Opera Alfresco in Downtown San Diego

By Ken Herman | January 29, 2015 |

Shoppers and downtown workers on their lunch break Thursday (Jan. 29) were startled to hear strains of “Bess, you is my woman now” from Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess” floating across the wide plaza in front of San Diego Civic Theatre . . .

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Trifonov Takes Over in La Jolla

By Ken Herman | January 16, 2015 |

La Jolla Music Society opened its Celebrity Recital Series with a program by noted violinist Gidon Kremer and upcoming pianist Daniil Trifonov, although the young Russian rising star managed to rule the stage at Sherwood Auditorium . . .

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San Diego Opera Is Back and Offers an Impressive 2015 Season

By Ken Herman | May 20, 2014 |

Although that storied operatic cliché of the sobbing final aria before the heroine’s sad demise was scripted by the San Diego Opera Board of Directors on March 19 when it voted to shutter the company, Board President Carol Lazier was not singing a farewell aria in her press conference Monday (May 19) in the plaza in front of Civic Theatre where she jubilantly announced the reversal of the Board’s March decision to terminate the company and the raising of $2,116,376 of new money to support the 2015 season . . .

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Dohnányi, Historical Seating, Produce a Riveting Beethoven Fifth

By Marcus Overton | April 29, 2014 |

If the four-note thunderclap – da-da-da-DUM – that opens Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony does indeed evoke Fate knocking on our door, that fearsome presence arrived at Copley Symphony Hall in a hurry last Friday evening. Conductor Christoph von Dohnányi, leading the piece without a score before him, launched the first movement with a brisk tempo that riveted both players and audience. I have rarely seen – or heard – the San Diego Symphony playing with so much concentrated clarity as it displayed in the opening pages of what may well be the most famous piece of music in the Western world…

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