It was an intimate setting for a choir, the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco. Rows of benches slanted on either side of the polished grand piano, which stood like grand pianos. Thirty-five choir members, all dressed in black, took their places in a solemn procession. Ian Robertson, San Francisco Chorus Master, and Fabrizio Corona, Associate Chorus Master, followed.

It was immediate and personal, but far from informal. The entire performance was sovereign in its polished performance. It was festive and bittersweet as the choir bid farewell to Ian Robertson after his 35-year tenure. This concert was full of miracles.

The concert spanned 300 years of music, from excerpts from Charpentier’s “Te Deum” and Bach’s “Wohl mir, das ich Jesum” from Cantata BWV 147 to Leonard Bernstein’s “Make Our Garden Grow” from “Candide”. It included choices in Latin, French, German, Spanish, English; Opera from Handel and Mozart to Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini; Poetry; Folk songs and much more. The moods ranged from devout to a little salty, melancholy to happy, each piece its own island of beauty and commentary, the texts projected onto a large wall that worked smoothly and effectively. Who could ask for more?

A lively leader

Ian Robertson conducted and related his attunement to the audience, the content and style of the music, and the choir members and accompanist Fabrizio Contorno created a performance narrative that remained both interesting and aesthetic. No wonder the San Francisco Opera Chorus performed so well during the years of Ian Robertson’s tenure. It was the perfect combination of leadership, music and performance.

The soloists and choir members worked in perfect harmony. Clare Demer, Sara Colburn, Whitney Steele, Andrew Truett, Mitchell Jones offered a rich and beautiful start to the concert with the “Te Deum”. Thomas and Demer have reproduced selections from “Idomeneo” and “L’Elisir d’Amore” with extraordinary finesse. Michael Jankosky delivered a touching Edgardo from “Lucia di Lammermoor”. The choir supplemented this with a moving performance of the “Humming Chorus” from Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”, which was sung especially to commemorate the many losses caused by the pandemic.

This was followed by colorful portraits of “Noi siamo zingarelle” and “Di Madride noi siamo mattadori” from Verdi’s “La Traviata”. To highlight these, as Robertson and Contorno did, was to highlight just a few of the varied textures that a great opera like “La Traviata” contains. They remind us that it’s not just the centerpieces that make it shine. The well-known choir “Va, Pensiero” from Verdi’s “Nabucco” ended the first half.

Putting women composers in the spotlight

The second half was great with repertoire choices, especially with a number of female composers. While choirs from Offenbach’s “La Belle Helene” started, the moving chorus of “Dead Soldiers” by Jennifer Higdon, “Cold Mountain”, set the tone with haunting lyrics to Civil War dead with a men chorus. In addition to Jennifer Higdon, we heard works by Joan Szymko, Gabriela Lena Frank, Kate Rusby and Cava Menzies, whose “Invitation to Love”, based on a wonderful poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, premiered. Menzies, who was present, got up to bow. The music was rich and original, the lyrics moving and captivating. The future was there, unfolding, and it was right.

Among the soloists we heard Kathleen Bayler, soprano, and Phillip Pickens, tenor, in a Picante duet “Bailèro” from Canteloube’s “Songs of the Auvergne”; and Angela Moser, Silvie Jensen, Alan Cochran, Mitchell Jones, who perform Ravel’s delightful “Trois Chansons”. This was followed by Joan Szymko’s “All Works of Love” with texts by Mother Teresa, which inspired the reflective strand of the concert, which was interwoven throughout.

A wonderful contrast followed when Michael Belle sang “We’re goin ’round'” from “Treemonisha” by Scott Joplin, which made us want to hear more. The “mountain songs” of the Peruvian Andes came after that and were only sung by the women. They were complex in their rhythms and rendered breathtakingly. Elizabeth Baker, mezzo-soprano, did more than justice to Underneath the Stars, composed by Kate Rusby and arranged by Jim Clements.

Before the “Candide” finale, Matthew Shilvock, General Manager of the San Francisco Opera, gave a formal “Ave” and “Atque Vale (Hail and Farewell)” to Robertson. It was graceful and graceful, listing the 2,000 performances and over 375 productions that Robertson mastered. Shilvock also commended Robertson for creating a family of singers, each with a passion for excellence. Even the happy audience felt the authenticity.

“Make our Garden Grow”, a lyrical interpretation by the well-known American poet Richard Wilbur of Voltaire’s famous “Il faut que nous cultivar notre jardin” was the “Pièce de résistance”. Jesslynn Thomas, Chester Pidduck, Claire Kelm, William O’Neill and Wilford Kelly said goodbye to us wonderfully. This is a good reminder for today – in the world where we seek to be connected, we sometimes push boundaries.

We left the theater, enriched by this diversity of talent and imagination, and we were filled with gratitude shared by Ian Robertson and the San Francisco Chorus as we have so many seasons. Hats off to the conductor, accompanist and all the performers in the group.

The post San Francisco Opera Refrain 2021-22 Evaluation: Farewell Live performance for Ian Robertson appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Ian Holm, a versatile British actor whose long career included roles in Chariots of Fire and The Lord of the Rings, has died. He was 88.

Holm died peacefully in a hospital on Friday morning, surrounded by his family and carer, his agent Alex Irwin said in a statement. His illness was caused by Parkinson’s.

“His sparkling joke was always accompanied by a mischievous wink,” said Irwin. “Charming, friendly and incredibly talented, we will miss him very much.”

Holm has appeared in numerous films, both large and small, from costume dramas to fantasy epics. A generation of moviegoers knows him as Bilbo Baggins in the trilogies “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”.

He won a British Academy Film Award and an Oscar nomination for a supporting actor for portraying groundbreaking athletics coach Sam Mussabini in the hit 1982 film “Chariots of Fire.”

His other film roles include Father Cornelius in “The Fifth Element”, Android Ash in “Alien”, a skilled lawyer in “The Sweet Hereafter”, Napoleon Bonaparte in “Time Bandits”, writer Lewis Carroll in “Dreamchild”. “And a royal doctor in” The Madness of King George “.

He was also a charismatic stage actor who won a Tony Award for Best Actor in 1967 as Lenny in Harold Pinter’s play “The Homecoming”.

He was a long-time member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, but a crippling stage fright that appeared during a production of “The Iceman Cometh” in 1976 kept him off the stage for many years.

“I think that happens to actors quite a lot,” Holm told the Associated Press in 1998. “They lose their nerve. You may think it’s a crazy way of making a living or whatever. Fortunately, I was employed in the other media. I could have frozen in front of the camera and I would have had to be a chimney sweep or something. “

He returned to live performances and won the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of “King Lear” at the National Theater.

Holm was knighted in 1998 for his services to the theater.

Mia Farrow said he was “among the giants of the theater”.

“We met while working at the RSC, where he was caught in the middle of the performance of Iceman Cometh and he left the stage for 14 years,” she tweeted. “He worked in films and on television – infallibly brilliant.”

Gregory Doran, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, called Holm “one of the RSC greats”

“Ian was completely original. One of a kind, ”said Doran. “He had a simmering coolness, a compressed volcanic sense of savagery, of danger, a pressure cooker performer, a rare and great talent. It’s a great ghost gone. “

Holm was married four times and had five children.

The post ‘Chariots of Fireplace,’ ‘Lord of the Rings’ Actor Ian Holm Dies – NBC Los Angeles appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Ian Holm, a versatile British actor whose long career included roles in Chariots of Fire and The Lord of the Rings, has died. He was 88.

Holm died peacefully in a hospital on Friday morning, surrounded by his family and carer, his agent Alex Irwin said in a statement. His illness was caused by Parkinson’s.

“His sparkling joke was always accompanied by a mischievous wink,” said Irwin. “Charming, friendly and incredibly talented, we will miss him very much.”

Holm has appeared in numerous films, both large and small, from costume dramas to fantasy epics. A generation of moviegoers knows him as Bilbo Baggins in the trilogies “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”.

He won a British Academy Film Award and an Oscar nomination for supporting actor for portraying groundbreaking running coach Sam Mussabini in the hit 1982 film “Chariots of Fire.”

His other film roles have included Father Cornelius in The Fifth Element, Android Ash in Alien, a skilled lawyer in The Sweet Hereafter, Napoleon Bonaparte in Time Bandits, writer Lewis Carroll in Dreamchild and a royal doctor in “The Madness of King George”.

He was also a charismatic stage actor who won a Tony Award for Best Actor in 1967 as Lenny in Harold Pinter’s play “The Homecoming”.

He was a long-time member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, but a crippling stage fright that hit him in 1976 during a production of “The Iceman Cometh” kept him off the stage for many years.

“I think that happens to actors quite a lot,” Holm told the Associated Press in 1998. “They lose their nerve. You may think it’s a crazy way of making a living or whatever. Fortunately, I was employed in the other media. I could have frozen in front of the camera and I would have had to be a chimney sweep or something. “

He eventually returned to live performances and won a 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of “King Lear” at the National Theater.

Holm was knighted in 1998 for his services to the theater.

Mia Farrow said he was “among the giants of the theater”.

“We met while working at the RSC, where he was caught in the middle of the performance of Iceman Cometh and he left the stage for 14 years,” she tweeted. “He’s worked in films and on television – infallibly brilliant.”

Gregory Doran, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, called Holm “one of the RSC greats”

“Ian was completely original. Completely an isolated case, ”said Doran. “He had a sizzling coolness, a compressed volcanic sense of savagery, of danger, a pressure cooker performer, a rare and great talent. It’s a great ghost gone. “

Holm was married four times and had five children.

The post Ian Holm dies at 88; actor appeared in ‘Lord of the Rings’ appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Ian Holm, a versatile British actor whose long career included roles in “Chariots of Fire” and “The Lord of the Rings”, has died. He was 88 years old.

Holm died peacefully in a hospital Friday morning surrounded by his family and caregiver, his agent Alex Irwin said in a statement. His illness was linked to Parkinson’s.

“His sparkling joke always went with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes,” said Irwin. “Charming, friendly and incredibly talented, we will miss him very much.”

Holm has appeared in numerous films, both large and small, from costume dramas to fantasy epics. A generation of moviegoers knows him in the trilogies “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” as Bilbo Baggins.

He won a British Academy Film Award and received an Oscar nomination for supporting actor for portraying pioneering athletics coach Sam Mussabini in the 1982 film Chariots of Fire.

His other film roles have included Father Cornelius in “The Fifth Element,” Android Ash in “Alien,” a smooth-speaking lawyer in “The Sweet Herwhile,” Napoleon Bonaparte in “Time Bandits,” and the writer Lewis Carroll in “Dreamchild” and a royal doctor in “The Madness of King George”.

He was also a charismatic stage actor who won a Tony Award for Best Actor as Lenny in Harold Pinter’s 1967 play “The Homecoming”.

He was a longtime member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, though a bout of debilitating stage fright that appeared during a 1976 production of “The Iceman Cometh” kept him off the stage for many years.

“I think it happens to actors pretty often,” Holm told the Associated Press in 1998. “You’re losing your nerve. You may think it’s a crazy way of making a living or whatever. I was lucky enough to be in the other media.” I could have frozen in front of a camera, and I would have had to be a chimney sweep or something. “

He returned to his live performance and won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in 1998 for his performance in the title role of “King Lear” at the National Theater.

Holm was knighted in 1998 for services to the drama.

Mia Farrow said he was “among the giants of the theater”.

“We met while we were working at the RSC, where terror seized him during the performance of Iceman Cometh and he left the stage – for 14 years,” she tweeted. “He’s worked in films and on television – all brilliantly.”

Gregory Doran, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, described Holm as “one of the greats of the RSC”.

“Ian was completely original. Totally unique, “said Doran.” He had a boiling coolness, a compressed volcanic sense of ferocity, danger, a pressure cooker actor, a rare and great talent. It’s a great mind gone. “

Holm was married four times and had five children.

The post ‘Chariots of Fireplace,’ ‘Lord of the Rings’ Actor Ian Holm Dies – NBC Bay Space appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.