Take Opera Productions on Their Own Terms!

Dashon Burton as Araspe standing over the sleeping Seleuce (Lauren Snouffer) while her husband Tolomeo (Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen) looks on (photograph by Kristen Loken, from the SF Classical Voice article about the Philharmonia Baroque performance of Handel’s opera Tolomeo)

This morning I read Michael Zwiebach’s account for SF Classical Voice of the production of George Frideric Handel’s HWV 25 opera Tolomeo, re d’Egitto performed by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale. (I had written my own account this past Friday.) The title he chose was: “Can a Smaller Bay Area Orchestra Outshine SF Opera? This Tolomeo Says Yes.” Personally, I do my best to avoid using one production as a cudgel to beat another. However, it left me wondering just how much Zwiebach knew about productions of Handel by the San Francisco Opera (SFO).

To be fair, it has been a while since SFO last staged a Handel opera; but that “while” is shorter than Zwiebach might have realized. It was only a little over two years ago that the company revived its production of Partenope (Handel’s HWV 27), given a staging by Christopher Alden that can only be described as “slapstick.” Since that revival was as engaging as the first time around, I would challenge anyone to claim that it could be “outshined!”

Reading Zwiebach’s article reminded me that it is important to take every performance on its own terms, rather than deciding on whether or not it rates “top ten” ranking. To be fair, when I encounter a revival, I usually try to provide some sort of then-and-now account; but I also do my best to present the “now” on its own terms. Productions should not be “ranked” as if they were contestants in a beauty pageant. This definitely applies to ensembles performing full-length operas!

Whelan Gets an Early Start for his PBO Tenure

Last night in Herbst Theatre, Peter Whelan began his first season as Music Director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (PBO) with an earlier-than-usual start. This was the first of six concerts, which will continue through a conclusion in April of next year. To “fit in” with past PBO repertoires, Whelan chose to begin his tenure with an opera composed by George Frideric Handel; and his selection was one that was probably unfamiliar to most of last night’s audience.

An autograph page from the score of Handel’s HWV 25 (public domain, from Wikimedia Commons)

Tolomeo, re d'Egitto (Ptolemy, King of Egypt), HWV 25, was described in the advance material I received as  a “historically informed performance with theatrical elements to heighten the drama.” The cast consisted of five vocalists and no chorus. The title character was sung by countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. He is the eldest son of Cleopatra, exiled to Cyprus where he has disguised himself as a shepherd. Bass-baritone Dashon Burton sang the role of Araspe, the King of Cyprus; and the role of his sister Elisa was taken by soprano Nicole Heaston. The other characters are Seleuce, Tolomeo’s wife, sung by soprano Lauren Snouffer, and Tolomeo’s brother Alessandro, countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim.

The program book required two full pages to account for the narrative that twists and turns these five characters. Nevertheless, the music mattered more than the details; and all six of the vocalists had solo opportunities to display their respective skills. Staging was provided by James Darrah Black, who had the wisdom let the music and the solo vocal work prevail over the narrative details. The music was receptive to anyone familiar with the Handel repertoire, and Whelan’s leadership kept the plot moving to avoid getting bogged down in any lurking confusions.

It is interesting to note that Whelan conducted from the left rear corner of the stage. This allowed the full ensemble to group in a way that afforded generous space for the vocalists. This provided Black with more space than has been afforded in past PBO opera performances, and he definitely knew how to make good use of it!

Those craving more Handel will have to wait until the five-concert subscription series begins in the first half of November, but the occasion is definitely worth anticipating!

SFO Plans for Opening Weekend of 104th Season

Design for the SFO Web page for Simon Boccanegra

This week began with the announcement of the opening weekend festivities for the 104th season of the San Francisco Opera (SFO). As was reported last month, the season will begin, once again, with an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, Simon Boccanegra. The conductor will be Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim, and this will mark the latest stage in the journey she has planned to account of the works of both Verdi and Richard Wagner.

From a personal point of view, I believe that my first encounter with the opera came from the soundtrack album of the film Carnegie Hall. Bass Ezio Pinza played a major role in that film, which included his singing “Il lacerato spirito” (the tortured soul) from the Prologue for Giuseppe Verdi’s score. Unless I am mistaken, SFO last presented the opera in the fall of 2008 with the title role taken by the Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, performing with soprano Barbara Frittoli in the role of Boccanegra’s daughter Amelia. About a decade later, I visited the opera again through a Delos recording with those roles taken by Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Nadine Sierra.

The original staging for this opera at SFO was conceived by Claus Guth, and Katherine M. Carter will be the Revival Director. The title role will be sung by Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat, and soprano Eleonora Buratto will take the role of Amelia. Following the opening festivities on Saturday, September 12, there will be five more performances at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 16, Tuesday, September 22, and Friday, September 25, and at 2 p.m. on Saturday, September 19, and Sunday, September 27.

As has been the case for some time, the first performance will be both preceded and followed by the annual Opera Ball. This will take place in City Hall, which is on the other side of Van Ness from the Opera House. Festivities will begin with a cocktail reception at 5 p.m., followed by a buffet soiree at 6 p.m. After the conclusion of Simon Boccanegra, City Hall will host an After-Party beginning at 11 p.m. As usual, a Web page has been created for attending all of the opening night festivities (including the opera performance).

Finally, the weekend will conclude with the 51st anniversary celebration of Opera in the Park. The SFO orchestra will again be led by Kim. The “usual plan” is that the program will begin with an opera overture, after which it will accompany vocalists that will be performing during the fall season. The “Park” is, of course, Golden Gate Park. This is a vast expanse, and the venue for the concert will be the bandshell in Robin Williams Meadow. The performance will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, September 13. As always, no tickets will be required.

The Second Summer Concert Program in Davies

Conductor Nicolas Ellis (from the Web page for last night’s performance)

Yesterday evening Davies Symphony Hall saw the second Summer Classics program performed by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) as part of the Summer with Symphony concert series. The title of the program was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Both my wife and I have fond memories of the Davies concert that presented all of the music that Felix Mendelssohn had composed for William Shakespeare’s play interleaved with a semi-staged performance of all of the texts associated with that music.

Sadly, this approach to Mendelssohn and Shakespeare did not take place last night. Instead, Midsummer was reduced to the three most familiar movements from the full score, the overture, the nocturne, and (of course) the “Wedding March.” This began the second half of the program, and Shakespeare prevailed with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Fantasy-Overture,” “Romeo and Juliet.” The first half of the program was framed by opera, beginning with the “Forest Murmurs” episode from the second act of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried and concluding with the “Carmen Fantasy” by Franz Waxman. This was originally composed for the movie Humoresque and was subsequently arranged for violin and symphony orchestra by violinist Jascha Heifetz. These two operatic offerings framed the performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending.” Violinist Geneva Lewis was the soloist in both this selection and the “Carmen Fantasy.”

Nicolas Ellis made his debut as conductor. Sadly, things got off to a shaky start with the forest more mushy than murmuring. Fortunately, Ellis managed to get his mojo working before Lewis took the stage. Their shared chemistry for “The Lark Ascending” could not have been more engaging, and their shared take on Georges Bizet’s opera could not have been more dazzling. Following the intermission, Ellis’ command of the podium was just as satisfying. Even if I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to Tchaikovsky’s take on Shakespeare, there was a freshness in Ellis’ interpretation that kept my attention from beginning to end.

LIEDER ALIVE!’s 2026/27 Liederabend Series

LIEDER ALIVE! now has a Web page that provides the dates for its Liederabend Series, which will run from November of 2026 through May of 2027. There will be four recitals, all taking place on Sunday afternoons at 4 p.m. The first of these will be the Autumn Opening Concert followed by three “Anniversary Concerts” celebrating twenty years of presenting vocalists and their respective repertoires. As in the past, all performances will take place as part of the Old First Concerts (O1C) series at Old First Presbyterian Church (1751 Sacramento Street on the southeast corner of Van Ness Avenue). All of them will be on Sunday afternoons, beginning at 4 p.m. Hyperlinks for purchasing tickets will be attached below to the specific dates. In all likelihood there will also be hyperlinks for live streams of the performances. Specific dates are as follows:

November 8: The season will begin with a performance by baritone Olivier Zerouali, accompanied at the piano by Ji Youn Lee. Both of them are San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows. Program details have not yet been finalized; but the contributing composers will be Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, and Gabriel Fauré (often known as “the usual suspects!”).

January 17: Dramatic soprano Heather Hjelle will make her LIEDER ALIVE! debut with a program devoted entirely to Richard Wagner. Her accompanist will be John Parr. She will begin with WWV 91, the five songs the Wagner collected for female voice and piano often given the title Wesendonck Lieder. This will be followed by the “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde with piano accompaniment arranged by Franz Liszt. The program will conclude with the piano transcription of the funeral march from Götterdämmerung; and, as many readers will expect, Hjelle will perform the entire concluding Immolation Scene of that opera.

February 28: Two vocalists will make return appearances: soprano Charlotte Kelso and tenor Thomas Kinch. They will perform selections from Ludwig van Beethoven, Giuseppe Verdi, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Once again, details (including accompaniment) have not yet been finalized.

Peter Grünberg accompanying soprano Esther Rayo at the piano (from their LIEDER ALIVE! Web page)

May 16: Just as familiar will be the return of soprano Esther Rayo with her accompanist Peter Grünberg. Her selections will include works by Schubert, Enrique Granados, Joaquín Turina, and Giacomo Puccini. Specifics will, again, be forthcoming.

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!

Pride 2026 Begins (Again) at the Opera House

As was the case last year, this year’s 56th annual Pride Celebration got under way at the War Memorial Opera House with San Francisco Opera (SFO) hosting its seasonal Pride Concert. The program was curated by Gregory Henkel; and, as was the case last year, the SFO Orchestra was conducted by Robert Mollicone with Kay Stern as Concertmaster. This being an opera house, most of the music was vocal with leading soloists Melody Moore (soprano), Nikola Printz (mezzo), and Reginald Smith, Jr. (baritone). When the selections required, they were joined by soprano Alexa Franklin, mezzo Sadie Cheslak, and tenor Thomas Kinch. Sapphira Cristál, best known as Miss Congeniality for Season 16 of RuPaul’s Drag Race served once again as emcee.

Ironically, the program began with the same music the opened last week’s memorial program for Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) performed by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). This was his “Agnegram,” and I have to confess that my second encounter with this music was no more satisfying than my first! Indeed, I am afraid that the paragraph about this music in last night’s program book was more memorable than the music itself. Fortunately, once the vocalists took charge, things picked up for both the classical and pop offerings.

Where the former genre is concerned, the most memorable offering involved one of the most familiar works in the standard repertoire. This was “Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour” (beautiful night, oh night of love), best known as the barcarolle from Jacques Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffmann. Moore and Printz brought just the right chemistry to the music, which I found refreshing no matter how many times I have heard it in the past. Printz was just as compelling on the pop side with her command of Stevie Wonder’s “I Can Only Be Me,” in an orchestral arrangement by Christopher Willis.

Last night’s “after party” at the Opera House

In many ways the evening was a party that no one wanted to end, which is why the “all hands” medley for the finale was followed by a sumptuous reception in the Opera House lobby!

Sagi’s “Barber” Abounds with Engaging Visuals

Rosina (Hongni Wu) and Almaviva (Jack Swanson) in their happily-ever-after conclusion of The Barber of Seville

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I returned to the War Memorial Opera House for the final performance by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) of Emilio Sagi’s staging of Gioachino Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville. Colm Seery revived the original choreography by Nuria Castejón, providing a generous serving of eye candy as intervals along the advance of the narrative. As I had observed at the end of the last month, the four principal roles were double cast, allowing me to appreciate the second round of leading performers. These were tenor Jack Swanson (Count Almaviva), baritone Justin Austin (Figaro), mezzo Hongni Wu (Rosina), and bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi (Doctor Bartolo), all with a solid command of humor and romance in the tried-and-true staging by Emilio Sagi. Castejón’s choreography served somewhat as a “Greek chorus” in the intervals between the principal episodes of the narrative.

As always seems to be the case, that sense of humor was as fresh and engaging as it was in previous performances. This was particularly the case for the mimed performance of Berta given by Catherine Cook, who managed to find humor in just about every gesture. Similarly, there is no shortage of engaging and amusing tropes in the score for the orchestra, making the spirit of Conductor Benjamin Manis as valuable a contribution to the overall narrative as all of the activity up on the stage.

The month gave me the opportunity to attend both the opening and closing performances of The Barber of Seville. That meant seeing two different casts in action, each with its own sense of humor but also each with thoroughly engaging delivery. The Barber of Seville may be an “old-timer” in the SFO repertoire. Nevertheless, I have come away from every performance I have experienced over the years with a sense of freshness. Here is hoping that next season will also provide at least one opportunity for such a fresh and engaging approach to light comedy.

Tickets Still Available for Merola Strauss

Cover of the vocal score for Ariadne auf Naxos published in Berlin in 1916 (from its Wikipedia Web page)

Merola Summer Festival performances will get under way on the evening of Thursday next week. However, readers may recall that, when I announced the season schedule, tickets for the performance of Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos were already sold out for the first of the two shows on Thursday, July 30. The good news is that tickets are still available for the second, which will take place in the afternoon at 2 p.m. on Saturday, August 1. Merola alumnus (2014) Omer Ben Seadia will direct this two-part production, the second part of which is basically an opera within an opera. (The first part is about all the bickering that takes place before the curtain rises.) The conductor will be Ann-Katrin Stöcker.

The performance will take place in the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Most readers probably know that the venue is located in the Civic Center at 50 Oak Street. The only tickets remaining are Orchestra seats selling for $75. San Francisco Opera has created a Web page for online purchases. Tickets are being managed by the San Francisco Opera Box Office in the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue, across the street from City Hall to the east and Davies Symphony Hall to the south. The Box Office may also be reached by calling 415-864-3330.

Virginia Woolf as an Opera Character

It took me quite some time to catch up with Kevin Puts’ two-act opera The Hours. I missed out on seeing it in a movie theatre in 2022, in the relatively early days of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series. Fortunately, that broadcast was saved on video and was added to Great Performances at the Met on Public Television this past March 15. It was broadcast on KQED on March 20, and it was saved in my xfinity list of recordings.

Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, and Kelli O’Hara as three women from three different eras (screenshot from the PBS broadcast of The Hours)

This morning was not a busy one, nor have things been particularly busy since lunch. As a result, I finally had time to view the opera in its entirety. For those that do not already know, The Hours is the title of a novel written by Michael Cunningham in 1998, which was then adapted as a film in 2002. The Wikipedia page for the opera describes the narrative as “a single day in the lives of three women.” One of those women is not fictitious, the novelist Virginia Woolf, sung by mezzo Joyce DiDonato at the Met debut. Soprano Renée Fleming sang the role of contemporary book editor, Clarissa Vaughan; and soprano Kelli O’Hara sang the third woman, Laura Brown, married to her husband Dan, bass-baritone Brandon Cedel. Their son Richie was sung by boy soprano Kai Edgar.

The narrative is rather unconventional, because all three of the women are living in different times in the twentieth century: Woolf in 1923 (when she may have begun her work on Mrs Dalloway), Brown in 1949 (not long after the end of World War II), and Vaughan in 1999, when there was a fair amount of artistry going on in New York’s West Village. Greg Pierce prepared the libretto based on Cunningham’s text, and Kevin Puts set that libretto to music. An excerpt from this opera was most recently heard in San Francisco in November of 2024, when it was included in the annual The Future Is Now concert, which showcases the rising talents of San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows.

Sadly, I was not at that performance; so my television version was my first encounter with the opera. Fortunately, I was not a total stranger to Puts’ music. My latest contact was not my only one; but in reviewing my archives, I had to reach back May of 2024, when violinist Joshua Bell played “Earth,” which Puts had composed in 2023.

I suppose what mattered most about my Met experience was that I wanted to view it from beginning to end to see what would happen. I was intrigued with the idea of interleaving different characters from different time periods. Nevertheless, this never came across as an impediment for making sense of the overall narrative. I must confess that the music was not particularly memorable; but, on the other hand, it never tried to upstage both the narrative and Stephen Daldry’s approach to staging it. As a result, I was never tempted to close my eyes and just enjoy the vocalists!

Should San Francisco Opera decide to add The Hours to its repertoire, I would have no trouble visiting this opera for a second time!

Revisiting “Elektra” Through Livestream

Some readers may recall that I wrote about the first of six performances of Richard Strauss’ one-act opera “Elektra” at the San Francisco Opera (SFO) in the War Memorial Opera House over the course of this month. Today I decided that another visit to the opera would be useful; but this time I made my visit from home, thanks to livestream technology. While I have been familiar with the music for some time, I think that the current SFO production, created by Keith Warner, revived for the current round of performances by Anja Kühnhold, has been my only visual encounter with this music. As could be seen in my previous article, the stage design by Boris Kudlička almost dwarves the vocalists. Therefore, I enjoyed this afternoon at the television, because it gave me a better view of the personalities of the individual characters in the narrative.

I find it interesting that both Euripides and Sophocles wrote plays about this character in Ancient Greece. In the early twentieth century, Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote his own play, taking Sophocles as his point of departure; and he subsequently used that play as the basis for the libretto he would write for Strauss’ opera. The opera is distilled into a single act, but there is approximately two hours of action in that act.

Warner clearly wanted to distance himself from Ancient Greece. As I previously wrote, what one first sees on the stage is a museum with Ancient Greek artifacts on display. Visitors to the museum leave the stage at “closing time," after which Sophocles’ characters come to life, expressing themselves through some of Strauss’ most intense music. Nevertheless, it struck me that Hofmannsthal’s libretto may have rambled a bit more than his play, probably because Strauss wanted to give his vocalists more music! That said, the score came close to demanding an endurance test for the role of Elektra, sung by dramatic soprano Elena Pankratova; and I was even more impressed with her staying power this afternoon than I was during my previous encounter.

Mother Klytemnestra (Michaela Schuster) and daughter Elektra (Elena Pankratova) having a heart-to-heart “kitchen talk”

What amused me the most, however, was Warner’s inclusion of a scene in a contemporary kitchen. My guess is that this would be the perfect place for Elektra and Klytemnestra to have a “heart-to-heart” talk. That episode in Hofmannsthal’s libretto was definitely better suited to a kitchen than to a museum!

That said, there are only three more performances that will be given of this production. They will all be evening events, beginning at 7:30 p.m. The dates will be Friday, June 19, Tuesday, June 23, and Saturday, June 24. Tickets may be purchased online through a single Web page.

Opera Repertoire for 2026–27 SFO Season

I see that it is almost exactly a year ago that I ran an article announcing the repertoire for the 2025–26 season of the San Francisco Opera. During the fall of the coming season, there will be four opera productions, the annual Opera in the Park event, and a concert performed by the SFO Orchestra under the baton of Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim. For that concert, Kim has prepared a program of three compositions by Richard Strauss, beginning with one of his most familiar orchestral works, his Opus 28 tone poem, “Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks.” Equally familiar will be a suite of music from the opera Der Rosenkavalier, in a new arrangement for orchestra by Philippe Jordan and Tomáš Ille. Between these “bookends” soprano Adela Zaharia will be the solo vocalist in a performance of the six songs that Strauss collected for his Opus 68, sometimes known as the Brentano Lieder for the poems by Clemens Brentano. In “order of appearance,” the full-opera productions will be presented as follows:

Simon Boccanegra, Giuseppe Verdi: Once again, the season will begin with a Verdi opera conducted, as in past Verdi productions, by Kim. Katherine M. Carter will be the Revival Director for staging originally conceived by Claus Guth. As was the case last season, the title role will be sung by Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat.

Mary, Queen of Scots, Thea Musgrave: This will be a co-production with the English National Opera of a staging by Stewart Laing, who will be making his SFO debut. Conductor Clelia Cafiero will also be debuting. However, the title role will be taken by a soprano familiar to San Francisco, Heidi Stober.

Soprano Ellie Dehn in the title role of the “balloon scene” in Massenet’s opera Manon (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera)

Manon, Jules Massenet: This will be a revival of the production shared with the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, which gave the premiere in Vilnius in September of 2015, and the Israeli Opera. Staging was conceived by Vincent Boussard, who will return as Director. Kim will conduct.

Le nozze di Figaro (the marriage of Figaro), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: This will be another revival, going back to the 2019–20 season when Michael Cavanagh staged productions of all three of the Mozart operas based on librettos by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Shawna Lucey will direct the production, and Sebastian Weigle will make his debut as conductor. Bass-baritone Peter Kellner will make his SFO debut in the title role.

Das Rheingold, Richard Wagner: As a “preview” for the complete production of Der Ring des Nibelungen (the ring of the Nibelung), which will be given three full cycles in June of 2028, May and June will see seven performances of the first opera in the cycle; and Kim will conduct the return of the staging directed by Francesca Zambello.

Tosca, Giacomo Puccini: This is the very first opera that Kim conducted after she was appointed Music Director. Shawna Lucey will return as Director. However, for this revival, the conductor will be Clelia Cafiero. Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen will be making her title role debut.

As is always the case, this site will do its best to provide further information as the opening dates of these productions draw nearer.

“Elektra” Returns to San Francisco Opera

Yesterday afternoon saw the first of six performances of Richard Strauss’ one-act opera “Elektra” to the San Francisco Opera in the War Memorial Opera House. The running time was only one and two-thirds hours, but the resources are abundant. The orchestra consisted of 95 musicians including two timpanists (one doubling on percussion), three additional percussionists, and four Wagner tubas. There is an offstage chorus of 45 vocalists, and sixteen characters on the stage.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal prepared the libretto, using the Sophocles “Electra” play as his source. Sophocles may have drawn upon the earlier “Electra” play by Euripides, which, in turn, mined sources from the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus. There are sixteen vocalists in Hofmannsthal’s cast, but the title role dominates all others from beginning to end. Even as the curtain first rises, there are five maidservants talking about Elektra.

The narrative itself is one of vengeance. Prior to the beginning of the story, King Agamemnon was assassinated by his wife Klytemnestra. Elektra is their daughter, and she joins forces with her brother Orest to murder their mother for the crime she has committed. As already stated, all of this fits into a single uninterrupted act with a large diversity of instrumental sonorities to keep things moving. The good news is that the vocalists on stage could hold their own against conductor Eun Sun Kim’s intense management of the orchestra. Given Strauss’ reputation for “pulling out the stops,” Kim’s technique would have made the composer (or his spirit) proud.

Elektra (Elena Pankratova) dwarfed by the excessive stage design by Boris Kudlička

The production by Keith Warner, revived for this performance by Anja Kühnhold, was another matter. Rather than trying to establish an Ancient Greek setting, he situated the performance in a museum with Ancient Greek artifacts on display. Personally, I felt that the staging would have benefited from a bit more focus. Too many things were happening (either through projections or “in the flesh”) to keep the viewer attentive to Sophocles’ narrative. It is one thing when Strauss’ music and Hofmannsthal’s libretto navigate us through Elektra’s thoughts and deeds and quite another when the navigation has to contend with superfluity.

In performances in 1991 and 1997, this opera was directed by Andrei Serban. This was a director who was often criticized for “going over the top;” but, every now and then, he knew just how to hit the nail on the head. Watching that production kept me on the edge of my seat. Yesterday, I felt that I was just clocking off the episodes from Sophocles’ play.

Peter Whelan to Begin Tenure with PBO in July

Peter Whelan will curate his first season as Music Director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (PBO) in a little over a month’s time. San Francisco will see a series of six concerts beginning next month and continuing through April of next year.  As in the past, in addition to full-season subscriptions, there will be Choose-Your-Own subscriptions for five, four, or three concerts. Also as in the past, all San Francisco performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Herbst Theatre, located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Subscriptions are now on sale, and a Web page has been created, which provides separate hyperlinks for the available options. The San Francisco dates are as follows:

Thursday, July 23, Handel’s Tolomeo: The season will begin with a semi-staged production of George Frideric Handel’s opera seria, Tolomeo, re d'Egitto (Ptolemy, King of Egypt), HWV 25. The advance material I received describes the production as  a “historically informed performance with theatrical elements to heighten the drama.” Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen will perform the title role. Other vocalists will be countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim, sopranos Lauren Snouffer and Nicole Heaston, and bass-baritone Dashon Burton.

Friday, November 13, Handel’s The Power of Music: The five-concert subscription series will begin with the United States premiere of the 1772 Dublin version of the HWV 75 ode, Alexander’s Feast; vocal soloists will be soprano Sherezade Panthaki, mezzo Rachael Wilson, and tenor James Way with Valérie Sainte-Agathe leading the Philharmonia Chorale.

Friday, December 4, Baroque Brilliance: The program will begin with more Handel, this time limited to a single aria, “Let the Bright Seraphim” from the HWV 57 three-act oratorio Samson performed by soprano Kathryn Mueller. The second half of the program will present two members of the Bach family. It will conclude with the BWV 51 cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. This will be preceded by a concerto composed by his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, his Wq. 172 concerto for cello in A major. This, in turn, will be preceded by the last of the three orchestral suites composed by Georg Philipp Telemann, the TWV 55:G10 Burlesque de Quixotte. In the first half of the program, Mueller will also sing the West Coast premiere of “O virgo, cui salute debet orbis,” composed by Marianna Martines, whose keyboard music was recently recorded by Signum Classics on an album release this past April.

Friday, February 5, Vivaldi and the Oud: I suspect that it is very unlikely that Vivaldi knew anything about the oud. However, Philharmonic Baroque Composer-in-Residence Tarik O’Regan has composed a concerto for it with accompaniment by strings and percussion (perhaps with a nod to Béla Bartók). This new work will be both preceded and followed by works by Antonio Vivaldi. The program will begin with the overture to RV 725, the three-act dramma per musica entitled L'Olimpiade. The second half of the program will survey selected movements from L'estro armonico, Vivaldi’s Opus 3 collection of twelve concertos for string instruments.

Friday, March 5, Baroque on Stage: The first half of this program will survey a selection of works composed for staged performances by Henry Purcell and Jean-Philippe Rameau. It will conclude with a set of variations on the “Folia” theme, composed by Francesco Geminiani in an arrangement by Michi Wiancko. There will also be a concerto in E minor by Antonio Vivaldi, which will apparently be a “synthesis” of RV 273 and RV 278. The second half of the program will begin with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Wq. 182:5, a symphony in B minor.

William Blake’s The Ancient of Days, a depiction of the angel Urizen planning the Creation

Friday, April 9, The Creation: Having began the season with an opera, PBO will conclude with an oratorio. This will be The Creation, the Hoboken XXI:2 oratorio by Joseph Haydn. The vocal soloists will be soprano Lucy Crowe, tenor Nicholas Phan, and bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca. Valérie Sainte-Agathe will again lead the Philharmonia Chorale.

DSO: Wagner with Tchaikovsky and Strauss

The text for yesterday evening’s latest YouTube livestream of the performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) began as follows: “Stories of tragic love unfold through the expressive power of the orchestra.” Each half of the program began with music by Richard Wagner: the Prelude and Liebestod episodes (the latter performed without vocalist) from Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde and the “Siegfried Idyll” tone poem, which serves as a supplement to the operatic tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen  (the ring of the Nibelung). The first half of the program concluded with another tone poem, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini;” and the program concluded with an instrumental suite of excerpts from Richard Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier. Music Director Jader Bignamini led the ensemble.

What struck me most positively was the conductor’s measure-by-measure sensitivity to Wagner’s dynamics. Those familiar with the composer know how his sensitivity to dynamics underscores the narrative subtleties that provide the backbone of the music. Those dynamics are better appreciated when the narrative is performed in its entirety, but there are always subtleties underlying many (if not most) of Wagner’s excerpts. One could appreciate those subtleties in watching Bignamini at work, even when the music has been deprived of its overall narrative context.

The music of the other two composers on the program was anything but subtle. The narrative behind Tchaikovsky’s tone poem was inspired by one of the “Inferno” episodes in the first of the three parts of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. I must confess that the account of forbidden love borders on soap opera, and Tchaikovsky’s music just adds more soap to the narrative. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the composer’s approaches to instrumentation, particularly when he deploys a trio of three separate flute parts, given a thoroughly engaging account by last night’s Detroit musicians:

Three members of the DSO flute section playing Tchaikovsky (screen shot from last night’s YouTube livestream)

Where Rosenkavalier is concerned, I much confess that I prefer the full-length opera to the excerpts. The “magic” resides in the relationship between the music and the overall narrative. When selections are performed, they tend to be most meaningful only to those that know the whole story. The most significant case in point concerns the most familiar instrumental waltz, which is actually providing background for a scheming scoundrel! Fortunately, I could engage my own memories of the opera as context for Bignamini’s performance and could fully appreciate the excerpts he performed!

Carmen Lite?

Next month the Merola Opera Program will present two performances of La Tragédie de Carmen. When I announced this event on this site at the end of last month, I described it as “a starker adaptation” of Georges Bizet’s four-act opera Carmen. It was created by stage director Peter Brook in 1983, who collaborated with Jean-Claude Carrière in writing the script. Music was composed by Marius Constant. As in Bizet’s version, the text will be in French; and English supertitles will be provided.

Ariana Maubach, who will be singing the title role in La Tragédie de Carmen (from the Web page for the Merola 2026 emerging artists)

The objective was to distill the “source text” by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy into a 90-minute performance (without intermissions). There are no choruses, and instrumentation was scaled down to a chamber orchestra. The cast is significantly reduced, limited to the major characters in the plot. Vocal ranges are, for the most part (but not entirely), based on Bizet’s original score. The Merola performers will be mezzo Ariana Maubach in the title role, tenor Charles Styles as the hapless Don José, soprano Anna Thompson as the even more hapless Micaëla, baritone Raúl Morales Velazco as the flamboyant toreador Escamillo, tenor Ryan Bryce Johnson as Lieutenant of Dragoons Zuniga, and tenor Logan Wager as Lilas Pastia. Carriére’s script also endowed Carmen with a husband, Garcia, who will be sung by bass John Mburu. Staging will be directed by Mo Zhou, and Stephanie Rhode Russell will conduct.

This production will be given two performances: at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 9, and at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 11. Tickets will be sold for $75 with a $25 rate for those aged 25 and younger. Tickets can be purchased online with separate Web pages of Thursday and Saturday. They may also be purchased by calling the San Francisco Opera Box Office at 415-864-3330. The venue will be the San Francisco Conservatory of Music at 50 Oak Street.

Chan Gets Down to Business with SFS Concert

Now that conductor Elim Chan has been officially welcomed in City Hall at the end of last month, she has now gotten down to business with her first performance conducting the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) after she was officially named new Music Director of the ensemble. Some readers may recall that I was kind enough to describe her last performance on the SFS podium as a disappointment, but there was nothing disappointing about her return to the podium last night! Her selections spanned a little over half a century, and all three of them fired on all cylinders.

The “bookends” for the program could not have been more contrasting. Chan began with the Prelude for Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. This was, as is so often the case, coupled with an instrumental account of the opera’s final music, the “Liebestod.” The second half of the program, on the other hand, was devoted entirely to Claude Debussy’s three-movement tone poem “La Mer,” which has endured as many slings and arrows from the critics as Wagner did! The “concerto” of the program was a vocal selection sung by mezzo Sasha Cooke, a cycle setting six poems by Théophile Gautier given the title Le Nuits d’été (the nights of summer), composed by Hector Berlioz. As an encore, she sang “Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen” (I live my life in growing orbits), the second of the six songs that Michael Tilson Thomas collected for his cycle Meditations on Rilke. (Thomas’ recording of the complete cycle was released by SFS Media in July of 2020.)

Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” on the cover of the 1905 first edition of the score of “La Mer”

Much as I have consistently enjoyed Cooke’s performances, the high point of the evening was the chemistry Chan had established with the orchestra over the course of the entire evening. There is a plethora of instrumental details in “La Mer,” and Chan managed to provide a clear account of all of them. Debussy may not have captured the fractal details that one finds in the woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai entitled “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.” For that matter, Pierre Lalo, critic for Le Temps, wrote “I do not hear, I do not see, I do not smell the sea.” Far be it from me to criticize the late Lalo for having tin ears; but, as far as I am concerned, he missed the point. Indeed, there are surges of sonorities in the final movement that might almost make you want to duck from an oncoming wave!

Chan’s approach to Wagner was as engaging has her reading of Debussy. While movement is the underlying force of “La Mer,” the music for Tristan was all about intense reflection. Over the course of the opera, the overall “path” is one of descent; so the performance of the music’s “bookends” comes across as a bit of a shortcut. Nevertheless, each of the two movements has its own approach to unfolding thematic material, over the course of which the listener establishes a “background” for the narrative of the opera. Chan’s account seemed to have that unfolding in mind, and the full resources of the SFS ensemble came across in following her lead with all the necessary precision.

All of these factors made last night a high point in the current SFS season.

Amadeus Mozart Performed on Three Guitars

Some readers may recall that near the end of last month the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts released an Omni on-Location video of guitarist Giulia Ballaré playing her own transcription of “In a Landscape,” one of the early solo piano compositions by John Cage. This morning saw the premiere of the latest video to be released. The music could not be more distant (in both space and time) from Cage. Instead, the composer is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; and the music is a transcription for three guitars of the overture to his K. 492 opera, The Marriage of Figaro.

I have to confess that I first encountered this opera at an early age (which was a time when the only operas that interested my parents were by Mozart). So it may well be that this was the first opera overture I ever heard. It was a good start with the string section hustling and bustling to prepare the opera-goer for all the twists and turns in the libretto’s narrative.

Zuzanna Bonarska, Wiktoria Bloch, and Wojciech Niemotko playing Niemotko’s transcription of the Overture for Mozart’s K. 492 opera

That said, I was more than a little impressed that all of that hustling and bustling could be distilled down into three guitars. Those familiar with the overture will probably appreciate the agility of the three guitarists (Zuzanna Bonarska, Wiktoria Bloch, and Wojciech Niemotko, who prepared the transcription). Mind you, in most productions of Mozart’s opera Susanna accompanies Cherubino on guitar when he sings “Voi che sapete che cosa è amor;” but this trio is only interested in Mozart’s music, rather than the narrative of his opera! My guess is that opera lovers will be impressed with how this guitar trio works its way into the setting for K. 492.

SFCM to Host Workshop of New Opera

Portrait of Lavinia Williams, the title character of Madame Theremin

One week from this coming Thursday, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) will host the first complete workshop performance of a new opera. The opera is Madame Theremin, composed by Kennedy Verrett setting a libretto by George M. Kopp. The title refers to Lavinia Williams, who was the wife of Leon Theremin, the inventor of the electronic instrument that bears his name.

Williams was a Principal Dancer with the American Negro Ballet Company, which was based in New York in the Thirties. The libretto is a tale of the Harlem Renaissance, involving music, dance, technology, politics, and Haitian Vodou. For this workshop the title role will be sung by soprano Ariel Emma, and tenor Eric Levintow will portray Theremin. Other vocalists for the workshop will be mezzo Melissa Bonettio Luna (a Vodou priestess), bass-baritone Patrick Blackwell as Noble Washington (based loosely on Paul Robeson), and Sara Couden as a Soviet official. A variety of other roles will be taken by tenor Joe Meyers and baritone Daniel Cilli. Mary Chun will conduct, and accompaniment will be by pianist Kymry Esainko.

The performance will take place in the SFCM Ann Getty Center, which is in the building at 50 Oak Street. It will begin at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 11, and last for about 90 minutes. The event will be followed by an audience feedback session and an informal reception. There will be no charge for admission, but a suggested donation of $20 will be appreciated. Tickets will be available by sending electronic mail to cblalock@gmail.com.