Baritone Lucas Meachem stars as Don Giovanni in the Mozart opera currently on stage at the SF Opera (three shows left). Every year we see singers go through the ranks of the Merola and Adler programs. Those programs are like the SF Opera Triple-A affiliates of the major league team and we try each year to guess which singers will come back headlining big new productions. Well, Meachem did big time, landing gigs here, at the Met or at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. more ›

Don Giovanni belongs to the category of operas that are insubmersible: as long as the cast is able and has a pulse, neither bad staging nor poor set can sink the show. The new production of Mozart's opera, which opened last night, does not particularly enhance the experience, but the singers delivered. And thus, everyone goes home happy with their heads full of Mozart's wonderful tunes. more ›

The bad news: The Don Giovanni we witnessed last weekend seemed too big a task for the Merola program. Sure, the singing was stellar. And Donna Anna, Leporello, and the Don himself were admirably cast. But the cringe-inducing stage direction, as well as the evening's lackluster orchestra, would not let us enjoy the opera. Bummer. more ›

Oh, those nifty New Yorkers; it's all about them. As usual. Why? Because David Gockley, General Director of the SF Opera, announced that the company will start producing HD broadcasts of performances for theaters all across the states. Lovely, right? But the NYT then turns it into some kind of pissing contest because they did it first. Hrumph. more ›

We saw Iphigénie en Tauride last Wednesday, and the curtain fell not only on the last opening of this season, but on the Pamela Rosenberg era. There are still three more performances of Iphigénie to attend (including one tonight; plus three Rosenkavalier and two Don Giovanni), so it’s not yet time to look back. more ›

A controversy was brewing, surrounding the dismissal of Hope Briggs, who was originally scheduled to sing Donna Anna, and her replacement with Elza Van Den Heever, in the new SF Opera production of Don Giovanni, which kicked off the summer season on Saturday night. The explanation for the switch from the upper floors of the opera house was rather laconic, which left the door open to wild speculations. Was it, as this Berkely Daily Planet op-ed conjectured, due to the new media suite, which will record every performance on high definition from this Don Giovanni on and thus will put some demand on the singers to look good, conjectures the writer? more ›

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