The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: San Francisco Opera
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The last opera of the season was Così fan tutte, which also had opened it last Fall. The co-production, owned by Opera Monte Carlo and San Francisco Opera, was produced by John Cox and directed by Jose Maria Condemi. Robert Perdziola’s charming set was updated to a WWI era resort, which worked splendidly. Fiordiligi does…
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The joint San Diego Opera and Michigan Opera Theatre production of Les Pêcheurs de Perles might have been pleasant, despite its absurd Orientalist plot, unsynchronized dancing (courtesy of the San Francisco Ballet), and lurid set, but in the end it is Bizet who lets us down. One should not end one's opera by sending away…
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The Netherlands Opera production of Eugene Onegin ended its run at San Francisco Opera today. Director Johannes Schaaf finally brought us something that is stripped down but works, unlike the ugly minimalism of Kát’a Kabanová, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, or Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The lines are clean, but one doesn’t feel as if one…
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The last performance of Der Fliegende Holländer this season was this evening. The production came from the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and was directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Raimund Bauer’s set was stark and Andrea Schmidt-Futterer’s costumes were reminiscent of samurai from space. Denni Sayers’ choreography was slightly clunky, the women spinning their hair was especially…
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The last performance of Ligeti’s Le Grande Macabre this season was this afternoon. I must admit, I only went out of force of habit, as I had attended a performance of this the previous month and was duly unimpressed. Ligeti’s music is cacophonous, the libretto is absurd, and the production involved cross-dressing, spousal abuse, Venus…
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Sara Jobin conducted this particular performance of Tosca, and it was her San Francisco Opera debut, and the first time a woman has conducted during the main season of this opera house. The production is one owned by San Francisco Opera, and is revived every two or three years. Soprano Carol Vaness has the dubious…
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The alternate cast for San Francisco Opera’s La Traviata was stunningly good. The perennial favorite, soprano Ruth Ann Swenson, was replaced by Mary Dunleavy in the last two performances. Swenson is very precise, her tone is extremely sweet and bell-like. Dunleavy is perhaps more vital, her voice is very strong. Baritone Željko Lučić sang beautifully…
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Britten’s Billy Budd returned to San Francisco Opera for the second time in twenty years. Willy Decker’s sedate and elegant production was designed by Wolfgang Gussmann and staged by Sabine Hartmannshenn. The music was certainly more charming than Britten’s work Death in Venice, particularly the absurd duet "Don’t Like The French!," whose words include "hoppity-skippity…
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Ferruccio Busoni’s Doctor Faustus ended the 2003-2004 season at San Francisco Opera. It was a co-production with Staatsoper Stuttgart, which was immediately apparent, as the set looked very much like the inside of a laboratory. I felt I was suddenly transported back to Munich! The music was unmemorable, neither pleasing nor displeasing. Rodney Gilfry’s voice…
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The saving grace of Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen is this opera’s brevity, a mere 1 hour and 45 minutes. San Francisco Opera’s co-production with the Bregenzer Festspiele and Grand Théâtre de Genève closed Thursday, 1. July 2004. The set and costumes were all quite bright, something out of a fairytale. I’ll admit that…
The Opera Tattler 