San Francisco
(Bay Area)

COOL RACH TAKES BACK SEAT TO HOT BARTí“K It’s a strange thing about expectations. San Francisco Symphony made it clear who the headliner was for last night’s program, but Slovakian guest conductor Juraj Valčuha’s rendition of Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin outdid pianist Garrick Ohlsson’s Rach III. Valčuha kicked-off the first half with Steven Stucky’s brief,…

SWAN IN A MILLION Featuring a live performance by the Berkeley Symphony with guest conductor Nicolette Fraillon, The Australian Ballet’s Swan Lake comes to Zellerbach Hall this weekend, October 16-19, 2014. While this is one of the world’s favorite ballets, expect this rendition’”created by Australian choreographer Graeme Murphy’”to be unlike any that have come before….

DO I FEAR A WALTZ? Musicals are generally “lost” for any one of a number of reasons: the libretto may be filled with once topical socio-political humor now meaningless to contemporary audiences; it’s too expensive to produce; the score may have gone out of fashion; or the show itself just doesn’t work. The latter is…

THE GREATER GOOD When is “enough” enough? Where do you draw the line? How far would you be willing to go for the “Greater Good”? These are some of the difficult questions posed by playwright Aaron Loeb’s darkly hilarious and deeply disturbing satire, Ideation, which opened San Francisco Playhouse’s 12th season.   Originally developed and produced…

JOURNEY BEYOND THE STARS Stanley Kubrick’s decision to use the first section of Richard Strauss’s exquisite Also Sprach Zarathustra, Opus 30 (1896) to underscore the opening sequence of his classic 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey may have been a master stroke; but the average moviegoer was, and still is, unfamiliar with the entire symphonic…

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN As a child, I always hated clowns. At best they were weird; at worst just plain scary. And, to top it off, they weren’t even funny, at least not to me. Why then were they always hovering at birthday parties like some ill-dressed stalker? Was there something I was missing?…

THIS WICKED MAGIC SHOW WILL CAST AN ENCHANTED GODSPELL Teddy Bear’s; Fanny’s; Trinity Place; 132 Bush; the Plush Room; The Mint; Josie’s; the list goes on and on. Time was when San Francisco was overrun with cabarets and showrooms; a close-knit circuit of performance venues, where, for a small cover charge and the price of…

THE CAT’S MEOW MEOW: PURRRRRFECT When you hear the words “performance art,” do you envision a motionless Marina Abramovic allowing a 10-foot boa constrictor to wrap itself around her head? Well, prepare to have your preconceptions, and your mind, blown away by the fabulous Meow Meow.   This gorgeous and accomplished singer, dancer, librettist, lyricist, comedienne,…

SUSANNAH SOARS IN SAN FRANCISCO Susannah may be a tragedy, but the San Francisco Opera production is worthy of a hoedown celebration.   This near-perfect production is one of the best operas I’ve seen in the past decade. 88-year-old composer and librettist Carlisle Floyd was in attendance on opening night, so it was an emotional experience…

HE COULD HAVE SUNG ALL NIGHT Handsome, self-effacing, and charmingly humble, singer/songwriter, Broadway actor (Xanadu, Finian’s Rainbow) and film/TV star (United 93, 30 Rock) Cheyenne Jackson could do no wrong in the eyes of his adoring fans, who packed Davies Symphony Hall for the premiere performance of Hello, Gorgeous!, his newly created tribute to songs…

DELIVERING THE GOODS WITH INTO THE WOODS Somewhere between “Once Upon a Time” and “Happily Ever After” there is a very adult world of tests, losses, disappointments, and grief. Despite this, we assert our agency; or as a baker’s wife sings in Into the Woods, “If you know what you want, then you go and…

ONCE NIGHT ONLY Pretend for a moment that One Night Only Cabaret wasn’t a fundraiser for both Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation (REAF). Pretend that you were simply going to a cabaret which just happened to headline cast members of the national tour of Once (now playing at the Curran Theatre)….

WE DELIGHT IN THE BEAUTY OF THE BUTTERFLY For those who saw the visually striking production of San Francisco Opera’s The Magic Flute (2012), designed by the ceramic artist and sculptor Jun Kaneko, an even greater treat is in store as Kaneko returns with a new-to-San Francisco production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, starring the in-demand…

A BUFFALO NEVER THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION The dialogue you will hear and the people you will meet in Aurora Theatre’s production of David Mamet’s American Buffalo have both become hallmarks for this prolific writer. The Duck Variations (1972) and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974) proclaimed Mamet as a new voice in American theater, but it…

GREAT BRITTEN Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony conclude the 2013-14 season with three weeks of concerts beginning today and running through June 29 that celebrate the centenary of English composer Benjamin Britten. These smartly compiled concerts explore Britten’s works for opera, vocal music, ballet, and orchestra, and span the prolific career of…

THE HEROINE MIGHT: BUT THIS OPERA WILL NEVER DIE When the theater lights fade to darkness at the War Memorial Opera House, the first notes of La Traviata will introduce a somber musical theme heard again in Act III’s prelude, leading to the final tragic ending. In between, you’ll get to know Violetta Valéry, and…

SHOW BOAT JUST KEEPS ROLLING ALONG At San Francisco Opera’s summer company premiere of Show Boat, the first image at the War Memorial Opera House is a proscenium-high curtain depicting an enlarged expressionistic image of a steamer’s paddle wheel and two narrow, black smoke stacks. There’s an alluring monumentality to the image, and the solid,…