Reviews

Two major masterpieces dominated Friday's opening of the annual Midsummer Mozart Festival as George Cleve conducted his merry band with two important soloists in Herbst Theatre. Each piece was a prelude to a somewhat lesser Mozartian work, but all of it was so well-presented that this hardly mattered. Cleve opened with the Divertimento No. 7 in D Major, K. 205, and the Piano Concerto No.

Bach's Mass in B Minor can be a work of grandeur, just as it can be a miscellany of movements gathered from various of his cantatas with the original words replaced by those of the Latin Mass. Either, and even more possibilities, can readily be justified, or at least rationalized.

Benjamin Britten's opera Albert Herring is something of a miracle. From the pen of a composer inclined to Christian moralizing and examining the dark underbelly of the human psyche came, soon after Peter Grimes, this delightful chamber opera, which poked fun at tight-buttoned British moralists and celebrated the free expression of human passions.

The Music at Menlo Chamber Music Festival launched its sixth season Saturday with a reprise of its first year's programming concept: "The Unfolding of Music." Although the title may be a bit opaque (how, exactly, does one "fold" music?), the idea is an ambitious one.

Unusual as it may be to mention the economy and other seemingly extraneous items right at the top of a concert review, the unusual nature of said economy (and its relationship to the arts) well warrants doing so here. First impression Saturday at the beginning of the third season of Festival del Sole in Napa: a full Lincoln Theater, the cavernous space filled probably more than at previous gala op

Long before composer Philip Glass' latest bevy of fans alighted on Planet Earth, scores of people filled Radio City Music Hall to witness the 1982 premiere of Godfrey Reggio's multiple award-winning film, Koyaanisqatsi.

The American Bach Soloists began, 20 years ago, as an ensemble formed by tenor and conductor Jeffrey Thomas specifically to perform the Bach choral/vocal works.

Il trovatore isn’t Verdi’s most popular or frequently performed work, but for many opera lovers (this reviewer included) it’s always been impossible to resist.

Five of the Bay Area's many inventive musical experimentalists were on display last Friday at the Royce Gallery in San Francisco, in the initial installment of Pamela Z's summer chamber music series called "room." This first of four concerts, to be given every other Friday through July and August, was titled "Batterie!" and featured performers who all made use of percussion in some way. The concer

There are always questions when small opera companies take on large works. Will a pared-down ensemble achieve the same effects of a full orchestra? Will the singers manage roles written for bigger voices? Will it work? In Berkeley Opera’s case, the answer to these questions is usually a resounding yes.