Composer Nolan Gasser’s opera “The Secret Garden,” based on the moving story from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic 1910 book, is a feast for the eyes and ears.
The joint San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances presentation is meant to attract families. Sunday’s matinee audience at Zellerbach Hall was filled with young folks who were quietly attentive and enthusiastic with applause.
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A highlight among San Francisco Symphony’s 2013-14 exciting season offerings, announced today, is a semi-staged production of Benjamin Britten’s majestic opera “Peter Grimes.” Conducted by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, the cast features four internationally acclaimed Merola-Adler program veterans, including tenor Stuart Skelton in the title role.
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Choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky's “Le Sacre du printemps,” the grotesque and powerful Serge Diaghilev Ballet Russes dance set to Igor Stravinsky's savage score, was famous for causing a riot in Paris at its premiere on May 29, 1913.
In the next century followed a dozen variations on "The Rite of Spring" by other various choreographers; few are better than Yuri Possokhov’s new one created for San Francisco Ballet, which premiered Tuesday in the War Memorial Opera House.
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What is Jewish music? Judging from the lineup for the 38th annual Jewish Music Festival, it’s a culture without borders or one definitive style.
The 10-day festival, opening Saturday in Berkeley, presents jazz, folk, classical and contemporary works from around the world.
While Poland is the focus of the 2013 festival, True Life Trio, performing Sunday, is one among many acts with a lineup that represents a thousand years of Jewish life and a legacy that is truly global.
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David Gockley is again the catalyst for a rare venture: an opera created with families in mind.
With Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” among the few operas written for children, the San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances aim to add to the under-represented genre with “The Secret Garden.”
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Emperor Qin Shihuang was not paranoid. The man who brutally forged China from separate states 2,200 years ago really did have deadly enemies everywhere.He was “great and ruthless,” said Asian Art Museum Director Jay Xu at the recent preview for the museum’s new exhibition, “China’s Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor’s Legacy.” Xu, an archeologist by training, was in seventh heaven talking about the display, on view through May 27, which showcases one of the greatest archeological discoveries in history.
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Vaslav Nijinsky — a great, troubled, self-destructive artist who spent the end of his life in psychiatric hospitals — was the world’s most famous dancer a century ago.
His shocking story is the subject of “Nijinsky,” a bold, full-length ballet by choreographer John Neumeier, the Wisconsin-born dancer who has headed the Hamburg Ballet for 40 years.
Neumeier, 74, brings his troupe to the War Memorial Opera House this week to perform the piece, which premiered in 2000, in the San Francisco Ballet’s Program 2.
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The San Francisco Ballet got its 80th season off to a start with a gala performance Thursday at the War Memorial Opera House that pleasantly included popular selections and substantial pieces in equal measure.
Among the old favorites were the third-act grand pas de deux from “Don Quixote” in which Frances Chung and Taras Domitro danced with brilliance and affecting musicality.
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San Francisco Ballet got its 80th season off to a start with gala performance on Thursday at the War Memorial Opera House that pleasantly included popular selections and substantial pieces in equal measure.
Among the old favorites were the third-act Grand pas de Deux from "Don Quixote” in which Frances Chung and Taras Domitro danced with brilliance and affecting musicality.
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Unlike some opera singers, Laurie Rubin loves computers. The mezzo-soprano, performing Monday at Congregation Emanu-El in concert with Frederica von Stade, is a whiz with email, using Voiceover on a Macbook Pro.
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Anything Goes" has everything going for it: fabulous music, boffo production numbers, clever lyrics and nonstop charm.
Roundabout Theatre Company’s Tony Award-winning, snazzy revival of Cole Porter’s evergreen 1934 musical, which opened Wednesday at the Golden Gate Theatre, serves up nearly three hours of toe-tapping fun.
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“Tunes for tots on tumbling mats!” sounds like an ad for a toy, but it’s actually the theme of a free Bay Area music program.
Presented by the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra with collaboration from Crowden Music School in Berkeley, “Very First Concerts” introduces classical music to babies, toddlers and older children.
Visitors ages “0 to 6” and their families and friends are heartily invited to attend the series, which begins its 2013 programming this month with “The Art of Listening” in San Mateo and Berkeley.
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San Francisco Ballet music director and principal conductor Martin West is pleased to be preparing a “huge range of music” for the troupe’s upcoming 80th season, opening Jan. 29.
"From the Baroque music of Scarlatti to contemporary, such as John Adam’s ‘Guide to Strange Places,’ it’s never a dull day,” says West, who presides over the company’s integral, expansive and expensive orchestral program — a rare thing in today’s climate of tight budgets for the arts.
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The San Francisco Zoo is putting on a big holiday show for the first time, and it’s lighting up the evening.
Zoo Lights, running from 4 to 8 p.m. today through Sunday, offers special exhibits, neon animals, animal topiary sculptures, garlanded trees, a spectacular 30-foot Christmas tree and nightly main-stage entertainment.
A decorated path leads from the entrance, which looks like a “Nutcracker” set flanked by animal sculptures in lights, to an Entry Village and the ornamented, historic Dentzel Carousel, where visitors may ride for free.
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Orion has enormous antlers, but Polaris’ much smaller ones are of particular scientific interest.
The two Arctic reindeer, or caribou, are in residence at the California Academy of Sciences’ East Garden during the museum’s celebration of the winter holidays.
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URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/people/janos-gereben?page=1
