I couldn't believe my ears. David Gockley, the new general director of the San Francisco Opera, who looks like a cross between a choir boy and an investment banker, kept using this word that I had to ask him to repeat. Finally, he looked at me quizzically — he knew I was representing the B.A.R. — and asked, "Don't you know what fisting is?"

And then it dawned on me. Centering on so-called "Eurotrash," we'd been discussing outlandish opera productions — me grumping about the last five years in SF, and he diplomatically not criticizing his "predecessor," as he refers to Pamela Rosenberg. Calixto Bieto, the Catalan madman whose opera productions are notorious for irrelevant kinky sex and bathroom references, had apparently included a fisting scene (among other delights) in his Berlin Abduction from the Seraglio.

It's difficult to stump me, but while I sat there goggling, blinking and thinking the worst, Gockley smiled kindly and said, "Exactly. We won't be having Mr. Bieto or his ilk in San Francisco." Phew! There may be some B.A.R. readers who think this is a bad (or unprogressive) policy, but I have never heard one single real opera-lover — no matter how spicy or unusual his private life — tell me he liked a Bieto production, or that it added anything to his knowledge of and/or passion for the art form.

Gockley, who will be 63 in July, has been for the last 33 years director of the Houston Grand Opera, where they give more world premieres than any other American company. Many of them were forgettable, but John Adams' Nixon in China and Daniel Catan's Florencia en el Amazonas have become repertory staples around the world. HGO also boasted in its rep Show Boat and Porgy and Bess, important American opera/musical theater works more honored than performed. Plus, HGO gave the American premiere of my favorite Philip Glass opera, the hypnotic Ahknaten. Gockley promises that many of these will eventually surface at SFO, and he has already commissioned Glass to write Appomattox, an American Civil War subject.

Gockley's

San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley. Photo: Michael Winokur

reign in Houston caused some consternation with the tradition-bound locals, Bible Belt fanatics and other groups who seemed dead-set against his ideas of opera as music theater. He is self-acknowledged as a "visual guy," which could initiate a deja vu attack in the heart of any "canary fancier" who was appalled by the last five years at SFO. What is the difference, for instance, between Gockley's stand and Rosenberg's noble if entirely misguided intention to drag SFO kicking and screaming into the 21st century?

The difference is, as the Prima Donna notes in Ariadne auf Naxos, "ein Welt" (a world), because Gockley, unlike his predecessor, is a trained musician who studied composition and conducting as well as singing. He had a minor career as a light baritone, with an emphasis on Mozart (Guglielmo, Papageno). He claims his heaviest role was Nick Shadow, and there is a bit of the Trickster in him, from the smutty sense of humor to the earnest sincerity of his promises. His first words at his initial press conference were to hail the ghosts of   "Mirella [Freni], Joan [Sutherland] and Beverly [Sills]." He promises us Natalie Dessay, Angela Gheorghiu and Barbara Frittoli. While I was practically weeping with pleasure, he topped that with Marcelo Alvarez and (you may never have heard this name, but you will) Jonas Kaufmann.

Ring tones

So what can we look forward to? The Francesca Zambello "American" Ring has already been announced and the first segment seen in DC, where it got only respectful notices. More important, by the time it is mounted in SF, who will sing it? Today there are no major league, big-house Wotans, Brunnhildes or Siegfrieds I would care to hear in five years. Gockley is also discussing with Stewart Wallace (composer of Harvey Milk) a work based on Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter .

Two productions that had been repeatedly mentioned by Rosenberg's regime were Tan Dun's Tea and Berlioz's Les Troyens. The former was deemed unsuitable for the War Memorial. But Gockley likes the piece and is "looking for another venue, possibly Berkeley?" As for Troyens, apparently Rosenberg didn't cast it beyond wanting Alice Coote for Didon. The male lead, Enee, is the opera's most difficult role. (As Richard Bonynge used to say, "If you don't have an Aida, don't do Aida .") I also gather that the shared ENO/SFO production, which my London friends thought was beyond ghastly, did not please Gockley. Troyens is "indefinitely postponed."

Most of all, Gockley claims he wants to produce opera that is "beautifully done. With the emotions drawn out: love, hate, jealousy, revenge. We want to relive the human condition through music." One of the ways to achieve that lofty goal is to surround yourself with people who respond to the director's enthusiasm with practical solutions. There has been a significant turnover at the top of the SFO Board of Directors; Rosenberg's chief apologist is out. Gockley immediately hired a smart new PR team and brought Shane Gasbarra from Houston to be the new director of artistic and music administration. Gasbarra has already forged an agreement with the musicians' union.

The most significant hire, however, may be Marcia Lazer, the new marketing director. She has to restore the opera's public "face" with advertisements that previously demonstrated that SFO was being sold by people who didn't know jack, to people who couldn't care less. Whatever happens operatically under David Gockley's stewardship, we should no longer sense that debilitating operatic cluelessness that blighted the last five years.

This summer's Marriage of Figaro and Madama Butterfly will pretty much sell themselves, but Tchaikovsky's Orleanskya Deva (1881) — The Maid of Orleans in English, not Joan of Arc, please; that's an opera by Verdi — may seem obscure. It shouldn't. By one of the greatest romantic composers, and with super diva Dolora Zajick in the title role, it is a classic French grand opera, tuneful and passionate. Give it a chance.

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