Opera, principally a sung play, an leisure with music with a 400-plus-year historical past, is for everyone. San Francisco Opera needs to show it this coming season as the corporate honors its first 100 years whereas its leaders forged a watch towards what they hope can be a dynamic future.
Given the lineup of the 2022-23 centennial season, the long run seems to be right here and it consists of, as one of many prime opera corporations within the nation, an ongoing dedication to innovation.
Contemplate that opening weekend, Sept. 9 to 11, contains a gala live performance on opening evening and the normal Opera Ball, on Friday; the world premiere of Bay Space composer John Adams’ “Antony and Cleopatra” on Saturday; and the annual Free Opera within the Park (in Robin Williams Meadow in Golden Gate Park) on Sunday, all led by Music Director Eun Solar Kim.
Maybe the information that augurs particularly nicely for the corporate (and the Bay Space and the nation rising from the latest omicron variant wave) is the return of eight mainstage operas, further live shows, and group occasions via July 1, 2023.
Apart from the brand new Adams opera (Sept. 10 to Oct. 5), based mostly on Shakespeare and classical sources and directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer, the season additionally boasts the premiere of a co-commissioned opera, “El ultimo sueno de Frida y Diego” (The Final Dream of Frida and Diego) by Bay Space composer Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz. It’s going to run June 13 to 30, 2023 (however has its world premiere at San Diego Opera in October). The story? Three years after the famed feminine Mexican artist (portrayed by mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack) has died, her ailing, lonely husband, equally famed artist and muralist Diego Rivera (Mexican tenor Alfredo Daza) needs to see her yet one more time — and the underworld helps him out.
Then there are a number of new firm productions: Verdi’s “La Traviata” (Nov. 11 to Dec. 3), which tells the story of a courtesan dying of consumption; and Gluck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice” (Nov. 15 to Dec. 1), a few man who vows to rescue his spouse from the underworld; and a brand new co-production of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” (June 3 to July 1, 2023), with corporations in Tokyo, Dresden and Copenhagen weighing in with the well-known story of a Japanese woman who falls in love with a U.S. Navy officer and bears his youngster however can’t abide together with his need to realize custody.
Moreover, the season consists of some Twentieth-century masterpieces: Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites” (Oct. 15 to 30), about an order of nuns who’re guillotined one after the other throughout the French Revolution; and Strauss’ “Die Frau ohne Schatten,” in English “The Lady With no Shadow” (June 4 to twenty-eight, 2023), the story of two pairs of lovers who expertise emotional and religious salvation. Each return to the Conflict Memorial Opera Home, at 301 Van Ness Ave., the place that they had their U.S. premieres.
Additionally, Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” (Sept. 25 to Oct. 14), based mostly on the Pushkin poem, tells the story of a love-smitten woman rejected by the good-looking Onegin. Performances mark the return of Russian opera to the corporate after 14 years.
Apart from the a centesimal anniversary live performance (June 16, 2023), different centennial celebrations embody “Bohème Out of the Field”; “The Traviata Encounter” (Nov. 19); an open home (Oct. 23); the Historic Recordings Mission; “The Future Is Now: Adlers in Live performance” (Dec. 2); San Francisco Opera Refrain in Live performance (Dec. 4); group tales and exhibitions.
The corporate has a widely known historical past of innovation and inside the previous quarter-century forged many singers who made their operatic debuts and went on to worldwide fame.
In a press assertion, Normal Director Matthew Shilvock mentioned: “From the second (firm founder) Gaetano Merola raised the primary curtain on San Francisco Opera, this has been an organization of risk, of excellence, of modern spirit. Our centennial will honor the extraordinary individuals who formed our first hundred years, and in addition be a stepping-off level into the unbelievable inventive potentialities that lie forward.
“As we start our second century, we wish to be a spot the place our group feels that their tales are being advised, the place we’re energizing new conceptions of the artwork type, and the place we proceed to create experiences so profound that they reverberate for a lifetime.”
San Francisco Opera Affiliation President Keith Geeslin added, “Our extraordinary group of subscribers and donors have sustained this firm as a vibrant and inventive pressure and a frontrunner within the worldwide opera world for a century.”
At present in her first season as firm music director, Kim launched a brand new period for the corporate starting with the return to reside performances within the Conflict Memorial Opera Home final August with Puccini’s “Tosca.” She additionally led the corporate’s new manufacturing of Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” two live shows with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and can return to the rostrum this summer season for a Verdi celebration (June 30, 2022). Final November, the South Korean conductor made her debut on the Metropolitan Opera in New York, main Puccini’s “La Bohème” to solidly favorable critiques.
“Music’s highly effective language conjures up us to raised perceive our world — and one another,” mentioned Kim. “I’m deeply honored to be part of the legacy constructed over the primary 100 years of San Francisco Opera, and I look ahead to partaking with our group in so some ways throughout this celebratory yr. San Francisco has supported, nurtured and energized this firm. We musicians in flip will proceed to attempt for the best ranges of creative excellence, to make sure this wealthy legacy may be handed all the way down to future generations.”
For the centennial season, Kim leads all performances of “Antony and Cleopatra,” “Dialogues of the Carmelites,” “La Traviata” “Madame Butterfly,” the Opening Night time Live performance, Opera within the Park, the resident artist Adler Fellows live performance and can be among the many conductors for the a centesimal Anniversary Live performance.
For extra info, together with season subscriptions and tickets, go to www.sfopera.com/100 or phone (415) 864-3330.
