Ron Bierman, Broadway World, 22nd January 2019
“British conductor Michael Francis is known to San Diego concert goers as the music director of the city’s Mainly Mozart Festival. Since taking the job four years ago he has embarked on an ambitious chronological survey of the music of the composer who inspired the festival’s name. On this evening he traveled a few blocks north and half a musical century forward to appear as guest conductor of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra in a program of works by “The Young Romantics.” The enthusiastic reaction he received after the performance may increase the chances he will be called on again in future Symphony seasons…
[Symphonie fantastique] recalls volatile emotions, distorted memories and wild nightmares, all captured By Francis’s precise but passionate conducting and the equally committed response of the orchestra and its soloists. Fevered underlying uneasiness pervaded even the calm middle section in which ominous timpani rumble in the background as shepherds converse. The final two movements depict opium induced hallucinations in which, convinced his love has been spurned, the artist kills his beloved, and the love theme is cut short by his violent execution. Even more frightening visions follow. Fiendish supernatural creatures gather at his funeral, and the love theme becomes a grotesque vulgar dance for fiendish witches, a finale played in this performance with riveting effect.”
