The San Francisco Opera season nears its end this month with just a handful of remaining performances. Bay Crossings readers will recall with fondness the many triumphs recorded by this remarkable company.
Angelo A. Sottosanti (American, 1917–2004), San Francisco Outdoor Art Exhibit, 1941. Transparent and opaque watercolor, image 45.6 x 66 cm (1715/16 x 26 in.), sheet 56.8 x 78.3 cm (223/8 x 3013/16 in.). Allocated by the Federal Art Project L43.2.926
By Paul Duclos
Published: December, 2011
Conductor Nicola Luisotti, who has achieved renown as a masterful interpreter of works by Puccini and Verdi, proved every bit as good this year when leading the orchestra through Bizet’s Carmen. His baton magic with Mozart’s Don Giovanni was also noteworthy.
Most memorable for our readers, though, was the brilliant (and free) performance of Turandot at AT&T Park. There is something quite sublime about sitting in the open air on the water’s edge while one of opera’s greatest hits is being staged. While the Giants may have been a disappointment to many baseball fans, SFO swung for the fences with this one.
Time may permit some to still take in one last SFO classic: Carmen for Families on December 4. This is a two-hour version of this season’s exciting production, telling the timeless story of love, jealousy, betrayal and death. Opera newcomers will thrill to the captivating music of this beloved work, featuring the alluring Gypsy girl Carmen, the Spanish soldier who loves her, and her brave bullfighter who wins her heart. This opera is recommended for ages 10 and up due to the mature nature of the characters and story.
Time is not so much of the essence, however, when it comes to viewing another major cultural event during the holidays. Artistic San Francisco, at the Legion of Honor, is an installation of prints, drawings, photographs and paintings from the permanent collection of the Fine Arts Museums that pays tribute to the unique sites, scenery and topography of the Bay Area.
This display of 30 works in the Wattis Gallery is presented in conjunction with the release of Artistic San Francisco, a museum publication featuring works of art from the mid-1800s to the present.
San Francisco is known for its picturesque neighborhoods and attractions, but even before these iconic symbols of the city took shape, San Francisco’s rugged topography and fog-shrouded coast served as a beacon for artists, who began arriving at the same time others were seeking their fortunes in the Sierra Nevada goldfields.
Landscape artists were drawn to the idyllic natural beauty of the Bay Area in the early nineteenth century, and as San Francisco grew into a metropolis and now-famous landmark buildings appeared, more artists came to record the vibrant city and its unique setting. In the 1930s, hundreds of local artists were able to work under the federal arts programs of the New Deal, and many took part in the city’s public mural projects.
Throughout the twentieth century, artists have continued their love affair with the City by the Bay, creating an enduring portrait of the ever-changing city and its surrounds via paintings, drawings, photographs and prints.
James A. Ganz, curator of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, offered the following thoughts in an interview with Paul Duclos:
What inspired this book idea?
Ganz: Artistic San Francisco began life as a book rather than an exhibition. I was invited by our publications department to make a selection of views of the Bay Area from the vast holdings of the Legion of Honor and the de Young Museum for a small volume to be co-published with Pomegranate in the fall of 2011. Over the summer, I realized that a gallery would be available at the Legion to put on view a selection of the illustrated works. And so Artistic San Francisco the book became Artistic San Francisco the exhibition.
This seems like an ambitious project. When did you begin working on it?
Ganz: The project began in the late spring of 2010.
What were the greatest challenges in putting this together?
Ganz: The initial challenge for me as a relative newcomer to the Bay Area—I arrived here in 2008 from Massachusetts—was to quickly immerse myself in the incredibly rich history of the San Francisco art world as represented in the Museums’ holdings. I spent many long hours scouring our collection database, flagging potential candidates for the book, and following up by digging them out of storage. The page count of the book and the square footage of the gallery meant that many difficult decisions had to be made in narrowing down the final selections. But I am thrilled that our visitors are able to see so many of these special treasures, including our spectacular Sutro Baths poster that has been unrolled for the first time in many years.
