Register Now for Puccini & Turandot at SRJC

Registration is now open for my Fall Class at Santa Rosa Junior College: Puccini & Turandot: The Demise and Renaissance of Italian Opera.

The class will be held in Newman Auditorium from October 1 thru November 12 (6 Thursdays from 7-9 p.m. PLEASE NOTE: NO CLASS on 10/29). For a complete description of the Fall Class,  please visit 2009 Courses on this website.

You can register by phone by calling SRJC at 707-527-4372 or online by clicking here.

Once you register, you will receive confirmation from the college and the following:

1. A ticket order form for the San Francisco Opera production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello on December 2. Please return that form to me with a check (payable to Will Kent) for $45/ticket
2. A reservation form for seats on a deluxe bus to the opera. You should return that form as described to Ellen Eppler.
3. A form to order parking passes for the class in advance. Please return that form to the college.

I’m very excited about this class…it has been fascinating & delightful preparing it,  and I have some wonderful surprises in store. The class sells out quickly, so register early and order tickets soon, since seats are limited.

I look forward to seeing you in October.  If you have questions, email me or call me at my office 707-824-4531.

…Will

Ruth Ann Swenson Up Close in Santa Rosa

Ruth Ann Swenson will be singing before a small group in a private home to benefit a great cause: Sonoma Land Trust. Swenson just gets better as she matures and the always beautiful voice now has a richer more interesting sound to my ears. Tickets are pricey but the intimate setting promises an evening to remember.  See announcement and hear Ms. Swenson in a special You Tube performance below: Qui la voce,  Vincenzo Bellini: I Puritani

Internationally acclaimed soprano Ruth Ann Swenson will sing a benefit for Sonoma Land Trust at the home of Donald and Maureen Green in Santa Rosa on Sunday, September 20, at 3 pm. The afternoon will include wine and hors d?oeuvres before the concert followed by a post-performance reception with Ruth Ann Swenson. This will be a rare opportunity to experience the breathtaking vocal beauty of one of the world?s leading sopranos.

Ruth Ann Swenson has won critical acclaim for her performances in the world?s major opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera National de Paris, Royal Opera Covent Garden and Berlin State Opera, as well as in many other international opera houses and concert halls. She is praised as an artist with an instrument of uncommon warmth and beauty matched by dazzling technical abilities.

Ms. Swenson?s signature roles include Gilda in Rigoletto, the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor, Juliette in Romeo et Juliette, Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore, Elvira in I Puritani, Violetta in La Traviata, Mimi in La Boheme, and Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare.

In San Francisco, she has appeared in many major roles including Gilda, Juliette, Adina, Lucia, Violetta, Cleopatra, Ophelie in Hamlet, and the title roles of Manon and Semele. Her most recent appearances here have been as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro and as Ginevra in Handel?s Ariodante, at which time she received the San Francisco Opera Medal in honor of her 25th season with the company.

Proceeds from the benefit will support the Sonoma Land Trust?s Land Protection Fund which provides the resources to purchase key conservation properties. Tickets are $250 each and seating is limited. For ticket information, please contact Beverly Scottland at beverly@sonomalandtrust.org or (707) 526-6930, ext. 108.

San Francisco Perfromances 2009-10

I just received the catalog for the upcoming season of music presented by San Francisco Performances (mostly) at the Herbst Theater. There are four opera singers scheduled for recitals:  Thomas Hampson, baritone, Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano, Nathan Gunn, baritone and Alice Coote, mezzo soprano.  All four are excellent artists, but I think if you can catch only one, Ms. DiDonato gets my nod.  She is on a trajectory to major stardom and to hear her in the intimate space of the Herbst Theater should be very gratifying.  Incidentally,  Ms. DiDonato literally  just broke her leg at Covent Garden, London during a performance of The Barber of Seville.  She finished the performance in a lot of pain,  and is continuing on in a wheel chair, I hear.  That’s a trooper!.

I am most excited, however, about a musical event schedule for the spring. . On Saturday, April 24 at 10 a.m. Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker and author of the  book  The Rest is Noise will be joined by Ethan Iverson, jazz pianist,  to present a unique explortation of 20th Century music.  Ross’s book was a revelation and  instrumental in my choice of topics for this Fall’s class: Puccini & Turandot, The Demise and Renaissannce of Italian Opera.  Ross  analyses why classical music strayed from the mainstream in the 20th cenury,  leaving opera audiences high and dry for new works  that could garner the kind of public appeal that Puccini and Richard Strauss, to a lesser degree, achieved.  Turandot is the last great opera in the grand tradition,  and in my class we’ll consider what the modern composers offered and how they influenced Puccini and other Versimo/Romantic composers of the late 19th/early 20th centuries.

You can access San Francisco Performances on line at http://www.Performances.org   for ticket purchase and more information