Monday, June 10, 2019

Summer Opera—My Passion: San Francisco Opera’s Summer Season Has Just Opened with the Very Classical New Production of ‘Carmen,’ a Dramatic New ‘Orlando,’ and the New ‘Rusalka’ with Some of the Most Poignant Moments and Beautiful Singing in Opera

My Great Pleasures of Summer: Opera is one of my favorite entertainments of summer. I disappear into the beautiful San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, and immerse myself in glorious singing and lively performances and dramatic productions.

Yes, I love the fall/winter opera season in San Francisco. But the summer season—June only—is my stealth pleasure. It’s a very special and a secret thrill. When it’s hot outside, I escape to grand world-class productions, to worlds of imagination, artistry, pure performances, and world-class performers and musicians at their best. The San Francisco Opera orchestra is superb.

This 2019 summer season is rich in creativity, classicism, romance, ethereal worlds and style.

I’m very much looking forward to ‘Orlando’ (new production) with the 25-year-old virtuoso countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen making his company debut as Medoro in Orlando. J’Nai Bridges as Carmen will be extraordinary. Women conductors. A breath of fresh ideas and collaborations. I’ll be seeing all three.



Kyle Ketelsen as Escamillo and J'Nai Bridges in the title role of Bizet's "Carmen."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera



Special thanks to San Francisco Opera general director, Matthew Shilvock who created this perfect summer series, with new productions and exciting new talent. 


Matthew Shilvock

San Francisco Opera Summer Season 2019: An Overview

Beginning June 5 and continuing through the 29th, San Francisco Opera presents a trio of extraordinary lyric works—Georges Bizet’s Carmen, George Frideric Handel’s Orlando and Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka—featuring powerful leading women in the title roles. 

Spanning three centuries and sung in French, Italian and Czech, the 2019 Summer Season marks the debuts of four conductors, including two women, in productions that are new to the War Memorial Opera House stage.

Performing the title heroines in the 2019 Summer Season operas, each for the first time, are: mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges as Carmen, and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke takes on Orlando, a role originally composed for the castrato Senesino. Rachel Willis-Sørensen portrays the water nymph Rusalka.

The company’s roster of conductors will be expanded with the debuts of James Gaffigan, Eun Sun Kim, Michelle Merrill and Christopher Moulds.


Michelle Merrill


Michelle Merrill is one of two female conductors to join San Francisco Opera’s roster this season and will be conducting the June 20 performance of Carmen.


Eun Sun Kim

Eun Sun Kim makes her company debut leading the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in Rusalka. Well-known for her performances in Europe at Staatsoper Berlin, Frankfurt Opera, Munich’s Bavarian State Opera and Dresden’s Semperoper, the fast-rising South Korean maestra made her American debut in 2017 leading Verdi’s La Traviata at Houston Grand Opera. In 2018, Kim led Verdi’s Requiem at the Cincinnati May Festival, becoming the first female conductor in the choral festival’s 145-year history.

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen
Photo: Dario Acosta


Exciting News

In a casting update for Orlando, countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen makes his Company and role debuts as Medoro. The Brooklyn-born, second-year San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow quickly rose to prominence after being named a Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2017. 


J'Nai Bridges as the title role in Bizet's "Carmen."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Bizet's "Carmen" with J'Nai Bridges as Carmen (center), Natalie Image as Frasquita, Ashley Dixon as Mercédès and the San Francisco Opera Chorus. Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Kyle Ketesen as Escamillo with the San Francisco Opera Chorus in Bizet's "Carmen." 
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

David Leigh as Zuniga, Zhengyi Bai as Remendado, Natalie Image as Frasquita, Ashley Dixon as Mercédès (partially obscured) and J'Nai Bridges in the title role of Bizet's "Carmen."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Matthew Polenzani as Don José and J'Nai Bridges in the title role of Bizet's "Carmen."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Kyle Ketelsen as Escamillo with the San Francisco Opera Chorus in Bizet's "Carmen."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera


The 2019 Summer Season opens with director Francesca Zambello’s production of Carmen (June 5–29). The popular French work about a free-spirited woman and her besotted lover stars mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges in her professional role debut as the title heroine and tenor Matthew Polenzani performing Don José for the first time in his career. Romanian soprano Anita Hartig makes her Company debut as Micaëla and bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen is the bullfighter, Escamillo.

General Director at the Glimmerglass Festival and longtime San Francisco Opera collaborator, Zambello commented on working with Bridges in 2011: “At Glimmerglass, I began offering a family performance of one of the operas with a cast of young artists. J’Nai Bridges essayed the role of Carmen in one of those family performances and her singing was already memorable, as were her animal stage instincts. I am thrilled to see the wonderful arc of J’Nai’s career and for us to be rejoined as she makes her professional debut in this role.” 


Christina Gansch as Dorinda in Handel's "Orlando."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Medoro and Heidi Stober as Angelica in Handel's "Orlando."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Christina Gansch as Dorinda, Heidi Stober as Angelica, and Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Medoro in Handel's "Orlando."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Sasha Cooke (left) as Orlando and Christian Van Horn (right) as Zoroastro in Handel's "Orlando."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Sasha Cooke as Orlando, Heidi Stober as Angelica, and Christian Van Horn as Zoroastro in Handel's "Orlando."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Sasha Cooke as Orlando and Christian Van Horn as Zoroastro in Handel's "Orlando."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Medoro in Handel's "Orlando."
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera



Handel’s Orlando (June 9–27) will be unveiled in a bold production by English director Harry Fehr which sets Ariosto’s mythic romance in London during The Blitz of the Second World War.

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke makes her highly-anticipated role debut as the warrior Orlando, here envisioned as a fighter pilot who is mentally tormented by battle trauma and an immoderate passion for his lover, Angelica.

Soprano Heidi Stober adds Angelica to her repertory of Handelian roles, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen is Medoro and Austrian soprano Christina Gansch makes her American debut as Dorinda.

Bass-baritone and 2018 Richard Tucker Award recipient Christian Van Horn is Zoroastro, the doctor who helps Orlando navigate his mental anguish. English conductor Christopher Moulds leads the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in his first engagement with the Company.


Dvořák's "Rusalka"
Photo: Todd Rosenberg/Lyric Opera of Chicago

Dvořák's "Rusalka"
Photo: Todd Rosenberg/Lyric Opera of Chicago



Rusalka (June 16–28), Antonín Dvořák’s enchanting 1901 fairytale about a water nymph who trades her voice for love, returns to the War Memorial Opera House stage in a “thoughtfully conceived and brilliantly executed” (Chicago Tribune) production by director David McVicar.

In her first portrayal of the title role, soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen heads a cast that includes tenor Brandon Jovanovich as the Prince, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as the witch Ježibaba, Kristinn Sigmundsson as Vodník and soprano Sarah Cambidge as the Foreign Princess.


San Francisco War Memorial Opera House
Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera


CREDITS:
Images courtesy of SF Opera
www.sfopera.com


TICKETS:
Please check sfopera.comfor further details or call the Opera Box Office at (415) 864-3330.

San Francisco Opera Box Office hours: Monday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m. (Saturday phone only). Casts, programs and schedules are subject to change.

All War Memorial Opera House performances feature a Pre-Opera Talk beginning 55 minutes prior to curtain. The lecturers for the Summer Season are Laura Prichard (Carmen), Bruce Lamott (Orlando) and Peter Susskind (Rusalka).


San Francisco War Memorial Opera House
Photo: Cesar Rubio




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