ Philharmonia Baroque
Nicholas McGegan, conductor
Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin

CORELLI: Concerto grosso Op. 6, No. 11 in B-flat major
PERGOLESI: Sinfonia in F major
VIVALDI: Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons)
ZAVATERI: Concerto in D major "a Pastorale," Op. 1, No. 10
DURANTE: Concerto No. 5 in A major

Friday, November 5, 8:00 pm
Herbst Theatre

Miners’ story is the stuff of opera

In today's Financial Times letters to the editor, Mr Tom Brown of Norddeutsche Landesbank makes an impassioned & forcefully expressed case for an opera version of the Chilean miners story, which he sees as evoking Billy Budd, Das Rheingold, La Fanciulla del West, Aida, The House of the Dead, Dr Atomic & Fidelio. Mr Brown ends with this plea:

Mr Adams, Sir Harrison Birtwhistle, Mr Albarn – sharpen your pencils and get composing now: a world premiere with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel would be a fitting acknowledgment that a new Latin America has arrived. Do I hear an offer from Banco Santander to sponsor it?

Those with access to FT online can find the letter here.

SFS: Carmina burana

Wednesday night's program at the SF Symphony began with Schnittke's jokey Moz-Art à la Haydn, for small string ensemble & violin soloists Alexander Barantschik & Dan Smiley. Conductor Carlos Kalmar & the musicians gave an energetic performance that got laughs from the stage antics as well as the music. Themes from Mozart symphonies survive barely 2 seconds before sagging into dissonances. The ensemble rearranges itself in the middle of the piece, & one of the soloists tunes down his instrument while playing. In a parody of Haydn's Farewell Symphony, the piece ends with the players walking off, leaving Maestro Kalmar tapping on his music stand as all the lights go out. One of my concert companions described it as a piece for classical music nerds. Mr. Smiley got extra applause when he came out for his bow wearing a Giants baseball cap.

This was followed by the equally enjoyable Haydn Symphony No. 97. The tempos were lilting & dance-like, & there were nice terraced dynamics. The end of the 1st movement was punctuated by a single clap from someone in the audience.

Several rows in the 2nd tier that were empty for the 1st half filled up after the intermission for the performance of Carmina burana. Maestro Kalmar's conducting was vigorous & crisp. I liked the clean cut offs & the tempo changes that prevented things from merely chugging along. The famous "O Fortuna" was appropriately monumental while the "Bibit" verses were nicely fleet. Keith Phares has a suave & continuous baritone sound, & he maintained a smoothness even in a high falsetto section. Tenor Nicholas Phan is high-voiced & sang the grotesque swan aria without sounding too unpleasantly pinched or distressed. I wished he had more arias. Soprano Joélle Harvey was wondrously high-voiced as well, & she sang the ridiculously high-flying "Dulcissime" with a supported & unstrained sound. The audience responded to the performance with an immediate standing ovation. The well-prepared children's chorus received especially loud applause.

I was part of a group that sat in the last row of the 2nd tier. Shamefully, one of us was unable to maintain proper audience composure. Another of my concert companions succinctly summed up Carmina burana by noting that the outer "O Fortuna" movements tell us how cruelly fate will throw us around, but the inner movements tell us to grab onto love in spite of it all.

§ Carmina burana
San Francisco Symphony
Carlos Kalmar, conductor

Joélle Harvey, soprano
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Keith Phares, baritone

San Francisco Symphony Chorus
Pacific Boychoir; Kevin Fox, Director
The Crowden School Allegro Chorus; Laura Kakis Serper, Director

Schnittke: Moz-Art à la Haydn (1977)
Haydn: Symphony No. 97
Orff: Carmina burana

Wed, Nov 3, 2010 8:00pm
Davies Symphony Hall

SFS: Alice Sara Ott plays Liszt

On Saturday evening I was at my first SF Symphony concert of the season. The program began with Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave Overture, which conductor Pablo Heras-Casado led from memory & without a baton. Pianist Alice Sara Ott sounded more perky than virtuosic in the Liszt Piano Concert No. 1. She was sensitive to her overall context, more in the manner of a chamber musician than a concerto soloist. She received an immediately standing ovation & played a pretty version of Für Elise as an encore. The delighted audience applauded as soon as they recognized the first notes.

With the stage set for György Kurtág's Grabstein für Stephan, it looked like some horrible event had decimated the orchestra. The strings were represented by 3 violas, 3 cellos & a bass grouped at the right edge of the stage. There was a full complement of percussion & brass, but only 1 oboe & 2 clarinets. The piece starts with the open strings of a guitar, then gradually builds to a piercing climax that adds a police whistle to the mix. It then drifts back down to the strumming guitar & closes with a single, very quiet note from the horn, so that the piece does not feel quite symmetrical. Despite the odd instrumentation, it did not seem like a competition between timbres. Maestro Heras-Casado held up the score when he took his bow. Since the piece was relatively short & very compressed, I almost wished that there were time to hear it again.

The program ended with a lot of musicians on stage for the Shostakovich 12. I liked bassoonist Stephen Paulson's incisive & pointed playing in the 1st movement & his plaintive solo in the 2nd. I also like the other soft & long-lined flute & clarinet solos in the slow movement. The final 2 movements were loud & shrill. The performance met with great approval. Many in the audience stood & cheered.

§ Alice Sara Ott plays Liszt
San Francisco Symphony
Pablo Heras-Casado, conductor
Alice Sara Ott, piano

Mendelssohn: Fingal's Cave Overture
Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1
György Kurtág: Grabstein für Stephan
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 12, The Year 1917

Sat, Oct 30, 2010 8:00pm
Davies Symphony Hall

The Witch of Endor

Over the weekend I attended Urban Opera's The Witch of Endor, a pastiche of music by Purcell. The site-specific performance took place in the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin on Union Street. The program began in the courtyard, where an actor impersonating a homeless man recited Kipling's poem En-Dor. The audience was then let into the dark church interior, where a small string ensemble was already playing entrance music. We heard excerpts from King Arthur, Abelazar, The Indian Queen, & other short instrumental & vocal works, culminating in the dramatic scene In Guilty Night. There was also a reading from Samuel by the Rev. Dr. Jason Parkin & a vigorous Caribbean drumming session.

The 5 string players plus harpsichord were a good fit for the relatively small space. The chorus of 36 easily filled the space with sound, & I especially liked their unaccompanied, dirge-like number. As the Goddess of Dreams, Lindsey McLennan sang from the loft above & behind the audience, wearing an overflowing, net-like white dress that she draped over the railing while a large crescent moon puppet was hoisted opposite her.

In the In Guilty Night scene I liked Shawnette Sulker's bright soprano, which was matched by her brilliant orange costume. The Opera Tattler no doubt envied the feathered headdress she wore. As the Ghost of Samuel, John Minagro had a deep & commanding voice. When he entered from behind the audience, it was at first difficult to locate where his voice was coming from, making for an other-worldly entrance.

The spectacle-like staging included a mix of Biblical & voodoo elements, a movie, a clattering film projector, bare-chested soldiers, a scene of physical violence, wafting incense & a procession. At the end, the chorus was revealed to have scary painted faces. When the performers gathered for their bows, it looked like a Baroque Halloween. At barely 45 minutes, though, the event felt thin.

This performance convened a number of local classical music reporters. Joshua Kosman, Lisa Hirsch, John Marcher, The Opera Tattler & Patrick Vaz gathered in a corner of the courtyard before the show. Immediately after the performance I accompanied the Opera Tattler to the airport, where we collected our favorite Belgian blogger. Both of my colleagues reminded me that this was the day 2 years ago that we three first met, at an Alex Ross event.

§ Urban Opera
E.E. "Chip" Grant IV, Artistic Director/Conductor

The Witch of Endor
Music by Henry Purcell

Old Man: Gary Graves
Lector: The Rev. Dr. Jason Parkin
Samuel: John Minagro
Saul: Colby Roberts
The Goddess of Dreams: Lindsey McLennan
The Witch of Endor: Shawette Sulker

Urban Opera Chorus
Urban Opera Orchestra

The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin
October 30, 2010 4pm

Blogging is like calligraphy

"Writing a blog has become this very old-fashioned thing," said Ben Smith, a blogger and reporter for Politico. "It is like calligraphy or something."

§ Gawker to Drop Old Blog Look
By Jessica E. Vascellaro
The Wall Street Journal
Technology | November 1, 2010

Levi's Vault

While waiting for a rendezvous near Levi's Plaza, I checked out The Vault in the public area of the Levi's corporate office. This is a small room displaying items from Levi's company archives, including clothing, marketing materials & other artifacts. A pair of jeans from the 1880s is currently on display, brown & mostly tatters. There's also a video about the conservation process, an interactive kiosk & a motorized display of vintage shirts. The company is currently acquiring more old & rare items for the archive, which is used by designers to research & recreate old styles. Foreign tourists & a visiting family were there when I dropped in, so this must be a known destination.

Inside Job

Yesterday, with an audience of about 12 other concerned citizens, I saw Inside Job, the talking-heads documentary about the financial crisis. To those following the news, there won't be any surprises here, though there are some delightful movements. John Campbell, chair of Harvard's Department of Economics, proves unable to form a sentence when asked about ethics. Glenn Hubbard, Dean of the Columbia Business School, displays shameless arrogance. I was so focused on not chuckling everytime I saw Eliot Spitzer on screen that I missed whatever he had to say. I believe I got the point of the graphic that charts diverging salaries over time for "Bankers" & "Everyone Else." I also enjoyed the beautiful opening footage of Iceland. The film ends a bit weakly, though, with only a vague call to action.

§ Inside Job

Produced, Written, and Directed by Charles Ferguson

DIY Opera

I'm not sure I would care to hear the result, but the School of Life in London offers a 1-day workshop on November 20th called DIY Opera In A Day. No musical experience is required. Topics covered include "stopping the audience from killing you" & "upstaging." The day culminates in an improvised grand operatic performance, listed on the schedule as "Cocktails and final performance." Food & drink are included in the £110 price.

This establishment also hosts Listening to Music with Alex Ross on the evening of November 29th, which makes me totally wish I lived in London.

Pianomania

Yesterday afternoon I saw the Austrian documentary Pianomania at the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival at the Castro Theatre. The film follows Steinway piano technician Stephan Knüpfer as he tirelessly goes about selecting, tuning, tweaking & even reconstructing the instruments. One is reminded that the concert grand piano is also an Industrial Age machine. The strangely engaging Mr. Knüpfer comes across as both mild-mannered & happily obssessed, not quite able to conceal his impish delight.

The documentary largely focuses on his year-long preparation of a piano for Pierre-Laurent Aimard's recording of Bach's Art of Fugue, & this comes across as a true collaboration between 2 equally persistent artistic personalities. There are also glimpses of Mr. Knüpfer at work with Lang Lang, Till Fellner, Julius Drake, Ian Bostridge, Rudolf Buchbinder & the formidable Alfred Brendel.

The film has no commentary, so there were a few inexplicable moments, such as when Mr. Knüpfer demonstrates a machine that bounces a tennis ball against the piano strings. I was intrigued by the experiment of adding reflector panels to the piano, which reminded me of the lower lid invented by Daniell Revenaugh, which was subsequently banned by Carnegie Hall. The film ends with a wholly absurd sequence in which Mr. Knüpfer replaces a piano leg with a violin, to the wary astonishment of musical comedy duo Igudesman and Joo.

I walked into the screening exactly at 5pm, & the audience was not large, though there were also many late arrivals. Before the screening, festival president Rudolf de Baey demanded that the audience tell him why he was wearing red & white. It was in honor of Austria's National Day.

§ Berlin & Beyond Film Festival

Pianomania
Directors/Writers/Producers: Robert Cibis, Lilian Franck
Austria, Germany (2009)

Tuesday, October 26 at 5:00pm
Castro Theatre, San Francisco

Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestra

Following a BART ride straight from Jeremy Denk's Berkeley appearance, I was in Davies Hall to hear the Dresden Staatskapelle led by Daniel Harding. Schumann's Manfred Overture felt exciting, dark & a bit brooding. From the first rapid chords, the orchestra displayed a burnished, blended timbre. The ensemble playing is incredibly tight but without being pointed. Solos never pop out but instead stay within the overall texture. The 4 stands of double basses face forward, & their prominence gives the orchestra a grounded sound.

In Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto, soloist Rudolf Buchbinder played with classical cool. His large hands never seemed to rise higher than the level of the keyboard. His playing does not move from climax to climax but instead maintains a smooth but taut flow. The 2nd movement was sustained & floating & very balanced. The strings provided a warm, uniform background. There was a smattering of applause after the 1st movement & an enthusiastic ovation by the audience at the end, with many people standing.

Maestro Harding conducted the Brahms 4 without a score. He is very active on the podium, staying ahead of the orchestra & giving lots of cues, though I imagine that this band could play just as precisely together without him. There were some froggy moments in the horns at the beginning, but I was still impressed by how well the brass blended with the rest of the orchestra. The final chord of the 1st movement just glowed. The strings played an astonishingly clean unison passage in the 4th movement. The symphony ended with the thrilling feel of energy under compression. The audience was impressed, standing, hollering & recalling Mr. Harding 3 times.

When I arrived at my seat at the beginning of the evening, I found Ced talking with the Opera Tattler, who gave us her positive report of that afternoon's Cyrano. I felt in good company, & none of us considered it unusual to attend 2 major performances in one day.

§ Great Performers Series
Daniel Harding and the Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestra

Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestra
Daniel Harding, conductor
Rudolf Buchbinder, piano

Schumann: Manfred Overture, Opus 115
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4
Brahms: Symphony No. 2

Sun, Oct 24, 2010 7:00pm
Davies Symphony Hall

Jeremy Denk at Cal Performances

I was impressed that pianist & blogger Jeremy Denk had planned to perform the Ligeti Etudes Books 1 & 2 plus the Bach Goldberg Variations. However, after a late start "due to the rain", Cal Performances Director Matías Tarnopolsky announced that Mr. Denk would play Liszt's Dante Sonata instead of Book 2 & not play Etude No. 3 from Book 1. The gentleman next to me was personally offended, saying that it was "disgusting" for Mr. Denk not to play the promised pieces, especially as Book 2 is better than Book 1. There was a further delay when the page turner discovered he had no place to rest the music; the music rack was missing from the piano.

Mr. Denk played the technically cruel Etudes with a surprising fluidity & looseness. He has nicely relaxed shoulders & neck, allowing him to move his head a lot & even look over his shoulder as he plays. The pieces have so much contrapuntal activity that they are difficult to absorb. Pushing things to the breaking point seems to be a common theme. A couple of the pieces have the pianist falling off the end of the keyboard. At the end, Mr. Denk acknowledged his page turner, who must have had a terrifying experience himself. The rest of the recital Mr. Denk played from memory.

Before playing the Liszt, Mr. Denk made a few humorous introductory remarks, & observed that with Liszt's depictions, "You're not sure if you want to end up in heaven or hell." The Dante Sonata is a loud & theatrical piece, & I felt like I was listening to the piano accompany a silent movie.

In the Goldberg Variations Mr. Denk's playing was pleasantly free & varied. I like how he found natural places to pause between some variations. He made the dance character of many of the pieces clear. Sometimes he even made a variation sound like Ligeti, such as when he played the cascades in No. 29 as a single meterless torrent of notes. He received a standing ovation & as an encore offered a repeat of Ligeti Etude No. 5, which in this context sounded like an extension of the Bach.

I was seated in front of John Marcher, & we ran into ced during the intermission, who was himself seated in front of composer John Adams. After the performance, there was an on-stage discussion between Mr. Denk & Mr. Adams. Mr. Denk demonstrated how the 2 hands in Etude No. 1 play in different modes & how they start in sync but shift apart. Unfortunately I could not stay for the entire conversation, as I had to catch BART back to the City for the Dresden Staatskepelle at Davies Hall.

§ Cal Performances
Jeremy Denk, piano

Ligeti: Etudes (Books 1 and 2)
Ligeti: Etudes Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6
Liszt: Dante Sonata
Bach: Goldberg Variations

Encore
Ligeti: Etude No. 5

Sun, Oct 24, 3 pm
Hertz Hall

10 Sorrowful Songs and a Crane

I enjoyed the community atmosphere at the CMC on Capp St. for this 50 minute recital of songs in Russian & Armenian by Borodin, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich & Komitas (Gomidas). Just before the start, there was a sudden rush of attendees, requiring the organizers to set up more chairs. The audience of 70 or so included several children. As advertised, the selections were all a bit slow & sad, & all had a strong folk song feeling to them. I especially liked the one Tchaikovsky song on the program, "I Bless You, Forests."

Before the concert, a laptop was sitting on the edge of the stage, streaming video of the Giants v Phillies game. Even during the music, it was clear that people were checking the game on their electronic devices. In a pause between songs, someone in the audience stood up & announced that the Giants had won the pennant, causing laughter & additional applause.

After the recital, there was a reception, & people lined up for some unusually fine-looking finger food & sparkling wine. My concert companion & I then had to make our way down several blocks of Mission, surrounded by blaring car horns & boisterous merriment in the streets.

§ 10 Sorrowful Songs and a Crane
John Smalley, baritone
Janis Mercer, piano

Capp Street Concert Hall
Saturday, October 23, 2010
8:00 pm

Extreme WOW Suites at W

On Thursday evening I was invited to preview the renovated "Extreme WOW" suites on the 31st floor of the W San Francisco. We needed a special magnetic card just to get the elevator to take us to the top floor. Attendees were served appetizers & drinks in one of the suites, which are decorated in a style called "1930’s Shanghai Glam." The oriental touches include porcelain lions, a wall-sized reproduction of a Chinese painting, orange & blue silk couch pillows & a table inlaid with symbols from mahjong tiles (an actual mahjong set is available upon request).

The suite has 2 bedrooms & 3 bathrooms & is naturally much more spacious than most San Francisco apartments. I liked the variety of seating available in the main room. The panoramic views look out toward AT&T Park, Yerba Buena Park, the Financial District & the Bay Bridge. The "Fantastic Suites" are on the floors just below, so "WOW" is better than "Fantastic."

I was accompanied by a friend, who was glad that 2 of the suite's 3 huge HD TVs were tuned to the Giants v Phillies game, & he kept disappearing into the bedroom to check the score. My friend also observed that the frosted glass door of the guest bathroom does not entirely obscure the occupant. Later in the evening, he managed to get one of his friends into the suite. While good company, this fellow was not entirely well-behaved. He apparently tried to requisition my Bliss spa goody bag, finding it unattended.

The hotel managers who attended the event were quite entertaining. All of them did a masterful job of not reacting when the caterer spilled a glass of champagne on the clean carpet. I learned that the curvaceous figure atop the hotel is named the Pneumatic Dreamer, & the general manager of the Bliss spa did a convincing impression of Justin Bieber. Plus I finally discovered how the giant frosted fortune cookie, hand-delivered by hotel staff, had made its way into my mail box the previous day.

§ “Extreme WOW” suites at W San Francisco
Thursday, October 21
6 – 8 p.m.

Leah Crocetto at the Rex

I felt privileged to be among the 80 or so people at soprano Leah Crocetto's sold out appearance in the intimate Salon at the Rex. Instead of giving us a printed program, Ms. Crocetto announced all her selections. She was very genuine as she told us the stories behind why these were her favorite songs, & she frequently cited her father as an important influence on her musical taste. She sang in 5 languages (plus a vocalise) & moved easily from art songs & opera to jazz & musical theater.

Ms. Crocetto discretely scaled her large voice to the room. At the end of Rachmaninoff's "How Fair This Spot," she pulled a floating high note out of the air as easily as if she had plucked a piece of ripe fruit from a tree. She gave some of the low notes in Faure's "Apres Un Reve" a lovely dark color. Her "O Mio Babbino Caro" was taut & just pouty enough. Her singing of the popular selections was completely natural & idiomatic, & she did not sound like an opera singer at all when doing these. Indeed, by the time she got into "The Man That Got Away", I felt like I was in an Upper West Side apartment at 1am, crying into my 3rd scotch.

Many times Ms. Crocetto mentioned her close connection with her accompanist Tamara Sanikidze, saying that they are almost like the same person. Ms. Sanikidze has a way of getting deep into the keys, & Strauss's "Morgen" song inspired exceptionally sensitive playing. She deserves a page turner, though, so that she does not have to whip the pages so violently herself.

The salon is right next to the kitchen, & the noise bleeds through. After we heard a lot of clanging cutlery during the Strauss, Ms. Crocetto noted, "We had a little rhythm section for that!" The audience was vociferous in their appreciation for Ms. Crocetto, even resorting to whooping. The Opera Tattler & John Marcher were in attendance, & I joined them for a drink afterward, where we were treated to an impressively irritable performance by the hotel's bartender.

§ Salons at the Hotel Rex
Leah Crocetto, soprano
Tamara Sanikidze, piano

Wednesday, October 20 6:30pm
Hotel Rex

FLOYD: "Ain't It A Pretty Night" from Susannah
RACHMANINOFF: Twilight, Op. 21, No. 3; How Fair This Spot, Op. 21, No. 7; Vocalise, Op. 14
STRAUSS: Morgen, Op. 27, No. 4
FAURE: Apres Un Reve, Op. 7, No. 1
PUCCINI: "O Mio Babbino Caro" from Gianni Schicchi
BARBER: Sure On This Shining Night, Op. 13, No. 3
GREGORY PEEBLES: From Shamus (Who Wanted To Be Hospitable)
MARTIN & BLAINE: "The Boy Next Door" from Meet Me In St. Louis
ARLEN: "The Man That Got Away" from A Star Is Born
HARNICK & BOCK: "When Did I Fall In Love" from Fiorello!
HOWARD: "Fly Me To The Moon"
KERN: "All The Things You Are" from Very Warm for May
TESORI: "Girl in 14G"

ENCORE:
RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN: "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel

Longplayer Live

This past Saturday I was awake for 20 hours straight, to attend the 1,000 minute excerpt of Jem Finer's Longplayer at YBCA. Longplayer is a conceptual piece of music that takes 1,000 years to unfold. It is currently being performed by a computer at a lighthouse in London, but it is also possible for musicians to perform it live, which is what I witnessed on Saturday. The instrument consists of curved tables arranged in 6 concentric rings, representing a sort of planetary system. The instrument covered almost the entire floor of the YBCA's Forum room, leaving only a narrow space along the walls for the audience. The players strike & rub singing bowls arranged on the tables according to an algorithm that cycles, with slight shifts, every 2 minutes. The bowls are in a range of sizes, & the lowest ones you can feel vibrating through the floor. The bowls were amplified, which unfortunately flattened out the sound. The motion of the music is stately & slow. Sometimes several bowls resonate at once, creating elaborate, beating overtones. Patterns of chimes move in & out of phase. In the late evening a drone began on one of the lower pitches, & it continued until the end of the performance. Perhaps the most natural response to the music is to sit on the floor & meditate, which I saw one woman do for over an hour in the late afternoon.

The purpose of Longplayer is to explore issues of long-term continuity. Because of the performance aspect, Longplayer probably does an even better job than the Clock of the Long Now of raising questions about sustainability. 18 musicians played in one-hour shifts to keep the piece going for the 1,000 minutes. The act of one player handing his stopwatch & mallet to another player was a metaphor for the passing down of cultural traditions.

My ticket for this event allowed me to wander in & out of the performance, as well as to attend the Long Conversation, a 6 hour marathon of talks at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. I had hoped to hear Danny Hillis speak, but he had to cancel due to illness. I did get to hear Stewart Brand, though, who made an interesting connection between Longplayer & the practice of change ringing. I also took advantage of entrance to the CJM to view the happy Maira Kalman show.

I was present when the music began at 7am, when there were more performers than audience. Altogether I heard about 4 hours of the piece. I was curious to see how they would end it, so I was back for the final hour, when there were about 40 audience members. The composer was in the rotation, & at 11:40pm he struck a pair of hand cymbals twice, at which point the musicians dropped out one by one as the lights dimmed. The ensuing silence was so pure that the only sound was the hum of the sound system. After perhaps 2 minutes, someone broke the spell by starting applause. When someone jokingly yelled, "Encore!", one of the musicians replied, "Come back in a thousand years!"

As I was about to leave, someone put a glass of champagne in my hand. I may have been mistaken for a staff member of Longplayer. So I stayed around to hear the director of the Long Now & the composer give their thanks to the assembled participants. I also chatted briefly with one of the musicians, who introduced himself as "Mole." I was glad to hear that the experience of playing the piece does not feel rote or mechanical & that the musicians do plenty of listening while they perform.

§ Longplayer Live
Saturday October 16, 02010 - San Francisco, CA
Longplayer 7am-11:40pm at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Long Conversation 3pm-9pm at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

APE 2010

I was at both days of the Alternative Press Expo this weekend, which has expanded significantly. Someone told me there were at least 50 more vendors than last year. There seemed to be a lot more illustration art, professionally printed books & stuff that I would file under "too many art schools." Almost the first thing I saw was a copy of Adam Levin's audacious 1,000+ page novel The Instructions, which is thicker than any book I've seen except for a dictionary.

Fortunately there are still plenty of scrappy characters around. As always, it was a treat to catch up with that phenomenon known as Justin Hall, who proudly gave me a peek at full-color pages of his up-coming Glamazonia collection. It was also fun to buy a copy of Phase 7 from Alec Longstreth, whose beard is much more impressive in person than in his drawings. The creator of Buttersafe practically jumped over his table to make sure I did not walk by without a copy of his comic. I enjoyed chatting with Neil Brideau, who works at Quimby's in Chicago. He is someone I need to start following.

I sought out Nick Mullins to pick up the latest installment of his intricate & freaky Carnivale story. There are at least 3 more parts to come, & I am trying to be patient. I also could not resist Reid Psaltis's creepy drawings of cryptids. Jakc Designs sold little smiling hamburgers & steamed jiaozi made of felt, whose cuteness can only be described as criminal.

Alternative Press Expo
October 16 - 17
Concourse Exhibition Center

The Social Network

I was surprised that when we got to the Metreon to see the facebook movie on Friday night, the 8:35pm show was sold out. We saw the next show an hour later, & it was quite full too. I was kept busy following the talky plot & its barrage of events, but I found the movie uninteresting. I was not convinced by the attempt to make this a love story in the final moments. The only scene I got caught up in was when I was rooting for Eduardo to put out the wastebasket fire set by his crazy Asian girlfriend. I've been more impressed by the inescapable publicity surrounding the film. Every media stream I consume, even those not focused on movies or the tech industry, has mentioned it.

§ The Social Network
Director: David Fincher

Alex Ross at Cal Performances

I was happy to catch New Yorker music critic Alex Ross last night on the Berkeley campus. In what he warned us would be a "slightly massive" talk, Mr. Ross discussed chaconnes, laments & descending bass lines through 4 centuries of music. The material comes from the 2nd chapter of his new book, Listen to This, though in the live talk Mr. Ross plays musical clips to illustrate his points. He often juxtaposes musical examples in surprising & revealing ways. To demonstrate the resurgence of Baroque-style chromatic descending bass lines in popular music, he has an amusing 1960s medley that makes the point without further explanation. The well-culled selection of clips includes performances by Carlos Kleiber, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, Bob Dylan, Segovia & Nina Simone. It sometimes felt like Mr. Ross was an old friend spinning up some of his favorite disks for us. He even snuck in a recording of his cat's mew.

Wheeler Hall was nearly full & the audience contained many baby boomers for whom the 1960s selections no doubt had special significance. After his talk, which lasted over an hour, Mr. Ross stuck around to chat with people. I'm afraid I was a demanding fan, asking him to sign my copy of his book, complaining that I finished reading it far too quickly, & then blaming him for being the catalyst for my acquaintance with certain bloggers.

To round out the evening, I had the pleasure of meeting The Standing Room at long last. In the past we have managed to avoid one another even when in the same place. He was charmingly disappointed that The Opera Tattler was not in costume, though she reported that she was nearly denied entry into Disneyland recently due to an outfit which was deemed a "costume" by the park staff.

Cal Performances

Alex Ross

Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues; Bass Lines of Music History

Thursday, October 14, 2010, 8pm

Wheeler Auditorium

Fleet Week

After hearing sonic booms over my neighborhood for the past 2 days, I accepted that if you can't beat 'em... So I walked to the Marina Green & joined the crowds at this afternoon's air show. It has been clear & cool this weekend, so one could not ask for better weather. I have to admit that I still get a thrill when I watch the Blue Angels roll in formation or fly so close that they look like they are going to fall on top of me. Stunt pilot Sean Tucker was one of their warm-up acts & performed spectacular maneuvers in a bright red, Oracle-branded bi-plane. There is something very human about his routine & the way he makes that plane corkscrew, somersault & tilt. At several points the plane hovers vertically, in defiance of gravity, & it seems to be a man with outstretched arms. I was close enough to the loudspeakers to hear the music & commentary that goes with the show. It was a bit freaky when they switched to Mr. Tucker's cockpit & he told the audience, through excited laughter, that the air show celebrates our American freedoms.

One end of the Marina Green had big inflatable structures for kids to play in. The weirdest attraction, though, was one in which an eager child is sealed in a large clear plastic balloon, which is then inflated & tossed into a wading pool. The kids flopped around in them like hamsters in a ball.





San Francisco Fleet Week
October 7 - 12, 2010

Saturday & Sunday: Full Air Show beginning at 1:00 and ending with the Blue Angels at 3:00-4:00pm. Excellent viewing along the waterfront from Marina Green to PIER 39.

Toy Theaters

Yesterday afternoon I went to see a small exhibit of paper toy theaters at the Museum of Performance & Design. The MPD's gallery space is the hallway going around the atrium on the 4th floor of the Veterans Building. The galley space feels peripheral in more ways than one. A law library occupies the central atrium.

The exhibit consists of modern toy theaters models plus original lithographic sheets containing sets & lively figures to cut out & place in the theaters. The exhibition notes that the layering of planes that create the illusion of depth in these toys is the same technique used by the multiplane camera on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum. Despite their size, the models have a lot of pictorial detail. The plays performed on them were sensational & exotic, as evidenced by scenes from "The Burning of Troy" & "The Explosion of the Mill" on display. A contemporary model depicts a scene from Turandot performed by pigs. The gallery provides a useful reference sheet for the exhibit, which includes links to wackily impressive fan sites.

I also took a quick walk through the other exhibits, which focus on the Bay Area performance scene. I learned that San Francisco's first performance of Wagner's Ring took place in 1900 at Morosco's Grand Opera House on Mission St. It was a touring production from Grau Metropolitan Grand Opera, & San Francisco gave them their greatest advance sale outside of New York. We were mad for opera even then.

Museum of Performance & Design
Toy Theatres: Worlds in Miniature
The exhibition is scheduled to run through the end of 2010

Walt Disney Family Museum

This weekend the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio has been celebrating its one year anniversary. I've been wanting to check out the museum, so I attended their Saturday Night Soiree, mainly to take advantage of the half-off admission. Apart from the evening hour, the only other thing that made it feel like a soiree was the sale of beverages in the lobby.

This boutique-like museum is not affiliated with the Disney company, & its focus is on Walt Disney the man, though it is impossible to separate him from his studio. The collection is extensive, including everything from Walt's baptismal certificate to cartoon tributes upon his death. A bench from Griffith Park somehow made its way into the museum as well. The 1st rooms focus on Walt's early life & first animation studio in Kansas City, Missouri. To get to the next galleries, one takes an elevator decked out like a train car, the elevator ride representing the Disney brothers' move to California. Subsequent galleries contain a wealth of documentation about the Disney studio, its films & projects. Video screens & interactive kiosks make available tons of additional material. There is really far too much to take in on one visit. Just when you think you're at the last gallery, you turn a corner to find even more. A spectacular room near the end features a model of Disneyland as Disney last envisioned it.

There were perhaps 40 people lined up when the doors opened for this event. Many of the attendees were Asian, & there were some families, though the museum is not really for children. The museum staff, in purple bellhop uniforms, all seem to be Disney fanatics themselves & have clearly received exemplary customer service training.

Saturday Night Soiree

Walt Disney Family Museum

6 PM to 9PM on Saturday, October 2

A Film Unfinished

I saw this eerie holocaust documentary this afternoon. The basis for the documentary is a silent film shot by the Nazis on location in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. At first, this film appears to document life in the ghetto, some of it looking comfortable, most of it brutal. A reel of outtakes reveals that it is actually staged, even street scenes showing SS men dispersing a crowd.

A Film Unfinished presents the raw documentary footage plus the outtakes, thoughtfully intercut with interviews of former ghetto residents watching the film & excerpts from an evasive post-war deposition by the cameraman Willy Wist. As one would expect, the images are visceral & powerful, especially the piercing, emaciated faces of the ghetto residents. Just as powerful is the modern-day footage of a ghetto survivor averting her eyes from the film at its most horrific moments. Because the ultimate purpose of the Nazi film is unclear, this documentary unfolds like a mystery story without a solution.

This is not something that is going to cheer anybody up, but it treats the content with an almost surgical calm & gives you room to think as well as to react. I like that the ghetto survivors are listed as "Witnesses" in the closing credits. Many of the people who attended the screening came in supplied with popcorn, snacks & soft drinks. I would not recommend this, as the film is replete with images of starvation.

A Film Unfinished

Director: Yael Hersonski

At Opera Plaza Cinema

PIXAR: 25 Years of Animation

This afternoon I visited the Oakland Museum to see the PIXAR exhibit. I've actually been excited to see this, but was waiting for the summer crowds to go away. It's a large show of the preliminary art for the Pixar films. Much of it is still done by hand. There are finished works in pencil, pastel, oil, gouache, acrylic & collage. I really liked the wall-sized colorscripts, which are high-level story boards showing the over-all mood & color scheme of an entire movie. Lou Romano's colorscript for The Incredibles is strikingly bold, with its flat colors & nearly abstract style.

I was especially eager to see the 3D Pixar Zoetrope. It is a turntable about 6 feet across, carrying life-size models of Toy Story characters. Once the turntable spins up, a strobe light comes on, & the models jump to life. It's magic. The Pixar Artscape installation is a 15 minute film projected on a screen about 5 times as wide as it is tall. It evokes the landscapes of the Pixar films, & one feels immersed in a richly textured world.

The show really has a lot, & there are many gems. I love the satirical drawing by Dominque R. Louis of Sullivan as a hairy blue monster in glasses & a tie, looking like a corporate drone. Neftali Alvarez's model of Carl Fredricksen's house is complete from all sides, even the bottom. Simón Vladimir Varela drew eerie seascapes in charcoal for Nemo. Videos provide behind-the-scenes glimpses of the artists & the production process.

The young children I saw seemed to enjoy running through the maze-like galleries more than looking at the art. Their behavior confirms that Pixar's target audience is really adults.

PIXAR: 25 Years of Animation
Oakland Museum of California
July 31 - January 9, 2011

Up-coming: Heidi Melton at Noe Valley Chamber Music

Another chance to hear soprano Heidi Melton: I see that she is now on the calendar of Noe Valley Chamber Music for Sunday, November 7 at 4:00pm. The note says she replaces Eleazar Rodriquez, who must have been booked before he got his European gig. Instead of her usual recital partner John Parr, pianist Allen Perriello will accompany her. Apparently the program will be opera arias. NVCM is in a small church venue. I attended once before, & I think we all just sat in folding chairs, which we helped put away afterward.

Free for All

I spent a few hours on Sunday at Cal Performances's first Free for All, a day of free performances on the U.C. Berkeley campus. Since they had performances happening simultaneously in different venues, one could sample only a fraction of the offerings. At 11am I showed up at Hertz Hall for an ample hour-long guitar recital by Marc Teicholz. I had planned to hear Teslim at Wheeler Hall at noon, but by the time I got there the venue was full. In fact the venue filled for every performance I attended. Cal Performances seemed well-prepared for the large turnout. Staffers in blue t-shirts made sure people got into lines & received programs & that performances more or less started on time.

I went back to Hertz Hall for the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows concert with sopranos Leah Crocetto & Sara Gartland, tenor Brian Jagde & pianist Tamara Sanikidze. Cal Performances Director Matías Tarnopolsky was on hand to introduce the performers & announce a 10% discount on single tickets purchased that day by Free for All attendees. The singers performed familiar opera scenes, starting with Sull'aria from Le Nozze di Figaro. The sopranos got a laugh when Ms. Crocetto, as the Countess, pulled out her iPhone & handed it to Ms. Gartland's Susanna, who typed out her message to the Count on it. Hertz Hall has a great acoustic for singers, & Ms. Crocetto's large voice felt like a physical force in that room.

I then headed to Zellerbach Hall where the line was so long that it already went out to the sidewalk & down into the underground parking lot. Once we got in, though, I was rewarded with a seat 3 rows from the stage. David Lenventhal & John Heginbotham of the Mark Morris Dance Group led people on stage & in the auditorium in some of Morris's witty choreography. The obvious glee with which everyone participated made me realize that even when we are audience members, deep in our hearts we really want to be the performers.

Fall Free for All!
Open House at Cal Performances
Sun, Sept 26, 11 am-6 pm
Zellerbach Hall, Lower Sproul Plaza,
Wheeler Auditorium, and Hertz Hall
Free and Open to the Public