2023 CA/US reviews:

L'elisir d'amore at San Francisco Opera (November 19, 2023)
Omar at San Francisco Opera (November 7, 2023)
Lohengrin at San Francisco Opera (October 18, 2023)
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at San Francisco Opera (October 3, 2023)
Il trovatore at San Francisco Opera (September 18, 2023)
El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego at San Francisco Opera (June 13, 2023)
Die Frau ohne Schatten at San Francisco Opera (June 10, 2023)
Adriana Mater at San Francisco Symphony (June 8, 2023)
Madama Butterfly at San Francisco Opera (June 6, 2023)
Otello at Los Angeles Opera (May 20, 2023)
Tosca at Opera San Jose (March 26, 2023)

The Elixir of Love at San Francisco Opera

That's L’elisir d’amore, Donizetti’s bel canto gem, dolled up somewhere on the Italian riviera by the same team that set San Francisco Opera’s 2012 Lohengrin in a Soviet era, bookless Romanian library near a bus station.

So it was the piazza in front of the Hotel Adina, the proprietress of which, Donizetti’s heroine Adina, was so busy reading the Tristan myth and brushing off her suitors that she exhibited no proprietary interest whatsoever in her namesake inn where Nemorino is the only waiter.

Additional conceits included Donizetti’s swaggering soldier sergeant Belcore transformed into a policeman, though he seemed more a sailor in casual whites, who made his entrance on a Vespa motor scooter (electrified to-be-sure — no real, ugly diesel fumes or scary screeching (vespa means wasp). Plus the everything elixir salesperson, Dulcamara, arrived in a hot air balloon, a French Revolutionary touch (there was a pause in the performance so this entrance could be set up).

Opening night was a Sunday matinee, and the audience ate it up.

Slávka Zámečníková as Adina, David Bizic as Belcore

This was the 2016 production from Britain’s Opera North (based in Leeds), though it was originally conceived back in 2001. It comes to San Francisco via Lyric Opera of Chicago where it played in 2021. It seemed a bit small for the War Memorial stage. The original British team was on hand — stage director Daniel Slater and production designer Robert Innes Hopkins (designer of SFO’s new, milquetoast Tosca), and lighting designer Simon Mills.

The production’s many pantomime moments (group choreography and slapstick humor) made it seem so very Brighton Beach.

Not to be outdone by Caruso’s Nemorino La Scala role debut (“Una furtiva lagrima” was repeated three times) San Francisco Opera fielded New Zealand tenor Pene Pati, a former Adler with a big career, whose “Una furtiva lagrima” had to wait through an eternity of silence, save for the electron screeching of someone’s hearing aid low battery warning, a pause imposed by the conductor until the screech was quelled. Mr. Pati is a very effective Nemorino, a fine comic actor, his vocal presentation is clean and pure, his persona is a pure Pavarotti imitation, lacking only the white hanky for his extravagant bows.

Adina was sung by Austrian soprano Slávka Zámečníková, a lithesome presence with the requisite charm for this Donizetti role. Mlle. Zamecnikova has a silvery thread of voice, though of obvious amplitude to be heard in the important theaters she inhabits. Well able to vocally negotiate the fioratura of Donizetti’s bel canto, she does not bring a heft of voice or personality to make such virtuosity sound important. I was left unimpressed and unfulfilled.

French baritone David Bizic created a fresh and charming, young Belcore. With a finely wrought, healthy young voice he made this role far more sympathetic than simply a stock buffo presentation. In the end, out maneuvered by Nemorino, he eloped with Gianetta on his electric Vespa. Gianetta was sung by current Adler Fellow Arianna Rodriguez who faded into the scenery, though some good high notes came through from time to time.

Renato Girolami as Dulcamara, Pene Pati as Nemorino

Italian buffo Renato Girolami as Dulcamara was the star of the production — well, along with Pene Pati’s oversized Nemorino. Mr. Girolami brought sophisticated, big house know-how to this archetypal buffo role. He found a warmth of tone and persona for this Dulcamara that made him a benevolent deus ex machina (the hot air balloon) rather than the usual shyster.

The San Francisco Opera Chorus surely had great fun in preparing and performing this tour de force for opera chorus. There was great detailing in the chorus roles (see lead photo), many individual characters emerged with contagious energy. Ramón Tebar conducted the San Francisco Opera Orchestra with magisterial assurance, bringing welcome care to making Donizetti’s magnificent score work into this production.

The Elixir of Love concludes the San Francisco fall season of five operas. None of the productions originated in San Francisco.

War Memorial Opera House, November 19, 2023

Omar at San Francisco Opera

The black man Omar Ibn Said was forcibly brought from sub-Saharan Africa to South Carolina in 1807. He was sold, becoming an indentured person for life (d. 1863). Omar the opera delves into the fascinating complexities of this life.

Omar was a 30’s-some years-old Islamic scholar at the time of his abduction [Islam had come  into the western sub-Sahara in the sixth century CE]. As a Qur’an scholar he had learned to read and write, thus his enlightened American owner gave him a Christian bible in Arabic to hasten his inevitable conversion. Omar, a noted personality in his time (he was dubbed an Arabian prince), created brief phrases in Arabic to assuage the Southern gentry’s taste for exotic shapes, and as well left an array of short documents in Arabic. One is titled “I cannot write my life.”

These texts have proven very difficult to decipher (casual grammar, weird syntax, etc.), though recent scholarship claims to have done so. While some brief texts are embedded within the opera’s libretto, Omar the opera creates a framework for Omar’s Allah to become enmeshed within South Carolina’s Jesus.

There is no underlying operatic tension (will he or even can he change his faith?), thus the opera is more an oratorio — a series of tableaux that imagine and elaborate key moments of Omar’s spiritual life. He has two guides in the opera’s libretto — the first is his mother who tells him that there is no direct path through life, that there may well be sharp bends. The second is the slave girl Julie who encourages him to escape his initial bondage and come to Fayetteville where he joins her among persons indentured to the Owens family.

Omar is not an operatic tale of two slaves falling in love. Julie is but Omar’s talisman. She brings him to a magical Fayetteville [NC] where Eliza, the daughter of the Owens family patriarch Jim, in her innocence, recognizes his spirituality. Jim asks Omar to write in Arabic script “the Lord is my shepherd” — the 23rd Psalm, though Omar writes “I want to go home!” Jim is none the wiser.

The opera then embarks on an extended meditation of the 23rd Psalm — “[the Lord] maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters,” etcetera, and concludes with a huge finale of the three principal voices (Omar, Julie, the Mother) joined with the sizable ensemble of black singers to intone, hugely, Omar’s invocation that they love and respect their roots, their ancestral home, Allah be praised.

It is unfortunate that this religious oratorio arrives at this particular moment in human history, when religions, any and all, are held in particularly low esteem. At the same time it is exciting for opera, and particularly opera in America, to discover this rich trove of stories that cry out to be told in this sumptuous, multifaceted art form.

Like the late 16th century Italian staged pastorals there were dance scenes. The whirling blue dancer often appeared as Omar’s sufistic self. The choreographer was Klara Benn.

The libretto is quite brilliant, evoking the 16th century pastoral poetry that fostered the origins of opera. Much use is made of rhyming, that both recalls the Italian pastoral poets (Tasso, Guarini, et al) and the musicality associated with the inflections of the early forms of African American Language [AAL]. There is a canny respect for the formalities of opera that have developed over the last few hundred years — well placed arias, songs, plus a number of duets of very satisfying dramatic intensity. And, of course, there is the magnificent Mozartian finale the ends the opera.

This excellent production of Omar originated at the Charleston’s Spoleto Festival in June, 2022 traveling to LA Opera that fall, continuing to Boston Lyric Opera this past May. It is staged by Kaneza Schaal, a veteran of high art theater in the U.S., upholding that reputation with this spare, Broadway style staging. Design credits are varied, certainly the look can be attributed to Christopher Myers, a New York based interdisciplinary artist rooted in storytelling and artmaking (tapestry, etc.), thus explaining the wonderful “primitive art” slave ship back drop in the first act and the magnificent rope construction that was the huge tree of life that looms in the opera’s finale. Scenery design is ascribed to Amy Rubin, lighted by Pablo Santiago.

The costumers, April M. Hickman and Micheline Russell-Brown, supported stage director Schaal’s nifty framing of the opera — at the beginning singer Jamez McCorkle, very much a black prince, comes from the auditorium onto the stage in an “Alice in Chains” t-shirt (a Seattle based rock group) and white sneakers where he becomes the enrobed Omar. At the conclusion of the opera, an instrumental postlude allows him to return to his contemporary, non-ceremonial status, descending, transformed, again among us.

The musical score was created by both the librettist, folk singer Rhiannon Giddens, and film composer Michael Abels. It is richly colored and exceedingly descriptive, and is of little interest. The Omar score took the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for music. The great accomplishment of the score’s creators was its formal structure, presumably the collective efforts of the librettist, composers and stage director. No dramaturg is credited.

Tenor Jamez McCorkle was superbly voiced as Omar, in a focused, ringing tenor. Of wonderful, refined singing as well was the Jim Owens of Canadian baritone Daniel Okulitch, this quality performance added significant and much needed dignity to the Jesus camp. Character tenor Barry Banks as the auctioneer had the dubious distinction of singing the word “nigger.” Though soprano Brittany Renee as Julie fulfilled the role’s vocal needs, neither she nor mezzo soprano Taylor Raven as the insufficiently voiced mother achieved the electric presences needed to galvanize these two essential roles. Mezzo soprano Laura Krumm as Jim Owen’s daughter Eliza, did find the magic of her role, the third of Omar’s muses.

Assembling a cast for Omar is much like the daunting task of assembling a cast for Porgy and Bess. The smaller roles and the larger ensembles were all effectively realized. The San Francisco Opera Orchestra, conducted by John Kennedy, was double winds and trumpets, triple horns and trombones, piano and harp, and full strings. Plus a panoply of African drums tapped by three European percussionists.

War Memorial Opera House, November 7, 2023

Lohengrin at San Francisco Opera

This is the excellent David Alden 2018 production from Covent Garden. Here is how it fared at the War Memorial Opera House.

It fit like a glove due to strong casting, and the rigid musical control of conductor Eun Sun Kim, and the sheer brilliance of the production — its magnificent architecture and the consummate telling of Wagner’s first go at his last opera (Lohengrin is Parsifal’s son).

In the Wagner canon Lohengrin follows Tannhäuser and Der Fliegende Holländer (Rienzi will be admitted in 2026 when Bayreuth, overruling Wagner, stages it). The newly minted “gesamtkunstwerk” Lohengrin composer is in his richer dramatic phase, his stories/poems less philosophically refined, therefore allowing considerable interpretive latitude. 

David Alden seizes this weakness to commit Wagner to a supposed divine purpose, one that overrides human desires, demanding their sacrifice, and advocates the use of human might to achieve a perceived higher purpose. The Alden Lohengrin tragedy went far beyond the sacrifice of Lohengrin and Elsa (lead photo), and therefore humanity, to the triumph of might.

Julie Adams as Elsa, Act 1

Set designer Paul Steinberg effected this suffocating world with massively oversized architectural elements seen from a dizzying perspective, elements that moved to assume evermore overpowering stances. Stage director David Alden effected human desires in the dark, animal like coupling of Telramund and Ortrud in the second act, and the white purity of the unconsummated marriage bed in the third act, both acts manifesting the futility of human feeling.

This Lohengrin ended with the swan child Gottfried raising his sword to the massive sonic strokes of Wagner’s closure. A brutal ending.

Conductor Eun Sun Kim established firm musical control from the first whispered sounds of the  prelude. The War Memorial Opera House does not offer the magical acoustic of Bayreuth, thus the musical unfolding of the Wagner poem was procedural, save the magical moments when this conductor unlocked all fetters to the lyricism of Wagner’s poetic development, notably first in Elsa’s dream, then in Ortrud’s diatribes, in Telramund’s sniveling, and finally in Lohengrin’s pompous revelations. As is her wont the maestra made the big moments huge. And hugely satisfying.

Much like the musical telling, the narrative unfolding of this made-over teutonic tale was procedural. Given that the set established a Nazi era, western world, Alden was able to settle into each of the opera’s moments without adding fascistic editorial. Lohengrin and Elsa, Telramund and Ortrud remained human, feeling creatures — if on superhuman scale. Their situations and movements were sometimes worldly, sometimes symbolic, and always painstakingly structured dramatically.

Like the music, the narrative was an agglomeration of carefully formed episodes. Though Lohengrin is of extended length, dramatically unfolding moment by moment by moment, Alden and the maestra maintained a steady, even dramatic tension. We always cared about the purity of love (and its purpose) of Elsa and Lohengrin, and were repulsed by the nefarious intentions of Ortrud and Telramund. It was a world of black and white, both colors of divine motivation,  Wagner tells us. In the Alden production it was not for us to judge (and our sympathies did wander from time to time to Ortrud and Telramund), only to recognize that it would be the sword that would prevail.

Final scene of the David Alden production of Lohengrin, set design by Paul Steinberg

In a pre-curtain speech San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock felt the need to offer comfort for our eventual discomfort with the politics of this Lohengrin. I confess that I soon saw Joe Biden as the ancient King Heinrich and Lohengrin as Donald Trump and Ortrud and Telramund as intruders who slipped through our southern border — hardly the intention of this London based director. Mr. Shilvock, less specifically, invoked Israel and Ukraine. For Wagner, as interpreted by Alden, it was purely philosophic.

It was a cast of like voiced singers — vibrant, young sounding, beautiful voices that gave immediate life, depth and urgency to Wagner’s poem, enhancing David Alden’s disturbing revelations of its inflammable subtexts.

Former Merola participant, tenor Simon O’Neill, now 52 years old, is a Lohengrin of youthful heroic voice (jugendlicherheldentenor), perfectly suited to be the son of Parsifal. His voice exudes the purity, clarity and force needed for a knight imbued with divine purpose. He gracefully overwhelmed Telramund in their first act battle, returned for the magnificent, second act Rossini-like finale, and mesmerized us with his third act confession, laid out in unflagging, huge volume. 

Brian Mulligan as Telramund, Act 1

Telramund was sung by baritone Brian Mulligan in his role debut. Once San Francisco Opera’s go-to baritone for whatever role you can think of. Mr. Mulligan has found his place as a heroic baritone, hints of which first appeared when he sang the King’s Herald in San Francisco Opera’s 2012 Lohengrin (and as well in the Met’s unfortunate production last year). His golden, bell like tone made his strutting as the first act pretender and his second act manipulation by Ortrud even more pathetic.

The King’s Herald was sung by Thomas Lehman. Fitted with a mechanical prosthetic leg, he brought huge presence to this career building role. Mr. Lehman is of fine, heroic voice, that enabled him to create a personage who accepted force and violence at any cost. King Heinrich was sung by Kristinn Sigmundsson, a role he sang as well in the 2012 production. He projected abject weakness and vulnerability in his ever more declined vocal estate.

Elsa was sung by former San Francisco Opera Adler Julie Adams. Mlle. Adams has all the vocal qualities of a young dramatic soprano, a voice of weight and purity that uniquely qualifies her for the first three Wagner heroines (though she doesn’t list Senta in her repertory). Moreover she is able to physically project the youthful, innocent fortitude of these heroines. Her spectacular delivery of her dream in Act 1 planted her heroic vision in our hearts, only to have her shatter it with the aggressive demands of her marriage bed.

Ortrud was sung by Romanian mezzo soprano Judit Kutasi. Like all Ortruds, everywhere, she got the biggest ovation (all were huge), and that’s because she has the loudest music, and has the most defined and pleasurably complex character. Mme. Kutasi brought gusto and great pride to this Ortrud, in forceful, dark and solid voice. She masterfully manipulated both Elsa and Telramund, satisfying our urges to shatter the fantasies and aspirations of these two victims.

Finally the role of the citizens of Brabant was played by the San Francisco Opera Chorus. It is one of the biggest and most difficult chorus roles in the repertory. Along with the San Francisco Opera’s orchestra, its chorus is world class. The chorus role was executed with absolute precision within complex choreography, in exquisite voice.

It was an evening of high level and important art at San Francisco Opera.

War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco. October 18, 2023

The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at San Francisco Opera

Is it man pitted against machines, or is it man sacrificed to machine? Or is it mankind sacrificed to machines. Sitting in the War Memorial Opera House for Mason Bates’ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs was being caught at ground zero.

It wasn’t about a man named Steve Jobs, a high profile, tech giant. It was about making a machine or machines that consumed this man. The cancer that took the storied entrepreneur’s life was his pursuit of perfecting and selling the machines that he (and his colleague Steve Wozniak) created —  the machines that have come to dominate or, may we say, consume our lives.

Machines that by now, 2023, have come to make human intelligence obsolete, and to boot, have made San Francisco into a ghost city.

The final scene (of 18) of the opera is the memorial service for the Apple founder. His wife Laurene offers a cold-blooded assessment of the memorialists, noting that they cannot wait to leave so that they may check their phones.

The opera was created soon after Steve Jobs’ 2011 death, and in the wake of the two immediate biographies. Its premiere was at Santa Fe Opera in 2017, and since it has traveled to Seattle, Austin, Kansas City, Atlanta, Calgary and Salt Lake City. Originally scheduled for San Francisco back in 2020, the opera, co-commissioned by Santa Fe, Seattle and San Francisco, is at last on the War Memorial stage, no worse for wear, indeed certainly well honed to a fine level of perfection.

Steve Jobs presenting the iPhone. Set design by Victoria Tzykun, projections by 59 Productions

The book, by well-known opera librettist Mark Campbell, is a prologue, eighteen scenes and an epilogue that traverse, out-of-chronological-order, crucial moments in a progression of the Jobs obsession — his demand for simplicity and elegance, his denial of his basic humanity, his tenuous relationship with a Zen master, his dismissal of human responsibilities, his defiance of business models, his dependence on his wife. The disease, be it cancer or obsession, is established from the beginning, and in the end there is the final flash, the blast of intense white light that is the real, ground zero destruction.

Or was it connection.

Within the eighteen scenes Mr. Campbell has created the lyrical moments, in arias, duets and trios, that conspire to make a dramatic progression, much like a Handel opera. Many of composer Mason Bates’ set pieces are absolutely gorgeous, in vocal lines that flow with lyrical elegance, and ease. The arias will likely become audition pieces for singers, given that they have impressive vocal requirement, and demand solid dramatic skill to pull off.

The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs holds a huge amount of composed music, of even superhuman magnitude, to the degree that you know this music had to have been created with mechanical aids — the technologies exploited by the Jobs Silicon Valley world. The musical style is basically Straussian, massive details in myriad tonalities, never straying too far from some sense of tonal center, and always seeming to go directly somewhere. And loud, very loud.

Among the conceits of the libretto is the likening the joys of obsessive work to musical sounds, to Bach, to oboes and flutes, etc. To our relief Mr. Bates’ score does not take this literally. Perhaps the Bach moments are somewhat more structural, perhaps the instrumental references are given in somewhat sweeter sound. There is always a lot going on in the Bates sonic world, most of which defies easy definition.

It is big band, solid wall sound without many specific, emotional colors, created by limited winds (though two alto saxes), but very ample brass and full strings. There is amplified guitar for ears accustomed to such sound and lots of small percussive punctuation particularly in the libretto’s Zen references. And electronics: two MacBook Pros (played just now by the composer).

Composer Mason Bates playing his two MacBook Pros at a San Francisco Opera Orchestra rehearsal

The production staff, originally assembled by the Santa Fe Opera, is headed by stage director Kevin Newbury, well known in progressive opera circles, who worked with well known New York based Ukrainian multimedia artist Victoria Tzykun as the set designer. The lighting designer Japhy Weideman boasts Broadway credits, and the team behind the extensive projections, 59 Productions, boasts Las Vegas and Bilbao credits.

In this ninth edition the production showed itself as very slick, practiced, Broadway style theater. Though one assumed the six, sizable moving panel, actually boxes, that functioned as the set were magically, flawlessly moved, magnetically at the very least, by Silicon Valley technology. The information sheet given the press however indicated that they were physically moved by 12 stagehands, the myriad projections on their surfaces effected from within.

Thus we have been assured, theatrically at least, that machines have not replaced humans, disproving the opera’s premise, or proving the opera’s premise that even Steve Jobs was human.

The singers, including the 24 choristers, were skillfully amplified, credited to sound designer Rick Jacobsohn, making the words delivered by the skilled singers easily, uniformly accessible.

From the original Santa Fe Opera production comes conductor Michael Christie, mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke as Steve Jobs’ wife Laurene, and Chinese bass Wei Wu as the Zen master. Both singers and maestro Christie are on the Grammy Award winning recording that came out of the Santa Fe premiere.

It is unclear from the program bios which of the various editions of the production were sung by John Moore as Steve Jobs and Bille Bruley as Jobs’ best friend Steve Wozniak, but these fine, practiced performances were not role debuts.

John Moore as Steve Jobs, Olivia Smith as Chrisann Brennan

Adler Fellow Olivia Smith gave a moving portrayal of Chrisann Brennan, Jobs’ rejected girl friend and mother of his daughter Lisa (a name, librettist Campbell has Jobs say, better suited to an operating system). The pivotal moment when the Reed College teacher imparts to Jobs the significance of a completing a circle was effectively delivered by Adler Fellow Gabrielle Beteag. The myriad small roles were undertaken by members of the San Francisco Opera Chorus.

The epilogue returns to the beginning, Jobs father Paul presenting his son with a simple work table, but now looked upon by Steve Jobs wife Laurene.  It was a compelling evening at San Francisco Opera. Steve Jobs was one of us. Mason Bates is one of us.

War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco. October 3, 2023

Il trovatore at San Francisco Opera

Enrico Caruso said that Trovatore is easy — you just need the four greatest singers in the world. Let us not argue about who these singers may be. Do let us congratulate San Francisco Opera for assembling a full cast of equally excellent singers who well fulfilled the vocal challenges of this unruly opera.

A feat rarely achieved, anywhere, and newsworthy indeed when it does.

That’s Russian mezzo soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk as Azucena, L.A. born and finished soprano Angel Blue as Leonora (role debut!), Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz as Manrico,  and Romanian baritone George Petean as the Count di Luna. For good measure throw in Canadian bass Robert Pomakov as Ferrando.

Verdi famously toyed with the idea of naming the opera La Zingara (The Gypsy), only later deciding to enlarge the role of Leonora, greatly complicating the plot. Verdi originally had been intrigued by the then recent Spanish play El Trovador, with its gypsy heroine. Such a marginal heroine as centerpiece would complement his operas about a freak (Rigoletto) and a whore (La traviata), allowing the composer to exploit absolutely new and shocking subjects. Voilà the three famed, middle period masterpieces.

But Verdi was not able to forsake his fascination (and the Italian obsession) for fallen women, adding the exquisite Act IV Leonora aria and scene, later echoed in the fourth acts of Don Carlo and Otello. Thus Il trovatore became an opera about two women — a marginalized woman of color who has placed a curse on an aristocrat, and an aristocratic woman whose purity is questioned. Not to mention the two guys caught in the middle of a war against each other.

Undaunted by overburdening his opera with elaborations of current (then and now) issues Verdi charged ahead, creating music that is absolutely overpowering.

And overpowering it was just now in San Francisco. British designer Charles Edwards created a show curtain based on the 1823 Goya painting “A Pilgrimage to San Isidro,” though it is but a detail. Its visible screams seemed right-on for the domestic tragedies that were to play out on the stage apron, positioning that kept the singers directly under the baton of the conductor.

Show curtain, a detail of Goya's painting “A Pilgrimage to San Isidro”

San Francisco Opera music director Eun Sun Kim makes her pit very present. It was raised even higher (and louder) for this David McVicar production to accommodate the additional height of a revolving stage. Verdi is loud, Il trovatore is particularly loud, Ma. Eun Sun Kim finds a lyric pulse that never falters. Add this to the obvious excitement of this conductor working with these responsive singers in this, the most singerly opera in the repertory — at best there were enrapturing periods of lyric splendor, at worst it was a musical caricature of Verdi’s opera.

This McVicar production was first staged in Chicago in 2006, remounted both in San Francisco and at the Met in 2009, revived by the Met in 2017/18, then in Chicago in 2019, It is considered among this prolific British director’s finest productions. The conceit of the production is Goya’s print series “The Disasters of War” that places the action not in El Trovador’s early 15th century, but during Spain’s early 19th century war against Napoleon.

Ekaterina Semenchuk as Azucena (barely visible on the left)

The larger stage pictures with chorus were meticulously recreated by revival stage director Roy Rallo, the splendid lighting was in the hands of the production’s original lighting designer Jennifer Tipton. Charles Edwards towering sets revolved with determined resolve to portray the ineluctable brutality of war.

Though any thought of war, any war anywhere anytime, was far from our minds as the dramatic tensions of vengeance and purity flared so mightily on conductor Eun Sun Kim’s stage apron. The production was irrelevant.

Mezzo soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk as Azucena had been underwhelming as Santuzza and Amneris in recent San Francisco Opera productions of Cavalleria Rusticate and Aida. Now, under Ma. Kim’s baton, she was electrifying as Azucena. Her voice is purely and warmly toned, not Italianate, her delivery was impassioned and fiery. Defying all musical decorum, it was an unleashed performance. Interestingly her program booklet bio was surprisingly brief, not mentioning that she replaced Anna Netrebko as Verdi’s Lady Macbeth in a 2022 Munich production, evidencing her political viability on Western stages.

Soprano Angel Blue as Leonora evidenced remarkable vocal technique in her debut in one of opera’s most demanding roles. She has a clear, limpid tone that is uniquely suited to the purity of a Verdi heroine, and a soft presence that allows her to be both young and innocent. Her voice exhibits the requisite, considerable heft for this spinto role, determining a rich future in the dramatic soprano repertory — already this past May she had success as Verdi’s Aida at Covent Garden.

Tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz as Manrico has the lyric finesse to embody a true 15th century troubadour, a quality he grandly exploited in his two off-stage serenades of Leonora. On stage he belted a plentitude of ringing high notes while commanding a youthful elasticity in negotiating Verdi’s flowing lines. He faltered in his big third act aria moment, usually a show-stopper, giving us fear that the strong voice he had used so effectively had worn out. Reports from earlier performances indicate that this was probably not the case. Like many of us, it is likely that he suffered under the wildfire smoke blanketing San Francisco.

Arturo Chacón-Cruz as Manrico, George Petean as the Count di Luna

Baritone George Petean as the Count di Luna is foremost a singer, a very fine one. He made a one-dimensional villain, never convincing us he was a serious suitor to Leonora. Verdi gave him ample opportunity to do so by providing him a lovely aria proclaiming the depth of his attraction to her. With conductor Kim he rendered the aria as a virtuoso moment, and it was indeed impressive. Mr. Petean’s Count di Luna was all bluster.

Bass Robert Pomakov as the Count di Luna’s captain of the guard was rough voiced, well able to embody the military postures envisioned by the McVicar production. As well he suited the vocal flash urged by the conductor. Missing was the bel canto vocalism of his aria that opens the opera, giving us its back story as well as preparing us for the vocal fireworks that define this middle period masterpiece.  

War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, CA, September 18, 2023.

All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.

El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego at San Francisco Opera

History according to opera is a wondrous thing. Just now in San Francisco Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have gone off into the sunset (eternity) together, happily reconciled. All this thanks to the most colorful and festive festival of them all, called Dia de los Muertos!

Though the same day as All Souls’ Day (November 2) when Old World Christians remember their dear departed families, New World Mexican Christians allow their dead to come back into the world for this one day, with the help of the Aztec Goddess of Death, Catrina who serves Mictēcacihuātl, Queen of the Aztec underworld.

Here’s the action of the opera: Diego comes into a Day of the Dead altar (huge), where he begs Frida, now a resident of the underworld, to come to him (the couple was famed for the impossibility of being together and the impossibility of being apart). Down there, goddess Catrina implores Frida to return to Diego. After great hesitation, and consultation with a Greta Garbo dressed countertenor, Frida agrees to the rules — 24 hours max, no caresses. Frida and Diego take a walk in Alameda Park where they meet the Greta Garbo travesty. They all go to Casa Azul [Frida’s actual home, now a museum] where Frida eventually embraces Diego after all. She is racked by pain. Diego wants to follow Frida back into the underworld. He does.


Yaritza Véliz as Catrina, Daniela Mack as Frida

The opera is a musical meditation on textural elaborations of each of these settings and situations, created by Cuban American playwright Nilo Cruz. The libretto is divided into 21 relatively brief scenes, much like Wozzeck’s 15 scenes and Death in Venice’s 17 scenes, that manage to describe the bodies of the artists, to explore the creative impasses suffered by both artists, to mention their flamboyant sexual encounters (including a lesbian reference), all this while imparting the fatal attraction of Frida and Diego and evoking the colors, excitement and majesty of the Day of the Dead.

American composer Gabriela Lena Frank, whose mother is of Chinese Peruvian descent and whose father was in the Peace Corps in Peru, created the music, investing the text with a flow of comprehensible intervals that sometimes become chiseled. It was in keeping with contemporary standards of setting texts, eschewing the stepwise progression of normal speech. There was as well a pleasing use of melisma to embellish text, a reference South American music and to the Latina persona Mme. Frank has embraced.

Complying to the budgetary restrictions of American opera companies, Gabriela Lena Frank scored her opera for double winds, not too many brass, timpani, two percussion, harp, piano/celeste and strings. The celeste was used from time to time to create quite beautiful flights of exotic tone outside the normal orchestration, much like Peruvian flutes. As well she created wind instruments flights, exact replicas of Benjamin Britten’s riffs of sexual infatuation in Death in Venice. There were, disappointingly, very few moments of blaring brass, barely hinting at, never imitating Mariachis.

Mme. Frank is a conservative composer, giving extended life to twentieth century European musical style.

The production was however totally Mexican. Sra. Lorena Masa was the stage director, gold framing the Day of the Dead altar, and gold framing smaller portraits of the opera’s players from time to time, finishing the opera with Diego and Frida in the framed pose of the wedding portrait she painted while they lived in San Francisco. Set Design was by Jorge Ballina who conjured a fine Day of the Dead altar that cannily rose to hover over the underworld, then created a Diego studio and Frida Casa Azul worthy of famed Mexico City architect Luis Barragan, all on the platforms on which the final tableau stood — the forty choristers and, finally, the Queen of the Underworld (though she did not sing) — in golden, Aztecan glory.


The final scene

Costumes were created by Sra. Eloise Kazan in touristically referential Mexican styles. There were as well exotic costumes, like the goddess Catrina and the underworld queen, not to mention the Frida costumes, based on her famous get ups.

The real costume show was however to be seen in the lobby — the costume designer herself wore a grand headdress (gratefully removed during the performance as she sat in front of me), the light green silk brocade jacket and matching tie of Sr. Victor Zapatero, the lighting designer, was spectacular. There were fine, embroidered shirts worn by the many Latinos in the audience, and restrained and outrageous attempts at Frida colors and style on both men and women. It was a very festive, very dressy audience.

Frida was sung by Argentina born, mezzo soprano Daniela Mack who found Frida’s brashness, her confidence and her vulnerability in a strongly sung performance. The role is lengthy and obviously difficult, delivered with pleasing elan by Mlle. Mack. The opera gives vocally spectacular fireworks to the goddess Catrina, sung by Chilean soprano Yaritza Véliz who delivered as required. Leonardo, the Greta Garbo travesty role was sung by American countertenor Jake Ingbar with a warm, masculine soprano tone, and acted the role with feminine aplomb. Mexican baritone Alfredo Daza had the probably impossible task of playing Diego Rivera — a trouble-maker with an enormous personality, and a prolific lover as well. Mr. Daza is a fine singer indeed, who gave it his best shot. Mexican conductor Roberto Kalb urged the San Francisco Opera Orchestra to a polished, full bodied reading of the score, making its more exotic moments shine brightly.

For the first time in its 100 year history the San Francisco Opera Chorus was asked to sing in Spanish! The chorus presence in the tableaus of El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego was huge, and it is difficult music. It was a virtuoso performance by this superb chorus.

Composer Gabriela Lena Frank is currently the resident composer of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She lives in Boonville, CA.

War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, June 13, 2023. All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

Die Frau ohne Schatten at San Francisco Opera

The fifth opera of the lengthy Richard Strauss canon, The Woman Without a Shadow (1915) is surely the richest work of them all, traversing real and imaginary worlds while proving its actors worthy to receive the fruits of love. Just now in San Francisco it was the David Hockney production, first seen 30 years ago at Covent Garden and L.A. Opera.

Die Frau Ohne Schatten is no stranger to San Francisco, the opera marking its American premiere at the War Memorial Opera House in 1959 in a production by the then 27 year-old Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. This gifted designer/director quickly became the avant-garde star of the then progressive San Francisco Opera.


The final quartet of Die Frau ohne Schatten. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's settings often resembled colorless pencil sketches.

The opera returned in 1976 in a production by Nikolaus Leinhoff from the Stockholm Opera designed by Jorg Zimmermann, its 1980 San Francisco revival notable for Brigit Nilsson’s Dyer’s Wife. James King sang the Emperor with Leonie Rysanek as the Empress.


The Dyer's hut in the Lehnhoff production.

The challenges of mounting Die Frau Ohne Schatten are daunting, not only the casting of five heroically voiced singers, making space for a Strauss orchestra of nearly a hundred players, finding places for big off-stage choruses and backstage banda instruments, but also for the instantaneous, back and forth transformations of the stage from the poor dyer’s hut of a Scandinavian fairytale to the magical landscapes of a medieval Indian sultan.

The David Hockney 1992 production finds a balance between these worlds, as well as merges the Mozartian and Wagnerian thematics that co-exist in the libretto, all this within the hyper post-Romanticism of the Strauss score. No small feat.


Act I. The nurse offers carnal love to the dyer's wife. Left to right Linda Watson as the Nurse, Nina Stemme as the dyer's wife, Camilla Nyland as the Empress.

Hockney’s operatic world is filled with brilliant color (his The Rake’s Progress is an explicable exception, i.e. it is Stravinsky’s dry neo-classicism). Like Messiaen and Scriabin Hockney was born with synesthesia — seeing color is his response to music. To this add the modeled linear flow of musical line, and the Hockney obsessive manipulation of perspective. Die Frau ohne Schatten was destined to become a part of the Hockney operatic oeuvre, joining The Magic Flute, Tristan and Isolde, and Turandot, all works of enormous musical color and fantastical content.

San Francisco Opera expanded its pit in 1976 to accommodate enlarged 19th and 20th century orchestras, and specifically at that moment to entice legendary conductor Karl Böhm to conduct Die Frau ohne Schatten. In more recent times, with the institution of a music directorship (lacking during the Kurt Herbert Adler years), the San Francisco Opera Orchestra has developed into one of the world’s fine opera orchestras. Plus current opera house practices have increased the number of orchestra rehearsals, priming the pit just now for this superlative collaboration with the famed visual artist.

Former music director Donald Runnicles returned to San Francisco Opera for this production, as he has for the two recent Wagner Ring cycles. Mo. Runnicles’ musical identity is rooted in the huge Romantic and post-Romantic repertory, thus he mined all possible richness and volume from the Strauss score, reveling in its myriad musical colors. It is a huge orchestra playing big music about what, one is not sure.


The final quartet. Left to right Camilla Nyland as the Empress, Nina Stemme as the dyer's wife, Johan Reuter as Barak, David Butt Philip as the Emperor.

Surely it is about more than the dyer and his wife discovering that their humble love will transform into children who will then discover in turn that love will, in principle, prevail eternally. All this while Europe is sitting on a powder keg waiting for the spark that did indeed soon strike. Die Frau ohne Schatten seems to hold all this explosive geopolitical might within its massive dramatic tensions. They would not explode if only the Nurse in the opera had her way — that the shadow of the Dyer’s wife would be stolen so that the emperor would not be turned to stone.

So maybe Die Frau ohne Schatten is simply about making art, not war.

San Francisco Opera has given to art its all, assembling a cast whose voices could be well heard through the orchestral forces.

Famed Swedish soprano Nina Stemme was the dyer’s wife whose shadow was not stolen after all (see lead photo). Mme. Stemme, now sixty years old, is in fine voice, well able to sustain her beautiful, powerful high tones, if without all the brilliant luster of her 2011 San Francisco Brünnhildes. Importantly Mme. Stemme did actually project a sense of character adding a real humanity to the role, while never sacrificing its heroic vocalism. A greater warmth of tone in her mid voice would have enriched her reconciliation with Barak, her husband.

The dyer Barak was sung by Danish bass-baritone Johan Reuter. He too projected the humanity of his role, providing the warmth of character that librettist von Hofmannstahl and Strauss sought, winning our sympathy by sparing his donkey a weight of burden, and expressing his fear that he would not be able to feed his eventual children.


David Butt Philip as Emperor in the Falcon house.

The Emperor was sung by British tenor David Butt Philip whose voice is very beautiful indeed. His second act visit to the falcon house (his falcon had wounded a gazelle who then turned into a woman — the Empress) was the most beautifully sung, indeed truly magical scene of the performance. The role lies high, and the vocal lines are extended making it a virtuoso display, achieved with consummate ease by Mr. Philip.

The Empress was sung by Finnish soprano Camilla Nyland whose voice is of a beautiful, silvery tone that brilliantly negotiated the lengthy, high tessatura of the role. It is a voice that, with Mr. Philip’s Emperor, could take us into the magical, loftier world of pure beauty, but only if she could find a shadow. The Empress effects the dénouement of the opera in the huge, fountain-of-life scene where she refuses to sacrifice the earthly love of the Dyer and his wife (and their eventual children) to gain her shadow, and the Emperor is thereby turned to stone. Mme. Nyland effected the scene without ascending vocally or dramatically to its potentially spiritual heights.

The Nurse was sung by American soprano Linda Watson who sings both Herodias at La Scala and Isolde in Dusseldorf. She combined both roles for this production, deftly driving the role’s machinations that seemed to be more motivated by pure evil rather than by love and protection for her mistress, the Empress. As well she fearlessly drove an oarless boat to the temple in India or somewhere where she was then soundly dismissed by her mistress.

All this magnificence found its way onto the War Memorial Opera House stage with the deft guidance of stage director Roy Rallo, with the very able assistance of lighting designer Justin A. Partier, both men bringing vibrant new life to the Hockney production.

War Memorial Opera House, June 10, 2023. All photos courtesy of San Francisco Opera, photos of the Hockney production are copyright Cory Weaver.

Adriana Mater at San Francisco Symphony

June in San Francisco may become one of the world’s great opera festivals. In recent years the San Francisco Symphony has added a staged opera in its concert hall to complement the three operas happening across the street in the War Memorial Opera House.

Just now San Francisco Symphony music director Esa-Pekka Solomon with stage director Peter Sellars have placed Kaija Saariaho’s 2006 opera Adriana Mater on four small platforms inserted into the orchestra itself. A very few lighting instruments hang from four huge trusses suspended from the Louise M Davies Symphony Hall ceiling, lights that color the platform tops in various hues from time to time. A few more lighting instruments are strategically placed to focus strong light onto the faces from time to time, plus there is a bevy of inconspicuous loud speakers to project the text clearly and forcefully.

Add the San Francisco Symphony of triple winds, quadruple brass, piano/harp/celeste, two tympani sets, strings and a percussion battery of twenty-eight implements divided among five or so players. Members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus sat high above the stage adding amplified sound textures.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Adriana Mater is the second of Saariaho’s three full scale, actually huge scale operas, the first is L’Amour de loin (2000), the third is Innocence. (2018). While L’Amour de loin may be the lush contemplation of a woman by a medieval troubadour it dives deeply, indeed quite anxiously into obsession and devotion in a world of reality and illusion, and the human need to belong somewhere. These are themes which dominate Innocence as well — a wedding reception gone awry against myriad recollections of a school massacre, and a mother daughter crisis.

Innocence, considered the Saariaho masterpiece, comes to San Francisco Opera in 2024 in the Simon Stone production from the Aix Festival. https://operatoday.com/2021/07/innocence-at-the-aix-festival/

These are not dramatic works. Rather they are three contemplations of the terrifying realities of twenty-first century existence. Balance these massive works against the huge catalogue of orchestral works, concertos, cantatas, and chamber works for solo or few instruments, and voice that Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023) has bequeathed us to understand that there is much more to her musical spirit than the sensationalism of these operas.

Foremost, Adriana Mater (Innocence as well ) is a huge, operatically voiced cry/scream about violence — war, rape, and guns — laying bare the souls of those in its midst. That the protagonists are female is fitting, though Mme. Saariaho has preferred to be known simply as a composer rather than as a female composer. The librettist of Adriana Mater, Amin Maalouf, is male.

Though he was born in Lebanon he immigrated to France, like Mme. Saariaho (born in Finland), early in life. Though Arabic is his first language he has always written in French as a war correspondent, novelist and librettist. Like Mr. Maalouf, it may be said that Mme. Saariaho composed in French given that her compositional maturity occurred in France. Her participation at the famed Parisian Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) rendered her a spectralist (among the successors to Olivier Messiaen), and added electronic manipulation as an integral component of her composition.

Mr. Maalouf’s libretto tells of a drunk man with a gun who rapes a woman who, against the advice of her sister, gives birth to a son who she hopes will not be a killer. The son, now an adult, learns that his father was a rapist, and is still alive. The son sets out to kill his father who, he discovers, is now blind.

Though the story is told from the perspective of the mother (mezzo-soprano) the story shifts in and out of the perspectives of her sister Refka (soprano), Adriana’s son Jonas (tenor) and the father Tsargo (bass), the four voices in the opera. The Peter Sellars staging places the singers among the orchestra on platforms, with no visual references save a sometimes colored floor. Besides the evident closeness of vocal and orchestral collaboration, this stark focus on each player muted the violence of war and alcoholism and took us deeply into the minds and hearts of each of the players.

Within Mme. Saariaho’s carpet of the sounds of infinite possibilities, we discerned the quite magnificent angst of the players, and their human, philosophic and metaphysical stances. There were constant bursts of human spirit that erupted through this maze of orchestral confusion, and these bursts were not comforting, nor did they portend any answers. Notable was use of a descending minor second (smallest interval of the chromatic scale) to land on the [a]tonality of the soundscape that identified a particular moment. Startling was the absolute absence of any hint of diatonic harmony, even in the resolutions of a scene.

Adriana was sung by mezzo soprano Fleur Barron, an artist of Asian/European descent, formed in New York. Of rich voice, she is a formidable technician of deep musicality and has a powerful stage presence, transforming herself from the sexually ripe young woman into the mature woman who must explain herself to her grown son. The young soldier/rapist who then becomes a blind old man was sung by bass-baritone Christopher Purves, a veteran opera singer of huge accomplishment. Spellbinding as the blind old man, he lay supine with his back to us, his voice electronically modified into sepulchral tones.

Ariana’s sister was sung by Parisian formed soprano Axelle Fanyo. Of rich voice and impeccable technique she negotiated the treacherous vocal lines created by Mme. Saariaho with an ease that made such atonality of line seem natural. Ariana’s son was sung by American tenor Nicholas Phan of Asian/Greek descent (mentioned only because stage director Sellars has particular affection for mixed race artists). Mr. Phan brought striking artistic finesse to this very complex role — raging at his mother, berating her sister, threatening his father. He lay his Uzi down finally, a gesture of unanswered peace.


Note that the singers relied on iPads to prompt their lines, a conceit that seemed just right in the context of the complexities of the literary and musical concepts. Their voices were always amplified, thus we had no idea of the sizes. The sophistication of amplification was such that the voices were felt to emanate from their stage positions. The excellent sound technicians were not recognized in the program.

The lighting, of ultimate sophistication, was by James M. Ingalls, a long time Sellars collaborator.

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, June 8, 2023. All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony.

Madama Butterfly at San Francisco Opera


Japanese stage director Amon Miyamoto’s Madama Butterfly was first seen in Tokyo, then traveled to Dresden before arriving just now in San Francisco. Unlike Puccini who made the tiny Japanese geisha his tragic heroine director Miyamoto made the American lieutenant Pinkerton the central figure in his take on San Franciscan David Belasco’s play of the same name (1900).

Further directorial revisions rendered this monument of Italian operatic verismo into the Grand Guignol theater (horror theater) of Puccini’s short story tryptic Il trittico [Il tabarro/Suor Angelica/Gianni Schicchi]. The dominant image of this Madama Butterfly was the deathbed of an aged B.F. Pinkerton that opened the show in absolute silence, and closed the show in Puccini’s violent thunder clap of emotional release.

Conductor Eun Sun Kim squelched its final cymbal crash with astonishing alacrity, capping once-and-for-all the hyper indulgent musicality of the evening.

The deathbed image of the Puccini’ comedic Gianni Schicchi hung heavily over this evening, furthering the sense that this full, three act opera was really only the short story it once was, with an interesting point it wished to make. To wit: a bi-racial child, here a thirty year-old man, must struggle mightily to reconcile his heritage.

Stage director Miyamoto’s Butterfly is said to tell the Butterfly story from the love child Trouble’s perspective, though for me the conceit worked more as a rhetorical device — the always present, silent thirty-some year old Trouble was my own sympathetic/empathic presence on the stage and in the action. This, far more than my participation in the discussion of a bi-racial adult to reconcile himself to his once callous, now repentant father — though one can admire the attempt to enliven such discourse within this current socio-political climate.


Adult Trouble, Child Trouble, Karah Son as Butterfly

The production was a flashback, expressed in a letter written by the now quite old Pinkerton to his now adult son Trouble. Eastern European (many Warsaw credits) set designer Boris Kudlička created a very effective, indeed quite brilliant, evocation of recollection seen through the haze of time, precise images emerging from time to time, the atmospheres sympathetically lighted by Dresden’s Semperoper resident designer Fabio Antoci, with projections created by Warsaw Opera’s Bartek Macias.

The design conceit was the deployment of semi-transparent, cataract colored curtains that flew across the stage revealing moments of precise recollection, Butterfly a remembered presence, not a protagonist. At least this was the intention, though it was surely and intentionally ambiguous as Butterfly is a singularly powerful player both as a verismo heroine and a Grand Guignol puppet. The house was a small, abstract wooden structure that slid into sight upon occasion. One side of the house was a huge circle — the setting sun of Japanese iconography — that was bathed in brilliant red light to hide the Butterfly suicide.

It was a impressive evening, the first act achieving a surprising perfection, the Pinkerton and Sharpless well able to assimilate into the powerful musical flow imposed by conductor Eun Sun Kim. The second act introduced the young child Trouble who executed elaborate staging with confidence and finesse, the third act brought much staging for the young Kate Pinkerton (we had met the aged Kate in the opening tableau). These exaggerated presences disturbed the pacing of the emotional beats so knowingly created by Puccini, dragging the final scene of this verismo masterpiece into a lugubrious lethargy.

The audience however leapt to its feet, and remained standing through the bows (I.e. there was not the usual flight to be the first out of the theater).


Lucas Meachem as Sharpless, Hyona Kim as Suzuki, Michael Fabbiano as Pinkerton

Conductor Eun Sun Kim, as is her usual want, imposed a huge orchestral presence onto the production, the musical effects were often prolonged and sometimes exaggerated. Working with Messrs. Fabbiano and Meacham in the first act she found evident artistic sympathy and expressive amplitude making this act the highpoint of the evening.

Michael Fabiano brought consummate artistry to his role as B.F. Pinkerton. Of all his roles at San Francisco Opera, most notably Don Carlo and Cavaradossi, he seemed most at ease with Pinkerton. Add to this his considerable experience on the world’s major stages and you arrive at the solid characterization of this Pinkerton.

Much the same may be said for baritone Lucas Meachem, a frequent name over the years on the San Francisco Opera roster. His voice has retained a youthful luster and focus though it seemed smaller than when he once took on Rossini’s Figaro and Mozart’s Count. He assumed a magisterial presence for Sharpless that bespoke compassion without pathos, and understanding without judgement.

Korean soprano Karah Son enacted Butterfly. Of diminutive stature she made the fifteen year-old Cio-Cio-San seem really fifteen years old in her Act I processional entrance and following repartee with Pinkerton. Though sufficiently endowed vocally — crucial for Butterfly — and her upper voice totally secure (she took the d-flat with ease), at this point she does not have the freshness of voice to convince us that she is the real Cio-Cio-San. Here in San Francisco Mme. Son, in the context of the Miyamoto production, embodied the young geisha of the short story rather more than the tragic heroine of the Puccini opera.

In keeping with the ethnic purity conceit of the production Suzuki was beautifully rendered by Korean mezzo Hyona Kim, evidently a house singer In Dortmund, Germany. Goro was expertly rendered by Korean character tenor Julius Ahn, Prince Yamadori was grandly enacted and beautifully sung by Korean baritone Kidon Choi, though Korean bass-baritone, Adler Fellow Jongwon Han was over-parted as the Bonze.

The silent roles — the young Trouble, the 30-year-old Trouble, the aged B.F. Pinkerton — were impressively acted by local theater artists, Viva Young Maguire, John Charles Quimpo and Evan Miles O’Hare. There was no program photo or bio for Mlle. Maguire.

The balance of the named roles were taken by Adler Fellows (SF Opera’s young artist program) and members of the San Francisco Opera Chorus. The costumes worn by the chorus women in the Act I Butterfly entrance were delightfully sparkly, and the off stage women’s chorus of the Butterfly vigil was exceptionally beautiful.

The costumes were designed by the late Paris-based Japanese fashion icon Kenzo Takada, realized by Sonoko Takeda of the Tokyo Ballet.

War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, June 6, 2023. All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

Otello at Los Angeles Opera



All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of Los Angeles Opera

The revival of an architecturally kitsch, early twenty-first century production from Parma, Italy could not dim the luster of this finely wrought Otello.

The Italian tragedy shone with exceptional, unusual depth, the moor Otello portrayed by black American tenor Russell Thomas, conductor James Conlin carefully guiding Verdi’s opera to its brutal end.

Though the staging of the John Cox production by Canadian director Joel Ivany was perfunctory at best and clumsy at worst it did well serve the dramatic focus presented in the pre-performance talk by maestro Conlin, that placed Verdi’s tragedy firmly in the Catholicism of nineteenth century Italy — Iago was evil incarnate, Desdemona was innocence incarnate.

It was Otello as a morality play.

Tenor Thomas, in mid career, is an elegant singer, and an elegant, measured presence. Already of great experience on the world’s major stages (he was Florestan in San Francisco’s Fidelio) he is no stranger to heroic roles (Calif in Turandot at Covent Garden as example). His sound is rich, beautiful and finely honed, and it is indeed sufficiently robust to quell the storm that opens the opera. But just now in this L.A. Otello he soon lost all such heroic allure as Verdi’s librettist Boito clearly tells us that he was a former slave who had greatly suffered. It was this personal history that moved Desdemona to a love that was compassionate and maternal far more than it was erotic or an exotic attraction.

This Otello craved the comfort of the kiss that ends the first act, not its invitation.


Desdemona was sung by American soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen who brought maturity and seriousness to this young Venetian bride, not infatuation. Her wig was auburn, not the usual blonde. Mme. Willis-Sørensen brings a full-bodied, mature voice to Desdemona (she sings the big Mozart heroines in Munich and Vienna), and consummate artistry in her delivery. In this version of the Verdi masterpiece Cassio is a childhood friend for whom Desdemona has great affection, not a handsome ensign for whom she may have had an infatuation, or more as the fallen woman — the Virgin Mary opposite — of Italian melodrama, an innuendo hinted at, as well, in Shakespeare’s tragedy.

The evil Iago was sung by Russian baritone Igor Golovatanko (below right) who came across like the boy-next-door that you never suspected was a terrorist-in-the-making. Like Mr. Thomas’ Otello Mr. Golovatanko’s Iago was more lyrical than heroic (in so much as this is possible in Verdi’s musical rendering of these heroic archetypal operatic figures). Mr. Golovatanko possesses a quite beautiful, clear baritone voice (he sang Don Carlos’ Rodrigo in Chicago) that rose to a requisite powerful volume in the famed “Dio vindicator” Act II conclusion, overwhelming Otello, rendering the moor ever less heroic.


Cassio was sung by American tenor Anthony Ciaramitaro (above left), a recent alumnus of LA Opera’s young artist program. Mr. Ciaramitaro possesses a fine, elegant tenor voice of ample proportion which brought exceptional presence to the role, gracefully enacted as well in an a vista, mute encounter with Desdemona begging her help, as a troubled friend, in restoring him to the good graces of Otello.

Desdemona’s maid, Emilia was sung by a current participant in the LA Opera young artist program, Sarah Saturnino. The young mezzo is a finished artist who had all the necessary presence to wrap up the saga, inculpating her husband Iago with grandiose exclamation. Both Rodrigo and Montano, Anthony Léon and Alan Williams, were from the company’s young artist program as well. Rodrigo, Desdemona’s intended husband, is a major player in Rossini’s Otello though he is merely a brief plot facilitator in Verdi’s Otello.

This revisionist version of the Verdi masterpiece was rigorously paced by conductor Conlin who carefully delineated the sections of Verdi’s essentially through composed score into the anachronistic format of earlier nineteenth century Italian opera. This resulted in a compendium of musico-dramatic ideas that became methodical exposition rather than the intended inexorable flow of a hot-headed general to his tragic revelation. Nonetheless the final act, Desdemona’s prayer and the murder were profoundly moving, Otello not a fallen hero, but a victim.

Strangely, the Venetian ambassador Lodovico, magisterially enacted by veteran black American bass Morris Robinson, dispelled the evident racial commentary of the production. Opera is colorblind except when it isn't.

May 20, 2023

Tosca at Opera San Jose


Adrian Kramer as Cavaradossi
All photos courtesy of Opera San Jose

There was Tosca at Berlin’s Volksbühne sung by actors (not singers), there was Tosca at the Aix Festival documenting the demise of an aged diva. But mostly Tosca is the domain of big artists with all the trappings of big opera, be they traditional or progressive.

Opera San José (California) is a modest company in a small tech city of about a million inhabitants that lies in the shadow of San Francisco [population 900,000]. It has a season of four operas performed in a restored 1927 vaudeville theater (1200 seats) in the city’s historic district. There is a lobby pipe organ to serenade your entry with nostalgic tunes. Its orchestra pit comfortably holds 50 players.

Tosca,  the final offering of the 22/23 season that included The Marriage of Figaro, Falstaff, and Cinderella, was a modest, nicely designed evocation of the grandeur of baroque Rome with homey touches — a very pastel portrait of the Marchese Attavanti in Act I, a four poster bed in Act II and a vintage writing desk and chair atop Castel Sant’Angelo in the end.

Stage director Tara Branham seemed to be de-glorifying the political mess of Rome at that moment (the 1806 defeat of royalist forces by Napoleon’s army), turning it into a messy moment in the Tosca Cavaradossi romance, incidentally complicated by the maniacal ego of a municipal employee. In fact in the opening moments of the opera we saw Cavaradossi, a lithe young man with long hair, chasing a very pretty Marchesa around a small chapel within the basilica Sant’Andrea della Valle.

Angelotti burst in, a disheveled, rough-voiced, finely enacted, real-life like fugitive, adding a striking intimacy of situation to the already delightful intimacy put forth by the sacristan (though marred by a cameo performance of mime-style antics by an assistant).

The opera’s trio of larger-than-life protagonists soon dispelled all feelings of intimacy, working hard to effect the big voiced, famed numbers of this Puccini masterpiece. The showpieces of the opera were indeed well realized, soprano Maria Natale as Floria Tosca, a resident artist of Opera San Jose, exposed a fine range of dynamics in a beautifully sung “Vissi d’arte.” Canadian tenor Adrian Kramer as Cavaradossi found many of the requisite Italianate gestures in his two show-stopping arias (and earned the biggest ovation of the evening). Korean baritone Kidon Choi as Scarpia substituted bluster for libido in his “Tosca è un buon falco,” though the aria was marred by a disassociation with its orchestral accompaniment.

Of this trio only tenor Kramer found some depth to his character, his relative youth coming through as a high spirited young artist and prolific lover, stage director Branham finding a delightful moment in Act I where Cavaradossi touches up the arched Mary Magdalene’s eyebrows in a flourish of brushstroke echoed in the Puccini score.


Soprano Natale remained aloof from her character, never finding a depth of emotion in her vocally well wrought performance. Though she showed unleashed relish in her savage murder of Scarpia — a fine directorial touch — she was unable to project the dramatic flair that moves Tosca to ceremoniously place candles by Scarpia’s body. Tosca did find time to stop off on her way from the Farnese Palace to Castel Sant’Angelo to change into a fine gown for her suicide.

The “Te Deum” was the finest moment of Scarpia’s evening. Baritone Choi gave his thunderous all to be heard over the full-forte orchestra, buttressed by magnificent tones of a huge organ. Except there were no thunderous tones from an organ, there was no organ at all, even though not one but two organists are listed among the Opera San Jose orchestra personnel.


Opera San Jose music director Joseph Marcheso gave a fine, idiomatic reading of Puccini’s score, his orchestra (8/6/4/4/2 strings) well able to satisfy the needs of big opera, though big opera had not been the intimate intentions of stage director Branham. The clarinet solo in “E lucevan le stelle” was particularly beautifully played.

Baritone Robert Balonek and Brazilian baritone Ego Vieira contributed the fine performances of Angelotti and the Sacristan respectively. Andrew Fellows was the Jailer, Alexander Scheuermann was Spoletta, and Joshua Hughes was a soft voiced Sciarrone. The Shepherd Boy (evidently there were pastures in Rome back then) was sung by Justin Vives, exhibiting the community involvement that was evident in the Opera San Jose chorus and children’s chorus. In a bow to current gender fluidity the super-soldiers were both male and female.

Sets and costumes were designed by Steven C. Kemp and Elizabeth Poindexter respectively, both frequent Opera San Jose artistic contributors.

Boris Godunov at the San Francisco Symphony


Stanislav Trofimovbass as Boris Godunov
Photos by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony.

Yes, just when you thought Wotan was the only big guy in town San Francisco Symphony (just across a small street from San Francisco Opera), offered three staged performances of the Mussorgsky masterpiece Boris Godunov in direct competition with San Francisco Opera’s three Ring des Nibelungen cycles.

Though the Symphony billed the program as semi-staged for all intents and purposes it is fully staged. There is scenery or what purports to be in this digital age (this also happens across the street). There are lights and costumes and make-up. There is a stage on two levels. Reduced San Francisco Symphony forces (the string count [and personnel] is not specified in the program booklet — maybe 12/10/8/6/5) were stuffed in between in a sort of pit.

More accurate billing would have defined the production as a compromised staging, given that nothing functioned very well, sacrificing the contributions of the pit players of a major symphony orchestra and the imposing presence of imported Russian singers among the generally high-level cast.

Perhaps the four towers that support a lighting-grid circle are recycled from staged production to staged production at the Symphony thus alleviating what must be the breath-taking cost of trying to mount an opera production in a symphony hall. Lighting, rather lack of effective lighting was the most problematic technical issue of the evening.

There was a huge cyclorama — a semi-architectural, jagged backdrop — behind the orchestra and stage platforms onto which unrelenting video images were projected. There were cutouts to reveal the San Francisco Symphony Chorus seated in the stage terrace (amphitheater) behind the orchestra platform, the voices of the Russian populace. The projections onto the huge backdrop attempted grandeur — sometimes nature, sometimes specific colorful Russian architecture, sometimes interpretive color blotches, sometimes black shadows on blank white.

Stage director James Darrah employed six ninja-like action facilitators who were often, but not always, carefully choreographed. These six were sometimes joined by another 12 or so supers to constitute more specific though soundless Russian souls. The ninja’s participation was sometimes abstract and sometimes descriptive, like the lengthy, bloody downstage center brutalizations of a captured boyar (aristocrat) and two Jesuits.

It was complex staging that attempted to adapt Mussorgsky’s sprawling drama to an essentially non theatrical space.

The event was certainly envisioned to be magnificent, and it was in spite of itself. After all it is magnificent music, and San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas of course made the most of it. Two loge boxes were conscripted to hold ranks of Russian bells that rang forth gloriously when called upon. A solo trumpet sounded an imposing fanfare from the first tier. These moments of unleashed sonic grandeur encased Mussorgsky’s grand choruses as well as the vaguely connected scenes of private discussions and of Boris’ raving. The extended intimacy of these solo voice scenes required that the SF Symphony’s virtuoso players become accompanists. And that they did, like an overly careful sometimes precious accompanist at a lieder recital.

There were two genuine Russian basses, the Boris of Stanislav Trofimov of St. Petersburg’s Marinsky Theater and the Pimen of Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev of the Novaya Opera Theatre Moscow. Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov is about words, about the Russian language and about the Russian soul. The Russian bass epitomizes these qualifications as no other voice. Both Mr. Trofimov and Mr. Kuzmin-Karavaev are excellent specimens.

There were three genuine Russian tenors, the intense Grigory (the Pretender) of Sergei Skorokhodov of the Marinsky Theatre and the harsh, very harsh Shuisky of Yevgeny Akimov, a veteran of the Marinsky and all of the world’s major stages, and the very sweetly sung Holy Fool of Stanislav Mostovoy of the Bolshoi Theatre.

The home team included San Francisco Opera’s Catherine Cook and Philip Skinner as the Innkeeper and Nikitich (a police officer) respectively who well held their own amidst the Russians. Of particular note was the Shchelkalov of American baritone Aleksey Bogdanov who made the opera’s momentous announcements in convincingly Russian voice.

It is always said that the protagonist of Boris Godunov is its chorus of suffering Russians. The San Francisco Symphony Chorus brought true beauty of style and edge of tone to its cultured and earnest concert choir voice, well defining its role as a musical protagonist. Though of course the real protagonists of the drama are Russian basses — the suffering czar Boris and the hermit Pimen, the chronicler of his reign.

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas held all of this together with great aplomb and with obvious understanding, respect and affection for this great monument of Russian art.

Cast and production information:

Stanislav Trofimovbass (Boris Godunov), Eliza Bonet Mezzo-soprano (Fyodor), Jennifer Zetlan Soprano (Xenia), Silvie Jensen Mezzo-soprano (Nurse), Yevgeny Akimov Tenor (Prince Shuisky), Aleksey Bogdanov Baritone (Andrei Shchelkalov), Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev Bass (Pimen), Sergei Skorokhodov Tenor (Grigory), Vyacheslav Pochapsk yBass (Varlaam), Ben Jones Tenor (Missail), Catherine Cook Mezzo-soprano (Innkeeper), Stanislav Mostovoy Tenor (Holy Fool), Philip Skinner Bass (Nikititsch), Chung-Wai Soong Bass (Mityukha). Pacific Boychoir, Andrew Brown, Director; San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Ragnar Bohlin Director; San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas Conductor. Stage Director: James Darrah, Lighting Design: Pablo Santiago; Video: Adam Larsen; Scenic and Costume Design: cameron Jaye Mock. Davis Hall, San Francisco, June 14, 2018)

Rusalka at San Francisco Opera


Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Rusalka
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

It must be a dream. Though really it is a nightmare. The water sprite Rusalka tortures herself if she is telling the story, or tortures the man who has imagined her if he is telling the story. Either way the bizarrely construed confusion of Czech fairy tales has no easily apparent meaning or message.

But it does have several hours of quite beautiful music to be sung and danced, and that has happened just now in San Francisco. Soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen made her role debut as the “rusalka” or water sprite who has fallen in love with a hunter who is, incidentally, a prince. The role is a tour de force.

Seated in a moonlit tree Mme. Willis-Sorensen (35 years old) captured all of the naive magic of Dvorak’s famous Song to the Moon. Her considerable vocal resources are now fully realized (she was an ingenue Eva in SFO’s 2015 Meistersinger) and in this Rusalka fully utilized — even though she is voiceless for the entire second act when she must confront her competitor, the Foreign Princess. Rejected she returns to the forest to confront her destiny — that she kill the hunter she loves or forever lure men to their death with her kiss.


Act II Hunting Lodge

This occasioned quite a lot of singing. Mme Willis-Sorensen acquitted herself magnificently, the beauty of her silvery colored voice raging and caressing with unfaltering strength the conflicting emotions of her lost innocence. The hunter prince returns to her only to be pulled into the depths of the earth by her kiss. But not before joining Rusalka in one of opera’s most thrilling duets, it’s emotive extensions dissolving into an ultimate resignation to loss.

Tenor Brandon Jovanovich, a veteran hunter prince (he has recorded the opera with Anna Maria Martínez)) again brought beautiful, secure singing and ardent acting to this role. Mr. Jovanovich naturally brings the genuine innocence required by most tenor roles, plus he retains the requisite physicality. He is a unique artist.

The David McVicar production from Lyric Opera of Chicago gently embraces a lament of the effects of human intrusion into the natural world. The concept engenders a mysteriously lovely, animated forest marred by a concrete sewage dam, and a gigantic, trophy laden hunter’s lodge with carcass laden kitchen. Huge subtle atmospheres were thereby created that provided requisite presence for the unexpected monumentality of Dvorak’s score.


Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Rusalka, Brandon Javonovich as the Prince

Houston opera principal guest conductor Eun Sun Kim drove the emotional flow, pulling the vibrant Dvorak colors from the triple winds of the opera orchestra, urging full-throated force from its strings. Unlike the subtlety of the McVicar production Ma. Kim strove for immediate effect. It was thrilling when it was not overpowering. This talented conductress did find balance in the final moments of the duet. Its hopelessness seemed genuinely felt.

The three Wood Nymphs were appropriately embodied by three delightful Adler Fellows who frolicked together with the Opera’s corps de ballet in motions of rustic grotesquerie. British operatic choreographer Andrew George as well created the extensive balletic dance caricatures in the second act hunting lodge. The witch Jezibaba who transforms Rusalka into human form was sung by mezzo Jamie Barton with exaggerated grotesque sophistication.


The Wood Nymphs and the corps de ballet

The high level casting was completed with Icelandic bass Kristen Sigmundsson singing Rusalka’s father Vodnik and bass baritone Philip Horst as first the lusty then the frightened Gamekeeper. Both artists were appropriately cast in these character roles that were very well sung. The Kitchen Boy who becomes Rusalka’s first victim was beautifully portrayed by former Adler Fellow Laura Krumm.

Soprano Sarah Cambridge, a recent Adler Fellow, was a perfunctory, steely toned Foreign Princess. An additional hunter was rendered by former Adler Fellow baritone Andrew Manea.

Cast and production

Rusalka: Rachel Willis‐Sørensen; The Prince: Brandon Jovanovich; Vodník: Kristinn Sigmundsson; Ježibaba: Jamie Barton; Foreign Princess: Sarah Cambidge; First Wood Nymph: Natalie Image; Second Wood Nymph: Simone McIntosh; Third Wood Nymph: Ashley Dixon; Forester: Philip Horst; Kitchen Boy: Laura Krumm; Hunter: Andrew Manea. The San Francisco Opera Chorus and Orchestra. Conductor: Eun Sun Kim; Production: David McVicar; Revival Stage Director: Leah Hausman; Set Designer: John Macfarlane; Costume Designer: Moritz Junge; Lighting Designer: David Finn; Choreographer: Andrew George. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, June 16, 2019.

Orlando at San Francisco Opera


Sasha Cooke as Orlando [All photos copyright Cory Weaver
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

George Frederic Handel was both victim and survivor of the San Francisco Opera’s Orlando seen last night on the War Memorial stage.

Forget the brutal conflict between love and duty suffered by Lodovico Ariosto’s great chivalric hero Orlando. General director Matthew Shilvock made a curtain announcement that mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke, the Orlando, was indisposed, but would sing the famed Italian castrato Senescino’s role anyway. Thus the performance was compromised, Mme. Cooke’s Orlando pallid indeed.

Further compromise — Orlando’s arch rival in love was sung by Adler Fellow counter tenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. He replaced David Daniels, the “me-too” disgraced counter tenor who brought virile flash to Xerxes’ Arsamenes a few years back and surely would have cut-the-figure to woo Ariosto’s femme fatale Angelica away from Orlando. Mr. Cohen has a lovely, smooth mezzo voice of feminine grace. Costumed as a middle aged business man Mr. Cohen did not make the cut vocally or figuratively.

The production came from Scottish Opera. Its conceit is that Edward VIII who abdicated the British throne (and the implied responsibility to battle Nazi Germany) for his love of American socialite Wallis Simpson serves as an admonition to Orlando (Italian for the famed knight Roland) that he forget love for a while and get on with saving Europe from the invading Saracens.


Orlando (far left), Zoroastro as psychiatrist (far right), supernumerary nurses

And so the action was in some sort of WWII hospital, Orlando a shot down pilot or something, with clothing of that period. It is a post-modern fashion look well known here in hip San Francisco where the Edward VIII abdication is a minor, if salacious though quaint footnote to ever more distant history. This 2011 production perhaps found greater resonance in the United Kingdom.

Essentially Orlando who has saved Isabella loves Angelica who has saved Medoro and is in love with him but has to deal with Orlando who goes crazy. Dorinda is crazy in love with Medoro who has to deal with her. The magician Zoroastro oversees it all. The language is purely pastoral.

Handel deals with all of this love and madness in the flow of his magnificent arias, plus a sublime trio at the conclusion of act I. Handel scored his 1733 opera for a very large orchestra, thus the resonant strings of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra were quite appropriate. Add two recorders, two blasting horns, two plaintive oboes, a splendid vibrato-less cello duet and two fine sopranos and Handel’s opera took flight. In fact under English early music conductor Christopher Moulds Handel’s music soared.

Only to be grounded in a small, low one wall set that turned around from time to time to accommodate British provincial stage director Harry Fehr’s stolid concept where everything is squarely explained as in a play. Handel and Ariosto’s imaginative, magically musical and pastoral impulses were forsaken to a purely earthbound narrative. It was hard to stay interested, thus there was significant audience defection after the second act.


Dorinda, Angelica, Medoro

The greatest vocal pleasure emanated from young Austrian soprano Christina Gansch who found the poetic naïveté of the nymph (nurse) Dorinda in very communicative singing. Once again soprano Heidi Stober as Angelica proved she can do anything (everything from Magnolia Hawks in Showboat to Marguerite in Faust). Within the limitations of the concept she even found some of Ariosto’s magic and a great deal of Handel’s genius. San Francisco Opera’s catch-all bass Christian Van Horn did a workmanlike job of delivering Zoroastro.

Stage director Fehr inserted recorded bombardment explosions to confuse and disturb Orlando’s musical madness, and a sterile box to stifle Orlando’s florid delusions. So much for Orlando furioso.

Handel however happily survived it all.

Cast and production

Orlando: Sasha Cooke; Angelica: Heidi Stober; Dorinda: Christina Gansch; Medoro: Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. San Francisco Opéra Orchestra. Conductor: Christopher Moulds; Director: Harry Fehr; Production Designer: Yannis Thavoris; Revival Lighting Designer: Tim van’t Hof; Projection Designer: Andrzej Goulding. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, June 15, 2019.

Carmen at San Francisco Opera


Matthew Polenzani as Jose, J'Nai Bridges as Carmen
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

A razzle-dazzle, bloodless Carmen at the War Memorial, further revival of Francesca Zambello’s 2006 Covent Garden production already franchised to Oslo, Sidney and Washington, D.C.

Unabashedly not a contestant in the Carmen wars (who can fit Merimee’s bloody tale most uncomfortably into a relevant contemporary context) Mme. Zambello sets her Carmen in a music hall somewhere. We see it as a sort of music hall revue of the numbers we know and love complete with lively production dance numbers. Like music theater there is spoken dialogue (a bit more than usual), the simple story is clearly told with no troubling nuances and there is not a drop of blood. On second thought this is about as far-out as a Carmen production could get.

But wait. There were more troubling aspects to the performance — Bizet’s Carmen was in fact further deconstructed. It happened in the pit. Former San Francisco Symphony associate conductor James Gaffigan, now a rising star on the world’s major stages, offered a bright, lilting overture, the always admirable San Francisco Opera Orchestra in resplendent tone. The rose red show curtain rose, Jose alone, desolate in a pool of light (he had already murdered Carmen, the story to be told in flashback) while Carmen’s famed fate motive flowed forth oh-so-sweetly at a mere orchestral forte (Mo. Gaffigan eschewed all sense of fortissimo throughout the ordeal).


Anita Hartig as Micaëla, Matthew Polenzani as Jose, J'Nai Bridges as Carmen

Further Carmen shock and awe (and there was a lot of it) happened in Jose’s Flower Song, Carmen (the very beautiful J’Nai Bridges) reclined down stage right in a pool of light — a perfect rose — while Jose (Matthew Polenzani in fine voice) tenderly related to the rose he held, the maestro enveloping Bizet's brief postlude in the sweetest and loveliest possible colors, our two lovers in perfect, innocent and quite uncomplicated harmony. It was not ironic. This was a perfect love that simply got derailed.

One can only fear for the blood and guts of Verdi’s Ernani that this talented maestro will conduct in San Francisco Opera’s 2020 spring season.

Carmen dead on the stage, there was a final burst of glitz as Micaela, overlooking the tragedy from atop an orangey brown abstract structure meant to represent the exterior of the bull ring, threw blood red (finally some blood!) streamers along with clouds of confetti onto the estranged lovers.

With the stage director and the conductor in collusion the cast, clearly capable of far greater emotional range, diligently and effectively brought this strange Carmen to life. Mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges is young, sexy, vibrant, and dangerous, attributes that were as apparent in her voice as in her figure. She is a Carmen of exceptional musical finish. Her Habañera  and Seguidilla were spellbinding, the maestro clearly under the artist’s thrall, the orchestral accompaniment a mere hint of the beat, like the finest Rossini conducting.

Tenor Matthew Polenzani portrayed a simple, smitten-with-pure-love soldier. His light lyric voice easily avoided the treacheries of the role for heavier voices, voices that have easier potential to personify the more usual sexually charged love Jose has for Carmen. As it was it seemed that this Jose’s love for Carmen was as pure as his love for his dying mother. On the other hand tenor Polenzani was a resolutely virile, recent San Francisco Opera Hoffmann.

Romanian soprano Anita Hartig as Micaëla fulfilled SFO’s claim to being an international house. This gifted artist of great presence brought a pure, silvery vocal sound to Micaëla in exceedingly careful phrasing, attributes that created a character of utter innocence. This Micaëla was never a foil to Carmen so much as she was the angel that oversaw the naive soul of a simple Spanish soldier. Hers was a performance indeed befitting a major stage.


yle Ketelsen as Escamillo

Though not a flashy Spaniard, bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen does cut a fine figure as the toreador Escamillo. He reads as physically strong and boasts an agility that easily could avoid a charging bull. The same could be said of his powerful voice and supple singing that he uses to actually create a character of depth, rare for this role usually played as a pure sex symbol. His third act fight with Jose was unsettling when all this magnificent virile physicality fell to Jose’s clumsy thrust.

The principal singers and the conducting were the elegance of the production. The actual staging and the lesser roles were clumsily rendered. Adler Fellows or equivalents were called upon to approximate as best they could the complex characters that complete Bizet’s drama, characters than can add intense emotional atmospheres to Carmen, but here did not. Unfortunately Natalie Image’s Frasquita was sometimes under pitch in the climaxes of the opera’s huge ensembles.

Mme. Zambello’s Carmen is music theater where action is controlled choreography and not spontaneous realism. There was incessant, staged movement, moreover in the complex fights movement was less than precise and usually ill timed, at odds with the rhythmic elegance emanating from the pit. The chicken and the mule of the original Covent Garden production have fallen by the wayside, leaving only the horse on which Escamillo arrives in Act II. One might envision a beautiful black stallion with an elegantly curved neck to second the imagined sleek figure of Escamillo. The War Memorial horse had none of these attributes, and should have been rejected by this toreador as an unsuitable nag.

The demagoguery (catering to common taste) of the production was blatant. Surely the San Francisco opera audience would prefer to be challenged with productions that stimulate the imagination and illuminate the human condition.

Cast and production

Carmen: J’Nai Bridges; Micaëla: Anita Hartig; Don Jose: Matthew Polenzani; Escamillo: Kyle Ketelsen; Frasquita: Natalie Image; Mercédès: Ashley Dixon; Zuniga: David Leigh; Morales: Seok Jong Baek; Remendado: Zhengyi Bai; Dancairo: Christopher Oglesby. San Francisco Chorus and Orchestra. Conductor: James Gaffigan; Production: Francesca Zambello; Associate Director & Movement Director: Denni Sayers; Production Designer: Tanya McCallin; Original Lighting Designer: Paule Constable; Revival Lighting Designer: Justin a. Partier. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, June 11, 2019.

Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera


Jennifer Rowley as Tosca, Wolfgang Koch as Scarpia
All photos copyright Ken Howard / Met Opera

The 1917 Met Tosca production hung around for 50 years, bested by the 1925 San Francisco Opera production that lived to the ripe old age of 92.  The current Met production is just 2 years old but has the feel of something that can live forever.


It is a not-too-subtle Rome. The massive stage opening of the Met was filled with architecture that exaggerated the Baroque massiveness of St. Andrea della Valle. This masculine world of the church became as well an expanse for the boundless desire of Rome’s chief-of-police, Scarpia. We did not see the details that illustrate the story (the painting, the picnic basket, etc.). But we did feel the threat of this space that rendered the diva Floria Tosca very vulnerable.


The Te Deum


The Farnese Palace was present in its spirit, not its architecture. Its famed fresco “The Loves of the Gods” extended in exaggerated perspective along one wall. A huge fireplace, votive candles and candle chandeliers spread through the huge dark space created a massive chiaroscuro where Tosca’s anima exploded.


The massiveness of Sant Angelo on the other hand was greatly diminished. A small terrace was its only architectural feature and only a small, morning sky floated in the now massive blackness of the Met stage house. The smallness of the space provided context for Tosca and Cavaradossi’s discussion of intimacies of the bloody murder. Tosca’s leap was but a small step into this void, an intimate, spectacular slide into nothingness.


The leap

David McVicar’s Rome was not mere background for Puccini’s intense reading of Sardou’s play. Rome was the dominant player in this drama of release that has become the most famous of all operatic rituals, that has created a cult of Tosca followers. And that’s all of us — the entire corpus of the opera audience who need Puccini’s Rome to embody the world from which we must (and will ultimately) escape.


The powerful Rome that this Tosca set creates demands powerful singers to inhabit its vastness. This was fulfilled in the four spring performances conducted by Carlo Rizzo who aided and abetted the three principals to create personages of impressive magnitude. American soprano Jennifer Rowley embodied a Tosca flooded by a huge spectrum of emotions, from the playfulness of diva attitudes in the first act to her murderess fury in the second act and finally the complexities of the third act. Mme. Rowley’s voice has a fast flutter that served to create an exaggerated singerly presence for Tosca. She has a surcharge of vocal heft to ride above the climaxes, and artistry that made her “Vissi d’arte” a show stopper.

German bass-baritone Wolfgang Koch created a unique Scarpia, one who seemed to almost speak his words in Puccini’s threatening vocal lines, his massively powerful physical size added to the menace of his character. Mr. Koch’s Scarpia is not a subtle creature, he is the ultimate predator, and Puccini provides him ample of opportunity to brag about it.

Tenor Joseph Calleja more naturally plays the role of a tenor rather than he played the painter Cavaradossi. Fortunately he is a good tenor so his instinct to turn to face the audience when he has a high note, and to hold it long enough to be doubly sure that we know he has powerful, secure high notes, was not as annoying as it might have been.

Mr. Calleja is the Cavaradossi this coming July at the Aix-en-Provence festival in a mise en scène of Tosca by French director Christophe Honoré. This director set his Aix Cosi fan tutte in Ethiopia, his Lyon Don Carlo amidst theater drapes on an otherwise empty stage. Thus we nervously await the Rome (if Rome) he will conjure for this Aix Tosca, into which he must slip tenor Calleja. It may be worth the trip just to find out.

Cast and production

Floria Tosca: Jennifer Rowley; Cavaradossi: Joseph Calleja; Baron Scarpia: Wolfgang Koch; Sacristan: Philip Cokorinos; Spoletta: Tony Stevenson; Sciarroe: Bradley Garvin. Chorus and orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera. Conductor: Carlo Rizzi; Production: David McVicar; Set and Costume Design: John MacFarlane; Lighting Designer: David Finn; Revival Stage Director: Jonathon Loy. Metropolitan Opera, New York, March 29, 2019.

Samson et Dalila at the Metropolitan Opera


Temple to the god Dagon, with Samson
All photos copyright Ken Howard / Met Opera

It was the final performance of the premiere season of Darko Tresnjak’s production of Camille Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila. Four tenors later.

Serbian born American theater director Darko Tresnjak envisioned a production with the look of a nickelodean (maybe you put your nickel in and out comes “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix”). Or maybe he was thinking of a slot machine (bet with the odds that the tenor can’t make it to the end). He did like shiny, flowing pale blues and pinks for the intimate scenes within his arched scenic structure, intense reds and metallic blues for the big scenes trusting perhaps that these shapes and colors were enough to tell the story.


What the Met did do right was hire English conductor Mark Elder to expose the magnificence of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, and to motivate the glories of the Met chorus whose opening scene reeked with overt Baroque-esque, old testament Romantic musical profundities that gave us enormous pleasure.


Anita Rachvelishvili as Dalila

The stifling symmetry of Broadway designer Alexander Dodge’s scenic structure placed the singers squarely center stage for their big numbers where the artists of the evening did their best to measure up to the symphonic magnificence rising from the pit. Georgian mezzo soprano Anita Rachvelishvili well held her own in powerful voice though I missed a warmth of sensual phrasing in her two famous second act arias. A well-known Carmen Mme. Rachvelishvili did find plenty of fire in her confrontations with Samson and the High Priest.

Lithuanian tenor Kristian Benedikt, who last fall was called upon to finish the opera when tenor Roberto Alagna gave up after the second act, was the Samson at this performance (his only full performance in this 2018/19 run). Mr. Benedikt did make it all the way to the end, though he encountered some rough patches in the second act. Both his first and third act arias were beautifully rendered, his fine tenor holding strong tone to their conclusions. However in the second act and the final scene of the opera his persona and voice were swallowed into the grander trappings of the staging.


The High Priest of Dagon was sung in all thirteen performances by bass-baritone Laurent Naouri in easily distinguishable French though his delivery did not rise to the musical elegance of Saint-Saëns' score and Mo. Elder’s conducting. Note also that the back-of-seat “super” titles (very hard to see) were offered in German and Spanish. Why not French, as it is, after all, the language of the opera?


Male dancers of the corps de ballet

Besides the splendid second act arias the famed part of Saint-Saëns' masterwork is the third act orgy that culminates in the destruction of the pagan temple. Ten almost naked ballerinos and eight ballerinas executed a complex choreography conceived by Austin McCormick, artistic director of Brooklyn’s Company XIV. The unballetic style was Martha Graham avant gardesque, a look that flowed uneasily with the grander formal structures of the Saint-Saëns' score.


Despite the thunderous percussion climax the short circuit electric flash within Mr. Tresnjak's nickelodeon did not satisfy as Samson’s crowning moment of superhuman strength. Mr. Tresnjak’s staged oratorio setting of Saint-Saëns' score would have profited from some operatic context.

Cast and production

Dalila: Anita Rachvelishvili; Samson: Kristian Benedikt; Abimélech: Tomasz Konieczny; High Priest of Dagon: Laurent Naouri; First Philistine: Eduardo Valdes; Secon Philistine: Jeongcheol Cha; A Philistine Messenger: Scott Scully; An Old Hebrew: Günther Groissböck. Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera. Conductor: Mark Elder; Production: Darko Tresnjak; Set Designer: Alexander Dodge; Costumes Designer: Linda Cho; Lighting Designer: Donald Holder; Choreographer: Austin McCormick. Metropolitan Opera, New York, March 28, 2019.

It's a Wonderful Life at San Francisco Opera


Golda Schultz as the guardian angel Clara
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

It was 1946 when George Bailey of Bedford Falls, NY nearly sold himself to the devil for $20,000. It is 2018 in San Francisco where an annual income of ten times that amount raises you slightly above poverty level, and you’ve paid $310 for your orchestra seat to Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s It’s a Wonderful Life.

Maybe you’ve seen the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. It seems many of you have, maybe most of you, and it seems that Jake Heggie and San Francisco Opera know you are yearning to return to that simpler time when the housing crisis was easily solved by simple community economics, big government was no where to be seen or felt, and winged Christian angels, like the one once atop your Christmas tree, watched over you. And, well (there can be no doubt), you are Christians and that prayers actually worked.

Though you once might have dreamt about college and a larger world, the world of Bedford Falls, NY is already pretty big in itself, or big enough to satisfy the ambitions of a good husband and father and citizen. When an outside evil intrudes (the “yellow peril”) you hold a spine-chilling rally to "Make America Great" again.


Set design by Robert Brill, costume design by David C. Woolard

Mr. Heggie and Mr. Scheer’s It’s a Wonderful Life is a tight (it enjoyed a gestation period in Bloomington and Houston before arriving at the War Memorial), beautifully crafted opera that tells its story in high operatic terms — it is a string of lyric moments woven into compelling, if trivial episodes that propel us to a final crisis that even the opera’s hero, George Bailey of Bedford Falls, NY learns is trivial — that it’s not worth killing yourself over $8000 ($111,000 in today’s dollars).

Mr. Scheer proved himself a brilliant librettist in his masterful adaptation of the Great American Novel Moby Dick for composer Heggie. Jake Heggie himself now has resolutely proven himself the Great American Composer with It’s a Wonderful Life, following Moby Dick and Dead Man Walking, works that embody the American spirit in flowing, intensely lyrical, American middle high-art musical terms. In It’s a Wonderful Life Mr. Heggie exploits the richness of American vaudeville, and dwells incessantly on the mannerisms of the American musical as well. Startlingly the opera begins with an ear-splitting imitation of the primitive sound of postwar movie theater amplification.

The opera’s coup de théatre is the moment George Bailey understands that if he had never existed there would be no music. It becomes a spooky, spoken world that makes us encourage George to quickly get back to the world of everyday problems that you can easily sing about — eschewing, of course, any whiff of the psycho-sexual violence that is the meat of real opera.

But wait. There was a second coup de théâtre and that was an urge to sing "Auld Lang Sang" that gripped us all when George at last hugged his wife and kids standing before a brilliantly lighted Christmas tree under the loving gaze of his suspended Guardian Angel. Well, we all belted it out with the maestro before leaping to our feet to salute the very fine artists and the excellent production.

Orchestrally It’s a Wonderful Life is scored for single winds (except two horns) and strings making it easily accessible for smaller holiday productions in regional theaters. On the other hand there can be no doubt that It’s a Wonderful Life will find international success in theaters throughout the world as a throbbing example of Americana.

Though of great sophistication the production by Leonard Foglia and Robert Brill was quite simple — a unit set of countless, identical floating panels that were doors, maybe tombs, other times wallpapered panels, floors, clouds that were heaven, streets, etc. The angels in heaven were breathtakingly flown in from the celestial spheres of the War Memorial fly loft. Costuming was the period of the film (1946).

There was considerable choreography, some maybe expertly fronted by dancers of the San Francisco Opera Ballet, but mostly executed by the principals together with 28 members of the San Francisco Opera Chorus, presumably chosen for their lithe bodies to fit the costumes of students of Bedford Falls High School and then the not-too-well-fed Irish and Italian immigrants that lived on the other side of the tracks.


Andriana Chuchman as Mary Hatch, William Burden as George Bailey,
Keith Jameson as Uncle Billy Bailey

The casting for the production made its bow to multi-culturalism by casting George Bailey’s guardian angel Clara [as in The Nutcracker] with the South African soprano Golda Schultz who set the standard for the high-level vocal performances that characterized the evening. American baritone William Burden successfully embodied the young George Bailey to then become the distraught middle aged banker and the loving husband. Canadian soprano Andriana Chuchman brought force and beauty of voice to create George’s emotional anchor, his wife Mary Hatch (who did escape to New York but came right back to Bedford Falls to create a home for George).

Confined to a wheelchair as the crooked businessman Mr. Potter, Los Angeles bass-baritone Rod Gilfry exuded greed and selfishness, his wheelchair coldly and calculatedly guided by the production’s one supernumerary. George’s brother Harry who does go off to college was sung by Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins with vibrant presence. Genuinely batty Uncle Billy was aptly played by Keith Jameson, and George’s mother found big prominence as sung by San Francisco mezzo soprano Catherine Cook.

There are 34 named roles in It’s a Wonderful Life. Of the principals identified above Mr. Burden, Mr. Gilfry and Mr. Hopkins survive from the Houston cast. Conductor Patrick Summers from the Houston Opera ably helped the singers carve out their roles, evoking suitable orchestral pizazz.

Disclaimer: I have not seen the Frank Capra film, It’s a Wonderful Life.

Wise opera goers could pay $10 for standing room for the brief 2 1/2 hours that fly by fairly quickly, though you may wish to suggest a few economies to Mr. Heggie.

Cast and production

Clara: Golda Schultz; Angels First Class: Sarah Cambidge, Ashley Dixon, Amitai Pati, Christian Pursell; George Bailey: William Burden; Harry Bailey; Joshua Hopkins; Uncle Billy Bailey: Keith Jameson; Mother Bailey: Catherine Cook; Mary Hatch: Andriana Chuchman; Mr. Potter: Rod Gilfry; Helen Bailey: Carole Schaffer. Chorus and Orchestra of the San Francisco Opera. Conductor: Patrick Summers; Stage Director: Leonard Foglia; Set Designer: Robert Brill; Costume Designer: David C. Woolard; Lighting Designer: Brian Nason; Projection Designer: Elaine j. McCarthy; Choreographer: Keturah Stickann. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, November 20, 2018.

Arabella at San Francisco Opera


Brian Mulligan as Mandryka
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

A great big guy in a great big fur coat falls in love with the photo of the worldly daughter of a compulsive gambler. A great big conductor promotes the maelstrom of great big music that shepherds all this to ecstatic conclusion.

Austrian dramatist Hugo Von Hofmannsthal, Arabella’s librettist, was nothing if not worldly and post WWI Vienna was nothing if not indulgent. This made rich ground for Richard Strauss to plow, playing seriously with Romantic ideals of love while toying with the poetic pastoralism of the Germanic Hellenistic revival, and indulging in the modernist zeal for dissecting reality.

It all became quite a celebration last night on the War Memorial stage at the first performance (of five) of this rarely performed example of the Strauss canon. The revelry was in the pit, the mighty San Francisco Opera orchestra unleashed by conductor German conductor Marc Albrecht in his American debut. Undaunted with only 67 players in the pit, a far cry from Elektra’s 100 or so, the maestro drove the score as if it had the richness and the urgency of Elektra’s obsession. The spectrum of colors, the motivic details, the phrasings and the volumes (considerable) that the maestro exploited did indeed verify masterpiece status if not outright awe for the score. They also made me long for singers and production that might equal such musical monumentality.

The well-traveled production (Toronto, Santa Fe, Minneapolis) by British director Tim Albery instead traded on the minimal. The sets and costumes by German designer Tobias Hoheisel were of utmost simplicity, a series of small, monochromatic, curving architectural elements of subdued classical detail construed the three spaces of von Hofmannsthal’s fin de siècle hotel. Von Hofmannsthal respects the Aristotelian unities — the opera happens before, during, and after a ball in the hotel — thus Mr. Hoheisel’s costuming has limited requirements, easily incorporating abstractions of fin de siècle opulence.


Hye Jung Lee (in red) as the ball mascot Fiakermilli

Director Albery moved his actors minimally, just enough to fulfill the musical and textural needs of the score. Every gesture was carefully measured to be an elegant surface motion that masked the musical compulsions underneath. It was smooth, indeed exquisite staging effected by a willing cast.

Like all Strauss female roles, Arabella too is vocally daunting. Most difficult are the moments of sublime beauty when the soprano floats an above the staff phrase over and beyond its apex, as had Strauss’ Marschallin. Then there are extended passages of longing, regret, reconciliation and finally ecstasy that sail through and above rich and soaring orchestral outpourings. Above all Strauss’ Arabella must be a beautiful woman who projects honesty and simplicity and compassion, and forgiveness for those who betray her. San Francisco Opera house soprano Ellie Dehn confronted the challenges of the role and largely succeeded, often rising to the monumentality imposed by the maestro.

Though Strauss loves most of all to exploit the female voice, in Arabella he challenges the endurance and the emotional spectrum of the baritone voice. Mandryka who has chosen Arabella to be his wife, made a bloodstained photo of Arabella his talisman for recovery after he was mauled by a bear. San Francisco Opera house baritone Brian Mulligan did not survive his first act explanation of all this, victim of the maestro who demanded a more experienced Strauss voice and more imposing presence to musically fulfill the Straussian ideal. Mr. Mulligan does possess a quite beautiful voice whose limits however were clearly exposed.


Heidi Stober as Zdenko, Ellie Dehn as Arabella

Von Hofmannstahl twisted the swain from pastoral poetry into a cross dressed soprano, here San Francisco Opera house soubrette Heidi Stober who gave a quite effective account of Zdenka who loves Arabella’s rejected suitor Matteo, however Zdenka is first known as the boy Zdenko who is Matteo’s best friend (you had to be there). Mme. Stober’s charming trouser role presence abetted by fine singing well matched the maestro’s need for a big house, tongue-in-cheek shepherd/ess. The Matteo of Swedish tenor Daniel Johansson held his own in the melee. Though missing the warm vocal colors to create the ideal Straussian swain he did project appealing musical energy.

Well cast as the Countess Waldner, mezzo soprano Michaela Martens made Arabella’s mother quite sympathetic in her enthusiastic support of the ruinous gambling addiction of her husband, Count Waldner sung by Richard Paul Fink.

The balance of the cast — three more suitors, plus the Fiakermilli — conformed to the in-house casting policy for this Arabella. The suitors were drawn from the Adlers (San Francisco Opera’s operatic finishing school) or equivalent. The Fiakermilli, usually a cameo role taken by an accomplished Ariadne Zerbinetta, was sung by former Merola participant Hye Jung Lee.

Cast and production information:

Arabella: Ellie Dehn; Zdenka: Heidi Stober; Countess Waldner: Michaela Martens; Fiakermilli: Hye Jung Lee; A fortune teller: Jill Grove; Mandryka: Brian Mulligan; Matteo: Daniel Johansson; Count Waldner: Richard Paul Fink; Count elemer: Scott Quinn; Count Dominik: Andrew Manea; Count Lamoral: Christian Pursell. Chorus and Orchestra of the San Francisco Opera. Conductor: Marc Albrect; Stage director: Tim Albery; Production designer: Tobias Hoheisel; Lighting Designer: David Finn. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, October 16, 2018

Cavalleria rusticana and I pagliacci at San Francisco Opera


Amitai Pati as Beppo, Marco Berti as Canio
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana won first prize in the 1888 Casa Sonzogno’s [a once famous Italian publisher] competition for a new, one-act opera, Ruggero Leoncavallo saw the need to complete an evening of nascent verismo and rushed to fill it, thus I pagliacci! San Francisco Opera’s current edition of these two rather naive masterpieces will not win any prizes.

In 2012 Argentine tenor José Cura sang both Mascagni’s Turiddu and Leoncavallo’s Canio in Liège (a city of about 200,000 inhabitants in southeast Belgium), a feat he first accomplished in 2006 at the Arena di Verona. In Liège Mr. Cura staged the double bill as well, and designed its sets and costumes. Other times Mr. Cura has been known to stage and design and conduct operas all at once.


San Francisco Opera’s new general director Matthew Shivlock imported this production. though without the 56 year-old tenor, assigning directorial duties to another Argentine, José Maria Condemni, a staff director at SFO. Of questionable artistic value the assumption is that the production was imported because it was a bargain — one small set serving two operas.


The Argentine tenor made the two operas into two bloody moments in the lives of the inhabitants of one primary-colors hued Argentine village square (program notes tell us it’s a neighborhood in Buenos Aires) complete with the ever present hispanic street wall mural. The characters of both operas are the villagers who hang out in the cafe that serves copious wine to both operas. Yes, that was Pagliacci tenor Marco Berti (Canio) sitting at a table at the beginning of Cavalleria. In a questionably inspired directorial moment Mamma Lucia pre-empted the clown Tonio’s famous “la commedia è finita” at the end of Pagliacci (Turiddu’s mother was also Silvio’s mother thus this attempt at a crude pathos well outside Mascagni’s intention).

The casting of this San Francisco Opera production was just what you might expect for an opera in a provincial city in Argentina — take whoever you can get resulting in the bizarre (Ekaterina Semenchuk as Santuzza), the right-on (Marco Berti as Canio and Adler Fellow Amitai Pati as Beppo), the willing (baritone David Pershall’s silent, very charismatic Cavalleria cafe waiter though pallid Pagliacci Silvio). From the louder-the-better casting principle came the Turiddu of Roberto Aronica and the Alfio/Tonio of Dimitri Platanias. Local and quite serviceable if stylistically inapplicable were the Mamma Lucia of Jill Grove and the Lola of Laura Krumm.


Further example of catch-as-catch-can casting was former Adler Fellow Toni Marie Palmertree as Nedda, filling in for the ailing Lianna Haroutounian. Mlle. Palmertree sang very nicely indeed but in no way can be transformed into verismo prima donna even in dire circumstances.


It was an “international” cast (Russian, Greek, Italian, Armenian, New Zealand, American, plus a latino paper boy). Over the years stage director Condemni has proven himself very competent but even he evidently could not pull all these identities into an Argentine much less Italian stylistic whole, nor organize them into working together to tell a coherent story.


Italian conductor Daniele Callegari whipped the San Francisco Opera orchestra into giving a full-throated not to say bombastic account of these tuneful scores. The maestro remained unconcerned that the San Francisco Opera chorus had learned phrasing that was inconsistent with his musical take on early verismo. If you think tenor Marco Berti belted out a beautifully sung and stylistically acceptable Canio (I did, and enjoyed his performance) the evening’s complementary roles, Turiddu and Alfio/Tonio were miles away from convincing verismo, remaining loud, wooden imitations at best.

Tosca at San Francisco Opera


Carmen Giannattasio as Tosca, Scott Hendricks as Scarpia
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

The story was bigger than its actors, the Tosca ritual was ignored. It wasn’t a Tosca for the ages though maybe it was (San Francisco’s previous Tosca production hung around for 95 years). P.S. It was an evening of powerful theater, and incidentally it was really good opera.

Whether by design or accident the pairing of British conductor Leo Hussain with American stage director Shawna Lucey resulted in a synergy of theatrical perspective and musical vision that rarely occurs. Conductor Hussain comes from new music, thus he hears this oft repeated score with new ears, sensing and amplifying subtle atmospheres, stabbing with sudden emphasis an orchestral color that embody a word or phrase uttered the stage, carefully erecting the intimacies of the arias and ariosos, pacing the confrontations with unhurried deliberation, settling on sonic brutality with with cold force. Musically this Tosca was conducted as a new-music score to be laid out in detail, take it or leave it.

Stage director Lucy was in complete sympathy, laying out a detail of staging to embody every action of the libretto in minute precision, then embellishing the libretto and music with additional narrative detail to create a seemingly impromptu context for the action and to make the surroundings seem like a everyday spaces where shit probably does sometimes happen. The richness of narrative context for this Puccini score was of a nineteenth century novel, certainly of a twentieth century romance, and most of all a twenty-first century made-for-television movie.


The Te Deum

British designer Robert Innes Hopkins obliged with a first act set that cannily caught the details of the austere spaces and the coldness of Rome’s St. Andrea della Valle (in spite of the vivid red wall) but focused his space into a corner where the story could begin in its sordid detail. The Palazzo Farnese of the second act took place not in a grand room of state but in a messy, lesser room, once again in a corner perspective for intimacy. The palace’s Renaissance grandeur was marred by the detail of an art nouveau facade of a shadow box side-room (yes, the torture room!). The upward swirl of the Sant-Angelo fortress was topped by its sword-bearing Bernini-esque statue (brutal Renaissance art works were a visual focal point in each act).

The Bernini statue however hid our view of a presumed Tosca leap from the heights of the fortress — the final abnegation of the Tosca ritual that had been enacted 175 times on the War Memorial stage over the past 95 years. Tosca herself of this iconic operatic ritual is a diva, and we’ve seen absolutely every great Tosca of opera’s golden era (except Maria Callas who canceled) leap the thirty feet from the top of the old Agnini/Bosquet set to the War Memorial floor. Until now.

Our current Tosca, Italian soprano Carmen Giannattasio is not a diva, rather she is a Roman soprano who has caught the fancy of a lusty Roman policeman, Scarpia, American baritone Scott Hendricks, who made the “hard pulse of his arousal” quite apparent. Cavaradossi, American tenor Brian Jagde, is a good-spirited painter who unfortunately is involved a bit in politics, and has a young friend, Angelotti who was beat up by partisan thugs. These were real people, made real, in fact, because they were excellent singers, and could be, possibly, exactly who they are.


Carmen Giannattasio as Tosca, Brian Jagde as Cavaradossi

Of course it was Puccini’s Tosca and that too was always apparent, and this was the magic of the production. Tenor Jagde delivered his two arias with a delicacy of feeling and a mastery of Italianate technique that I did not know he possessed. Soprano Giannattasio gave her great aria supine on the stage floor, and scaled the many heights of the role with a convincing bel canto lyricism that comfortably rode Puccini’s verismo. Baritone Hendricks exposed his desire in true bel canto (say what you want but say it beautifully) and simultaneously convinced us of its urgency. Bass-baritone Hadleigh Adams’ Angelotti was sonorous, made even more operatic by his operatic limping (not always the same leg).

Further intelligence about the production: the voices of the boy acolytes of the first act were amplified by the voices of their mothers, perhaps present to protect the boys from predators (hardly Dale Travis’ ageless, sweet old sacristan). The first act question we always ask (just who is this Countess Attavanti?) was finally answered — she showed up at the end of Scarpia’s Te Deum, was abducted by Scarpia’s thugs, and reappeared looking a bit used when the second act curtain opened onto Scarpia’s office. Tosca did fortify herself with a gulp of wine after murdering Scarpia, placing but two candles by his lifeless body to the absolutely eery, creepy music rising from the pit. The faraway shepherds music of the third act was enacted by boys atop Sant’Angelo who cutely pretended to be soldiers executing one of their own.

We were gripped by the story, and satisfied by the singing. It was an auspicious debut of the Tosca set that we will see in countless editions, possibly throughout the remainder of this century. Catch it while it’s fresh.

Cast and production

Floria Tosca: Carmen Giannattasio; Mario Cavaradossi: Brian Jagde; Baron Scarpia: Scott Hendricks; Cesare Angelotti: Hadleigh Adams; A sacristan: Dale Travis; Spoletta: Joel Sorensen; Sciarrone: Andrew Manea; A shepherd boy: Miles Kaludzinski. Chorus and Orchestra of the San Francisco Opera. Conductor: Leo Hussain; Stage director: Shawna Lucey; Production designer: Robert Innes Hopkins; Lighting designer: Michael James Clark. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, October 11, 2018.

Roberto Devereux at San Francisco Opera


Sondra Radvanovsky as Elizabeth I
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

Opera’s triple crown, Donizetti’s tragic queens — Anna Bolena who was beheaded by her husband Henry VIII, their daughter Elizabeth I who beheaded her rival Mary, Queen of Scots and who executed her lover Roberto Devereux.

Donizetti traversed these sordid histories in 8 years (from 1830-1838). It took San Francisco Opera 13 years (Joan Sutherland as Maria Stuarda in 1971, Monserrat Caballé as Elizabeth I in 1978, and Joan Sutherland as Anna Bolena in 1984). Of course a couple of years ago the mighty Met managed to mount the whole bloody history in a few mere months.

This is opera history and Donizetti’s queens are opera history, rather history according to opera. There is no question which history is more real and true — crumbling parchment documents and a few words etched in stone from long ago or the delicate intimacies and huge tantrums that flew off the War Memorial stage last night at the final (of six) performances of Roberto Devereux. Donizetti’s bel canto miraculously achieved the Apollonian ideal — raw emotion absorbed into high art.

Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky portrayed history’s most terrifying queen in terrifying intricacies of voice, high d’s surreally emerging from nowhere to cap thrilling ascents of tortured lines, then other moments of descending lines, stepwise and sorrowfully slow. La Radvanovsky’s Elizabeth is terrifying, a persona of monumental presence, of absolute authority terrorised by love, a persona that is fully aware of her regal power, exuding the pleasure of executing astonishingly difficult vocalism, and surely of holding the 3000 spectators in the War Memorial in her thrall.

And a persona willing to fully suffer the torment of losing those she most loves, Roberto Devereux whom she blindly loves and the woman Devereux loves, her confident Sara.


Russell Thomas as Devereux, Jamie Barton as Sara

Elizabeth is hardly the only one to suffer. Sara’s husband, the Duke of Nottingham is Devereux’s best friend who must reconcile his love for and trust of his wife with his love and respect for his friend. Sara must reconcile her love for the queen with being her rival for Devereux’s love, and Devereux must reconcile his political and blatant personal betrayals of absolutely everyone with himself. So there is a lot to sing about.

And sing and suffer they do. After three hours of trying no one reconciled much of anything, to our very great pleasure. It was indeed an evening of bel canto! Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza established an unwavering dramatic pace that drove the betrayals and at the same time offered the protagonists all freedom to expand each moment of elation or despair and all gradations of joy and suffering in between. It was an all-too-rare conductorial achievement in parsing the emotional machinations of this difficult repertoire.

The voices of the protagonists were carefully matched. The all American cast was in prime vocal condition, and musical preparation was stylistically consistent. All voices were indeed beautiful, befitting the essence of bel canto. If the Radvanovsky sound is magisterial, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Sara added the freshness of voice of a young woman in love. Tenor Russel Thomas as Roberto Devereux produces a limpid yet lush tenor sound throughout his full register, including its stratospheric tenorino reaches. In such company Adler Fellow Andrew Manea as the Duke of Nottingham strangely was not over parted. If his youth was obvious, his authority of presence, his command of style and use of his quite beautiful voice were formidable.


Sondra Radvanovsky as Elisabetta in final scene

The well traveled production by British director Stephen Lawless belongs to Canadian Opera. Mr. Lawless took his cue from Donizetti’s quote of “God Save the Queen” in the overture to attempt to create levity, if not caricature of opera history. The surround was the galleries an Elizabethan theater indicating, I suppose, that we need not assume what we saw happen on the center stage acting platform was true or real, that it was, after all, only opera. There was a multitude of cute staging tricks that tried to keep us distanced from the distraught, often overwrought protagonists. They did not. We suffered.

That the production is not distinguished was of little importance to this evening. Mme. Radvanovsky grounded the production in high bel canto style that easily overcame all directorial conceits. This unique artist had the support of a well qualified cast. With Maestro Frizza we, right along with this distinguished cast, enjoyed a splendid evening of opera history.

Cast and production

Elisabetta: Sondra Radvanovsky; Roberto Devereux: Russell Thomas; Lord Cecil: Amitai Pati; Sir Walter Raleigh: Christian Pursell; Sara: Damie Barton; A page: Ben Brady; Duke of Nottingham: Andrew Manea; Nottingham’s servant: Igor Vieira. Chorus and Orchestra of San Francisco Opera. Conductor: Riccardo Frizza; Director: Stephen Laless; Set Designer: Benoit Dugardyn; Costume Designer: Ingeborg Bernerth; Lighting Designer: Christopher Akerlind. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, September 27, 2018

Das Rheingold at San Francisco Opera


Falk Struckmann as Alberich, Greer Brimsley as Wotan
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

Alberich’s ring forged, the gods moved into Valhalla, Loge’s Bic flicked, Wagner’s cumbersome nineteenth century mythology began unfolding last night here in Bayreuth-by-the-Bay.

Ring fever was high in the rather-more-than-usual well-dressed, quite excited crowds (standees three deep) present for the first part of the famous tetralogy of three operas plus satyr play (that’s Das Rheingold).

Though first, Rheingold was the last of the tetralogy composed, thus Wagner had already forged the means to taunt us with the magic fire music that will protect us and finally consume us this Sunday, fire that issued full force from the mighty forces of the superb San Francisco Opera Orchestra of ninety players — curious ears were cocked for four Wagnerian tubas. Conductor Donald Runnicles, of the 2011 San Francisco Ring again sustained a convincing Wagnerian continuum.


A moment in the Nibelungen workshop

Back in 2008 when Francesca Zambello’s 2006 Rheingold was unveiled here in San Francisco the chorus of anvils (last night six off-site players hammered 15 tuned anvils) was prelude to a surprising, indeed stunning vision of the Nibelungen workshop with its multitude of child workers (this was the Industrial Revolution after all). For many of us this was the third time for this revelation, hopefully it once again thrilled those new to this production.

In pre-opening press events care was taken to stress important modifications to the original production, specifically the recasting of many of the proscenium wide videos that now impose video designer S. Katy Tucker’s take on Richard Wagner’s gloriously imposing soundscapes, beginning with the visual play of vastly magnified water molecules intended to introduce the theme of environmental destruction, an important element of the Zambello production.

As well digital technology in more recent years has added stage floor video and lighting possibilities to scenography. This was present in the checkerboard of video screens that was now the stage floor pavement offering the intrusion of ever greater color interpretation. Perhaps an unintended theme to Mme. Zambello’s production will be the tyranny of technology.

The most significant addition to the production is the splendid cast that was introduced to us last night starting with the elegant and cocky shyster Wotan of bass baritone Greer Grimsley. Mr. Grimsley’s well-focused voice promises us an unusually articulate Wotan who has a lot of tough stuff to come to grips with in the next two operas. Of startling effect was the Alberich of German bass baritone Falk Struckmann in his role debut. Mr. Struckmann, once a formidable Wotan himself, was of well-voiced, sufficiently evil stature to forge an amazing weapon of destruction (the ring) and impose its use (his curse).

Dominating the proceedings was the Loge of Czech tenor Stefan Margita (a veteran of the 2008 production in his role debut) — oh so charming, impertinent, supercilious and oh so profoundly cynical. Mr. Margita’s Rheingold Loge was of masterpiece status.


Fafner, Fasolt and Wotan

The Zambello Rheingold coup de théâtre is of course the builders of Valhalla, the giants (literally) Fasolt and Fafner. Fasolt, sung by baritone Raymond Aceto (tonight’s Hunding) is smoother and a bit smarter than Fafner, sung by bass Andrea Silvestrelli in a rough and dumb voice. Directorially his mutual infatuation with Freia, beautifully sung by the aspiring dramatic soprano Julie Adams, was ostentatiously overstated. Tenor Brandon Jovanovich (tonight’s Siegmund) added fun, empty-headed personality to Wagner’s conceited gods as Froh, and baritone Brian Mulligan redeemed his pallid Donner with a splendidly delivered command of the storm that clears the skies for a vision of Valhalla (unseen).

Mezzo soprano Jamie Barton as Wotan’s wife Fricka has yet to prove herself. That she may do tonight in Die Walküre. Plus we will find out on Friday much more about the Mime of David Cangelosi.

Some of the locales of this first installment of the “American” Ring seemed less specific. Huge billows of stage fog obliterated what I remembered as a gold prospector’s gully, and now the Rhine maidens were burdened with cumbersome, self conscious choreography. As the Rhine valley the Gilded Age ambience of the Newport R.I. was fully intact.

Mme. Zambello did not take a bow.

Cast and production information:

Wotan: Greer Grimsley; Alberich: Falk Struckmann; Loge: Stefan Margita; Mime: David Cangelosi; Froh: Brandon Jovanovich; Donner Brian Mulligan; Fasolt: Andrea Silvestrelli; Fafner: Raymond Aceto; Fricka: Jamie Barton; Freia: Julie Adams; Erda: Ronnita Miller; Woglinde: Stacey Tappan; Wellgunde: Lauren McNeese; Flosshilde: Renée Tatum. San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Conductor: Donald Runnicles; Production/Stage Director: Francesca Zambello; Associate Director and Choreographer: Denni Sayers; Set Designer: Michael Yearden; Costume Designer: Catherine Zuber; Lighting Designer: Mark McCullough; Original Projections: Jan Hartley; Additional Projections: S. Katy Tucker. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, June 12, 2018.

Die Walküre at San Francisco Opera


Greeer Brimsley as Wotan, Iréne Thoerin as Brünnhilde
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

The hero Siegfried in utero, Siegmund dead, Wotan humiliated, Brünnhilde asleep, San Francisco’s Ring ripped relentlessly into the shredded emotional lives of its gods and mortals. Conductor Donald Runnicles laid bare Richard Wagner’s score in its most heroic and in its most personal revelations, in their intimacy and in their exploding release.

This was an evening of almost unbearable tension, the age old torment of love vs. duty taken to the summit of nineteenth century operatic accomplishment — and into the higher reaches of twenty-first century staging accomplishment, from the fleeting video image of a wolf to Hunding’s Appalachian cabin, from Valhalla’s sweeping vista of a crumbling black and white world to its monumental cementic bowels, and finally to the Zambello Walküre’s signature image, the valkyries parachute arrival onto a mountain peak, a peak that then burst into a circle of actual, live flame.

Far more than about its timely concepts (the “American” Ring, American environmental destruction, the abuse and subjugation of women), last night’s Walküre was about opera. It fully exposed the current artistic and technical resources that allow twenty-first century opera to transcend mere theater and operatic tradition itself to transport us to ever rarer states and durations of artistic understanding.


Wotan and Brünnhilde

American bass-baritone Greer Grimsley’s Wotan, no longer the confident deal maker of Das Rheingold, was the sleek executive whose world began disintegrating when he took on its administration. Mr. Grimsley had hugely difficult encounters — with his wife Fricka, with his daughter Brünnhilde, and with himself when he learns that is daughter is, in fact, an extension of himself. Mr. Grimsley survived each encounter in magnificent voice, articulately humbling himself step-by-step to his very human and quite understandable and inescapable torment.

Swedish soprano Iréne Theorin, the valkyrie Brünnhilde burst onto the stage in a torrent of magnificent sounds that put to rest any regrets we may have harbored about the cast change (Evelyn Herlitzius cancelled at the last minute). Mme. Theorin brought the fiercely thrilling high notes of an Amazon warrior together with a richly warm, very feminine lower voice. With her significant use of piano and pianissimo tones this richness distilled her determined devotion to her father. But never far away were the forte’s of an emotional strength to be reckoned with.

The Fricka of American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton eschewed the dignity that becomes the protector of basic family law not to mention protector of basic dynastic rights. Mlle. Barton continued her contemptuous, comedic Das Rheingold Fricka, thereby eviscerating the sanctity and solidity of the social contracts that bedevil Die Walküre’s Wotan. There is no question that Mlle. Barton is a fine singer, that she created a significant Die Walküre Fricka is another question.


Siegmund and Sieglinde

There is no question that Finnish soprano Karita Mattila created a Sieglinde of requisite magnitude for the Zambello Walküre. The magnetic presence of this esteemed artist found the youth and the postures of an abused woman, her marital guilts and finally her pride as the wife of her brother and the mother of his child. It was a portrayal teetering on the edge of, somehow not surpassing, credibility — no small task for her adultery and incest. That Mme. Mattila could vocally create Sieglinde is another question.

American tenor Brandon Jovanovich brought perfection to his Siegmund, finding and exploiting the subtleties of the Wagnerian vocal line that gave immense, and new pleasures. Siegmund is a romantic hero with stories to tell. Jovanovich has the purity of voice to exploit the emotional innocence of Siegmund's adventures, and to fall victim to his hopeless love and to die for this love. With conductor Runnicles, Jovanovich and la Mattila brought the Act 1 love duet to its intended magical conclusion.

American bass Raymond Aceto created the Hollywood male predator, oozing masculinity and brute force, and doing all this in beautiful, intelligent voice while groping his wife Sieglinde. Entirely absent was a sympathy one might extend to this husband whose wife elopes with a stranger who stops by for the night.

Finally though this evening belonged to the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and its conductor Donald Runnicles whose presence was acutely and profoundly felt through the often exquisite performances on stage, and the staging itself which was expectedly masterful.

Cast and production information:

Brünnhilde: Iréne Theorin; Wotan: Greer Grimsley; Sieglinde: Karita Mattila; Siegmund: Brandon Jovanovich; Fricka: Jamie Barton; Hunding; Raymond Aceto; Siegrune: Laura Krumm; Grimgerde: Renée Rapier; Ortlinde: Sarah Cambidge; Gerhilde: Julie Adams; Rossweisse: Lauren McNeese; Schwertleite: Nicole Birkland; Helmwige: Melissa Citro; Waltraute: Renée Tatum. San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Conductor: Donald Runnicles; Production/Stage Director: Francesca Zambello; Associate Director: Laurie Feldman; Choreographer: Denni Sayers; Set Designer: Michael Yeargan; Costume Designer: Catherine Zuber; Lighting Designer: Mark McCullough; Projections: Jan Hartley. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, June 13, 2018.

Seigfried at San Francisco Opera


Daniel Brenna as Siegfried
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

We discover the child of incestuous love, we ponder a god’s confusion, we anticipate an awakening. Most of all we marvel at genius of the composer and admire the canny story telling of the Zambello production.

Though dubbed the “American” Ring there is nothing specifically American about this Siegfried except maybe the Siegfried — Wisconsin born Daniel Brenna, a veteran of the Washington D.C. Ring who has sung Siegfried in Budapest, Karlsruhe and Dijon as well.

In this Ring we relate to Wagner’s greedy dwarfs Alberich and his brother Mime perhaps as gypsies more than anything else, though for San Franciscans they might also be the classic, wily homeless (not unlike some of those on my block). They were Wagner’s Jews.

Mime’s dilapidated caravan (a gypsy image) is in a truly desolate setting, thus we know Mime is a loner, all the better to protect Siegfried, his ticket to the gold he covets. The Mime of American tenor David Cangelosi is slinking, garrulous and bubbling over with deceit — just perfect.


Falk Struckmann as Alberich, David Cangelosi as Mime

Mime’s bleak landscape is the only nature in the Zambello Ring beyond a few video references. There are no horses, there are no ravens, no forest bird, but there is Siegfried’s bear who playfully gallops onstage chased by his playmate Siegfried. The two creatures epitomize Wagner’s vision of unspoiled nature, and for Zambello tenor Brenner embodies a perfect portrait of wide and bright-eyed American innocence.

Of youthful visage and fine young voice tenor Brenna well embodied Wagner’s ideal of pure and indeed powerful nature. This innocence served him well through his almost joyful murders of Fafner and Mime and prepared him for his monumentally guileless encounters with the god Wotan and Wotan's once immortal daughter Brünnhilde.

Bass baritone Greer Grimsley’s heroic Wotan wanders through Siegfried’s industrially littered world in search of its and his destiny, the outcome he himself has willed to Siegfried. He encounters Siegfried’s protector Mime, and he encounters his arch rival Alberich, known to us since the initial moments of Das Rheingold in the personnage of Falk Struckmann, an imposing German bass baritone who is also known as a Wotan. As Alberich Mr. Struckmann's currency is gold, Wotan’s contracts forgotten.


Greer Grimsley as the Wanderer, Daniel Brenna as Siegfried

Wotan encounters Brunnhilde’s mother Erde in a scene where he completely loses his cool, and finally Wotan encounters Siegfried who shatters his creator's spear into which is imbued all social order. In all these encounters Grimsley’s Wotan exploits a humanity that is profoundly tragic and richly heroic, knowing finally that he himself has willed his destruction. And tenor Brenna musters the magnitude of innocent force to equal Grimsley’s resigned humanity in this spellbinding scene created by these two gifted actors.

The Forest Bird is no bird but rather a simple human creature who normally might have been Siegfried’s first love. Destiny however leads Siegfried to Brünnhilde. This final scene of the opera is spellbinding as well, playing on the youthful and direct voice of Siegfried in contrast to the powerful, mature voice of Wotan’s fallen daughter Brünnhilde, Swedish soprano Iréne Theorin. If at first the disparity of vocal production in this climactic scene is musically jarring, upon reflection it brilliantly sets up the tensions that will obsess us for the last, lengthy installment of the Ring.

A Ring given truly rich life by conductor Donald Runnicles and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra.

Cast and production information:

Mime: David Cangelosi; Siegfried: Daniel Brenna; Brünnhilde: Iréne Theorin; Wotan: Greer Grimsley; Alberich: Falk Struckmann; Fafner: Raymond Aceto; Forest Bird: Stacey Tap;pan; Erda: Ronnita Miller. San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Conductor: Donald Runnicles; Production/Stage Director: Francesca Zambello; Associate Director: Laurie Feldman; Choreographer: Denni Sayers; Set Designer: Michael Yeargan; Costume Designer: Catherine Zuber; Lighting Designer: Mark McCullough; Projections: Jan Hartley. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, June 15, 2018.

Götterdämmerung at San Francisco Opera


Alberich appears to Hagen in a dream
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

The truly tragic moments of this long history rich in humanity behind us we embark on the sordid tale of the Lord of the Gibichungs’s marriage to Brünnhilde and the cowardly murder of Siegfried, to arrive at some sort of conclusion where Brünnhilde sacrifices herself to somehow empower women. Or something.

The Zambello Ring is big, and particularly Götterdämmerung is huge. There is a lot of video — Wagner’s musical interludes are always fully illustrated. Some of this surprisingly successful video was newly created for this revival by S. Katy Tucker, earlier created videos were by Jan Hartley.

There is a lot of architecture — abandoned warehouse buildings of some post-industrial era, monumental civic structures, crumbling elevated cement roadways, there are tons of plastic bottles that litter a dried up river bed. In this re-mounting of the 2011 San Francisco Ring the sets designed by Michael Yeargan have become fully absorbed into the telling of the saga, and fully achieve Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwert where words and music are one with sight, an achievement to be savored as it is indeed rare.

The Donald Runnicles Ring is big, well exploiting the full resources of the eighty-nine players of the admirable San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Seated on the left side of the theater the magnitude of sound flowed gloriously across the expanse of the theater to fully absorb me into its myriad of leitmotivic detail and massive ensemble. The Wagnerian Rhine, its reality and its myth, was fully present in the Runnicles reading.

The signature image of the Götterdämmerung is the massive computer mother board and the three norns who plug and replug cables until one snaps in the famous orchestral clap and we enter the pitiful world of the Gibichungs (FYI fourth century Burgandians) whose leader is the unmarried Gunter, his sister Gutrune is also unmarried. Alberich’s son Hagen manipulates these two weak creatures into disastrous marriages to further his goal of becoming lord of the ring and possessor of the massive hoard of gold.


Hagen kills Siegfried. The Ring production costume designer is Catherine Zuber.

San Francisco Opera’s house bass Andrea Silvestrelli sang Hagen. Mr. Silvestrelli’s extraordinary height plus his dark, rough and powerful voice gave a strong presence to this cunning personnage who cruelly orchestrates the marital disasters. Though you might wish for more elegance of sound and subtlety of character, Mr. Silverstrelli certainly did the job, playing the role to the hilt.

San Francisco Opera house baritone Brian Mulligan sang Gunter. Mr. Mulligan possesses a very beautiful, Italianate voice without supplying a persuasive presence. This worked for establishing a certain character for Gunter though you might have wished for a less lyric voice and a more forward personality. Mr. Mulligan did succeed in making Gunter pathetic, evoking my reluctant sympathies for such a weakness.

We first encountered mezzo soprano Jamie Barton as a contemptuous Fricka. In Götterdämmerung she sings Waltraute, Brünnhilde’s valkyrie sister who comes to Brünnhilde to beg her to return the ring to the Rhine, to break its curse and perhaps save the gods. It is our last reference to Wotan before his annihilation in the opera’s last moments. Unfortunately Mlle. Barton was unable to achieve the angst and the gravitas that might have moved Brünnhilde to save her father. The complexity of the pathos of this scene were lost in its pallid reading.


Siegfried and his two brides. Gutrune (right) sung by Melissa Citro

Soprano Iréne Theorin perservered through it all. In firm Brünnhilde character she ferociously denounced her marriage to Gunter, and together with Hagan and Gunter she swore revenge on Siegfried, this spectacular marriage scene set in the monumental architecture of the Gibichung Hall. She remained in equal vocal radiance for her immolation. Tenor Daniel Brenna’s Siegfried perservered through it all to make, finally, his scene with the Rhine maidens one of the memorable moments of the entire Ring. Maestro Runnicles brought earth shattering pathos to Siegfried’s death, freezing for eternity the complex emotions of this climactic moment.

After much sublime poetry over sixteen or so hours of one of the finest Rings I have ever seen, the immolation of Brünnhilde and the gods of Valhalla was strangely prosaic. Inexplicably, or maybe as victimized sisters Gutrune, Siegfried’s wife, stood by Brünnhilde’s during the valkerie's invocation to the ravens (unseen) to fly to Valhalla. The female chorus joined the Rhine maidens and Gutrune on stage for Brünnhilde’s horseless immolation. The radiant calm of the Ring’s final music was captured by the Rhine maidens energetically swirling great swathes of gold cloth.

Cast and production information:

Brunnhilde: Irene Thorin; Siegfried: Daniel Brenna; Gunther: Brian Mulligan; Hagen: Andrea Silvestrelli; Waltraute: Jamie Barton; Gutrune: Melissa Citro; Alberich: Falk Struckmann; First Norn: Ronnita Miller; Second Norn: Jamie Barton; Third Norn: Sarah Cambidge; Woglinde: Stacey Tappan; Wellgunde: Lauren McNeese; Flosshilde: Renée Tatum. Chorus and orchestra of the San Francisco Opera. Conductor: Donald Runnicles; Production/Stage Director: Francesca Zambello; Associate Director: Laurie Feldman; Choreographer: Denni Sayers; Set Designer: Michael Yeargan; Costume Designer: Catherine Zuber; Lighting Designer: Mark McCullough; Projections: Jan Hartley. War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, June 17, 2018.