BY PAUL DUCLOS
Bay Area ferry riders seeking an exotic operatic adventure are in luck when the Empress Theatre in Vallejo hosts a night of recitals featuring three young and promising superstars on the first day of February.
Headlined Three Tenors! The Next Generation, the one-night concert showcases the remarkable voices of Pene Pati, Alex Boyer and Christopher Oglesby accompanied by full symphony orchestra led by Grammy-winning conductor Thomas Conlin.
Now that the San Francisco Opera season has come to a close (until it reopens in June) aficionados may get their fix by checking out this February 1 gig at Vallejo’s historic and charming venue. Presented by the Vallejo Community Arts Foundation, the concert begins at 7:30 p.m.
SFO audiences should be quite familiar with Pati, as he is a former Adler fellow who won recent acclaim in last season’s Romeo and Juliet. Tenor Alex Boyer is gaining recognition for his large, potent sound and dramatic portrayals. The Chronicle congratulated him for his delivery of the famous showpiece “Vesti la giubba” from Pagliacci, “which lacked nothing in the way of grit and vocal power.” Christopher Oglesby, the third tenor in the triumvirate, was praised by the Washington Post for his “beautifully sensitive singing.”
Program highlights of this event will include a dozen of the most familiar tenor arias from the greatest composers of Italian opera, including Verdi, Ponchielli, Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Donizetti—and the aria made popular by Luciano Pavarotti, “Nessun Dorma” from Puccini’s Turandot.
Grammy-winning conductor Thomas Conlin has led performances at numerous American and international opera and ballet companies and symphony orchestras on five continents. Recent seasons have included performances in Germany with the Philharmonisches Orchester Augsburg and the Baden-Badener Philharmonic; in Italy with Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliania; with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra in Rio de Janerio; the Cairo Symphony Orchestra in Egypt; the Calgary Philharmonic in Canada; the Toyko Chamber Orchestra; Flemish Chamber Orchestra in Belgium; and with Ireland’s RTE Symphony Orchestra in Dublin.
Reserved seating ranges from $70 to $200. More information is available at empresstheatre.org or by calling (707) 552-2400.
Varda Film Fest in Berkeley
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will co-present a major retrospective of films by Agnès Varda, the first significant presentation of the acclaimed director’s work since her death in March 2019.
Agnès Varda: An Irresistible Force marks the West Coast premiere of this national touring retrospective organized with Janus Films, which encompasses much of Varda’s work from the last six decades—including new restorations, rarely screened shorts and a preview of Varda’s final film, Varda by Agnès.
SFMOMA’s portion of the series begins on January 9 with Cleo 5 to 7, one of Varda’s most renowned early works. The series continues at BAMPFA through February 28 and at SFMOMA through March 21 and includes guest appearances at both venues by former Pacific Film Archive Director and Curator Tom Luddy, who collaborated with Varda on two films.
This film program represents the tenth installment of SFMOMA’s Modern Cinema program, which seeks to highlight the ongoing dialogue between the critically acclaimed filmmakers of the past and present.
An icon of international art cinema for more than sixty years, Varda was an influential figure in the development of the French New Wave and the only female director associated with the movement. Her remarkable debut feature, La Pointe Courte, made when she was 26, predated and inspired the New Wave movement. Widely acclaimed for her early narrative features like Cléo from 5 to 7 and Le Bonheur, Varda went on to create a vast and eclectic body of work that included numerous shorts, documentaries, photography and installations.
A full list of screenings is available and at bampfa.org and sfmoma.org.
FOG Art Fair Comes to Fort Mason
FOG Design+Art has announced the galleries participating in the 2020 edition of the fair. On view at Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture in San Francisco from January 16 to 19, the fair will open with a preview gala benefiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on January 15.
This year’s fair will bring together 48 galleries, including five galleries exhibiting for the first time: Gallery Fumi (London), Jenkins Johnson Gallery (San Francisco), Mercado Moderno (Rio de Janeiro), Nathalie Karg Gallery (New York), and Tina Kim Gallery (New York).
FOG’s mission is to create a dialogue about the relationship between art and design, and to provide a platform for the Bay Area community—as well as an international host of curators, collectors and art world enthusiasts—to experience works of contemporary art and design by some of the most celebrated dealers of 20th-century and contemporary work.
For more information, see www.sfmoma.org/fog.
