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LOVE FEST FOR MTT

LOVE FEST FOR MTT: April 26, 2025

San Francisco knows how to throw a Love Fest. For Michael Tilson Thomas’s 80th birthday, nothing better than the best of the best could do. MTT, as he is called, is now Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, and co-founder and artistic director laureate of the New World Symphony. He has won 12 Grammy Awards and conducted all the major orchestras in Europe and the US. However, San Francisco thinks of MTT as ours. His active participation in the life of the SF Symphony and through that his treating the City as home; that’s why the completely packed Davies Symphony Hall, even in the partial view seats, started teary and smiling and sharing stories before the concert began. San Francisco loves MTT, and we believe he loves us, too.

MTT has been living with a brain tumor. Still, he has come back to conduct first twice a year and then once a year. If you are wondering how he could conduct, his ability to conduct is still there. No question. What is gone is the physicality of his former conducting. There were the jumps, the great reach to the roof, both arms crossing together from left to right and then indicating one section or player with his baton. Oh, there were also the deep knee bends. He danced with force.

The first time MTT conducted the SF Symphony they played Mahler’s 9th. He became the Music Director in 1995. We need to remember that MTT’s Mahler concerts were so well known and admired that MAHLER was written on the side of Muni Buses.

Mayor Daniel Lurie names this day, MTT day, and awards him for the whole city.

MTT conducted two lengthy pieces, one at the beginning of the birthday program and another at the end. The opening was Benjamin Britten’s, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell, Opus 34 (1946). It is also called The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. While it might have educational aspects, it is, as Michael Steinberg wrote, “the work is very much worth playing for its sheer musical pleasure.” The music’s theme comes from Purcell’s revival of Abdelazar, or the Moor’s Revenge, a play by Aphra Behn. The music first identifies one section of instruments – maybe strings or percussion and the others. Then, Britten puts the orchestra back together in a fugue; he has themes for each section. The instruments play them one at a time and then together. It is happy, playful music which is not at all superficial; it brings music that bows and smiles. Wonderful choice.

Benjamin Britten, composer (1913 – 1974)

MTT also conducted Overture from Khantshe in Amerike, by Joseph Rumshinsky (arr. MTT), a composer originally from Lithuania and then lived in New York. He came to the US in 1904 because Boris Thomashefsky, MTT’s grandfather, asked him to come. Rumshinsky aided the Yiddish Theater and created it as a source of fine operettas. MTT produced The Thomashevskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater. Its premiere was at Carnegie Hall, 2005. I was thrilled to be in the audience for his presentation of The Thomashevskys on the Davies Symphony Hall stage. It was fun and touching with MTT’s music and music from the early 20thc.

Sasha Cooke, mezzo soprano
The next section of the celebration presented seven songs, five of them by MTT. Of the two that were not his were Claude Debussy’s La flute de Pan from Chansons de Bilitis (1897), sung by Frederica von Stade, mezzo soprano, John Wilson at the piano. Frank Loesser’s Take Back Your Mink, from Guys and Dolls (1950). The singers were stars. Three of them, Ben Jones, tenor; Jessica Vosk; and Sasha Cooke, mezzo soprano, got their career starts with help from MTT. Frederica von Stade and MTT have worked together since 1970. In Take Back Your Mink, the SF Symphony Chorus women added lively singing, dancing, and swinging somethings not mink. MTT’s songs are tender, sometimes ironically funny, personal in ways that most everyone thinks. The titles tell it: “Not Everyone Thinks That I’m Beautiful” (1985); “Drift Off to Sleep” (1982); Answered Prayers, 1974. The songs were a special way to know more of MTT. Unlike some other conductors who write music, Michael Tilson Thomas very rarely put his own work on an SFS program; it was his songs I most wanted to hear.

The after intermission concert started with a beautiful MTT song titled “Grace.” (1988) Sasha Cooke and Frederica von Stade gave the song thoughtfulness and shading of emotions. Very lovely. John Wilson on piano. The SFS Chorus, directed by Jenny Wong, reached into the heart of the music by Leonard Bernstein, the Finale from Chichester Psalms (1965). As Bernstein and MTT were good friends, it was the right selection for this birthday.

Leonard Bernstein in 1973. (Photo by Allan Warren/Creative Commons)

One more terrific, long piece to close the show; it was MTT conducting Roman Festivals (1928), by Ottorino Respighi. The movements are four festivals. Each one has a different energy and a different sound, rhythm, character. I had never heard it before and enjoyed it very much. The different movements included: Games at the Circus Maximus, The Jubilee, The October Festival, and The Epiphany.

Planning a program is an art. Our Maestro made wise choices for what he would conduct. Excellent music that might not be the “usual” thing, two long pieces which had interesting changes of emotion and rhythm, and, most of all, demonstrated that despite his condition, MTT, you’ve still got it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MTT!

Photos by Stefan Cohen, courtesy of SF Symphony

 

 

Boris Godunov: San Francisco Symphony Triumphs

The San Francisco Symphony’s presentation of Boris Godunov, Modest Mussorgsky’s magnificent opera, was sensational. On Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas’ long list of semi-staged productions, this one may be the best, which is saying a lot. Mussorgsky, composer and librettist, based the opera on Alexander Pushkin’s play, written, in 1827. The Russian censors kept the play off the stage until 1866 portrayals of a czar were not allowed. Mussorgsky had to obtain a special license for his opera which he finished it in 1869.  If the plot seems tangled it’s because the historical subject, set in 1598-1605, is impossible to clarify.

. Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

When Ivan the Terrible died, his son, Fyodor, became Czar. He was truly too good to rule and allowed his brother-in-law and head minister, Boris Gudonov, to take charge. Boris was not troubled by ethics. Fyodor’s half-brother and true heir, Dmitri, died in mysterious circumstances. Ironically, the Hedgehogs saw the opera on Father’s Day. Pushkin decided Boris was the murderer. Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn’t. Think of Shakespeare blaming it all on Richard III and the evidence that even if he was a rotten guy, he wasn’t the murderer of the little princes in the Tower. The power of a good story always, shall we say, trumps the facts. In the opera, Boris is tortured by guilt, but it is not plainly revealed for what. He knows that the public blames him for bad crops, bad weather, and the death of Dmitri. He sings that he poisoned his family, but he says that just after complaining that the public blames him for everything. So, the comment may be part of the list of things he didn’t do. Mussorgsky does not give anything away. In fact, there are no facts except that everyone is plotting, lying, and when possible, killing. The San Francisco Symphony Chorus, representing the long suffering Russian people, suffers and, short of bread, devours what ever rumors come to it, even when they contradict the last set of rumors they devoured. This opera is about the evils of Fake News.

Stanislav Trofimov sang the role of Boris Godunov

The cast was impressive both for brilliant voices and for portrayals of the rascally, deceiving, greedy for power characters. Mr. Trofimov’s every movement and expression revealed Boris’ deep emotions. What a voice! His powerful bass was resilient at every note. He was fearful for himself, his son and daughter and, he was right to be. Soon after Boris’ death, strangers appear to capture the czar’s heirs. The daughter has a blindfold over her face and is manhandled off the stage. They are not playing pin the tail on the donkey. Yvegeny Akimov played Prince Shuisky. Isn’t it great to have a tenor be a bad guy? He was a manipulative liar, like Iago in Othello, and like Charles Boyer in the movie Gaslight, he worked to drive Boris mad. He appeared to support Boris, but flipped allegiances quickly. Shuisky belonged to no side except his side. His strong, flexible voice fascinated the audience. When the Czar and Shuisky physically assault each other, it is over for the Russians.

Yevgeny Akimov portrayed Prince Shuisky

They were all bad guys, as it turns out, but as singers they were over the top fantastic. It is a huge cast and more than this writer can fit into a Hedghog entry, though each deserves bouquets. All but two of the male roles were taken by Russian singers. The solemn friar, Pemin, was played by Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev. He seems dedicated to religion and writing Chronicles of his era. It’s good to remember that the historian, especially when he is the only historian, is in the best position to make sure it is his party which wins–in the very long run. It will be his Fake News handed down through centuries, or at least until more people become literate and record their own favorite lies. Sergei Skorokhodov sang the role of Grigory, the Pretender. He first appears as a monk longing for contact with the real world of armies and adventure. He manages to elude those sent to capture him and survives to present himself, all cleaned up, as Dmitri, believed to be dead but now back to claim his throne. Baritone Aleksey Bogdanov sang Andrei Shchelkalov, the Secretary of the Duma (Russia’s “parliament” of aristocratic advisors). In history, Shchelkalov was a greatly feared “diplomat;” in the opera, Bogdanov gave him a calming presence. He speaks for Russia itself. Bogdanov’s appearances provide brief feelings of certainty in the midst of chaos. The presence of a Holy Fool extends the sense of Shakespearean theater that courses through Mussorgsky’s libretto. In Shakespeare, the Fool is there to speak the truth, even if in riddles and songs. This being set in Russia in the last years of the 16th and first few of the 17th century, he is Holy. Tenor Stanislav Mostovoy turned this small role into a powerful light in the midst of darkness. The American tenor, Ben Jones, played Missal, and American bass-baritone Philip Skinner was Niktich. Each left his mark embodying the characters with voice and stage presence.

Catherine Cook appeared as the Innkeeper.

There are only a few female roles. Each one was sung by singers who can hold the stage. Soprano Jennifer Zetlan portrayed Boris’ daughter. A delicate woman who lost her fiance to political murder, she is sad and needs the comfort of her Nurse, sung by mezzo-soprano Sylvie Jensen. Catherine Cook played the Innkeeper with a robust mezzo-soprano voice and a canny way with government guards as well as outlaws. The Czar’s son was a trouser role for mezzo-soprano Eliza Bonet. She projected the defiance, fear, and confusion of the young man who was the legitimate heir of the not exactly legitimate Czar.

Left: Wiliam Shakespeare (1564-1616; Right: Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)

In the Elizabethan world view, the ruler is truly the head of the nation. If the head is lost, ill, displaced by someone who does not belong on the throne, the body of the country will suffer civil wars, famines, plagues, foreign invasions until the rightful ruler is in place. Pushkin admired Shakespeare and, from his vantage point in Russia, would have understood that the metaphor played out in horrible chaos in the real world. If the head of the nation has no interest in the health of the people, their works, the country’s forests and rivers, it is also a case of the head being sick and infecting the body of the country. Nothing will be right until that one is removed. Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and a long series of successors had to be removed. It’s the trick of great art: it lets one experience chaos, the dissolution of civilization, while sitting safely in a chair believing it couldn’t happen here.