(Credit: Chris Singer/Fay Fox/Yan Bleney/Bree Anne Clowdus)

The San Francisco Opera has announced its 2021-22 season featuring a variety of classic works and some of the greatest stars in the industry.

The season will open with Puccini’s “Tosca“ with Eun Sun Kim conducting an all-star cast that includes soprano Ailyn Pérez as Tosca, tenor Michael Fabiano as Cavaradossi, and bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Scarpia.

For the production, SF Opera will require patrons to show proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours of performance or antigen test taken within 1 day of performance along with a photo ID. Patrons will also have to wear a face mask while attending performances.

Performance Dates: August 21–Sept. 5, 2021

On September 10, Eun Sun Kim will lead “Live and In Concert: The Homecoming” featuring the San Francisco Opera Orchestra with soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen and mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton. The concert will commemorate the Company’s return to the Opera House.

Performance Date: Sept. 10, 2021

Beethoven’s “Fidelio“ will be directed by Matthew Ozawa in a production that will update the opera’s setting from an eighteenth-century prison to a modern government detainment center. Eun Sun Kim conducts the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Chorus and a cast headed by Elza van den Heever as Leonore, Russell Thomas, Greer Grimsley, James Creswell, Soloman Howard, MacIntosh, and Christopher Oglesby.

Performance Date: Oct. 14–30, 2021

Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy

San Francisco Opera continues its multi-year project of staging the three operatic collaborations of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte as a trilogy of works set in an American house across a 300-year timespan.

The new staging of Mozart’s “Così fan tutte” will feature soprano Nicole Cabell and mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts as Fiordiligi and Dorabella, tenor Ben Bliss and baritone John Brancy as Ferrando and Guglielmo. The cast also includes Ferruccio Furlanetto as Don Alfonso andNicole Heaston.

Performance Date: Nov. 21–Dec. 3, 2021

“Don Giovanni” will be conducted by Bertrand de Billy and will star Etienne Dupuis, Adela Zaharia, Luca Pisaroni, Carmen Giannattasio, Amitai Pati is Don Ottavio, Christina Gansch, and Soloman Howard.

Performance Date: June 4–July 2, 2022

Bright Sheng and David Henry Hwang’s “Dream of the Red Chamber” will be revived with Tenor Yijie Shi, soprano Karen Chia-ling Ho, and mezzo-soprano Hyona Kim. The cast will also include Meigui Zhang, Dai Yu, Hongni Wu,  Sabina Kim, and Guang Yang. Singaporean maestro Darrell Ang conducts.

Performance Date: June 14–July 3, 2022

The Company’s Summer 2022 will showcase Eun Sun Kim in a Verdi gala with music from “Luisa Miller,” “Don Carlo,” “Aida,” “Il Trovatore” and other works. The concert will star Nicole Car, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, and Soloman Howard.

Performance Date: June 30, 2022

The Atrium Sessions & Ongoing Digital Content

San Francisco Opera’s free, new digital content initiatives, created in partnership with Lumahai Productions, will expand in September 2021 with the premiere of The Atrium Sessions. Filmed inside the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater, feature the talents of San Francisco Opera artists in miniature masterpieces by Claude Debussy, Clara Schumann, Florence Price, Noël Coward, and Gabriela Lena Frank. The concerts will star Soprano Rhoslyn Jones, mezzo-soprano Laura Krumm, baritones Edward Nelson and Efraín Solís and bass-baritone Michael Sumuel, all graduates of the San Francisco Opera Center’s training programs.

Recently launched digital content, including the In Song video portrait series and the North Stage Door podcast, continue this summer and into the new season.

Livestreams 

On Sept. 10, opera lovers, baseball fans and tens of thousands of Bay Area citizens will have the opportunity to celebrate Eun Sun Kim’s arrival as music director together in Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.

The company will share two of its fall productions from Eun Sun Kim’s inaugural season beyond the walls of the Opera House. Offered for the first time in Company history, a live stream option for select performances will enable audiences to experience San Francisco Opera from anywhere in the world. The season will include live streams of “Fidelio” and “Così fan tutte.”