The SF Opera Summer Season concludes with three productions: a steamy Carmen by provocactive director Calixto Bieito, which we won't review but you can check for yourself for free tonight (Saturday) at 7:30 p.m. in a simulcast at AT&T Park. That production that comes with a parental advisory rating, for nudity and sexual situations and you have to register here to get a ticket; Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa and Verdi's Don Carlo.

Jenůfa: Janáček's Jenůfa depicts the life of a rather claustrophobic Moravian village at the end of the 19th century. Moravia, a part of the Czech Republic, was Janacek's birthplace, and he started to write Jenůfa in the 1890s, with a premiere in 1904. That apple didn't fall to far from the tree. It was only twenty years after the Italian premiere of Verdi's Don Carlo, also part of this summer season. And yet it's a piece of a different age and universe.

Janacek's writes music lines that conform both to the rhythm of the spoken language, and the personality of his characters. At first, a dreamy Jenůfa gets melodic phrases, while Laca sings halted, stunted sentences. The music pushes the boundaries of tonality, in a post-romantic manner. Ironically enough, it's in that stunning middle scene that he serves a dominant-to-tonic resolution in the classical style, as if Kostelnička's decision was a reflection of some hidden harmony.

Karita Mattila in "Honey, I shrunk the sauna."

Finnish soprano Karita Mattila, who has sung the role of Jenůfa in the past, had her role debut as Kostelnička in this production and seemed quite comfortable in it. She started dry and somber in the first Act, then revealed an otherworldly anguish in the second. In the third, as she confesses her crime, she holds one long note for what seems forever, and this one note is so steady and perfectly shaped, it is the abstracted ideal of a scream. As Jenůfa, Swedish soprano Malin Bystrom had a full and rounded tone, and William Burden's direct, honest tenor matched Laca's honorable character.

The sets, from the Hamburg State opera, and the direction by Olivier Tambosi match the early minimalism of Janacek's music: they are rather bare, with wooden planks for floor and walls, and rocks of different sizes for each act: one rock bursting through the floor in the floor, a giant rock slash elephant in the room in the second, and a bunch of smaller ones in the last. Rocks are metaphors for the weight of carrying a secret, or for the judgmental attitudes of villagers who will cast the first stone (as well as literally stone a criminal). They are explicitly mentioned in the lyrics. But in the second act, in a wooden room with a large stone in the middle, we couldn't help but think: what a nice sauna, won't someone throw water on the stone to steam it up a notch, and no wonder these two Scandinavian sopranos are so good, they must feel quite at home.

Don Carlo: where Jenůfa is intimate, and inward focused, Don Carlo, one of Verdi's latest and grandest operas, deals in superlative. The libretto follows Don Carlo, the son of Philip II of Spain, through love stories, political turmoil, religious implications and ethical struggles. The characters did exist in real life, but that's pretty much where it stops, they are only a pretext at royal intrigues and betrayals.

At the core is the very operatic struggle of a prince (Michael Fabiano as Don Carlo) in love with his young stepmom the queen Elisabetta. To his defense, they were supposed to marry at some point, before Carlo's dad swooped in. As in Tristan and Isolde, Carlo and Elisabetta stay pure, but Philip (Ferruccio Furlanetto on the night we saw it), tipped off the improper optics by the princess Eboli (Nadia Krasteva) still gets mad about it. Verdi adds a geopolitical dimension with Rodrigo, Carlo's best friend, standing up as a defender of Flanders, where an insurrection against Spanish rule was repressed in a bloodshed. But wait, there is more! A Grand Inquisitor pester the King to assert the Church's power over his.

Ana Maria Martinez and Michael Fabiano in Don Carlo

The male voices were superb, in particular those of Furlanetto (a replacement for Rene Pape for one evening, and what a super-sub!) and baritone Mariusz Kwiecien, as Rodrigo. Tenor Michael Fabiano, whom we have admired since his debut in Lucrezia Borgia, was his excellent self. He seemed a bit more subdued that his usual incandescent. He acted with a weird mannerism, as if a bit uncomfortable in the character, touching his lip or face every so often and his voice seemed a bit tense. It may be a stage direction, as Don Carlo was supposed to be somewhat awkward. Oddly enough, he seemed more comfortable in the scenes with Rodrigo than with Elisabetta, as if Kwiecien's lyricism brought out the better out of him. Their Act II duet contrasted them beautifully. Furlanetto brought depth to the role, both with his bottomless voice, but also his characterization of a King struggling between his emotions as a father, husband, king and Catholic, in a tremendous Act IV aria. His duet with the Grand Inquisitor (the smokey Andrea Silvestrelli, a regular on this stage) and his quartet with Eboli, Rodrigo and Elisabetta were works of beauty.

Ana Maria Martinez, as Elisabetta, seemed a bit withdrawn, and again, it may be her part, of a conflicted Queen who accepts her fate but is depressed by it. Nadia Krasteva's Eboli had more fire, but Verdi wrote her as humorous in her opening Act II scene in the garden, and defiant in her Act III confrontation with Rodrigo and Carlo.

Nicola Luisotti, who will step down as music director for SF Opera at the end of the 2017-18 season, demonstrated again and again his mastery of the Italian repertoire. It must be a pleasure as a singer to be supported by him, you could see him breathing with his cast and giving them enough space. And we must acknowledge the wonderful chorus.

Four Adler fellows round up the cast, uniformly excellent, and we were happy to see Pene Pati as the Count Lerma. It is his debut on this stage, and he had delayed his joining the Adler program for a few years after an impressive Merola program in 2013. He didn't disappoint, albeit in a smaller role.

On July 5, head to AT&T Park for a free simulcast of the SF Opera's production of Verdi's La Traviata. We're no baseball analytics money ball experts, but signing up for free tickets seems the most efficient way to run the bases at the ballpark. The SF Opera Summer Season deserves a jumbo review with Showboat having its last performance on June 28, La Traviata welcoming a new cast for its last shows, and multi-talented Patricia Racette reprising the role of Madama Butterfly.

Showboat: SF Opera general director David Gockley feels the need to justify presenting Showboat on the War Memorial Opera House stage: "Because Broadway can no longer present these works on the scale their creators had in mind." On the back of our mind: How much longer can the opera present them at this scale? Witness the Met's employees contract negotiations right now, and Gockley's own worried words about the sustainability of the art form. Especially after watching a show of such dimensions—there are multiple choruses, two different dance groups, rich and impressive sets, splendid costumes for a gazillion people on stage—no expense was spared and you're in awe most of the evening.

If no one else has stolen this lede for Aida, we will: Costumes Almost As Loud as Singers. British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes [link to her page, but as we write this, hacked by taunting Serbs, how fun!] designed the sets and costumes, and she likes turquoise and periwinkle and shiny orange and gold. It's a pleasure to contemplate the elaborate outfits. That gold lamé skirt that the guards wear? Want.

We enjoyed two performances at SF Opera, the 2nd cast of Il Trovatore in the last performance of that run, and Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, which continues for three more performances.

The Abduction from the Seraglio felt like a light palate cleanser after the earlier, headier productions. It's a comedic endeavor, full of Mozart's sparkling grace. The current production at the SF Opera made things even more palatable by translating the spoken text in English, keeping the sung bits in the original German.

Yet, we felt a step down from the bar set thus far this season, both musically and theatrically. Conducting, Cornelius Meister was out of sync with his singers for the performance we attended early in the run. His strings sounded slippery in the overture, as if taken too fast. Some singers, Peter Rose in particular, just could not just find his beat. Both have excuses, since Cornelius, born in 1980, is among the youngest conductors to lead the SF Opera ever, and we knew Rose would later miss a performance due to personal reason. Cornelius will assert himself more as he grows up, we're sure.

No one can sell out the War Memorial Opera House faster than Anna Netrebko. Just try and get a ticket for Saturday night's La Traviata, if you want to see why for yourself. The Russian soprano is the biggest draw in opera nowadays: she's the rare bird with the transcendental voice, and, well, she has the physique you'd actually want to see in a satin negligee, as in this Roaring 20s Marta Domingo production of the Verdi masterpiece. Plus, she has an inspiring story, working her way up from scrubbing the floors of the Maryinksy Theater in St Peterbourg, to photo spreads in Vanity Fair, and receiving honors from Vladimir Putin.

We yearn for a candid interviewee, who will spill the beans about garlicky tenor's breath and the "microphone between her tits," so we were beyond ourselves to score a phone call with her. But so much for the unadulterated heart-to-heart conversation, her US team is a bit more protective than her UK guys, and our conversation was moderated. "We're in a car driving approximately 250 mph...it would be very exhausting for Anna to do this," said one chaperon, worried about the can you hear me now? quality of the connection (troublesome here as well). Or "I don't think this is a question she should answer," another one stopped us. Why not? "It's because I don't think that she knows, and I don't think she should comment on." We had asked about the consequences of belt tightening at the opera house. "I probably don't know," Anna chimed. Lucky her.

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.

The Artist's Vocal Ensemble will explore Californian music on Friday (in Berkeley) and Saturday (in SF). We thought that meant the Beach Boys, but what do we know, they actually look at "the musical styles that have influenced our musical palette in California." They are accompanied by jazz saxophonist Daniel Zinn for "an adventurous meeting of old (medieval polyphony) and new (jazz improvisation)." We always find Renaissance motets surprisingly modern; this proves they're only a short step away from jazz. Program includes some Poulenc, Vaughan Williams and others.