...or better yet, to hear: it'll run through Saturday in Davies Hall - http://www.sfsymphony.org/season/Event.aspx?eventid=49754
Everything the lineup promises is delivered, in spades: James Conlon, taking over after the Luisi cancelation just a couple of weeks ago, conducted the SF Symphony Orchestra at its best without a score, and with supreme sensitivity and assurance. Ragnar Bohlin's SFS Chorus was never better, and that's something truly meaningful to say.
Sondra Radvanovsky and Dolora Zajick were tremendous; Frank Lopardo's gorgeous Italian-cantorial tenor was a joy to behold; Ain Anger, the towering bass from Estonia, is still new to some, but his will be a household name in no time at all.
From the whispered prayer of the opening Requiem to the breathtaking outburst of the Dies irae, from Lopardo's heartbreaking plea in the Ingemisco to Anger's resounding Confutatis, to Zajick's restrained and yet overwhelming Lacrymosa, to catching one's breath during the Offertorio, to the shock of the Sanctus, Anger's rafter-shaking Requiem, and Radvanovsky's clarion call in Libera me... this was a performance of one cohesive work with a hundred individual glories.
If the next three performances will be anything like tonight's, this is clearly *the* opera event of the season.
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