Founded just four years ago, the National Philharmonic of Russia already is a virtuoso orchestra. Its performance Sunday at Davies Symphony Hall under the baton of Vladimir Spivakov was exceptional and often brilliant, with moments so vivid that the music felt almost wet, like fresh paint on a canvas.

How an orchestra, especially a large one like this, can come so far so fast is a matter of mystery and speculation.

Clearly, its 100-plus members have been handpicked. Clearly, a lot of money has been thrown at it and a lot of expectations are riding on it. Founded with the support of Russia's Cultural Ministry and President Vladimir Putin, the orchestra resides at the new Moscow International Performing Arts Center, the first classical music concert hall built in Russia in a century.

But a lot, if not most, of the credit has to lie with Spivakov, the Philharmonic's music director, whose conducting Sunday in San Francisco went beyond refined to cartographic, his balletic gestures delineating the musical landscape. A clean arc of the wand summoned golden glazings of strings; a snap of the wrist summoned a bolt of percussion. (And what a percussion section this orchestra has.)

The fact that Spivakov, a celebrated violinist, also is a suavely charismatic character, one who enjoys doing a Fred Astaire soft-shoe on the podium, didn't hurt. He's an actor and was putting on a show, and I suppose he was manipulating all of us in the sold-out house. Still, this was some show.

The concert, part of the San Francisco Symphony's Great Performers Series, didn't offer a program of new challenges, that's true. It was wall-to-wall Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, meat and potatoes.

But to hear the colors and shadings and balance of the orchestra -- this was gourmet meat and potatoes, let me tell you.

The Philharmonic did some limbering up before full takeoff.

Tchaikovsky's ``Romeo and Juliet'' Fantasy-Overture was mostly flowing and precise, with great wind colors and layers of strings -- and melody, of course. The love theme, the war theme (those Capulets and Montagues!), the surges and pullbacks and releases and explosions. Impressive, but, still, marred by the occasional flat note and blurred attack in the winds and brass.

Next was Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, that boiling vat of passion and song. It was completed in 1901 when the composer was all of 28 and newly released from several years of writer's block by a hypnotherapist named Nicolai Dahl (with whose daughter Rachmaninoff may have been in love; there's more than one way to un-block a block).

Sunday's soloist was Olga Kern, Gold Medal winner at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and an increasingly successful presence on the concert circuit. She is steeped in Russia's musical history: Her great-grandmother was a mezzo-soprano who sang with Rachmaninoff. Her great-great grandmother was a friend of Tchaikovsky's.

And like Spivakov, she knows about acting and image. She strode onstage in a backless, flaming orange-red gown and played fearlessly, building those opening, tolling chords of the concerto from a whisper to a wow and into a gallop. Then entered the orchestra, with huge, dramatic Russian melody.

For much of this movement, there were balance problems: The gleaming orchestra was overpowering Kern, a pianist who can play with steel-banded strength. I wondered if she was tussling with the piano, which sounded a little brittle and may not have been letting her match the orchestra in volume or lushness.

But she found her way in the slower second movement. With clarinet and flute and then strings hovering about her, she grew commandingly fluid, and suddenly the concert took a turn. Kern and the pizzicato strings seemed to grow into one another; the music was becoming collaborative, trance-like, and quietly seductive.

Full blastoff happened in the final movement, when orchestra and soloist matched one another in shape, contour and precision of performance. The pianist's control was remarkable as she moved through her instrument's full dynamic range in the briefest phrase.

It was great.

Still better was Rachmaninoff's ``Symphonic Dances,'' completed in 1940 after he had suffered yet another long round of writer's block. Sunday, the music was rhythmically vital -- throbbing. It gleamed with color and had a fine, watchmaker's precision about it; I would love to hear this orchestra play Ravel.

The closing Allegro vivace was in Technicolor, blazing with percussion, gong, harp, trombones -- crashing, whispering, crashing again and then dissolving away as Spivakov, the actor, turned and aimed an arc of wand at the audience, as if tossing fairy dust.

I felt manipulated, but I enjoyed it.

One thing. The Philharmonic's proclaimed mission is to preserve Russia's musical treasures, but the treasures it performed Sunday aren't really in need of preservation. They get played all the time. Another time, it would be instructive to hear this orchestra get into some Shostakovich or Schnittke, music that makes some very different demands.

Still, Sunday's conservative program dazzled.

Contact Richard Scheinin at rscheinin@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5069.

The biggest news coming out of Opera San Jose this season is that it has a slew of very good new singers, including two outstanding sopranos, Talise Trevigne and Rochelle Bard. Has the company ever sounded this good? Have its productions ever shone with this much sophistication?

Not in my memory -- and I keep hearing the same from South Bay opera buffs who've been around a lot longer than I.

Saturday's opening of the company's new production of Verdi's ``La Traviata'' at the California Theatre generated many of the highs that opera lovers crave: arias and love duets sung with real heat, lusty ensemble and choral pieces, a great orchestral performance, along with an eye-popping trifecta of sets, lighting and gorgeous period costumes.

For much of the night, all this came together beautifully, a trick that doesn't often happen in regional productions.

There were three linchpins: Trevigne's exceptional performance as Violetta, the tubercular courtesan at center stage; the leadership of conductor David Rohrbaugh, whose orchestra performed crisply and lyrically even when the action flagged on stage; and stage director Olivia Stapp's understanding of how to snap the elements of a production into focus.

Still, the production hit a painful dry stretch in its second act. But let's hold off on that for a minute, because another element stood out Saturday: the audience. It buzzed with excitement (and you know and I know that that's not typical in San Jose). It also included lots of twenty- and thirtysomething listeners. Word must be getting around about Opera San Jose.

Much of the buzz, clearly, is about Trevigne, who has star power: good looks, graceful movements, potent acting ability and a voice that should spring her toward a big career. She won't be singing in the company's next (and final) production of the season, Puccini's ``Madame Butterfly,'' so here's your chance to catch her in action.

Her voice is limber and acrobatic; butter-rich, yet airy. She sings with terrific control -- and emotional abandon. She goes for it. Her Violetta was flirtatious, furious, feverishly in love and fainting, literally, from the tuberculosis which brings her down.

Opening-night jitters might explain her occasional fatigue or minor slip in this taxing role. But mostly, this was a superb performance, and it brought down the house.

To hear Trevigne sing ``Ah fors'Ž lui'' -- about ``mysterious and unattainable love'' -- was a powerful experience. She can skewer a high note at a whisper and then hold it right there. Her love duets in the first and last acts with tenor Isaac Hurtado, as Violetta's callow lover Alfredo, were at once delicate and tormented.

(I should mention that Opera San Jose has a pair of rotating casts. The roles of Violetta and Alfredo in the other cast, which I haven't seen, are sung by soprano Bard and tenor Christopher Bengochea).

Set in Paris in the 19th century, ``Traviata'' revolves around Violetta, a high-society prostitute with lots of big-money friends and admirers. Into her world steps Alfredo, smitten with Violetta, who finds herself falling head over heels in love for the first time. (When this happens at the California, the imposing, neutral-toned, neo-classic set is bathed in rose light, a great touch.)

The two enjoy a brief time of bliss, but it's cut short by Alfredo's father, Giorgio Germont. He believes that Violetta has brought a taint on his family and shames her into giving up Alfredo, who is shattered. As is Violetta, who, in the final act, is reunited at her deathbed with Alfredo and Giorgio, filled with remorse.

So now let's get to that dry patch. Much of the first scene of the second act is given over to an extended duet between Violetta and Giorgio, during which he persuades her to abandon her lover. It is a key to the opera.

Baritone Kenneth Mattice, one of the company's talented new resident singers, sang Giorgio with elegance and gravity. But opera isn't only about singing; it's theater. Mattice's acting was stiff; overall, he seemed uncomfortable in this psychologically complex role.

Giorgio is a powerful man and a manipulative parent who does his dirty work, yet understands how dirty it is and knows he's being a rat. He is probably 50 or 60 years old, too, and whitening Mattice's hair wasn't enough to make him believable -- even in opera, where we are asked to believe a lot.

Almost any singer in his mid-20s, like Mattice, would have a hard time getting inside this role. Why was he cast in it? Opera San Jose likes to say it is a professional company and not a training company, so it shouldn't do this sort of thing, which actually was unfair to Mattice.

It sucked the energy from much of the second act, during which Hurtado -- who sang with honeyed lyricism and youthful ardor in the opening act -- also seemed out of sorts. He couldn't process his character's anger, the sudden ``hatred'' for Violetta of which he sang. It came out as milquetoast.

Enough. The performance righted itself in the final act with Trevigne's advance toward death: her desperation, resignation and last gasps, the truth of her situation, registered on her face, in her eyes, in her voice. The cast galvanized around her; the curtain fell; the crowd roared.

The Czech Nonet began its Sunday concert at Le Petit Trianon with a blast of sunshine that was almost disconcerting -- happily so. The nine-piece outfit from Prague was performing the music of Mozart (who once found a second home in that city) with big vitality and affection, not to mention authenticity.

The Divertimento No. 11, nicknamed ``Nannerl'' after Mozart's sister, flooded through the little hall in downtown San Jose. Given the healthy dose of reverb that fattens up every performance at the Trianon, the Nonet (five winds and four strings) sounded like a small orchestra, the music embodying complementary qualities; it was formal, even genteel, yet sensual and vivacious.

It was above all buoyant, and you had to wonder if the Nonet was letting the audience understand Nannerl as Mozart understood his sister. The music seemed visual, too, evoking dances in an 18th-century court. And there was something tangible, deeply physical, about it: the succulence of the oboe, played by Vladislav Borovka, and the brisk, almost wild, down-strokes of violinist Romana Zieglerova.

It was just a great performance -- alive! -- and one that secondarily evoked the complexities of the classical music business.

The Czech Nonet is full of young players, while the Trianon was filled with middle-aged and elderly listeners for this concert, sponsored by the San Jose Chamber Music Society.

That's pretty typical of classical events. But when you hear a performance this good -- this unstuck-up -- you have to wonder: Where are the young listeners, including the music students around the corner at San Jose State University? For the cost of a CD, or a handful of downloads, they could have experienced something memorable.

This music needs a marketing makeover.

The rest of the concert wasn't as good.

The Nonet, founded in the 1920s, has commissioned music from important composers: Prokofiev, Witold Lutoslawski, Bohuslav Martinu. Add to that list Robert Ward, the Pulitzer Prize winner, who recently turned 90 and has expanded his ``Raleigh Divertimento,'' originally composed for woodwind quintet, for the group.

It has the feeling of New York at midcentury, when Copland ruled and musical theater was in the air, along with the memory of Gershwin jazz. It's sentimental and has a sense of steady prelude about it; when ``Raleigh'' reaches a climax, you expect it to break out into a Gershwin tune, but Ward doesn't have that in him. Who does?

The performance was sloppy, too, with blown entrances in the winds.

The night closed with Brahms' ``Serenade in D major, Opus 11,'' thought to have been lost or destroyed by the composer, then reconstructed by musicologist Alan Boustead in the 1980s. It had its ravishing moments, but some klunkiness, too. That full-out Brahmsian ardor was missing.

Contact Richard Scheinin at rscheinin@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5069.