The month of November will see San Francisco Opera (SFO) stream performances of five of its productions through its Opera is ON service, beginning with the final weekend of this month, which couples the last day of October with the first day of November. As with the previous offerings, each will become available on Saturday at 10 a.m.; and free access will expire and the end of the following day. Each video will then be added to the archive available to subscribers and those that have donated $75 or more. Specifics for the five new offerings are as follows:
October 31: Readers may recall that, this coming Sunday evening, SFO will offer its first-ever operatic drive-in event, presented at the Fort Mason Flix Drive-In. The opera for this occasion will be Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and the projection will present a video recorded during the 2008 Spring Season. This same video will be streamed by Opera is ON during the following weekend of October 31 and November 1. The production, originally staged at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence by Graham Vick and brought to San Francisco by Marco Gandini, presented the SFO debut of soprano Natalie Dessay in the title role. Casting also included tenor Giuseppe Filianoti in the role of Lucia’s beloved Edgardo Ravenswood and baritone Gabriele Viviani as her brother Enrico Ashton, making his United States opera debut. The conductor was Jean-Yves Ossonce, making his United State debut. The running time of the opera will be approximately two and one-half hours.
November 7: This will be a video recording of the most recent SFO production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (a masked ball) in October of 2014. This will be the version set in 1792 in Stockholm, Sweden, as opposed to the less politically controversial version set in Boston in the period leading up to the American Revolution. The production marked the SFO debut of soprano Julianna Di Giacomo, a Merola Opera Program alumna, in the role of Amelia. Amelia is the wife of a jealous husband, Count Anckarström, sung by baritone Thomas Hampson. She is being pursued by Gustavo (Gustavus III, Kind of Sweden), sung by tenor Ramón Vargas. Staging was by Director Jose Maria Condemi, and the conductor was Nicola Luisotti. Running time will be approximately two and one-quarter hours.
November 14: This will be the first SFO performance of the original 1869 version of Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov, performed during the fall of 2008 The title character will be sung by bass Samuel Ramey. The staging was conceived by Stein Winge for the Grand Théâtre de Genève and staged in San Francisco by Julia Pevzner, making her Company debut. Similarly, this marked the first time that Vassily Sinaisky served as conductor for an SFO production. Running time will be approximately two and one-half hours.
November 21: Harry Silverstein’s staging of Verdi’s Rigoletto has become a major SFO favorite, particularly due to Michael Yeargan’s striking sets, which evoke the images of the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico. The performances in September of 2012 were double-cast. In the video that will be presented, the title role was taken by Serbian baritone Željko Lučić. The role of his daughter Gilda was sung by Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak. Filling out what may be the most famous quartet in the Italian opera repertoire will be Italian tenor Francesco Demuro as the Duke of Mantua and Adler Fellow mezzo Kendall Gladen as Maddalena. Luisotti will again be the conductor, and the duration will be approximately two hours.
November 28: After four dramatically intense productions, the month will conclude with Gaetano Donizetti’s delightful comedy L’elisir d’amore (the elixir of love). Director James Robinson transported the setting from the Basque region of the eighteenth-century to Napa Valley on the eve of World War I. The video was recorded during the fall of 2008, which was the last time this opera was performed by SFO. Albanian soprano Inva Mula made her SFO debut in the role of Adina, complemented by Vargas as the love-smitten Nemorino. Italian baritone Alessandro Corbelli sang the role of Dr Dulcamara, purveyor of the elixir that is supposed to allow Nemorino to win Adina’s heart. The conductor was Bruno Campanella, and the duration will be approximately two and one-quarter hours.
Access to free streaming is enabled through the SFO home page. For those interested in viewing any of the Opera is ON productions after free access has been terminated, there is a log-in Web page for donors and subscribers. There is also a Web page for those interested in becoming donors in order to benefit from full access to all available videos.
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