The San Francisco Opera announced season repertory and casting for 2019-20 this week, and positive first impressions were confirmed in a conversation with General Director Matthew Shilvock. The Company's 97th season marks the second to be fully programmed by his administration, and ratifies his quest to grow SFO's relevance to the community.
There is something for everyone in a variety of operatic styles. For the first time, at the beginning of the subscription period, the Company has a Design Your Own (DYO) option that lets ticket-buyers pick their own series (minimum of four) with subscriber savings and benefits.
Shilvock's vision includes everyone from devotees to first-timers. His enthusiasm was apparent as he described exciting productions and opening-week events. San Francisco is an opera town, and music-lovers are as involved as sports fans. The 2019-20 rosters should have everyone eagerly scoping the line-up.
The official press release leads with the final production of the 2020 summer season, the Bay Area premiere of "The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs" (June 20-July 3) by composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell. The co-commission among SFO, the Santa Fe Opera and Seattle Opera, with support from Cal Performances and co-produced with Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, explores the Bay Area visionary's life, with Bates himself performing with the Orchestra as Michael Christie conducts.
We will preview the highly anticipated premiere later, and also take a closer look at the infrequently performed (but big hit during California's Gold Rush) "Ernani" by Giuseppe Verdi (June 7-July 2), as well as the revival of director Christopher Alden's entertaining production of Handel's "Partenope" (June 12-27). It is enough to concentrate on fall for now, with advice to visit the SFO website before "Steve Jobs" is sold out. Audiences still have this summer's season to look forward to, but word to the wise: the Box Office is taking orders now, and the DYO option rolled out on Jan. 22.
Opening night at the Opera is fabulous, but opening week is fun, too. Free "Opera in the Park" is scheduled Sun., Sept. 8. Charles Gounod's lyrical "Romeo and Juliet" (Sept. 6-Oct. 1) offers a suitably romantic theme for the festivities. After an absence of 31 years, French-Canadian Yves Abel conducts Opera de Monte-Carlo Director Jean-Louis Grinda's Italian Renaissance staging. Tenor Bryan Hymel and soprano Nadine Sierra portray the famous lovers.
Hymel won raves in 2015 in SFO's "Les Troyens," and Sierra adds Juliet to her SFO repertoire, which includes Mozart heroines and Donizetti's Lucia. Her Musetta in "La Boheme" 2014 was luscious. Recipient of the 2017 Richard Tucker Award and the Metropolitan Opera's Beverly Sills Award in 2018, the former SFO Adler Fellow is also an alumnus of SFO's Merola Opera Program.
Another Merola alum, American baritone John Chest, is a leading artist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin who recently sang at Glyndebourne. He makes his Company debut in the title role of Benjamin Britten's powerful "Billy Budd" (Sept. 7-22). American tenor William Burden, recent star of "It's a Wonderful Life," portrays agonized Captain Vere, and distinctive bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, winner of the 2018 Richard Tucker Award, completes the triangle of protagonists in an all-male cast as Claggart, one of the most complex baddies in modern opera.
Amazingly, Britten has not been heard in the War Memorial Opera House for 15 years, but Shilvock's collective is making up for lost time. Tony and Olivier Award-winning director Michael Grandage's acclaimed production was first seen at the 2010 Glyndebourne Festival, and later revived at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2014. The two-act edition unfolds in production designer Christopher Oram's "breathtaking hulk of a set." With the men of Ian Robertson's SFO Chorus as the crew, and Lawrence Renes, who led the SFO premiere of John Adams' "Nixon in China" in 2012, conducting, this will be a major season highlight.
A new production of Mozart and Da Ponte's comic "The Marriage of Figaro" (Oct. 11-Nov. 1) begins a multi-season project combining the three Mozart-Da Ponte operas, which include "Cos� fan tutte" and "Don Giovanni," into a trilogy. The fascinating idea was pitched to Canadian director Michael Cavanagh, whose SFO credits include striking productions of Carlisle Floyd's "Susannah" and Adams' "Nixon in China." He was responsible for a misguided "Lucia di Lammermoor" in 2015, but if you can't say something nice... Cavanagh joins an exciting creative team constructing a narrative arc that follows human relationships and society within a single house over three eras of American history. Is there a future summer festival on the horizon?
A season without Puccini would be unthinkable. "Manon Lescaut" (Nov. 8-26) brings SFO favorites Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian and American tenor Brian Jagde (former Merola participant and Adler Fellow) to star as the doomed lovers. Former SFO music director Nicola Luisotti returns to add his expertise to one of the composer's early successes.
The holidays arrive with Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" (Nov. 15-Dec. 7). I share Shilvock's admiration of the score's Wagnerian breadth and universal appeal. This is a fairy tale that doesn't make grown-ups cringe. Presenting it in English is a good decision. Company favorites take the title parts; mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke (back in June to play Steve Jobs' wife) is Hansel, and soprano Heidi Stober is Gretel. Mezzo-soprano Michaela Martens and bass-baritone Alfred Walker are their parents. The wicked Witch is tenor Robert Brubaker (memorably creepy as Aegisth in SFO's "Elektra"). Co-produced with London's Royal Opera, Covent Garden, British director and production designer Antony McDonald's spectacle will be conducted by San Francisco-born Christopher Franklin.
Matthew Shilvock says, "The operas of the 2019-20 season will bring us together in shared exploration of human relationships and the bonds that connect us."
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