Month: June 2019

The Santa Fe Opera opened its 2019 season with a new production of Puccini’s “La Boheme”, directed by Mary Birnbaum. Vanessa Vasquez’ Mimi The evening proved to be a triumph for Arizona soprano Vanessa Vasquez as Mimi, leading an impressive young cast. [Below: Mimi (Vanessa Vasquez, standing, center) joins (seated from left to right) Rodolfo … Read more

The San Francisco Opera’s final offering of its 2018-19 season was Sir David McVicar’s production of Dvorak’s “Rusalka”, the story of a human Prince and the water-sprite Rusalka, each an inhabitant of a separate world. Although Rusalka and the Prince both wish to love one another, the forces that weigh against that love ultimately dooms … Read more

For only the second time in its history, the San Francisco Opera mounted a production of Handel’s operatic masterpiece, “Orlando”. Its first series of performances took place 34 years ago, during a time when baroque opera was only beginning to be performed regularly after an absence from the operatic stage of two centuries. For 2019, … Read more

The San Francisco Opera typically mounts five operas every fall and mounts three more the following summer. Tonight the second part of the company’s 2018-19 season opened with New York director Francesca Zambello’s production of Bizet’s “Carmen”, based on Zambello’s 2006 production for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Norwegian Opera. J’Nai Bridges … Read more