Results tagged “donaldrunnicles”

We learned yesterday that star soprano Patricia Racette had to withdraw from singing today in the Verdi Requiem at the SF Opera house, and will be replaced by Adler fellow Heidi Melton. Racette, a recent hit in Madame Butterfly, was to sing the Requiem for the first time. No disrespect meant to the up-and-coming Heidi Melton, who will nail it, but that's a bummer. Racette and Stephanie Blythe, that was a spectacular tag team. Nonetheless, the SF Opera orchestra and choir, under the baton of departing music director Donald Runnicles, will be on the stage for once, not in the pit. That should be an exciting farewell to the maestro.

We're not too sure what to think of this lede: Some singers travel with their pets, a poodle or a dachshund, perhaps. Stephanie Blythe, one of the hottest properties in opera today, is luckier. She gets to travel with her husband, professional wrestler-turned-actor David Smith-Larsen... Huh? What are you implying, exactly?

When the SF Opera 08-09 season was announced, we were all excited by the weirder stuff, the Bonesetter's Daughter, or die tote Stadt. "Who needs another La Bohème?" we shrugged at the time.

After the stage fireworks of the Bonesetter's Daughter (acrobats! videos!), the SF Opera presented Wednesday night a re-run of the 1989 production of Idomeneo. This stale, dated setb was chosen, we guess, most likely to offset the costs of the previous show: one cannot have it all shiny new prods. Thank Neptune the singer's budget was allocated wisely, for it would be a long evening otherwise. Stellar turns from Kurt Streit and Genia Kühmeier, along with the steady hand of maestro Runnicles, made the evening thoroughly enjoyable. The story goes like this: on his return from winning the Trojan war, the king of Crete, Idomeneo gets caught at sea in a storm. Neptune, God of the oceans, lets him go home safely only after Idomeneo vows to sacrifice the first person he meets on land. Of course, the Gods being a facetious bunch, it's his son Idamante who happens to be there. Idomeneo and his legal councel wise advisor Arbace decide to send Idamante away rather than fulfill the pledge. Neptune is not amused, and sends some Godzilla monster to Crete. Idamante goes and kills the monster, an act of courage which earns Neptune's admiration and forgiveness.

We had so much fun watching Erich Wolfgang Korngold's (1897-1957) masterpiece, we are kinda sad he did not make it to the 1960s: if his psychedelic opera, die tote Stadt, is any hint, he would have written the ultimate LSD trip arias. For lack of psychotropics, die tote Stadt has to make do with funky wacky dreams. Quite naturally in fact, it's a Viennese guy writing music in Freud's Vienna, and Sigmund had just put out his interpretation of dreams twenty years before.

Verdi's Simon Boccanegra is a story of curses, kidnappings and misplaced children. It mostly hinges on the love of Simon and Amelia, which some characters interpret as they're doing unspeakable things to each other in the cover of the night, while in truth it's as pure as spring: she's his secret daughter. Confused characters get angry, tragedy ensues. Simon (Dmitri Hvorostovsky) comes onstage in the prologue, set 25 years before the first act, wearing a Rambo headband, and looking as comfortable acting as Sly Stallone...

Wagner's Ring, which opened its new and awaited SF Opera production last week with das Rheingold, made the Gods human. Francesca Zambello went one step further, and made them American. Zambello has decided to stage Wagner's tetralogy, which will unfold over the next few seasons, as an American Ring.

We will get to hear the microphone between the tits! Anna Netrebko, who kicked off her career in the US here in '96 (in Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila) will be back in La Traviata, the SF Opera announced today when unveiling their 2008-09 season. You'll want to see other, um, microphones too, as the darn sexy Angela Gheorghiu, who we were so smitten with in La Rondine, comes back for more Puccini with La Boheme. It's the 150th anniversary of the birth of Puccini this year, so you get two operas by him, Tosca being the other one. That's a bit lame, we say, since you typically get two operas by Puccini in any season. Say, La Rondine and Madama Butterfly, for instance. A true anniversary celebration would be to have all operas by Puccini, or even better, eleven different productions of Butterfly. That would rock.

What does SF Opera music director Donald Runnicles do when he's not conducting Wagner at the War Memorial Opera House? He's conducting Wagner in London. What does SF Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas do when he's not conducting Mahler at Davies Symphony Hall? You guessed it: he's conducting Mahler in London. We knew that addicts to Mahler or Wagner existed. But to think that they live in our own backyard? Well, that's just spooky.

We hadn’t really opened last year’s Christmas gift yet: when David Gockley became general director of the San Francisco opera a year ago, we did not really know what was in the box. The second half of the 2006 season, and the 2006-2007 season operas were already booked by his predecessor. He was not the one who chose this rather uninspired selection of yet another Carmen, yet another Barber of Seville, yet another Rigoletto.

Donald Runnicles opened his tenure at the San Francisco Opera by conducting two ring cycles in 1990, which led to his appointment as musical director in 1992. His expiring contract won’t be renewed in 2009, yet he’ll still conduct the Ring currently in production for 2010-2011: he and Wagner go together.