Arts & Events

Perhaps my greatest experience in a lifetime of opera-going was hearing Luciano Pavarotti sing Rodolfo and Mirella Freni sing Mimi in 1967 in their first ever appearances in San Francisco. As I recall, Pavarotti had only sung once before in the USA, in Houston. The impression made on me by Pavarotti and Freni in these roles was mind-blowing. Later, when these two great singers returned to San Francisco in 1988 to sing the same two roles in La Bohème, I took my 15-year-old daughter to hear them, and she too was blown away. Although I have continued to love La Bohème, –and who doesn’t? – nothing has ever come close to eliciting in me the spine-tingling shivers I experienced hearing Pavarotti and Freni as Rodolfo and Mimi. -more-

Under the auspices of Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall hosted a much ballyhooed mixed-media production of English composer Benjamin Britten’s 1964 work Curlew River: A Parable for Church Performance. Featuring noted British tenor Ian Bostridge, Curlew River was given two performances – Friday and Saturday, November 14-15. This work was initially inspired by Britten’s 1956 trip to Japan, where he eagerly steeped himself in traditional Japanese culture. With his lifelong partner Peter Pears, Britten attended two performances in Japan of the 15^th century noh drama Sumidagawa, which tells the tale of a woman driven mad by the kidnapping of her young son, whom she seeks endlessly as she wanders the countryside. Britten was particularly struck by the chanting and austere instrumentation used in this noh drama. Once back in England Britten began to think of setting this story to music that would combine Japanese elements and the style of European medieval mystery plays. -more-

The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) will hold its 40th Anniversary Celebration on Sunday, 23 November 2014, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.

Join us as we mark 40 years of preservation advocacy, education, and activism.

We welcome the entire community to this free event, which also celebrates the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance and the many struggles to preserve the heritage and texture of Berkeley. -more-

When Abraham Lincoln finally succumbed to John Wilkes Booth’s bullet after an all-night struggle, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton is supposed to have intoned over the President’s body “now he belongs to the ages.” While Stanton probably did say—or wanted to say— something like that, the actual quote itself was most likely polished up and prettified sometime afterwards for posterity’s sake, either by Stanton himself or someone who was standing nearby. That is how reality so often morphs into myth. -more-

Shot in luminous black-and-white, the cinematography in The Better Angels pulls viewers into the boyhood world of a young Abe Lincoln, revealing the early forces—including two strong women—that forged his character. The film—by Terrence Malick's longtime protégé, A.J. Edwards‑regales the senses with haunting images of a raw, half-tamed world—in this case, rural Indiana in the year 1817—that recall the stark clarity of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady and the magnificence of landscape artist Ansel Adams. -more-

"A Parable for Church Performance" ... The subtitle for Benjamin Britten's unusual musical theater piece, 'Curlew River,' is precise, yet doesn't illuminate what the spectator will see and hear. And the promotional tag, "part Noh theater and part medieval Mystery Play" can make the performance sound more a glib or academic hybrid than a moving experience ... -more-

The Iranian American Community of Northern California will hold a Picket-Line in Berkeley on Saturday November 22nd to oppose the horrifying human rights condition in Iran and especially the high number of public executions -more-