The Opera Tattler

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A Preview of SF Opera’s Serse

Sfopera-xerxes-acti* Notes * 
Händel’s Serse (Act I pictured left, photograph by Cory Weaver) opens this afternoon at San Francisco Opera, and I for one am quite sad not to attend. Instead I offer you a preview, based on attendance of rehearsals. Nicholas Hytner’s production, directed here by Michael Walling, originates from English National Opera and was last seen at Houston Grand Opera. The palette employed for the set is pleasingly spring-like, with much white and green. The supernumeraries are white and are wearing bald caps. The chorus is painted grey, and seem to look quite like statues.

Patrick Summers, last seen on the San Francisco Opera podium for Heart of a Soldier, conducts these performances. The cast includes many fine singers, including David Daniels (Arsamene), Lisette Oropesa (Romilda), and most of all, Susan Graham in the title role. The supporting cast is also promising. Heidi Stober was very funny as Atalanta in Houston, as was Sonia Prina (Amastre), and they reprise these roles in San Francisco. Both Wayne Tigges (Ariodate) and Michael Sumuel (Elviro) made their San Francisco Opera debuts in Heart of a Soldier earlier this season. One may have heard Tigges as Donner in Los Angeles Opera‘s recent Ring cycle. Sumuel sure to be winsome in his comic role.

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6 responses to “A Preview of SF Opera’s Serse”

  1. upstairs tenor Avatar
    upstairs tenor

    Wayne Tigges sang a small role in Heart of a Soldier, so that would have been his debut.

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  2. The Opera Tattler Avatar
    The Opera Tattler

    How right you are, thank you!

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  3. Jason Victor Serinus Avatar
    Jason Victor Serinus

    Just think. You also missed Berkeley West Edge Opera’s opening performance of Ariadne auf Naxos.
    What my review of Xerxes for SFCV doesn’t include is the tattling. Where Is Charlise when we really need her?
    In the orchestra Row M, maybe seat 10, a woman’s hearing apparatus emitted a buzz so distracting that, after the first 10 minutes, I was forced to bolt for an empty seat farther up. (Thank god it was empty). I simply could not focus on the music, it was so loud.
    I talked to her and her companion during intermission, but they claimed the buzzing had stopped after 10 minutes. My husband, David, who did not split with me, said that it had kept on going. I asked some people around them, but they were so hearing impaired that one woman asked me to repeat the question because she couldn’t hear it. At that point, I gave up and decided to stick to the closer seat, which remained open. David joined me in the third act. As for the woman with the hearing apparatus and her companion, they had left by then.
    I can’t believe a woman pressed the keys of her phone all through a major Mozart aria. If she had been near me….

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  4. The Opera Tattler Avatar
    The Opera Tattler

    Baroque operas often bring out the absolute worst behavior.

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  5. Chingi Chi Avatar
    Chingi Chi

    Are you going to Xerxes again?

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  6. The Opera Tattler Avatar
    The Opera Tattler

    Yes, definitely.

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