MUSIC REVIEW : ‘New’ Hall With Old Problems

SAN FRANCISCO â€”  They lost their heads in San Francisco, this time to the tune of $10.25 million.

The sad saga began 12 years ago with the grand opening of Davies Symphony Hall, across the street from the opera house in the staid Civic Center. Davies, which originally came with a $27.5-million price tag, provided a glamorous, independent home for the San Francisco Symphony. It looked pretty, in its weird and wonderful way, even if iconoclasts likened its blocklong facade to a gigantic tureen or a science-fiction jukebox.

Ultimately, there seemed to be only one major problem: The sound was dry, dull and, in fortissimos, strident.

Minor adjustments were undertaken almost immediately, and they continued over the years. Finally, in 1990, the authorities decided to venture some drastic steps toward what the news releases call “acoustical and architectural refurbishment.�

A new team of acousticians--Kirkegaard and Associates of Chicago--was engaged. Private sources came up with the $10.25 million needed to build new side walls above and around the stage, to hitch a new fleet of sound-reflecting Plexiglas saucers to the ceiling and to add a parquet floor on the orchestra level. That was just the beginning.

In a welcome, daring, apparently revolutionary move toward intimacy in a world that increasingly values size for its own overpowering sake, the renovators decided to think a little smaller. Honey, they shrunk the hall.

The seating capacity, formerly 3,063, was reduced to 2,743. The overall volume was cut by 5%.

Wednesday night, San Francisco celebrated the second coming of Davies Hall. Chronic brouhaha, terminal self-congratulation and heavy-duty partying surrounded a would-be festive mini-concert at Van Ness Avenue and Grove. Despite the rigors of inflation, the top ticket in the sold-out house cost $1,000, just as it had at the 1980 opening.

First the good news. The updated interior looks handsome. Most important, some designing genius has done away with that modern atrocity known as continental seating (one fervently hopes the designing geniuses for Disney Hall in Los Angeles are paying attention). Davies now boasts four lovely, commodious, practical, civilized aisles downstairs. Patrons can get to and from their seats without clambering over a human obstacle course. The pleasure is exquisite.

Now the bad news. The acoustical malady lingers on.

Herbert Blomstedt, embattled music director of the San Francisco Symphony, led--and sometimes chased--his charges through a rather prosaic performance of Beethoven’s mighty Ninth Symphony. The playing tended toward the ragged--Blomstedt’s stick is no stickler for precision--and dramatic continuity proved erratic. Even so, a wash of rich, mellow, well-balanced sound might have provided compensation. No such luck.

From an aisle seat in Row T, one sensed little orchestral presence. One heard much treble, not so much bass, a good deal of distortion and alarmingly tinny overtones. The experience was like listening to an old LP played on a low-fi set with the volume turned up too high.

Perhaps improvement will come with the manipulation of the numerous variables built into the presumably sophisticated system. Perhaps the sound was better in other locations. Perhaps the musicians are not yet accustomed to the altered ambience.

Perhaps. . . .

The uneven vocal soloists, stationed behind the orchestra, seemed distant and muted. Tom Krause was the rather raspy baritone, Jerry Hadley the lyrically poised tenor and Benita Valente the bland yet secure soprano. Diane Curry, like most mezzo-sopranos in this ungrateful challenge, got lost in the mush.

The singers of the Symphony Chorus, stationed in amphitheater seats rising at the rear of the stage, opened the program with a snazzy contrapuntal version of the national anthem arranged by their director, Vance George. In the Ninth, they sang into the void with apparent fervor and security.

Unfortunately, the heroic cadence of Beethoven’s ode to joy was not allowed to reverberate for long. The lofty sentiment segued without so much as a Luftpause into an entertainment titled “Sounds of the Bay Area.� A coda worthy of halftime ceremonies at a college football game, it drafted marching bands, drummers in the balcony, antiphonal brass, Chinese streamer-wavers, a close-harmony barbershop ensemble, and a campy vamp probably seeking refuge from some Babylonian beach blanket.

Then, at last, came the fancy food and drink. It was that sort of an evening.

A good time was had by some.