Arts & Events

Ludovico Einaudi, a sixty-four year old Italian pianist whose compositions show the influence of the American minimalism he first encountered at age thirty-two when he won a scholarship to the Tanglewood Music Festival, has over the years developed a cult following. His worldwide appearances, now as often in sports arenas as in classical music venues, attract fans of all ages and of diverse musical tastes. But Einaudi fans are extremely devoted, even happy to pay the stratospherically high ticket prices demanded. (For the June 12 concert at Davies Symphony Hall, tickets were far higher than for even the most expensive San Francisco Symphony events this season.) -more-

The 2019 summer season of San Francisco Opera presented George Frideric Handel’s Orlando in a new production on Sunday, June 9. Opera plots are often convoluted; but Orlando takes the cake in this regard. There are only five characters in Orlando, and one of them, Zoroastro, is a quack physician, But of the other four characters Handel and his anonymous librettist manage multiple love triangles, betrayals, near murders and near suicides. To make matters worse, there’s a mad scene that almost puts Lucia di Lammermoor to shame. Orlando, you see, has been wounded in war, then fallen in love with the woman who nursed his wounds. But when he discovers she loves another man, Orlando goes stark, raving mad. I was surprised the hospital orderlies didn’t put him in a strait jacket when he tried to kill first Angelica, then Medoro. But the quack physician gives him some sort of electro-shock treatment, and he awakens from this treatment miraculously cured. Orlando blesses the woman he thought betrayed him and whom he tried to kill, blesses her lover, whom he also tried to kill, and blesses another woman to whom, in his madness, he proposed marriage. Supposedly, if you can believe it, everyone is happy at the end. -more-

Worth Noting:

The June 25 City Council Agenda is available for review and comment (agenda follows list of meetings)

Monday – 1 pm - The proposed ordinance for prohibition of natural gas in new construction and developments is before the Facilities and Infrastructure Committee

Tuesday – 7 pm - The Adeline Corridor Plan is being presented at the Planning Commission Adeline Corridor Subcommittee

Thursday – 10:30 am – Creating a qualified Opportunity Fund is being considered at the Land Use Committee

Sunday – 11 am - EV Workshop at the Ecology Center is free and requires pre-registration

Sunday, June 16, 2019 – Father’s Day

Juneteenth Festival, 11 am – 7 pm,

http://www.berkeleyjuneteenth.org -more-