Pocket Opera to Conclude Season this Month

The 2026 season of Pocket Opera performances in San Francisco will conclude on the final Sunday of this month. The opera to be presented will be Giacomo Puccini’s three-act La rondine (the swallow). This is one of the few comic operas in the Puccini catalog, the best-known being the one-act “Gianni Schicchi.”

Angela Gheorghiu singing the “Doretta” aria during a gala concert for the Silver Jubilee of Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands

I have to confess that I have never seen this opera in its entirety, and I suspect that most readers are just as unfamiliar with any of the arias in it. At best, there is probably one exception, “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta,” which the courtesan Magda de Civry (soprano Michelle Allie Drever) sings in the first act. The poet Prunier (tenor Alex Taite) presents himself as an authority on love. He is the author of the words for that song, but he never manages to finish it until Magda takes over to prove a love-conquers-all conclusion. All of this takes place at a salon in Paris, but it is only the first of the three acts.

The overall narrative accounts for Magda’s relationship with the young Ruggero (tenor Maxwell Ary). In the first act we learn that he meets Magda on his first visit to Paris and is smitten by her. By the end of the second act, they have decided to begin a new life together. That “new life” takes them to the French Riviera in the final act. It that setting Magda eventually concludes that she is just not the right women to be Ruggero’s bride. She goes back to Paris to maintain her social life; and Ruggero is devastated at having been abandoned. Nevertheless, he is still young and will probably be better equipped for any future romantic encounter!

A Web page has been created for purchasing tickets at prices from $45 to $89. The performance will begin at 1:30 PM on Sunday, July 26. in the Gunn Theater at The Legion of Honor. For those that do not yet know, this building is located in Lincoln Park, which involves following 34th Avenue into the Park after it crosses Clement Street.

“Bohemians” at the Metropolitan Opera

A little over two weeks ago, I wrote about the Great Performances at the Met on Public Television this past March 15, which I had saved in my xfinity list of recordings. The performance on that occasion was Kevin Puts’ two-act opera The Hours, which was very much a “first contact” experience. Today turned out to be my latest opportunity to view another saved broadcast from the Great Performances series. This time, however, the opera was one so familiar that I have lost count of all of the times I have seen it in performance.

Juliana Grigoryan and Freddie De Tommaso in the leading roles of Puccini’s La Bohème

The opera was Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, which could not have been more familiar in the number of past accounts both in opera houses and on television. This was the latest in many stagings initially directed by Franco Zeffirelli. What was new, however, were the performances of the leading characters in the cast: Mimi, sung by soprano Juliana Grigoryan, and Rodolfo, portrayed by tenor Freddie De Tommaso. Sadly, the PBS Web page for this broadcast felt it would be superfluous to provide the name of the director that reconstructed Zeffirelli’s direction. More informative were the rolling credits at the end of the video itself, which identified the Revival Director as Mirabelle Ordinaire. Those credits also turned out to be the only source identifying the conductor as Keri-Lynn Wilson.

While this is far from my favorite opera, I feel a need to give any new production that is made available a fair shake. As a result, I was particularly drawn to Ordinaire advancing the narrative at just the right pace, even if she was doing little more than following in Zeffirelli’s footsteps! This is particularly crucial in the final act, where things just keep getting worse and worse leading up to Mimi’s death. Ordinaire delivered just the right pace to keep the narrative from descending into bathos. (I might almost suggest that her delivery was more convincing than Puccini’s music or, for that matter, the libretto text by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa!)

The fact is that whenever I encounter a Puccini score, I brace myself for the onset of squirming; but, thanks to both Ordinaire’s revival staging and Wilson’s command of the music, I managed to hold off squirming until the last half-hour of the performance!

Program Plans for 2025 Schwabacher Concert

Poster design for It’s Complicated—Love & Opera (courtesy of the Merola Opera Program)

As was announced at the end of May, the next public performance to be presented this season by the Merola Summer Opera Program will be the annual Schwabacher Summer Concert. This year’s event has a subtitle: It’s Complicated—Love & Opera. The “main event” will be the so-called “confrontation scene” from Giacomo Puccini’s one-act opera “Suor Angelica.” This scene is best known for concluding the aria sung by the title character, “Senza mamma.” The program will also include extended scenes from four operas by Gaetano Donizetti: Il Campanello, Roberto Devereux, Anna Bolena, and Don Pasquale.

This program will be given two performances at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 10, and at 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 12. The venue will be the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, which is located at 50 Oak Street. A Web page has been created for online ticket purchases; but, as of this writing is unresponsive. The best way to determine whether or not tickets are still available will be to call the San Francisco Opera Box Office at 415-864-3330.

Revisiting the “Bohemians” at SFO

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I returned to the War Memorial Opera House for a second encounter with the San Francisco Opera (SFO) production of Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème. Casting was the same as on opening night with tenor Pene Pati in the role of Rodolfo, Lucas Meachem as Marcello, and Karen Chia-ling Ho as Mimi. Ramón Tebar returned to the orchestra pit to serve as conductor.

It would be fair to say that, over the course of the preceding five performances, all the members of the cast had settled into the characters they were performing. The overall narrative involves Rodolfo’s initial meeting with Mimi and the romance that ensues, only to be obliterated by her tragic death from the ill health that never left her since the time of that first encounter. This is then embellished by the rockier relationship between Marcello and Musetta and the setting of the rich and raucous “bohemian life” in the Latin Quarter.

Pene Pati as Rodolfo and Karen Chia-ling Ho as Mimi in their last moments together in the final act of La Bohème (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

From a narrative point of view, the “journey” is Rodolfo’s. He is a struggling poet; and, while the narrative never suggests the Mimi becomes his muse, it is clear from the narrative (not to mention the music) that she quickly becomes a source of inspiration. However, as might be expected, a rapid and passionate ascent leads to a steep downturn.

There is a danger that Mimi’s illness in the fourth act runs the risk of wallowing in the maudlin. However, the staging by John Caird found just the right way to keep the delivery of the libretto text from that wallow. Ho and Pati could therefore sing their way through both the excitement of discovery and the ultimate tragedy of loss. Similarly, that tragedy seems also to lead both Marcello and Musetta down a more sobering path, one that might even lead them to a graceful entry to older age.

To some extent Bohème is the opera that led the way into vérité rhetoric. Mind you, the libretto clearly steers its way to avoid the mundanity of everyday life. Nevertheless, there is a context of flesh-and-blood that transcends the more idealized characters found in so many of the nineteenth-century operas. (Giuseppe Verdi, of course, significantly initiated that transition; but Puccini took it to a new level.) Bohème transported opera out into the everyday streets of Paris, and the ways in which Caird captured the essence of those mundane aspects was just as important as his development of the characters in Puccini’s libretto.

SFO “Summer” Season Begins with Puccini

Last night in the War Memorial Opera House, the final performances of the 2024–25 San Francisco Opera (SFO) season got under way. The first of the two operas to be presented was Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème with the staging by John Caird of a production shared with the Houston Grand Opera and the Canadian Opera Company. This revival was directed by Katherine M. Carter, making her SFO debut.

The cast featured tenor Pene Pati in the role of Rodolfo and Lucas Meachem as Marcello, both Merola alumni. The role of Mimi was sung by Merola alumna Karen Chia-ling Ho, last seen in the Opera House in the role of Princess Jia in Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber. The conductor was Ramón Tebar.

The Latin Quarter set for the second act of La Bohème (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

This narrative of the “Bohemian” life of poverty-stricken artists is framed by opening and closing acts set in a prototypical garret. These provide “personal” context for the more public Parisian settings, the first in the festive Latin Quarter and the second in the early morning at the city gate known as the Barrière d’Enfer (gate of Hell). While the opera’s title refers to the life of the male “starving artists” (such as Rodolfo and Marcello), Mimi is the sickly one, whose death is the climax of the final act.

The narrative is thus a roller-coaster ride through starvation, revelry, love, and death. Just as Richard Wagner knew how to identify each of his characters with a leitmotif (“guiding motif”), Puccini’s music breathes individual personality into his. Those individuals are then turned loose into the public settings of everyday life. It is this breadth of scope that elevates the narrative over the melodramatic relationship between Rodolfo and Mimi.

Thus, what is significant about this production is how Caird’s staging keeps the viewer focused on the contexts in which the fates of the characters themselves progress. The opera is so familiar that everyone knows that the overall path leads downward. Nevertheless, context prevails in both music and staging. Thus, however familiar the journey may be, between the path laid out by Caird and the following of that path by the cast for this particular production, it was well worth taking.

San Francisco Opera’s “Summer” Season

When I was growing up, the first day of summer was June 21, which is when the period of daylight was the longest. However, I see from the Wikipedia page for summer that this is the date of the beginning of the “astronomical” season, while the “meteorological” season will begin on June 1. In this context, this year’s “summer season” of the San Francisco Opera (SFO), is definitely meteorological! It will begin on June 1 and conclude on June 27. There will be two full-length operas, the second a new production, and a concert at the very end of the season. Specifics are as follows:

Giacomo Puccini, La Bohème, June 3–21: This performance will be the staging by John Caird of a production shared with the Houston Grand Opera and the Canadian Opera Company. The revival with be directed by Katherine M. Carter, making her SFO debut. The conductor will be Ramón Tebar. A Web page has been created, which provides hyperlinks for in-depth Web sites for information about the opera, the performers, and the director. There will also be a livestream of the performance on June 10, which will begin at 7:30 p.m. A period of on-demand streaming will begin at 10 a.m. on June 16 and run through 10 a.m. on June 18. Tickets are currently available for the 7:30 p.m. performances on June 3, 7, 10, 12, 13, 18, 19, and 21. Tickets for the 2 p.m. matinee on June 16 are limited and no longer available for online purchase. Those hoping to attend are advised to call the Box Office at 415-864-3330, which is open on Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. On the date of the performance, the Box Office will be open through the first intermission.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Idomeneo, June 14–25: Lindy Hume will be making her SFO debut in staging this production shared with Opera Australia and Victorian Opera. Music Director Eun Sun Kim will conduct. Once again, all necessary information will be available through the home page for this production. The livestream will be available at 7:30 p.m. on June 20, with on-demand streaming beginning at 10 a.m. on June 23 and running through 10 a.m. on June 25. Tickets are currently available for the 7:30 p.m. performances on June 14, 17, 20, and 25 and the 2 p.m. matinee on June 22. Further information from the Box Office is available as stated above.

Celebrating SFO at the 2023 Pride Parade

Pride Concert, June 27: The season will conclude with a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. The SFO Orchestra will perform with Kim sharing the podium with Robert Mollicone. There will be three vocal soloists, mezzos Jamie Barton and Nikola Printz and baritone Brian Mulligan. The composers selected for the program reflect the “Pride spirit” with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at one end and Jake Heggie at the other. The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m.

SFO Orchestra: First Community Concert

At the end of last week, this site announced the plans of the San Francisco Opera (SFO) Orchestra to presented free community concerts. The first of those events was given last night at the Minnesota Street Project in Dogpatch. The performers included two different string quartets, three wind players, and a concluding ensemble of four violins and bass. Two of the selections involved vocal music in which the wind players took the vocal parts.

The program began with “Crisantemi” (chrysanthemums), which is probably Giacomo Puccini’s best-known instrumental composition. It was performed by the string quartet of violinists Jennifer Hsieh and Naoko Nakajima, Lindan Burns on viola, and cellist Rachel Ko. It was conceived as a memorial work for King Amadeo I of Spain, and the thematic material would subsequently find its was into Puccini’s Manon Lescaut opera. The players perfectly captured Puccini’s rhetoric of stillness, readily seizing the attention of the audience that surrounded them on all sides.

This was followed by Gustav Mahler’s song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (songs of a wayfarer). The quartet players were joined by Benjamin Brogadir on Cor anglais (English horn) performing the vocal line. The quintet presented an arrangement by Cliff Colnot and Stefan Hersh. This music was probably familiar to many of the listeners, at least some of whom could probably hear the words of the text (by Mahler himself) behind Brogadir’s solo work. The performance may not have had the no-holds-barred intensity of the composer’s score, but it still provided an absorbing account of a highly expressive narrative.

The quartet then accompanied the duo of flutist Stephanie McNab and Gabriel Young on oboe. This time the words transformed into instrumental music came from the text of the “Flower Duet” from Léo Delibes’ opera Lakmé. The vocalists in the opera were a soprano and mezzo, and arranger Carrie Weick definitely made the right choice of instruments for those voices. It would probably be fair to say that most listeners know more about this music than about the words being sung, and such listeners would have been more than satisfied with this particular sextet arrangement.

Alberto Ginastera (photograph by Annemarie Heinrich, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

McNab and Young then departed from the vocal repertoire to play the one work on the program without any “vocal connections.” This was a three-movement duo for flute and oboe by Alberto Ginastera. He identified his final movement as a “wild fugue;” and he was not being modest about it! The composer’s Wikipedia page describes him as “one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas;” but I suspect that most of my generation knew him better by his name than by his music. I have to say that, last night, I deeply appreciated a rare opportunity for the music to take priority over the name!

The program then concluded with the “non-standard” string quintet of violinists Jennifer Cho, Dian Zhang, Barbara Riccardi, and Leslie Ludena performing with William Wasson on bass. This was my latest encounter with a new composer (Julian Milone) deciding to have his way with Georges Bizet’s Carmen opera. By now I have pretty much lost count of the many ways in which this opera has been reworked. My favorite is still the effort by David Hess and John Corigliano to turn the source into an “electric rock opera” in their album The Naked Carmen. I was reminded of this album because it included the Farandole from Bizet’s second L’Arlésienne suite, which Milone also appropriated for his Carmen Fantasy. To be fair, however, last night’s quintet was never as raucous as The Naked Carmen was!

For an encore, all contributing musicians joined forces for an engaging delivery of “To a Wild Rose,” from Edward MacDowell’s Opus 51 Woodland Sketches, providing a calming conclusion to an imaginatively diverse evening.

Pocket Opera to Conclude Season with Puccini

At the end of this month, Pocket Opera will conclude its 2024 season in San Francisco with one of the most popular works in the opera repertoire. This will be Donald Pippin’s English translation of the Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa for Giacomo Puccini’s four-act opera La bohème. This was based on Henri Murger’s novel Scènes de la vie de bohème (scenes of the Bohemian lifestyle).

The opera was first performed in Turin on February 1, 1896. The conductor was Arturo Toscanini, who was 28 years old at the time. He would then celebrate the 50th anniversary of this occasion with an NBC broadcast, whose recording was then released by RCA Victor and is currently available in a Sony Music Entertainment release. The leading roles of Mimì and Rodolfo were sung, respectively, by soprano Licia Albanese and tenor Jan Peerce. The formidable bass, Salvatore Baccaloni, sang both the landlord Benoît and the councilor Alcindoro.

Diana Skavronskaya and Nicholas Huff in the roles of Mimì and Rodolfo in Pocket Opera’s production of La bohème (from the Web page for ticket purchases)

In the Pocket Opera production the leading roles will be sung by Diana Skavronskaya and Nicholas Huff. Those two more “pedestrian” roles will have different singers. Michael Mendelsohn will be the landlord, while Gene Wright will take the part of Alcindoro. The performance will be conducted by Music Director Mary Chun, and the staging will be by Elly Lichenstein.

As usual, the performance will take place at the Legion of Honor. It will begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 28. As many readers probably know by now, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. It is located at 100 34th Avenue, which is basically right in the center of Lincoln Park. General admission will be $79 with a $74 rate for seniors. Those age 30 and under may purchase tickets for $30. A Web page has been created for online purchases.

Program Announced for Schwabacher Concert

Following The Song as Drama, the next public performance to be presented by the Merola Opera Program will be an annual presentation of the Schwabacher Summer Concert. As in the past, the program will be structured around staged scenes, one of which will be directed by current Merolina Anna Theodosakis. The remainder of the program will again be directed by Omer Ben Seadia, a Merola alumnus from 2014. The conductor will be Louis Lohraseb.

Pierre-Auguste Lamy’s engraving of a scene from the third act of Gounod’s Faust (public domain, from Wikimedia Commons)

This year the program will consist of extended scenes from six decidedly distinctive operas:

1. Lucrezia Borgia: Gaetano Donizetti’s opera about Venice in the early sixteenth century based on a play of the same name by Victor Hugo about the machinations of the Borgia family
2. Faust: Charles Gounod’s five-act account of the narrative in the first part of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust
3. Pagliacci: Ruggero Leoncavallo’s two-act (with prologue) account of infidelity among commedia dell’arte players
4. Cendrillon: Jules Massenet’s freely-adapted grand opera account of Charles Perrault’s familiar “Cinderella” fairy tale
5. La bohème: Giacomo Puccini’s highly popular account of Bohemian life in nineteenth-century Paris
6. Ariadne auf Naxos: Richard Strauss’ eccentric opera in which, after having been abandoned by Theseus, Ariadne is entertained by a troupe of commedia dell’arte players

This concert will be given two performances on Thursday, July 11, at 7:30 p.m. and on Saturday, July 13, at 2 p.m. They will both take place in the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music at 50 Oak Street, a short walk north of the Van Ness Muni station. Each date has a separate Web page created for purchasing tickets, as indicated by their respectively attached hyperlinks. Once again Merola will be offering tickets to those 25 and under for only $10. In addition, there will also be a $10 rate for those seeing their first Merola production, with specific directions for this offer on the associated Web pages. All other ticket prices will be either $35 or $65. Those purchasing tickets in advance should be informed that a discount will be applied automatically when tickets for all four productions are included in the online cart. There is a single Web page listing all of those productions (with all necessary hyperlinks for the individual performances).

SFO Announces 2024–25 Season Repertory

The announcement of plans for the next season of the San Francisco Opera (SFO) seems to have occurred about one month later than it did last year. The full subscription will account for six main-stage productions; and regular subscribers will quickly note that this is two fewer than those being produced during the current season. The first four operas will be performed during the fall and the remaining two in the summer. However, the season will consist of several concert/recital events, all of which will be given a single performance. In “order of appearance,” the operas to be presented are as follows:

Un ballo in maschera, Giuseppe Verdi: This opera was last performed by SFO in October of 2014, but it was one of the productions that was offered for free streaming during the pandemic. Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim will conduct, continuing her commitment to present one opera by Verdi and one by Richard Wager during each SFO season. The production will staged by Leo Muscato, who created it for a performance by the Rome Opera. San Francisco will see two familiar faces in the leading roles, tenor Michael Fabiano as Gustavo, the King of Sweden, and soprano Lianna Haroutounian as Amelia, who is in love with Gustavo even though she is married to Count Anckarström. The third “side of the triangle,” Renato, will be sung by baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat, making his SFO debut. Also of note will be the role debut of Gustavo’s page, Oscar, taken by Chinese soprano Meigui Zhang.

The Handmaid’s Tale, Poul Ruders: This will be the West Coast Premiere of an opera by Danish composer Ruders based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood. It was co-produced by SFO and received its world premiere in Copenhagen in 2000. The libretto was written in English by Paul Bentley. Atwood wrote her novel in the first person, requiring Bentley to reframe the narrative with a third-person perspective. The premiere by the Danish Royal Opera was staged by Phyllida Lloyd, but staging in San Francisco will be by John Fulljames (another SFO debut), former head of the Danish Royal Opera. SFO had originally scheduled its performance for 2020, one of the productions that had to be postponed due to the pandemic. The title character will be sung by mezzo Irene Roberts, who will be making her role debut. The conductor will be Karen Kamensek, who made her SFO debut in 2014, when she conducted that season’s production of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah.

Tristan und Isolde, Richard Wagner: This will be Kim’s Wagner selection for the season. I must confess that I never tire of this opera and have consistently enjoyed my past encounters with it in the Opera House! SFO has been presenting it since September of 1927; and it was last performed in October of 2006. I was just beginning to flex my muscles as a writer at that time, which is when SFO was still reviving the Los Angeles production with sets designed by David Hockney. This will be a new production by Paul Curran, which he originally staged for La Fenice in Venice. The Production Designer will be Robert Innes Hopkins, whose previous work was seen most recently in last season’s performance of Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (the elixir of love). The title roles will be sung by Anja Kampe, who made her SFO debut during the 2010 Ring cycle in the role of Sieglinde, and Simon O’Neill, who sang the title role in Wagner’s Lohengrin, which was Kim’s selection for last season. SFO debuts will be taken by baritone Wolfgang Koch as Kurwenal and mezzo Annika Schlicht as Brangäne.

Carmen, Georges Bizet: This is a production shared with the Washington National Opera. Staging will be by Francesca Zambello, originally created by Opera Australia and based on a co-production shared by the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Norwegian National Opera. Mezzo Eve-Maud Hubeaux will be making her American debut in the title role. Also making her American debut will be soprano Louise Adler in the role of Micaëla. The ill-fated Don José will be sung by tenor Jonathan Tetelman, while bass-baritone Christian van Horn will take the role of the toreador Escamillo. The conductor will be Benjamin Manis, making his SFO debut.

La bohème, Giacomo Puccini: For those that really like this opera, the month of June will satisfy those pleasures and then some. There will be nine performances between June 3 and 21; and, if that were not enough, Pocket Opera will present its production on July 28 at the Gunn Theatre! Furthermore, in the SFO production, all four of the leading roles (Rodolfo, Mimi, Marcello, Musetta) will be double-cast. In addition, it will revive the staging by John Caird, making it another production that was selected for free streaming during the pandemic. The conductor at the Opera House will be Ramón Tebar.

Idomeneo, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The only thing that Idomeneo, Re di Creta, Mozart’s K. 366 opera, has in common with La bohème is that both are sung in Italian. According to my records, this was last performed by SFO in the fall of 2008, back when Donald Runnicles was the Music Director. As a result, I am particularly interested in how Kim will conduct this score, given the insights she has brought to the music of Verdi and Wagner. The title role of the King of Crete will be sung by tenor Matthew Polenzani, while the role of his son, Idamante, will be taken by soprano (and alumna of both the Merola Opera Program and the Adler Fellowship) Daniela Mack. The other major roles are both princesses. Ilia is the daughter of King Priam of Troy; and her part will be sung by soprano Ying Fang, who will be making her SFO debut. The role of Elettra, the Princess of Argos, best known for her flamboyant “rage” aria in the final act, will be taken by Elza van den Heever (another graduate of both the Merola program and the Adler Fellowship).

All six of the operas will have a single performance that will also be available for live-stream with dates and times as follows:

• Un ballo in maschera: Sunday, September 15, 2 p.m.
• The Handmaid’s Tale: Friday, September 20, 7 p.m.
• Tristan und Isolde: Sunday, October 27, 1 p.m.
• Carmen, Tuesday, November 19, 7:30 p.m.
• La bohème, Tuesday, June 10, 7:30 p.m.
• Idomeneo, Friday, June 20, 7:30 p.m.

There will also be several additional SFO events, most of which will take place in venues other than the Opera House. Many of them will be familiar, while others will be “novel ventures.” Here a brief summary for those wishing to save the dates sooner, rather than later:

• Friday, September 6, 5 p.m.: The SFO Guild will join forces with SFO to host the annual Opera Ball, which will take place in City Hall both before and after the opening night performance of Un Ballo in Maschera.
• Sunday, September 8, 1:30 p.m.: The more “public” celebration of the new season will take place, as usual, in Robin Williams Meadow in Golden Gate Park. Kim will conduct the SFO Orchestra, and several of vocal artists from the Fall season will sing both arias and ensemble settings. Those in the audience tend to bring either picnic blankets or deck chairs; and, for many, picnicking is part of the fun.
• Saturday, October 26, 7:30 p.m.: Sets will be cleared from the Opera House stage to allow the SFO Orchestra to play on that stage. They will be conducted by Kim in a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 125, his ninth (sometimes known as the “Choral”) symphony in D minor. The vocal soloists will be soprano Jennifer Holloway, mezzo Annika Schlicht, tenor Russell Thomas, and bass Kwangchul Youn. The event will honor the 200th anniversary of the symphony’s composition.
• Thursday, November 21, 7:30 p.m.: Carmen Encounter will be an immersive evening of multi-sensory experiences inspired by the Bizet opera currently being performed on the Opera House stage. This event will involve not only the stage (where the first act of the opera will be performed) but also the lobby areas, which will serve as venues for dancing, interactive experiences, and a festive party. Last year the Encounter was structured around the ongoing performance of Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (the elixir of love). SFO has created a Web page with photographs of that past event.
• Friday, November 15, 7:30 p.m.: The Future is Now is the final concert of the year for the 2024 class of Adler Fellows. The program will present both scenes and arias, accompanied by the SFO Orchestra. The performance will be held in Herbst Theatre, which is adjacent to the Opera House.
• Sunday, November 17, 2 p.m.: SFO Chorus Director John Keene will lead the members of his ensemble in the annual intimate choral event. The vocalists will be accompanied at the piano by SFO Associate Chorus Master Fabrizio Corona. The program is seldom limited to the opera repertoire.
• Friday, June, 27, 7:30 p.m.: This will be a special celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. The performance will bring music together with immersive projections. The evening will include a special host, who has not yet been identified.

Further information can be found on the “exploration” Web page on the SFO Web site. Currently, only subscription orders are being processed. A Web page has been created that summarizes both subscriber benefits and the diversity of subscription plans.

De los Ángeles: “Post-Romantic” Opera

Victoria de los Ángeles on the cover of her Warner box set (from the Amazon.com Web page)

In my last dispatch in accounting for the Victoria de los Ángeles: The Warner Classics Edition; Complete Recordings on His Master’s Voice & La Voix de son maître anthology, I decided that it would be appropriate to separate the earlier composers from the nineteenth century (Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, Charles Gounod, and Georges Bizet) from composers that chose to work with more dramatic “post-romantic” material. This later genre flourished in both Italy and France. Italy lead the way with Giacomo Puccini and the “Cav and Pag” composers, Pietro Mascagni (“Cavalleria rusticana”) and Ruggiero Leoncavallo (“Pagliacci”). On the French side, Jules Massenet accounts for two operas (Manon and Werther). He may be viewed as the predecessor to two more recent French composers, Claude Debussy (Pelléas et Mélisande) and Jacques Offenbach. The latter is represented only by the fourth act of Les Contes d’Hoffmann, since the libretto calls for three different sopranos accounting for the three different “tales,” the last of which being the one in which de los Angeles sang the role of Antonia. The one remaining opera in the collection is Manuel de Falla’s La vida breve.

Taken as a whole, this is clearly the lion’s share of the de los Ángeles collection. From a personal point of view, I am glad to have been able to fill in some of the gaps in my library of recordings. For the most part, however, I was not particularly concerned about those gaps. At the risk of drawing fire from unhappy critics, I would say that these operas all have narratives for which the decisions of the stage director count for more than the musical expertise of the performers. Thus, where my own work is concerned, I can benefit from familiarizing myself with the music so that I can subsequently consider the role that it plays in establishing the critical elements of a fully-staged drama.

Where de los Ángeles herself is concerned, I suppose the primary issue is whether or not her talents as a vocalist carry the same impact in the recording studio as they did on the operatic stage. Readers may recall that, where the earlier operas from the nineteenth century were concerned, I was never really drawn to any of these studio recordings. However, the full collection will be released for sale on an Amazon.com Web page, after which readers may feel free to disagree with any of my assertions or positions!

Pocket Opera Concludes 2023 Season with Puccini

Yesterday afternoon in the Gunn Theatre of the Legion of Honor Museum, Pocket Opera wrapped up its 2023 season with its final performance of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca. The opera was sung in English, using the text translated by Pocket Opera founder Donald Pippin. The leading vocalists were soprano Michelle Drever in the title role, baritone Spencer Dodd as the Baron Scarpia, and tenor Alex Boyer, this year’s Hurst Artist, singing the role of Mario Cavaradossi. The performance was staged by Elly Lichenstein.

Mary Chun conducted the Pocket Philharmonic, a reduced one-to-a-part ensemble of twelve musicians. Since the Gunn Theatre lacks an orchestra pit, the musicians were placed behind the staged action (as has been the case in this site’s account of the season’s earlier performance of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring). Fortunately, between the front row of seats and the edge of the stage, there was a moderately-sized video monitor on the floor, large enough for the performers on stage to see the image of the conductor.

For the better part of his life (he died on July 7, 2021), Pippen published four volumes of English translations of opera librettos. When I first encountered him, he was giving regular performances of his translated versions in abbreviated versions. Sitting at the piano, he would accompany a few vocalists, that would perform his translations of the key musical episodes. The rest of the narrative would be accounted for through his narrations. This was, truly, a “pocket-sized” approach to grand opera! It has been only recently that these translations are given full-length performances with accompaniment by more than a piano.

Among the vocalists in yesterday’s performance, Dodd was the most familiar. Over a decade ago, I had come to know him through his work with Yefim Maizel’s Opera Academy of California. It would be fair to say that, yesterday afternoon, he delivered a convincing account of Scarpia’s character without magnifying it to a point of distortion; and his vocal work was consistently compelling. Boyer delivered an equally solid account of Cavaradossi through both his solid tenor voice and his acting chops.

Sadly, the only disappointment was to be found in the lead. Drever tended to overplay most of her postures and gestures, almost as if she had been performing for a silent movie. Similarly, her vocal work tended to go “over the top,” as if to follow up on her exaggerated stage activities. Fortunately, Lichenstein’s staging proceeded at a satisfying clip, which allowed those exaggerated moments to come and go without overburdening the narrative.

SFO: New Perspective Muddles Opera Narrative

Last night San Francisco Opera (SFO) opened its 2023 Summer Season with a new staging of an old favorite, Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The production is being shared by the Tokyo Nikikai Opera Foundation, Semperoper Dresden, and The Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen. The production was conceived by Amon Miyamoto and was staged here in San Francisco by Miroku Shimada, both making their respective SFO debuts. The conductor was Music Director Eun Sun Kim, and the Chorus Director was John Keene.

The “title” role of Cio-Cio-San was sung by soprano Karah Son, making her SFO debut. Tenor Michael Fabiano returned to San Francisco to sing the role of Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton. The other major roles were that of Suzuki, Cio-Cio-San’s servant, sung by mezzo Hyona Kim, and Sharpless, the American Consul, sung by baritone Lucas Meachem.

The adult Trouble (John Charles Quimpo) observes himself as a child (Viva Young Maguire) with his mother Cio-Cio-San (Karah Son) (courtesy of SFO)

The concept behind Miyamoto’s staging involved framing the familiar narrative of the opera within a future in which Pinkerton is now dying. The family gathered around his bed includes Trouble, the child conceived by Cio-Cio-San on her first night of “wedded bliss” with Pinkerton. That role of this adult Trouble was mimed by John Charles Quimpo, also making his SFO debut, while the mimed role of the child was performed by Viva Young Maguire. Quimpo is on the stage for pretty much the entire opera, suggesting that it is only when he is a mature adult that he discovers the truth of his ancestry.

As operas go, this production of Madama Butterfly was relatively brief, clocking in at less than three hours, even with Trouble’s added backstory. Nevertheless, too much of the production felt as if it would go on forever. Puccini’s score still proceeded at a brisk pace; but most of the mimed interjections took place in silence, often impeding the flow established by the music. By the time the narrative advances to the crisis moment of the third act (Cio-Cio-San’s suicide), an attentive viewer could probably be forgiven for succumbing to fatigue.

Presumably, Miyamoto wanted to present that suicide as a parallel to the death of Pinkerton in his old age. Had Miyamoto shown more efficiency with the preceding mimed episodes, the attentive viewer might have appreciated that parallelism. However, where “clock time” was concerned, fatigue was setting in long before the final operatic episode with Cio-Cio-San and Trouble. One could appreciate that Miyamoto’s concepts looked good in paper, but they could not align successfully with the “opera time” established by Puccini’s score.

International Pride Orchestra to Debut in SF

Next month will see the inaugural performance by the International Pride Orchestra (IPO). This ensemble was conceived to bring together LGBTQ+ musicians from around the world, not only to present concerts but also to celebrate community and raise funds for LGBTQ+ causes. True to its name, the ensemble has drawn upon applicants from over 30 states in the United States, as well as musicians from countries such as New Zealand and Peru.

The program prepared for the ensemble’s debut will offer a generous diversity of genres. On the traditional side the second half of the concert will be devoted entirely to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 36 (fourth) symphony in F minor. At the other end (so to speak), the program will begin with the world premiere performance of “Loud,” composed by Jimmy López Bellido on a joint commission by IPO, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), and the Seattle Youth Symphony.

The featured soloist will be soprano Breanna Sinclairé, who will perform three stylistically different selections. She will begin with “Elle a fui, la tourterelle” (she fled, the dove), which opens the “Antonia” act from Jacques Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffmann. This will be followed by “O mio babbino caro” (oh, my dear papa) from the more upbeat one-act opera, “Gianni Schicchi,” by Giacomo Puccini. Finally, these French and Italian selections will be followed by “Somewhere,” from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. The first half will then conclude with “Soul of Remembrance,” the second of the five Movements in Color by Mary Watkins.

 

Michael Roest, IPO Found and one of the conductors for the program being discussed (courtesy of IPO)

IPO Founder and Director Michael Roest will be one of the three conductors for this program. The other two will be Robert Moody, Music Director of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and Arizona Musicfest, and Christine Brandes, who has led West Edge Opera and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and will be making her conducting debut with the Seattle Opera during the 2023/24 season. Drag legend Peaches Christ will host the entire program, which, in turn, will be hosted by SFCM.

The performance will take place in the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, which is in the 50 Oak Street SFCM building. The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 22. All tickets are being sold for $25 and may be purchased online through an Eventbrite event page. Those visiting this site will also be invited to make a donation to LYRIC, which is one of the first and largest LGBTQ+ youth centers in the United States. Its mission is to build community and inspire positive social change through education enhancement, career trainings, health promotion, and leadership development. The plan for the future is to choose a different city each year to host an IPO concert, establishing new partnerships with LGBTQ+ organizations.

SFO Announces 100th Anniversary Concert

1940s photograph of SFO founder Gaetano Merola conducting the SFO Orchestra (from the SFO Archives)

In addition to the three operas that San Francisco Opera (SFO) will present over the course of next month, there will be one final event to celebrate the Centennial Season. The Centennial Celebration concert, which launched the season this past September, will be complemented by a 100th Anniversary Concert, a musical account of SFO’s first century. The program will feature fifteen vocal soloists, the SFO Orchestra and Chorus, and three conductors.

Beginning with the conductors, Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim will share the podium with former Music Director Donald Runnicles, and former Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Summers. The vocal soloists will be sopranos Karita Mattila, Ailyn Pérez, Patricia Racette, Nina Stemme, Heidi Stober, and Adela Zaharia, mezzo-sopranos Susan Graham and Daniela Mack, tenors Lawrence Brownlee, Michael Fabiano, Brandon Jovanovich, and Russell Thomas, baritones Lucas Meachem and Brian Mulligan, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn. The current plan for the program (which is subject to change) is as follows:

• Prelude from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Richard Wagner); San Francisco Opera Orchestra; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Amour viens rendre à mon âme” from Orphée et Eurydice (Christoph Willibald Gluck); Daniela Mack; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Pur ti miro” from L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Claudio Monteverdi); Heidi Stober and Susan Graham; Patrick Summers, conductor
• “Odi il voto” from Ernani (Giuseppe Verdi); Russell Thomas; San Francisco Opera Chorus; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Pierrot’s Tanzlied” from Die tote Stadt (Erich Wolfgang Korngold); Lucas Meachem; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Embroidery” aria from Peter Grimes (Benjamin Britten); Heidi Stober; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Vicino a te” from Andrea Chénier (Umberto Giordano); Michael Fabiano and Ailyn Pérez; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco (Giuseppe Verdi); San Francisco Opera Chorus; Patrick Summers, conductor
• “Ch’ella mi creda” from La Fanciulla del West (Giacomo Puccini); Brandon Jovanovich; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• Act I finale from Tosca (Giacomo Puccini); Christian Van Horn; San Francisco Opera Chorus; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Entrance of the Guests” from Tannhäuser (Richard Wagner); San Francisco Opera Chorus; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Batter my heart” from Doctor Atomic (John Adams); Brian Mulligan; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Co chvila” from Jenůfa (Leoš Janáček); Karita Mattila; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Losing my mind” from Follies (Stephen Sondheim); Patricia Racette; Patrick Summers, conductor
• “Ah, je veux vivre” from Roméo et Juliette (Charles Gounod); Adela Zaharia; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Ombra mai fu” from Serse (Xerxes) (George Frideric Handel); Susan Graham; Patrick Summers, conductor
• “Prosti, nebesnoye sozdanye” from Pique Dame (Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky); Brandon Jovanovich; 
• Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Là ci darem la mano” from Don Giovanni (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart); Heidi Stober and Christian Van Horn; Eun Sun Kim, conductor
• “Cessa di più resistere” from Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Gioachino Rossini); Lawrence Brownlee; San Francisco Opera Chorus; Patrick Summers, conductor
• Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (Richard Wagner); Nina Stemme; Donald Runnicles, conductor
• “Ave Signor” from Mefistofele (Arrigo Boito); San Francisco Opera Chorus; Eun Sun Kim, conductor

The entire program should last approximately three hours with one intermission.

This concert will be given only one performance, beginning at 6 p.m. on Friday, June 16. Ticket prices range from $30 to $350; and, depending on location, there is a facility fee of either $2 or $3 per ticket. All tickets may be purchased in the outer lobby of the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue or by calling the Box Office at 415-864-3330. Box Office hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. on Monday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday. In addition, there will be a livestream (no on-demand access) on the entire program; the charge will be $27.50. Web pages are available both for tickets to the Opera House and for the livestream. Finally, those going to the Opera House will have the option of purchasing dinner packages (which will be sold separately from the tickets for the performance). A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for the different dinner options. Tickets may also again be purchased through the Box Office.

A Third Beethoven-Schubert Pairing in Herbst

Since this past Saturday, Herbst Theatre has hosted three chamber music recitals, all of which presented programs organized around the pairing of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. In covering the performances on Saturday and Sunday, I referred to these composers as the “later” First Viennese School, as compared with the two “earlier” composers, Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Both Beethoven and Schubert departed from the more “traditional” (but still highly inventive) practices of Haydn and Mozart; and one could appreciate those departures in the programs that the visiting ensembles prepared.

On Saturday Beethoven was represented by his “middle period” Opus 95 “Serioso” quartet in F minor, while Sunday’s trio recital took the repertoire all the way back to the third of his Opus 1 piano trios. The Schubert offerings were both written later in the composer’s relatively short life, the brief D. 703 “Quartettsatz” on Saturday and the seriously large-scale D. 898 (first) piano trio in B-flat major on Sunday. Last night saw another coupling of early Beethoven with late Schubert.

Modigliani Quartet members Amaury Coeytaux, Loïc Rio, Laurent Marfaing, and François Kieffer (photograph by Luc Braquet, courtesy of San Francisco Performances.

This time the performance, presented by San Francisco Performances, was by the Paris-based Modigliani Quartet led by first violinist Amaury Coeytaux. The other members of the group are violinist Loïc Rio, violist Laurent Marfaing, and cellist François Kieffer. They began their program with Giacomo Puccini’s “I Cristantemi” (chrysanthemums), a far cry from the third composer on the two preceding programs, an early quartet by Felix Mendelssohn on Saturday and Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 26 (second) piano trio in G minor, composed in 1876, on Sunday. While the Puccini selection was significantly shorter in duration than the Mendelssohn and Dvořák offerings, it definitely served as a calm before a storm.

In the performances of both Beethoven and Schubert, intensity was the order of the day. The Beethoven selection was the third (in the key of D major) of his six Opus 18 quartets. The intermission was followed by Schubert’s D. 810 quartet in D minor, whose Andante con moto (second) movement is a set of variations on the theme from his D. 531 “Der Tod und das Mädchen” (Death and the maiden) song.

The rhetorical approach to both of these quartets was particularly underscored with abrupt shifts in expressiveness, often in a transition from one phrase to its successor. The capacity of the ensemble to turn on a dime made for riveting accounts of both of the selections. Even for those familiar with both of the offerings, there were no end of suspenseful moments when one wondered what would come next and how it would arrive. One might almost say that the performance took these artifacts from the early nineteenth century and injected them vigorously into the immediate present.

Last night’s audience clearly appreciated that vigor and its consequences. This resulted in an encore, which reflected the opinion that one good Schubert performance deserves another. Nevertheless, the selection was an impressively remarkable one.

Deciding that a late achievement should be complemented by an early one, the ensemble performed the Andante con moto movement from the D. 46 quartet in C major. While I have a “complete quartets” album in my collection, I must confess that this was the first time I was consciously aware of a double-digit Deutsch number! Nevertheless, the Modigliani players presented it as a vivid omen of things to come.

Taken as a whole, this was an exciting and stimulating evening; and I hope it will not be long before this ensemble makes another visit to San Francisco.

Modigliani Quartet Will Return to San Francisco

Amaury Coeytaux, Loic Rio, Laurent Marfaing, and François Kieffer, the members of the Modigliani Quartet (photograph by Luc Braquet, courtesy of SFP)

The Modigliani Quartet is one of the ensembles whose touring schedule was disrupted by COVID-19 safety guidelines. The ensemble, whose members are violinists Amaury Coeytaux and Loic Rio, violist Laurent Marfaing, and cellist François Kieffer, last toured the United States in 2018; and that tour included a performance in Herbst Theatre hosted by San Francisco Performances (SFP). They had been scheduled to return in March of 2021, but SFP was obliged to cancel the event. Fortunately, they are “on the road again;” and that road will take them back to Herbst next month to present the third of the four programs in the current Chamber Series.

They will present a First Viennese School program organized around Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. The first half of the program will present an early Beethoven selection, the third (in the key of D major) of the six Opus 18 quartets. The second half will be devoted entirely to late Schubert, the familiar D. 810 quartet in D minor, best known for the set of variations based on Schubert’s “Der Tod und das Mädchen” (Death and the maiden) song (D. 531). The program will begin with an “overture” of sorts, the single-movement “I Crisantemi” (the chrysanthemums) composed in 1892 by Giacomo Puccini in memory of Amadeo I of Spain.

This program will take place in Herbst, beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 5. The entrance to Herbst is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel.

Ticket prices are $65 (premium Orchestra and front and center Dress Circle), $55 (remainder of Orchestra, all Side Boxes, and center rear Dress Circle), and $45 (remaining Dress Circle and Balcony); and they may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page. Single tickets can also be purchased at the door as available with a 50% discount for students and a 20% discount for seniors. Single tickets may also be purchased by calling 415-392-2545.

BARS to Perform at SFCM Tonight

Once again I find myself making a last-minute announcement of the next program to be presented by the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony (BARS). Soprano Melody Moore will be the guest soloist. She is currently celebrating the centennial of the birth of soprano Renata Tebaldi and is now in San Francisco to sing the role of Mother Marie in Francis Poulenc’s opera Dialogues des Carmélites (dialogues of the Carmelites). She is honoring Tebaldi by recording an album featuring selections from the Italian repertoire. She will sing four of those selections with BARS:

1. Giuseppe Verdi, Aida: Ritorna vincitor!
2. Giuseppe Verdi, La forza del destino: Pace, pace, mio Dio!
3. Giacomo Puccini, La bohème: Donde lieta uscì
4. Francesco Cilea, Adriana Lecouvreur: 'Io son l'umile ancella

She will then cap off her set with “Over the Rainbow,” which Harold Arlen wrote for Judy Garland to sing in The Wizard of Oz.

The program will begin by setting the operatic tone with the grand march that begins the second scene of the second act of Aida. The second half of the program will begin with Jessie Montgomery’s “Strum,” followed by Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 60 (sixth) symphony in D major. Music Director Dawn Harms will conduct the entire program.

The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m., this evening (Saturday, October 22). The performance will take place in the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, located at 50 Oak Street, a short walk form the Van Ness Muni station. Tickets are priced between $40 and $15. Both telephone and Internet sales have ended. However, tickets are still available for purchase in person at the venue starting at 7 p.m. Payment will be cash only, and tickets will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

Operas to be Excerpted for Merola Grand Finale

The programming for the annual Merola Grand Finale has not yet been totally finalized. However, the Merola Opera Program has now released the list of operas that will provide excerpts for the program. That list includes the following:

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro (K. 492)
• Giacomo Puccini: Madama Butterfly and La bohème
• Georges Bizet: Les pêcheurs de perles (the pearl fishers) and Carmen
• Charles Gounod: Roméo et Juliette and Faust
• Pietro Mascagni: L’amico Fritz
• George Frideric Handel: Amadigi di Gaula (Amadis of Gaul, HWV 11)
• Hector Berlioz: L’enfance du Christ (the childhood of Christ)
• Gaetano Donizetti: Don Pasquale, L’elisir d’amore (the elixir of love), and Lucia di Lammermoor
• Jeanine Tesori: Blue
• William Grand Still: Highway 1, USA
• Benjamin Britten: Albert Herring
• John Adams: Doctor Atomic
• Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff
• Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos

All of this season’s Merolini will participate. In alphabetical order they are:

• Veena Akama-Makia (Mezzo-soprano)
• Amanda Batista (Soprano)
• Cody Bowers (Countertenor)
• Le Bu (Bass-baritone)
• Andres Cascante (Baritone)
• Shawn Chang (Pianist/Coach)
• Edwin Jhamaal Davis (Bass)
• Daniel Luis Espinal (Tenor)
• Adia Evans (Soprano)
• Gongming Jiang (Pianist/Coach)
• Chance Jonas-O'Toole (Tenor)
• SeungYun Kim (Bass-baritone)
• Maggie Kinabrew (Soprano)
• Scott Lee (Baritone)
• Chelsea Lehnea (Soprano)
• Yang Lin (Pianist/Coach)
• Celeste Morales (Soprano)
• Artyom Pak (Pianist/Coach)
• Jonghyun Park (Tenor)
• Olivia Prendergast (Soprano)
• Nikola Adele Printz (Mezzo-soprano)
• Maggie Reneé (Mezzo-soprano)
• Deborah Robertson (Pianist/Coach)
• Ashley Marie Robillard (Soprano)
• Arianna Rodriguez (Soprano)
• Sahel Salam (Tenor)
• Moisés Salazar (Tenor)
• Matthew J. Schulz (Stage Director)
• Olivia Smith (Soprano)
• William Socolof (Bass-baritone)
• Erin Wagner (Mezzo-soprano)

The conductor will be Patrick Furrer, who has been a staff member of the Metropolitan Opera since 2011. As observed above, the staging of the entire production will be directed by Schultz. The performance will begin at 7:30 pm. on Saturday evening, August 20. Ticket prices will be $53, $43, and $28. The performance will take place in the War Memorial Opera House, which is located at 301 Van Ness Avenue on the northwest corner of Grove Street.

Tickets will be sold at the Box Office in the outer lobby, and they can be purchased online through a Web page on the San Francisco Opera Web site. The hyperlink for tickets leads to a Web page that displays which sections of the Opera House are available at which prices. This will facilitate seat selection through a hyperlink to a Web page that finalizes the purchase. For those wishing to purchase tickets at the Box Office, it is open on Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets can also be purchased by calling the Box Office telephone number, which is 415-864-3330.

Ian Robertson Bids Farewell to SFO

Last night in the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater of the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, San Francisco Opera (SFO) presented the first of two performances by the SFO Chorus, led by Director Ian Robertson. Robertson is retiring from his position after the second of those performances this afternoon. In honor of his 35 years of service with SFO, the program was entitled, appropriately enough, Celebrating Ian Robertson.

Following two selections of sacred music by leading composers of the Baroque period, Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Johann Sebastian Bach, the program traversed an extensive survey of selections from operas composed by George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gaetano Donizetti, Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Jacques Offenbach, Jennifer Higdon, Scott Joplin, and Leonard Bernstein. The second half of the program also presented a generous offering of secular music, much of which was sung a cappella. These included the world premiere performance of “Invitation to Love,” a setting of a text by Paul Laurence Dunbar composed by Cava Menzies on a commission by SFO in Robertson’s honor.

Other living composers on the program were Joan Szymko, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Kate Rusby. Their twentieth-century predecessors were Florence Price, Joseph Canteloube, and Maurice Ravel. All instrumental accompaniment was provided by Associate Chorus Master Fabrizio Corona at the piano.

Ian Robertson conducing an earlier performance by the San Francisco Opera Chorus in the Atrium Theatre with projected text (photograph by Matthew Washburn, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera)

Robertson preceded each offering with a brief verbal introduction, often establishing the significance of the selection. Rather than burden members of the audience with text sheets that could barely be read in darkness, all texts were projected on the Atrium wall behind the performers, always in English, regardless of the text being sung. Those familiar with the space know that it has no acoustics of its own. As a result, the performance owed as much to the Constellation® acoustic system provided by Meyer Sound. The controller of this technology appears to have had some difficulty early in the performance, but those problems were resolved quickly enough that most of the audience was probably unaware of any problems.

My guess is that almost all of the operatic selections were familiar to the audience, most of whom were probably SFO subscribers. The most notable exceptions would have been Joplin’s Treemonisha and HIgdon’s Cold Mountain. (Those encountering Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène for the first time would probably still have found some of the music familiar.) On the other hand those subscribers would also have been familiar with the instrumental accompaniment from the “source” operas; and there were several occasions when the piano could not provide the rhetorical support encountered in the original scores. Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine the Atrium space being conducive to a large instrumental ensemble; and most of us were more than content to focus attention on the vocalists.

Personally, I must confess that I was more impressed with the diversity of the selections that were not operatic. While I am have long been satisfied with my Decca Complete Edition collection of Ravel’s music, I must confess that my recording of the three a cappella choral songs he composed between 1914 and 1915 had slipped my mind. Each of these pieces was brief; and the second afforded an excellent opportunity to appreciate the solo voices of soprano Angela Moser, contralto Silvie Jensen, tenor Alan Cochran, and baritone Mitchell Jones. For that matter all of the a cappella offerings were thoroughly engaging “adventures of discovery,” with the premiere of Menzies’ “Invitation to Love” leading the way.

Robertson’s command of repertoire clearly extends far beyond the usual operatic bill of fare, and my mind is still processing the stimulating diversity of the program he prepared for his farewell concert.