The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: Donald Runnicles
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The departing music director of the San Francisco Opera, Donald Runnicles, is featured in this article from Joshua Kosman. He conducts Verdi's Requiem this Friday, and La Traviata next month, both at the War Memorial. Article in the Chronicle | Official Site
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* Notes * Nearly 88 years after the world premiere, Die Tote Stadt finally opened in San Francisco yesterday evening. The work is certainly a very pretty synthesis of Wagner, Strauss, and Puccini. It is nostalgic, but also prefigures Korngold's work in film scores. The music sounded effortless under the direction of Donald Runnicles, the…
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Yesterday evening Kip Cranna moderated a panel discussion on Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Die Tote Stadt, which has a San Francisco premiere tonight. The panelists included baritone Lucas Meachem (Fritz, Frank), the revival director Meisje Hummel, and conductor Donald Runnicles. The discussion was one of the more informative, and it is too bad San Francisco Opera neglected to put the talk…
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* Notes * Francesca Zambello's American-inspired Das Rheingold opened last night at San Francisco Opera. The video projections, the work of Jan Hartley, varied from completely campy to tastefully elegant. The first projections did have me in stitches though, and not in a good way. They looked like the opening credits to the Star Wars…
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Kip Cranna moderated a panel discussion on Das Rheingold yesterday evening at Herbst Theatre. The panelists included conductor Donald Runnicles, baritone Mark Delavan (Wotan), baritone Richard Paul Fink (Alberich), mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore (Fricka), and associate director Christian Räth. There was a fair amount of good natured teasing between the singers and conductor. Everyone was quite…
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* Notes * Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Benjamin Britten's music, I did attend today's simulcast of Peter Grimes. Some of Britten's rhythms in this opera were of interest, particularly the sea shanty at the end of Act I. Unlike the protagonists of Billy Budd or The Turn of the Screw, the character of…
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I've noticed a fair amount of people coming to this blog in search of San Francisco Opera's next season, which will be announced this week. Certainly we have some insight into the programming, Stewart Wallace's The Bonesetter's Daughter will have its world premiere, Qian Yi will be in the lead role with her San Francisco…
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* Notes * Yet another revival of Madama Butterfly opened today at San Francisco Opera. When I heard this opera was added to the season, I wondered if I would avoid it. I was pretty bored by it already the last time it was here in the summer of 2006, despite not having seen it…
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* Notes * Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress opened yesterday in a co-production with Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Opéra de Lyon, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, and Teatro Real Madrid. The opera was taken from the 16th century into the 1950s, so taken from when Hogarth's paintings are set to when the opera was premiered. The…
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Donald Runnicles, the current music director at San Francisco Opera, will become the next general music director at Deutsche Oper Berlin, starting August 1, 2009. Press Release (In German) | Biography | Official Site
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