Composer Nolan Gasser’s opera “The Secret Garden,” based on the moving story from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic 1910 book, is a feast for the eyes and ears.
The joint San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances presentation is meant to attract families. Sunday’s matinee audience at Zellerbach Hall was filled with young folks who were quietly attentive and enthusiastic with applause.
Read More
David Gockley is again the catalyst for a rare venture: an opera created with families in mind.
With Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” among the few operas written for children, the San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances aim to add to the under-represented genre with “The Secret Garden.”
Read More
Grand spectaculars of opera and musical theater are on tap for the San Francisco Opera’s 2013-14
season.
General director David Gockley announced Monday that the season will open Sept. 6 with Arrigo Boito’s 1868 mighty, ultra-romantic, Wagner-scale “Mefistofele” in Robert Carsen’s sensational production last seen here in 1994.
The work fits well into 2013’s Verdi-Wagner bicentennial in that it was composed by Verdi librettist Boito and admired by Verdi.
Read More
Giacomo Puccini's 1900 "Tosca," one of world's most popular operas, has love, jealousy, political oppression, an evil tyrant, torture, murder, execution, a suicide leap... and great music.
But when San Francisco Opera's double-cast run of 12 performances opened Thursday, there was more: the diva took ill, the understudy stepped in, and a star was born. The young local favorite received an ovation that shook the walls of the War Memorial Opera House.
Read More
"Romeo and Juliet" without Shakespeare – it’s a seemingly impossible prospect. Yet that's what San Francisco Opera is serving up in "The Capulets and the Montagues," a messy production that surprisingly turns into a rare musical treat featuring vocal brilliance.
Vincenzo Bellini and his hapless librettist discarded Shakespeare and came up with their own static, nonsensical version of the story in the 1830 opera.
Read More
With megawatts of renewable energy, the San Francisco Opera orchestra and chorus gave a memorably robust performance on the company's 90th season opening Friday.
Read More
The San Francisco Opera’s 90th season opens Friday with a romantic crowd-pleaser so popular that General Director David Gockley has scheduled 12 performances. The production of Verdi’s 1851 “Rigoletto,” a sweeping melodrama of love and betrayal, is a revival of a Michael Yeargan-designed work. San Francisco Opera Music Director Nicola Luisotti (“who makes every Verdi opera he conducts into an event,” Gockley says) leads the orchestra.
Read More
Around Town
DanceFringe-style festival: The Walking Distance Dance Festival SF offers the chance to see local and national dance notables, fringe-festival style. Today’s bill includes inkBoat and ODC/Dance. [2 and 4 p.m., ODC Complex, 3153 17th St., S.F.]
Read More
San Francisco Opera’s unusual and impressive new production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" melds music, art and technology in a delightful mix.
Instead of a conventional set, it features 3,000 tempera-and-chalk paintings by Jun Kaneko projected over the stage.
Read More
At the conclusion of the San Francisco Opera’s opening of Giuseppe Verdi’s 1846 “Attila” Tuesday, general director David Gockley presented chorus director Ian Robertson with the San Francisco Opera Medal. The timing was excellent. Robertson’s chorus shined just as brightly as it did in last week’s premiere of John Adams’ “Nixon in China” and provided the opera’s highlights.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/taxonomy/term/5378
