As San Francisco opera fans are wondering what stuffed-animal toys
Johannes Schaaf will exhibit in his "Onegin" production, opening next
week, Yuri Temirkanov arrived in town to conduct his St. Peterburg
Philharmonic in a series of three different programs in Davies Hall.

It was Temirkanov's conducting and stage direction that created a gold
standard for "Onegin" here, eight glorious performances in the War
Memorial in 1997, in his US opera debut.  Everything in that production
served Tchaikovsky, nothing called attention to the conductor-director.
Not a stuffed kangaroo in sight.

Every appearance by Temirkanov since - including and especially last
night and tonight - struck the same note: simplicity, sincerity, no
posing, posturing, pretending.  He is 66, just a teenager in conductor
years.  Going against the very grain of a music director's occupational
hazard, here is one artist who is never "imperial."

Speaking of which, the Imperial Music Choir / Petrograd Philharmonic /
Leningrad Philharmonic / St. Petersburg Philharmonic has never sounded
better, not even under Mravinsky.  Some recent tours by the Philharmonic
offered a mixed bag, a weak Mahler, blank, expressionless faces, a mix
of good playing and bad.  It's all roses and daffodils now, amazing,
rousing, satisfying music-making.  String, woodwinds, brass are all
singing gorgeously.

This time, Temirkanov and the Philharmonic were flawless in such
transparent works as Prokofiev's "Classical Symphony," and three pieces
from "The Love for Three Oranges"; unshowy but solid in Dvorak's Symphony
No. 8 and Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique." But the sensation of these concerts
were the concerti.  By his soloists you shall know the conductor: last
night, Vadim Repin played his heart out (and, more importantly, played
*from* the heart) in the Prokofiev Concerto No. 1; tonight, a musician
in the Temirkanov mold of grand simplicity, Lynn Harrell, played the
Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 with stunning intensity and quiet
power.  In the long, complex cadenza, which is like no other in all
music, Harrell's meditation created a hush, one of those moments when a
crowded hall breathes together, becomes one.

Then, before a softly-singing, straightforward and yet heavenly encore
- of Bach's Sarabande in C minor from the Fifth Suite - Harrell briefly
addressed his adoring audience, bringing the subject of opera back in
focus.  It was a special event for him, the cellist said, because San
Francisco is the place for his final appearance with the Philharmonic
on the tour, because "my first cello teacher is in the audience," and
because "my father sang here in `Traviata' in 1945."

If you look up Mack Harrell's record, you will find the much-featured
baritone in the SF Opera "Carmen," "Der Rosenkavalier," "Don Giovanni,"
"L'Heure Espagnole," "Tales of Hoffmann" and "I Pagliacci" that year,
his Germont actually coming in 1946, along with other Escamillos,
Marcellos, appearances in "Fidelio" and "Lohengrin." By the way, in
those years, SFO was all over the map, from Los Angeles, to Portland,
to Seattle...  cities now with home-made opera of their own.

 [The Philharmonic's Sunday concert in Davies Hall will have the
Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5.]

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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