Month: November 2018

Two fabulous French artists descend on Davies Symphony Hall on Sunday.  Gautier Capuçon and Jean-Yves Thibaudet are in recital – as guests of the San Francisco Symphony – for one performance only. Capuçon – whom The Arts Desk rates “among the greatest cellists” – regularly appears with many of the world’s finest conductors and instrumentalists,…

For the Festive Season, the San Francisco Playhouse presents a popular family musical – Mary Poppins – the story of the “practically perfect” nanny who brings order, a touch of magic, and more than a dose of common sense to the London household of George and Winifred Banks. Susi Damilano directs this production for the…

There can be few filmgoers or TV viewers who’ve not heard of Frank Capra’s 1946 classic film, It’s a Wonderful Life – and since 2016, this uplifting and inspirational story has also found its way into the opera repertoire, thanks to composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer. These gifted artists premiered their work at…

San Francisco Symphony Music Director, Michael Tilson Thomas, leads the Symphony this week in a program both poignant and celebratory, the first of two programs marking the 70th anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There are two works in this first program – a narration of extracts from The Diary of…

La Sylphide – one of the world’s oldest surviving ballets – opens the new Bolshoi in Cinema season this weekend, with a screening of Johan Kobborg’s highly acclaimed staging of this romantic work, which has become synonymous with the name of Danish ballet master August Bournonville. The original version of La Sylphide was premiered in…

One might be forgiven for thinking of Bartók and Shostakovich as two of the bad boys of 20th century classical music, since each of their works featured in this week’s San Francisco Symphony concerts was initially either banned (in the case of Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin) or held back from publication (in the case of…