San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
A very full schedule of recitals, operas and more
If the songwriter Cole Porter is to be believed, spring means just one thing to little lovebirds. To classical music aficionados in the Bay Area, though, it means something else — it’s time to run ourselves ragged from one promising event to another.
After a comparatively quiet start to the new year, the musical schedule is suddenly crammed with more promising recitals, concerts and opera productions than one person can easily get to. Some of them are literally scheduled for the same night.
It’s time, in other words, to make the hard choices.
SoundBox: Carol Reiley
Roboticist and AI researcher Carol Reiley, one of the eight Collaborative Partners that Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen has assembled as part of his artistic tenure with the San Francisco Symphony, is scheduled to curate the latest event for SoundBox, the orchestra’s alternative performance space.
What’s on the agenda? We don’t know, because she doesn’t know. Reiley is crowdsourcing repertoire suggestions online, from which she and her robot helpers will assemble the final result.
9 p.m. April 5-6. $65-$500. SoundBox, 300 Franklin St., S.F. 415-864-6000. www.sfsymphony.org
‘Birds & Balls’
Sports and opera make a rare but compelling combination in this double bill from Opera Parallèle. “Vinkensport, or the Finch Opera,” a collaboration from composer David T. Little and Royce Vavrek, is a story about the Flemish sport of competitive bird-calling, which is definitely a real thing.
Also on the bill is “Balls,”
composer Laura Karpman and librettist Gail Collins’ treatment of the Billy Jean KingBobby Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match.
April 5-7. $40-$205. SFJazz Center, 201 Franklin St., S.F. 415-788-7353. www.sfjazz.org
‘Book of Mountains and Seas’
Huang Ruo was recently announced as the composer for “The Monkey King,” a San Francisco Opera commission that is slated for a world premiere in 2025. To tide us over until then, Stanford Live brings us a collaboration between Ruo and puppeteer Basil Twist based on Chinese creation myths, featuring oversized puppets and a score for chorus and percussion.
April 6-7. $15-$110. Bing Concert Hall, 327 Lasuen St., Stanford. 650-724-2464. live.stan ford.edu
Jakub Józef Orlinski
The superb Polish countertenor, whose vocal splendor and physical dexterity crowned the San Francisco Opera production of Gluck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice” in 2022, makes a welcome return with a recital program of music by Baroque composers. Together with the periodinstrument
ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro, Orlinski is scheduled to sing arias by Monteverdi, Caccini, Frescobaldi and more. If we’re lucky, he might do some break-dancing as well.
7:30 p.m. April 9. $40-$96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. 510-642-9988. www.calperformances.org • 2:30 p.m. April 14. $5-$110. Bing Concert Hall, 327 Lasuen St., Stanford. 650-7242464. live.stanford.edu
Danish String Quartet
The ensemble’s multiyear commissioning project based on Schubert’s late-period string quartets comes to a climactic finish with a new work by the brilliant British composer Thomas Adès. His string quintet “Wreath” is scored with an extra cello, like the Schubert masterpiece for which it’s a companion. The Danish String Quartet, together with cellist Johannes Rostamo,
promises both works on a single program.
8 p.m. April 13. $60-$90. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. 510642-9988. www.calperformances. org
‘The Cunning Little Vixen’
Since succeeding founding director Donald Pippin at the helm of Pocket Opera, General Nicolas A. Garcia has taken this invaluable organization in new and unexpected directions. The latest work to be added to the company’s repertoire is Janácek’s beautiful, bittersweet fable about love among the woodland creatures (including humans). Soprano Amy Foote, who shone in West Edge Opera’s 2016 production, returns in the title role.
April 14-28. $30-$75. Locations in Berkeley, Mountain View and San Francisco. 415-972
Classical continues on G23