The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are now presenting Impressionists on the Water, an exhibition deeply tied to the physical and cultural landscape of the Bay Area.
Claude Monet: “The Seine at Argenteuil.” 1874. Photo Credit: Andrew Fox
By Paul Duclos
Published: July, 2013
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are now presenting Impressionists on the Water, an exhibition deeply tied to the physical and cultural landscape of the Bay Area. Impressionists on the Water has been organized in conjunction with America’s Cup and offers a unique complement to this summer’s races on the Bay.
This exhibition celebrates the French Impressionists’ fascination with recreational and competitive sailing, a developing sport in 19th century France. Select highlights from the museums’ permanent collection will be joined at the Legion of Honor with key loans from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; and the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands, among other notable institutions.
Artists featured in Impressionists on the Water often had significant experience with sailing and other water sports. Gustave Caillebotte was a talented boat designer and builder, Claude Monet painted aboard a floating boat studio and Paul Signac sailed the coasts of Europe extensively in the roughly 30 boats he owned during his lifetime.
These artists’ hands-on experiences lend many of the paintings and works on paper in this exhibition a precise level of detail and an evident sense of practical knowledge of sailing, yachting, and rowing.
Just nine years before Robert Schumann went insane and died in an asylum at Endenich, Germany, on July 29, 1856, he composed his opera Genoveva. The strongest element of the work is the overture, most aficionados agree, but the nine-minute segment is still rarely performed by opera orchestras. Fortunately, the San Francisco Symphony found a good reason to expose new audiences to this nearly-forgotten work. As a warm-up to Schumann’s "Piano Concerto in A Minor" featuring the virtuoso Jonathan Biss, the overture made perfect sense. Indeed, it confirmed the view of many critics that the doomed composer was principally a symphonist, with only a small talent for musical theater, much less grand opera.
The San Francisco Symphony takes another bold move in staging an event to coincide with America’s Cup this month: an evening of passion and romance with this showcase of Tchaikovsky’s most recognizable works. With its wild melodies, opening the program is the waltz from The Sleeping Beauty, followed by the endearing Romeo and Juliet "Fantasy Overture." Rounding out the program are Tchaikovsky’s "Violin Concerto" and heroic "1812 Overture."
The performance on July 20 takes place at San Francisco’s newest outdoor venue, America’s Cup Pavilion, located on Pier 27/29 on the Embarcadero, which features panoramic views of both the city skyline and San Francisco Bay.
Finally, it’s not too late to catch a new production by the San Francisco Opera company of Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman. Two more performances are scheduled for July 3 and 7.
While there’s not an "America’s Cup" angle here, there are plenty of other reasons to check this out:
A sensitive poet searches for love and repeatedly finds it lies just beyond his reach in this marvelously melodic masterpiece. Singing the title role is tenor Matthew Polenzani, who was praised by The New York Times as "coming into his prime … singing with increasing ardor, richness and power." He is joined by the always-astonishing Natalie Dessay, who gave "a precise, luminous and impeccably controlled performance" (San Francisco Chronicle) in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor, as Antonia, as well as Hye Jung Lee, who was praised for her vocally "fierce, gleaming beauty" (San Francisco Chronicle) as Madame Mao in Nixon in China (2012), sings Olympia; in their Company debuts, Irene Roberts as Giulietta and mezzo-soprano Angela Brower, is Nicklausse, the Muse; and charismatic bass-baritone Christian Van Horn performs the villains who thwart Hoffmann’s desires. Laurent Pelly (The Daughter of the Regiment, 2009) directs a new production of this richly imaginative, psychologically astute gem.
