by SCOTT C. MORGAN
'Who needs drugs when you have opera?'
Indeed! I overheard this comment during intermission for San Francisco Opera's marvelously surreal production of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's unjustly neglected Die Tote Stadt ( The Dead City ) . It really brought home the fact that you can go on some mind-bending trips theatrically without any illegal substances.
Die Tote Stadt was a high point ( no pun intended ) of my recent trip to see theater and opera in that lovely California city of San Francisco and its East Bay neighbor of Berkeley.
Chicago and the Bay Area have a history of sharing theater and opera productions. Most of director Mary Zimmerman's works for Lookingglass and the Goodman regularly journey out west, as do several Steppenwolf Theatre productions. Conversely, John Adams' opera Doctor Atomic presented last season the Lyric Opera of Chicago originated as a co-production at San Francisco Opera in 2005.
On my visit this past September, the San Francisco area had several productions that would make any Chicago culture-booster jealous.
The major reason for my visit was to see two works at the San Francisco Opera that haven't been seen before in Chicago: the world premiere of The Bonesetter's Daughter and the company premiere of Die Tote Stadt.
The Bonesetter's Daughter was the event to be seen at among the city's cultural elite, since it featured a libretto written by hometown hero Amy Tan ( based upon her own 2001 novel ) and a score by Stewart Wallace ( best known for his 1995 opera Harvey Milk ) .
Though it was rapturously received by the local press and audience, The Bonesetter's Daughter didn't live up to my expectations.
Amy Tan's ghost story involving three generations of Chinese women spread out over two continents has plenty of potential. She's written some wonderfully dramatic scenes and lyrics, but the overall libretto felt too scattershot, with missing plot threads and details—one glaring omission was an explanation of what exactly a bonesetter is. ( A bonesetter's like an osteopath/pharmacist. )
Tan's hit a upon an interesting theatrical device of having dutiful daughter Ruth Young Kamen ( a compelling mezzo performance by Zheng Cao ) physically reliving the traumatizing youth of her dementia-suffering mother LuLing Liu ( an equally affecting Ning Liang ) to find out the secret behind the ghost of Precious Auntie ( a wonderful Peking opera singer Qian Yi ) . Yet it lacked the plausible tidiness that came in the novel when Ruth learns about the past from a written manuscript.
Wallace's score captivated with its skilled mixture of traditional Chinese instruments with a big western symphony. Director Chen Shi-Zheng created a fluid and fantastical staging, though many surrealistic flourishes like flying restaurant waiters and oversize aquarium video projections were head-scratching and odd.
Surrealism dominated Die Tote Stadt, a 1920 opera by Korngold ( a Jewish Viennese composer best known for fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s to pioneer the lush Golden Era Hollywood sound with film scores like The Sea Hawk and The Adventures of Robin Hood ) .
Since most of Die Tote Stadt is a dream, original director Willy Decker had a field day in this imported 2004 production from Salzburg and Vienna. Twisted perspectives and commedia dell'arte iconography played well in this lushly scored piece about a mourning man named Paul ( tenor Torsten Kerl, sounding a tad reedy at times ) who finds Marietta, the doppelganger of his dead wife, Marie ( the vivacious soprano Emily Magee ) .
Both operas showed off the cultural cache that former Houston Grand Opera general director has brought to his new job at San Francisco Opera. Hopefully these two productions will be part of the company's ambitious nationwide movie-theater screenings of its opera productions.
Two straight plays rounded out my Bay Area arts pilgrimage: Berkeley Repertory Theatre's world premiere of Itmar Moses' high school drama Yellowjackets and American Conservatory Theatre's West Coast premiere of Tom Stoppard's Rock and Roll.
Like Steppenwolf's recent Superior Donuts, Yellowjackets is pitched specifically at hometown audiences ( so much so that its local jokes and references would be lost elsewhere ) . Set at Berkeley High School in the 1990s, Yellowjackets takes its name from the school mascot and shows the perils of political correctness as a school newspaper gets boycotted by a group of teachers for printing a 'racist' article.
The young cast playing multiple roles was extremely versatile and funny, each getting across the confusing mixture of multiculturalism and power plays that take place even in assumed bastions of liberal enlightenment.
I'm worried that I'll be disappointed when I see Rock 'n' Roll later this season at the Goodman Theatre, since American Conservatory Theater's production, under Carey Perloff's direction, was so strong in its casting and design elements.
Jack Willis stood out as the dedicated British communist Max, holding true to his ideology despite the constant news that his rock-and-roll-loving Czech protégé, Jan ( unflappable played by Manoel Feliciano ) , is suffering from oppression behind the Iron Curtain. Other treasures in this emotionally-involving Stoppard drama included a feisty Rene Augesen and a touching Summer Serafin, both in dual mother/daughter roles.
So even though you can stay at home a see all sorts of world-class theater and opera in Chicago, it's still fun to visit other cities to compare and contrast. Like Chicago, San Francisco is a hub of theatrical splendors that makes it well worth journeying to.
