SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY: The San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas present two semi-staged theatrical performances: a double-bill featuring Stravinsky's rarely heard operas The Nightingale and Oedipus Rex.
A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff directs Oedipus Rex, based on Sophocles's classic tragedy. It features an international cast of vocal soloists and British film, stage, and television actor Roger Rees. The magical fairy tale The Nightingale, directed by Patricia Birch, showcases an array of vocal soloists, actors, dancers, and members of the "avant-cabaret" Vau de Vire Society. Michael Tilson Thomas, one of the world's foremost interpreters of Stravinsky, leads both works. [Source: San Francisco Symphony]
Le Rossignol/Oedipus Rex, San Francisco
By Allan Ulrich [Financial Times, 13 December 2005]
Michael Tilson Thomas's annual forays into semi- staged opera have reaped revelatory results during his 11-year tenure at the San Francisco Symphony. The conductor's infrequent visits to the formal world of opera do not signify an antipathy to lyric theatre, but confirm his unfashionable belief that, in this collaborative venture, the music must nevertheless take priority over mise-en-scène.
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Stagings draw out Stravinsky's theatrical verve
Joshua Kosman [SF Chronicle, 10 December 2005]
Stravinsky's music all sounds different, and it all sounds fundamentally alike.
The two stage works that Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony undertook for Thursday's fascinating program in Davies Symphony Hall -- the shimmery fairy tale "The Nightingale" and the starkly neoclassical "Oedipus Rex" -- encompass wide leaps in style. Yet there's no mistaking the guiding sensibility at work behind every measure.