In this issue: Peony Pavilion Video Program Notes Other Peony Pavilion Educational Opportunities Recital debuts: soprano Nuccia Focile and tenor Rolando Villazón

Dear Friends:

Another summer has just flown by it seems and it's almost time to start Cal Performances' second century of bringing the best dance, music, and theater to the UC Berkeley campus.

This year, we open our season with one of our most important events of the entire year: the American premiere of Kenneth Pai and the Suzhou Kun Opera Theatre of Jiangsu's brilliant new production of The Peony Pavilion. Performed over two nights and one afternoon at Zellerbach Hall (September 15-17), this nine-hour, 27-scene production promises to be one of the most spectacular events ever seen on our stage and if you don't have your tickets lined up already, I encourage you to move quickly as they have been selling at a very brisk pace and we are expecting sold-out houses at this point!

Peony Pavilion Educational Opportunities
Written more than 400 years ago by Tang Xianzu, a contemporary of William Shakespeare, this epic love story is considered one of the world's great artistic accomplishments and has been re-interpreted and produced to great acclaim by famed Taiwanese novelist Kenneth Pai, Professor Emeritus of Chinese literature and cultural studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. To learn more about this new production from its creator himself, I encourage you to watch the latest installment of our popular Video Program Notes series on our website in which Professor Pai talks about falling in love with the kun opera at the tender age of nine, why kunqu is called "the mother of all operas" and why he broke with tradition and cast a group of actors/singers who are as young and beautiful as they are talented.

In addition, there is a whole range of free education and humanities programs scheduled in conjunction with the performance to allow you to explore the artistic legacy of Chinese kun opera, including Sightlines events, a three-day symposium entitled The Peony Pavilion in Context: Kun Opera and Cultural Performance from Ming to Modern Times, and many more events organized by Cal Performances in association with UC Berkeley's Center for Chinese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, The Berkeley China Initiative, Department of Music, the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, and The Consortium for the Arts at UC Berkeley.

The Peony Pavilion will be performed in Kun, a local dialect, with subtitles in both English and Mandarin. In order to allow you to familiarize yourself with this classic tale of true love in advance, a full synopsis is now available on our web site along with links to some informational background articles recently published in the UC Berkeley Alumni Associations' California Magazine, The Taipei Times, and more.

The Recital Season also gets off to a great start in September!
In addition to a now almost sold-out dual recital by Kiri Te Kanawa and Frederica von Stade, our Recital Series gets off to a great start in September with two Cal Performances recital debuts.

Italian soprano Nuccia Focile, winner of the Pavarotti Vocal Competition in 1984, went on to sing with the preeminent tenor himself over the next 10 years in productions at La Scala, San Carlo in Napels and Paris Opera. In an unusually intimate concert in Hertz Hall, I will be conducting members of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra as they join her in performing a program of Italian and French works by Puccini, Verdi, Cilea and more.

There are also still a few tickets left for the highly anticipated Cal Performances debut of Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón, considered a leading lyric tenor among today's young singers. Truly a rapidly emerging star in the opera world, Villazón has often been compared to a young Placido Domingo. He'll perform a program of works by Schumann, Handel, Fauré, and Obradors.

For more information, including complete programs, see our web site:

I look forward to seeing you at these events and many more as our 2006/07 Season gets underway at Cal Performances. Next up on our From the Director Series for 2006/07: a look at our second big Fall 2006 event: the American premiere of Mark Morris' King Arthur!

Sincerely,

Robert Cole
Director, Cal Performances