Jake Heggie’s Feel-Good Opera Packs a Lesson by Jeff Dunn Fine singing, a thin adaptation, tune-starved but inoffensive music, and an awkward set characterize San Francisco Opera’s third delivery from composer Jake Heggie, after successes with Dead Man Walking in 2000 and Moby-Dick in 2012. True to Frank Capra’s 1946 Christmas movie It’s a…
John Adams’ Premiere More Ken Burns than Ken Branagh by Jeff Dunn Why do I go to opera? For the same reason that tenor Andrea Bocelli does: “… because opera offers such deep sensations that they will remain in a heart for a lifetime.” Excellent singing, staging, and pit work distinguish San Francisco Opera’s…
Rebecca Gilman’s Documentary Honesty Hits Home by Jeff Dunn Are you considering a career in social work? Want to be a hero? Well, you will get a whiff of reality at Rebecca Gilman’s harrowing, almost documentary-style “Luna Gale” at the Aurora Theatre. There, I followed a social worker as she tries to do her…
Sarah Ruhl’s Vision Resonates in Caroline Clark’s Staging by Jeff Dunn Sarah Ruhl’s humorous and poignant play seems to be about quaint, yet effective 19th-century sexual vibrators. Later, we realize that the machines she depicts are cunning stand-ins—symbols for the arts themselves and how they stimulate our senses. There’s a lot of art, artifice,…