Credit: Marica Rosengard Celebrated Finnish soprano Karita Mattila has been awarded the Order of the Lion of Finland, First Class Commander Badge. The Order of the Lion of Finland is one of three official orders in Finland, along with the Order of the Cross of Liberty and the Order of the White Rose of Finland. The famed Finnish soprano has {…}
Soprano Eugenia Ratti died in her hometown of Piacenza on November 16, 2020 at the age of 87. Ratti was a contemporary of Maria Callas, singing opposite the famed soprano in 1957 at Teatro alla Scala as Lisa in the Visconti production of “La sonnambula,” conducted by Leonard Bernstein. She also replaced Callas as Rosina in The Dallas Opera’s 1959 {…}
San Francisco Opera is set to stream “Celebrating the Voices of San Francisco Opera” on Dec. 4, 2020, at 7:30 p.m. PT. The virtual concert will feature a number of major artists including Janai Brugger, Ashley Dixon, Amina Edris, Sondra Radvanovsky, Michael Fabiano, Pene Pati, Artur Ruciński, Alfred Walker, Nicola Luisotti, and Members of the Company, performing from around the {…}
(Terrence McCarthy/ San Francisco Opera) The San Francisco Opera will continue its Opera is On series starting Oct. 31 and running through Nov. 29, 2020. The month begins with San Francisco Opera’s 2008 presentation of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” starring Natalie Dessay, Giuseppe Filianoti, Gabriele Viviani, and Oren Gradus. The production is directed by Graham Vick and Jean-Yves Ossonce conducts. {…}
San Francisco Opera has announced that it will be holding an online sale of costumes worn by artists on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House, allowing opera fans and costume lovers the chance to purchase some of these rare ensembles. The sale will begin at 12pm on Friday, Nov. 13, and will run until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, {…}
San Francisco Opera has announced the launch of its Company Relief Challenge, a $5 million matching fund to help the company through this challenging time. The fund will match one-to-one annual gifts, pledges, and donated ticket funds through Nov. 23, 2020. “We are a company of makers and creators, each season employing hundreds of the world’s leading singers, instrumentalists, designers, {…}
(Credit: Opus 3 Artists official website) The Office of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has announced the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2020. Among those honored was General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin Donald Cameron Runnicles, who has been bestowed with the title of the Knights Bachelor, for services to Music. Donald Runnicles is concurrently the General Music Director {…}
San Francisco’s spring opera production of “Death in Venice” in 1975 was the real deal—the ingenious novella of German writer, Thomas Mann, turned into a haunting and exquisite opera by the English composer Benjamin Britten, libretto by Mfanwy Piper. The production was created by the remarkable Gerald Freedman, a well-known American theater and opera director, assistant not only to New {…}
San Francisco Ballet and San Francisco Opera, in collaboration with the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, have announced that their seat replacement project, originally scheduled for the summer of 2021 will take place between September of 2020 and January of 2021. This final phase of the project will complete renovations to the center, which is used by {…}
(Credit: Richard Termine) San Francisco Opera’s Department of Diversity, Equity and Community will continue its online, weekly, interactive lecture series, “Opera Aficionado,” throughout the month of August with a focus on social themes in opera. The new lectures will take a dive into the politics of composer John Adams’ work to discussions about Black voices in contemporary opera and will {…}
Keeping audiences connected over the summer, San Francisco Opera has expanded its online programming with a number of broadcasts, discussions, workshops, and more. Through the month of July, the company’s “Opera in an Hour Movies” will be available to stream on-demand. These family-friendly streams include lesson plans and educational resources that were previously only accessible to teachers in the Bay {…}