OSJ to Launch Season with Streamed Video

At the beginning of this month, Opera San José (OSJ) announced its planned 2021–22 season. This would involve the return to live performances of three operas at the California Theatre in San José beginning on November 13 of this year. The operas to be performed will be Henry Purcell’s three-act Dido and Aeneas, Georges Bizet’s four-act Carmen, and Leonard Bernstein’s two-act West Side Story, which originated as a Broadway musical.

These productions will be preceded by an online streamed video created at OSJ’s Heiman Digital Media Studio. The opera to be performed will be Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Mozart and Salieri,” composed as a single act with two scenes. Rimsky-Korsakov prepared his own libretto, which was taken almost verbatim from Alexander Pushkin’s verse drama with the same title. Pushkin wrote his text in 1830; and the opera was composed in 1897, over 80 years before the first performance of Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus.

The only two characters in this opera are the two named in the title, and the first is a monologue of jealousy delivered by Salieri. The second scene sees the two characters discussing Mozart’s K. 626 setting of the Latin Requiem text over dinner. As I wrote in an article about a recording of this opera, Rimsky-Korsakov kept his Mozart musical quotes to a minimum. Full details about the production have not yet been announced, but the role of Salieri will be sung by baritone Sidney Outlaw. Donato Cabrera will conduct the production staged by Fenlon Lamb.

As of this writing, Opera San José is only selling subscriptions. Those not planning to travel to San Jose for the live performances will have to wait until Monday, August 2, when single tickets will go on sale. Streaming will begin on Thursday, September 30, and the video will be available through Sunday, October 31. As is usually the case, instructions for viewing the streamed performance will be provided once the ticket purchase has been finalized. Pricing will probably be the same as that for this past April’s streaming of Love & Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy. Those seeking further information are invited to call 408-437-4450, Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.