SFO to Kick Off This Year’s Pride Weekend

Monét X Change (photograph by Lindsey Ruth, courtesy of SFO)

This year the 55th annual Pride Celebration will take place on the final weekend of the month on Saturday, June 28, and Sunday, June 29. San Francisco Opera (SFO) has been a proud participant in this event since the Eighties. This year it will launch the occasion on Friday evening with a program of music, immersive projections, and a post-show dance party, all to be hosted by Monét X Change.

Full specifics have not yet been announced, but the evening will begin with the overture to Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. Three vocal soloists, all likely to be familiar to SFO audiences, will give radically different performances. The most traditional of these will be the aria “Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix” with which Dalila seduced Samson in Camille Saint-Saëns’ opera Samson and Delilah, sung by mezzo Jamie Barton. From the last century, Brian Mulligan will sing one of Judy Garland’s favorite songs, “The Man That Got Away.” Most recently, Nikola Printz will sing “I Was Born This Way” by Carl Bean, now acknowledged as a disco anthem. Music Director Eun Sun Kim will share the podium with Robert Mollicone, and the program will be directed by Tal Rosner, who will also provide accompanying video. The duration of the entire program will be 80 minutes with no intermission.

This will be the final performance of the SFO season. It will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 27; and doors will open at 6:30 p.m. There will be a happy hour prior to the performances, as well as a pre-concert talk by Suzanne Ford, Executive Director of SF Pride. The venue will be the War Memorial Opera House on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street. Ticket prices range from $30 in the Balcony to $225 in the Boxes; and, as of this writing, seating is available in all the levels in the house. A Web page has been created for online purchases. The Box Office is open on Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and it may be reached by calling 415-864-3330. On the date of the performance, the Box Office will be open prior to 7:30 p.m.