Music

SF Ballet, SF Opera, Steinway Society

Read more at www.mercurynews.com

Here are several streaming performances this weekend that Bay Area arts fans should know about.

SF Ballet brings us back to ‘Midsummer’

San Francisco Ballet is streaming Balanchine’s masterly “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” beginning this week, a recording of a 2020 production that was scuttled after just one performance by the pandemic. Set to music by Mendelssohn, the 1962 ballet was Balanchine’s first original evening-length work, and it cemented his reputation as the artform’s foremost figure.

Details: Jan. 21-Feb. 10; $29, plus $5 fee for 24-hour access; Premium Plus Digital Pass, $289; www.sfballet.org.

Steinway Society welcomes rising star

The San Jose-based Steinway Society piano recital series kicks off its 2021 streaming schedule with Andrew Li in a program aptly titled “A Gift for Music Since Childhood.” The piano prodigy was racking up competition medals at an early age, starting with winning first place in in the Bay State Piano Competition in Massachusetts for five consecutive years, at ages 7-12, and then first prize for two consecutive years at the Steinway Competition in Boston. In his exclusive performance for Steinway Society, Li will perform works by of Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms and Stravinsky. Next up for the series is award-winner Anna Fedorova, Feb. 19-22.

Details: Concert will be available to stream Jan. 22-25; $20 per household; steinwaysociety.com.

Good intentions gone bad

Pear Theatre in Mountain View presents a streaming production of “Fairfield,” a “somewhat uneasy contemporary comedy” by Eric Coble about a progressive, integrated school at which well-intentioned Black History Month observances go horribly awry. The work is co-directed by Aldo Billingslea, a longtime Bay Area actor and founder of the nationwide Juneteenth Theatre Justice Project, and new Pear Theatre artistic director Sinjin Jones.

Details: Streaming Jan. 22-Feb. 21; $30-$37; www.thepear.org.

SF Opera brings the temple down

A big, beefy he-man with a noble and righteous heart comes all undone at the snipping of some shears wielded by a ravishing but treacherous beauty. What’s more, there are a couple of hours of luscious orchestration and some high-quality vocals to hear, some opulent scenery and lavish costumes to gawk at, and a bunch of scantily clad Philistines writhing all over the stage.

French composer Camille Saint-Saens’ “Samson and Delilah” is this weekend’s offering from San Francisco Opera’s free streaming series, in a 2007 production that starred tenor Clifton Forbis and Russian mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina in the title roles. And just as you’d expect from this biblical epic, the temple walls do indeed come tumbling down in the end.

Details: Available 10 a.m. Jan. 23 until midnight Jan. 24; register at www.sfopera.com,  a donation of $75 or more gains you access to this and more streaming productions.

— Bay Area News Foundation

Read more at www.mercurynews.com

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