John Mark Ainsley, who made his San Francisco Symphony debut tonight,
singing the Britten Nocturne, is one hot up-and-coming tenor.  I wish I
could like him more, but the experience was similar to his Don Ottavio
here in 1995: pretty good, not great.

The purity and placement of his voice are impressive, but his diction is
marginal (in the terribly difficult Britten, to be sure) and the emotional
range is strangely constrained.  He does not have the problems of his
obvious model, Peter Pears, but few of his virtues either -- most notably
the two just named: the all-important text and the emotions all come
through clearly from Pears, not from Ainsley.  There are no excuses:
Jeffrey Tate is the most sympathetic conductor there is, and the seven
obbligato instruments played brilliantly.

There is a lucky run of repertory 'round town these days: last week,
the Britten Serenade (to which the Nocturne is a kind of sequel) with the
Philharmonia Baroque; tonight, Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 2 (Tate
was superb), in the second opportunity within a week; and the Britten
Variations at the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields concert on Tuesday,
plus Kenneth Sillito's fabulous presentation of the Shostakovich Chamber
Symphony.  Our cup is full.


Janos Gereben/SF
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