Reviews

Just Beyond Reach
December 27, 2002
By Norman Rabkin for San Francisco Classical Voice
In a city with an Opera company so Grand that it can afford to survive after incurring a deficit of $7.7 million, it is refreshing to know that a shoestring company like the San Francisco Lyric Opera can coexist. This now-established outfit has just concluded a six-performance run of Gaetano Donizetti's comic masterpiece "Don Pasquale" (1843), heard on December 27. It would be pleasant to report that the tiny company had triumphed against the odds, but, unfortunately, this time the challenges overpowered their capacity. For example, when the young romantic tenor Ernesto sings self-pitingly at the beginning of Act Two of his plans to seek a far-off land (Cherchero lotana terra), a mocking trumpet accompanies him, perhaps to suggest how far from reality or even intention his scheme is. Touches such as this, depending greatly on woodwinds and brasses, provide a rich commentary on the course of the drama, and there are striking extended passages for such instruments. But the Lyric Opera, constrained in part at least by the paucity of space in the tiny Eureka Theater, supplied an orchestra consisting in its entirety of a string quartet and piano.
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La Bohème Nicely Done
September 6, 2002
By Michael Zwiebach for San Francisco Classical Voice
There's an undeniable charm to the bargain-basement "La Bohème" unveiled by San Francisco Lyric Opera at the Eureka Theater on Friday night. The theater's intimate size is perfect for this opera and the reduced orchestra (piano and string quartet) meant that singers didn't have to worry about projecting. And where else will you see a Bohème in which the actual circumstances of the performance match the ostensible setting so exactly so exactly? The miniature cutout of the roofs of Paris and the little moon hung on the traveler curtain, the costumes partly accumulated out of the odds and ends of so many closets are Bohemian production strategies in an art form dominated by well-financed companies. And for once in my life, I've seen a Bohème with a garret that actually seemed like a garret.
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Fine Figaro from Promising Company
June 23, 2002

By John K. Bailey for San Francisco Classical Voice
How uplifting it is to see the progress and gradual transformation of a performing arts group! Judging from Sunday's performance of Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro", the San Francisco Lyric Opera has found firm footing and can certainly be regarded as a respectable small opera company. Promoting the motto "classical opera at prices that more people can afford", and with a sleek professional program, a growing list of impressive supporters, a working relationship with the Eureka Theater, and performers of consistently fine caliber, the Lyric is showing promising signs under its recent new management. The singing, both the voices themselves and the clear crisp diction, was consistently enjoyable throughout the entire cast. Certainly this cast sets a new standard of singing for San Francisco Lyric Opera.
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