—MARIA MANETTI SHREM GREAT ARTIST PERFORMANCE—
Renée Fleming, soprano
Howard Watkins, piano
Friday, February 9, 2024, 8pm
Zellerbach Hall
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From the Executive and Artistic Director
I’m so pleased to welcome you back to campus as we move into the second half of our extraordinary 2023–24 season. There are far too many highlights this month for me to mention each and every one, but I can’t help but single out a few standout events. Of course, any visit by the legendary soprano Renée Fleming is worthy of attention, and this month’s Zellerbach Hall appearance is no exception, coming, as it does, hot on the heels of her receiving the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement in December. For dance, you won’t want to miss a dazzling double-bill pairing the late Pina Bausch’s iconic The Rite of Spring with common ground[s], a new duet co-created and performed by septuagenarians Germaine Acogny, known as the “mother of African contemporary dance,” and Malou Airaudo, a longtime dancer with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. Featuring more than 30 dancers from 14 African countries assembled through a collaboration with Germany’s Pina Bausch Foundation, Senegal’s École des Sables, and the UK’s Sadler’s Wells theater, this program is the type of large-scale and ambitious artistic collaboration that has long defined Cal Performances. And finally, we’re tremendously excited about Taylor Mac & Matt Ray’s upcoming Bark of Millions (see page 6 for more details), an epic “parade trance extravaganza” that celebrates queerness in all its facets and the power of individuality and human connection to push boundaries and bring bold and fresh perspectives to our stage.
As spring approaches, we will continue to invest in ongoing relationships with established and acclaimed artistic partners, with upcoming projects including the renewal of a multi-season residency by The Joffrey Ballet, which this year will present its first full-length narrative ballet, Anna Karenina, at Zellerbach Hall. And I’m especially pleased that in March, the renowned pianist Mitsuko Uchida will join us as Artist in Residence for two special concerts as well as additional opportunities for the campus and wider Bay Area community to engage with her singular artistry.
An ongoing focus of the season is our multi-dimensional Illuminations programming, which once again connects the work of world-class artists to the intellectual life and scholarship at UC Berkeley via performances and public programs investigating a pressing theme—this season, “Individual & Community.” Concepts of “individual” and “community” have been at the forefront of public discourse in recent years, with new questions emerging as to how we can best nurture a sense of community and how the groups we associate with impact our own sense of self. Given our fast-evolving social landscape, how can we retain and celebrate the traits that make each of us unique, while still thriving in a world that demands cooperation and collaboration? With the performing arts serving as our guide and compass, we will explore the tensions that come into play when balancing the interests of the individual with those of the group.
Finally, I want to mention a major new venture coming up next season, the Maria Manetti Shrem and Elizabeth Segerstrom California Orchestra Residency, when Cal Performances and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County will bring the world renowned Vienna Philharmonic and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin to California during spring 2025. Made possible by philanthropists Maria Manetti Shrem and Elizabeth Segerstrom, three performances at Zellerbach Hall (March 5–7) will be followed by two in Orange County (March 9 and 11) at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Programs will feature works by Mozart, Schubert, Dvořák, Mahler, and Richard Strauss, with acclaimed pianist Yefim Bronfman set to join the orchestra for a Beethoven concerto appearance. Exact programming will be announced shortly, and on-sale dates will be provided in April, when Cal Performances’ 2024–25 season is announced to the general public.
Again, welcome to Cal Performances! We’re delighted to join together, celebrating the very best in live music, dance, and theater.
Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances
I’m so pleased to welcome you back to campus as we move into the second half of our extraordinary 2023–24 season. There are far too many highlights this month for me to mention each and every one, but I can’t help but single out a few standout events. Of course, any visit by the legendary soprano Renée Fleming is worthy of attention, and this month’s Zellerbach Hall appearance is no exception, coming, as it does, hot on the heels of her receiving the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement in December. For dance, you won’t want to miss a dazzling double-bill pairing the late Pina Bausch’s iconic The Rite of Spring with common ground[s], a new duet co-created and performed by septuagenarians Germaine Acogny, known as the “mother of African contemporary dance,” and Malou Airaudo, a longtime dancer with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. Featuring more than 30 dancers from 14 African countries assembled through a collaboration with Germany’s Pina Bausch Foundation, Senegal’s École des Sables, and the UK’s Sadler’s Wells theater, this program is the type of large-scale and ambitious artistic collaboration that has long defined Cal Performances. And finally, we’re tremendously excited about Taylor Mac & Matt Ray’s upcoming Bark of Millions (see page 6 for more details), an epic “parade trance extravaganza” that celebrates queerness in all its facets and the power of individuality and human connection to push boundaries and bring bold and fresh perspectives to our stage.
As spring approaches, we will continue to invest in ongoing relationships with established and acclaimed artistic partners, with upcoming projects including the renewal of a multi-season residency by The Joffrey Ballet, which this year will present its first full-length narrative ballet, Anna Karenina, at Zellerbach Hall. And I’m especially pleased that in March, the renowned pianist Mitsuko Uchida will join us as Artist in Residence for two special concerts as well as additional opportunities for the campus and wider Bay Area community to engage with her singular artistry.
An ongoing focus of the season is our multi-dimensional Illuminations programming, which once again connects the work of world-class artists to the intellectual life and scholarship at UC Berkeley via performances and public programs investigating a pressing theme—this season, “Individual & Community.” Concepts of “individual” and “community” have been at the forefront of public discourse in recent years, with new questions emerging as to how we can best nurture a sense of community and how the groups we associate with impact our own sense of self. Given our fast-evolving social landscape, how can we retain and celebrate the traits that make each of us unique, while still thriving in a world that demands cooperation and collaboration? With the performing arts serving as our guide and compass, we will explore the tensions that come into play when balancing the interests of the individual with those of the group.
Finally, I want to mention a major new venture coming up next season, the Maria Manetti Shrem and Elizabeth Segerstrom California Orchestra Residency, when Cal Performances and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County will bring the world renowned Vienna Philharmonic and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin to California during spring 2025. Made possible by philanthropists Maria Manetti Shrem and Elizabeth Segerstrom, three performances at Zellerbach Hall (March 5–7) will be followed by two in Orange County (March 9 and 11) at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Programs will feature works by Mozart, Schubert, Dvořák, Mahler, and Richard Strauss, with acclaimed pianist Yefim Bronfman set to join the orchestra for a Beethoven concerto appearance. Exact programming will be announced shortly, and on-sale dates will be provided in April, when Cal Performances’ 2024–25 season is announced to the general public.
Again, welcome to Cal Performances! We’re delighted to join together, celebrating the very best in live music, dance, and theater.
Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances
A Message from the Artist
When I was 14, the film Soylent Green was released, a sci-fi thriller about a dystopian future of worldwide pollution, dying oceans, depleted resources, and rampant starvation. The story was set in the year 2022.
The movie has faded from memory, but one scene left a profound impression. An aged researcher, unable to go on, has chosen assisted suicide at a government clinic. To ease his last moments of life, he is shown videos of a world that no longer exists: flowers and savannahs, flocks and herds, unpolluted skies and waters, all set to a soundtrack of classical music by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Grieg.
This scene captured my imagination in a terrifying way. The impact increased when I later learned that the actor playing the researcher, Edward G. Robinson, was terminally ill at the time it was filmed.
Fast forward to the pandemic. After more than two decades of constant touring, usually to urban cultural centers, performances abruptly ceased, and I suddenly found myself at home. I sought comfort in long walks outside near my house. I needed this time outdoors to maintain my emotional equilibrium, and I was reminded that nature would always be my touchstone. At the same time, the news about climate change grew more alarming: the extinction of animals we took for granted when we were children, the knowledge that white rhinos had disappeared from the wild, and daily reports of heat, fires, and flooding. I realized that the crisis we had been warned of for so long had arrived.
I thought of the great legacy of song literature that I love, when Romantic-era poets and composers reveled in imagery of nature, finding reflections of human experience in the environment. I decided to record some of this music, and to juxtapose these classics with the voices of living composers, addressing our current, troubled relationship with the natural world.
The result, in collaboration with my friend Yannick Nézet-Séguin, was the album Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene. When it received the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, I was thrilled, and I had the idea to tour music addressing this theme of nature as both our inspiration and our victim.
I was incredibly fortunate to connect with the imaginative, dedicated leadership at the National Geographic Society, the global non-profit committed to exploring, illuminating, and protecting the wonder of our world. It has been so exciting to work with this universally respected, landmark institution. I am deeply grateful for the help of President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Ulica, Chief Executive Officer Jill Tiefenthaler, and Producer/Editor Sam Deleon, whose expertise and vision have been instrumental in creating the video you will see on the first half of tonight’s program.
Thankfully, the stunning natural world depicted in this film still exists, unlike that movie scene so upsetting to my younger self. In blending these beautiful images with music, my hope is, in some small way, to rekindle your appreciation of nature, and encourage any efforts you can make to protect the planet we share.
—Sincerely,
Renée Fleming
About the Artists
Maria Manetti Shrem, Great Artist Performance Benefactor
Born in Florence, Italy, Maria Manetti Shrem moved to San Francisco in 1972. She became instrumental in the internationalization of some of the world’s most iconic fashion brands, such as Gucci and Fendi under the umbrella brand of Manetti Farrow, designing a new and successful distribution system in North America and eventually boosting their global market.
In the 1980s, Maria created one of the most elegant estates in Napa Valley—Villa Mille Rose—where she hosted international artists and celebrities including Luciano Pavarotti, Sophia Loren, Renée Fleming, Plácido Domingo, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Isabel Allende, Marchese Piero Antinori, and Andrea Bocelli, to name only a few. As a result, she established herself as the quintessential ambassador of “Made in Italy” creations and Italian lifestyle in the San Francisco Bay Area.
She spends time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Florence and enjoys traveling all over the world while continuing to learn about contemporary art, cultural heritage preservation, and the most refined winemaking brands.
Maria and her husband, Jan Shrem, have long contributed philanthropic support within the fields of education (colleges and high schools), fine arts (museums), performing art centers (operatic and symphonic concert halls), medical research, and nonprofit cultural organizations in the US, Italy, and the UK. The Manetti Shrems currently support almost 50 charitable programs, with favorites in the US including Cal Performances, Festival Napa Valley, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the San Francisco Opera, KQED, the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, ArtSmart, SFFilm, Francisco Park (community garden), and UCSF (neurology) and CPMC (cardiology) hospitals. In Europe, Maria is one of the principal benefactors of the King’s Foundation (The Garrison Chapel and Dumfries House), the Royal Drawing School, Friends of the Louvre, Friends of Versailles, the Italian National Trust (FAI), Palazzo Strozzi Museum Foundation, Museo Novecento, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, with whom she has supported the construction of four new schools, including one at Meyer Children’s Hospital with the contribution of Festival Napa Valley.
The Manetti Shrems are co-founders of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, which opened its doors on November 13, 2016, realizing a goal that was 60 years in the making. The museum’s collection includes works by major California artists such as Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley, Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, Ruth Horsting, Manuel Neri, and Roland Petersen. The museum holds 30% of its space for educational and hands-on projects, providing a dedicated area for workshops, like in the Florentine Renaissance tradition of the “Bottega dell’Arte” where artists can learn by doing. The extraordinary architectural design of the museum—which was praised in ARTnews as “One of The World’s 25 Best Museum Buildings of the Past 100 Years,” curated by New York-based architect Florian Idenburg (SO-IL)—has already won 18 awards (six from international organizations); it has also been listed as one of the nation’s top 10 teaching museums.
Maria has received numerous prestigious awards and recognitions as an outstanding and influential cultural ambassador strengthening the relationships between the US and Italy, California and Tuscany, and the San Francisco Bay Area and Florence. In 2019, the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, bestowed upon her the title of “Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy.” On March 16, 2022, the mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, awarded her “The Keys of the City of Florence” as an inspiring role model of patronage following the Renaissance legacy of the Medici family, defining her as “the new Elettrice Palatina”—the latest heiress of the Medici family. On June 22, 2022, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem were the inaugural recipients of “The Angels of the Arts Award,” Festival Napa Valley’s highest honor. On the same occasion, the Mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, along with the county and the city, proclaimed June 22, Manetti Shrem Day, dedicated to fostering philanthropy. On December 3, 2022, she was honored with The Spirit of the Opera Award from San Francisco Opera, bowing hand in hand with the artists on stage at the end of the last performance of La Traviata. On June 18, 2023, Maria Manetti Shrem was honored with the 2023 UC Davis Medal, putting her in company with 2020 Nobel Laureate Charles Rice, artist Wayne Thiebaud, former President Bill Clinton, and fellow philanthropists Robert and Margrit Mondavi in recognition of extraordinary contributions that embody UC Davis’ vision.