Oscar Wilde (translated into English by Lord Alfred Douglas, no less) had
Salome crushed under the soldiers' shields.  Not an attractive way to go,
but it happens fast.

Richard Strauss, on the other hand, has a huge orchestra play fortissimo
for 15 minutes, trying to accomplish the same thing, pulverizing the
daughter of Herodias, but in an extended manner.  Singing the Final Scene
of "Salome" is no picnic, but when you have to do it on a day's notice, and
replace one of the finest and most popular sopranos in the world -- well,
shields never looked so good.

Lauren Flanigan faced that challenge tonight in Davies Hall, where San
Francisco Symphony patrons were "greeted" by large signs announcing the
substitution of Flanigan for Deborah Voigt, who is ill.

Would Michael Tilson Thomas make it easier for the soprano, and hold back?
No, he wouldn't.  The orchestra errupted with the appropriate fury, 90
musicians throwing up a wall of sound.  Through it came Flanigan's voice,
loud and clear, almost all of it on pitch.

Hers is a big voice, a clear one, excellently projected.  (The sound came
through, but not the words; in Flanigan's diction "dein Haar" becomes
"din-ar," "angesehen" "antsn," Geheimnis" "gevais,'' etc.)

Brave, impressive, laudable -- yes.  A great musical experience? Not
really.  In the cruel world of opera, it's not enough to be heroic (in
act, in voice), you also have to do it *beautifully*.  And that was
missing:  Flanigan's delivery was "generic soprano," lacking the insane,
near-cannibalistic passion of the Judean princess, and, even more
significantly, failing to approximate the abandoned, melting lyricism
that rises from all that horror.  It was a reading of the score (which
she actually had to do, note by note), not an interpretation.

Curiously, MTT did *his* best work of the evening in the Strauss scene,
although there was really nothing to complain about (except for the loss
of Barber's "Andromache's Farewell" scheduled for Voigt, and not braved
by the substitute).  A dutiful and unexceptional Mozart "Haffner" was
followed by the 1919 version of Stravinsky's "Firebird" Suite, a work MTT
can conduct in his sleep (and sort of did tonight); and then a glorious
Janacek "Sinfonietta," but in the wrong place.  One of the country's best
programmers, MTT made a puzzling choice of placing the Janacek after the
hyper-drama of "Salome" -- it just doesn't belong there.

Voigt's cancelation applies to all four performances.  Chances are
Flanigan's performance will improve each evening now that she doesn't
have to concentrate on "just getting through it."

======

Before the Symphony concert, there was a weirdly wonderful operatic event
in the War Memorial Green Room, a block away from Davies.

Some 200 of Jake Heggie's "closest and dearest friends" came together on
the occasion of the release of a CD of his songs, "The Faces of Love."

The event found Heggie (only two years ago, one of the assistants in the
S.F.  Opera public relations department, unknown except to a handful of
people) at the piano, accompanying Frederica von Stade singing his songs,
with Renee Fleming applauding them.

Among the high-voltage crowd (hugging and kissing all around):  three
music directors -- SFO's Donald Runnicles, Houston Grand Opera's Patrick
Summers, Philharmonia Baroque's Nicholas McGegan; sopranos Kristin Clayton
and Nicolle Foland both singing tonight and on the album (along with Sylvia
McNair, Jennifer Larmore, Zheng Cao, Carol Vaness and Brian Awawa); A.C.T.
artistic director Carey Perloff; important contributors Phyllis Wattis and
James Schwabacher; BMG officials all the way from New York, BAM's Elena
Park (Heggie's former boss, and now working for him, in charge of publicity
for the CD and Heggie's upcoming opera, "Dead Man Walking"); writers Gini
Savage, John Hall, and Armisted Maupin (who had Heggie's PR job some 20
years ago), and on and on, more and more.

Heggie's ascendance is a rare American/San Franciscan success story:  from
a working stiff to the toast of the artistic world in two short years.  In
the toasts tonight, all agreed that it couldn't have happened to a nicer,
more talented guy.

Janos Gereben/SF
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