Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews: French Soprano Natalie Dessay The SF Opera returned last week with a fantastic production of Les Contes d'Hoffmann. The opera's summer season a short coda to the meat-and-potatoes of the Fall, but it's going to be a
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky made an incandescent San Francisco Opera debut this month as Leonora in Il Trovatore, prompting reviewers to glow about her, and rediscover their faith in the workhorses of the Italian
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera Opening Night The Opera Opening Night is as glamorous as it gets, and Drew Altizer was kind enough to share pictures with us. Enjoy the pix gallery. There was also a performance and we kinda
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera: La Bohème 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.
Arts & Entertainment The Elixirs of Love If you ever needed a cheer-me-up, we heartily recommend a sip of Donizetti's Elixir of Love, the effervescent show at the SF Opera. Or, two sips of it, since there's a family version
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera: Idomeneo 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
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera: The Bonesetter's Daughter Last week, we heard some talking head comment that all Sarah Palin had to do to beat expectations was come out of her VP debate without losing a limb. That's how we felt
Arts & Entertainment Die Tote Stadt So we get this surrealist story: Paul is depressed as he lost his wife Marie; however, he ran into another woman, Marietta, in the streets of Bruges (the dead city the title refers
Arts & Entertainment Setting Up <i>The Bonesetter's Daughter</i> The Bonesetter's Daughter, which opens this Saturday at the War Memorial Opera House, is a big deal in the opera world. Or so we're told. Why? Because it's only the ninth world premiere
Arts & Entertainment Opening Night at the Opera: Simon Boccanegra Yet, the performance still caught our attention, thanks to two amazing Slavic singers. Verdi's Simon Boccanegra is a story of curses, kidnappings and misplaced children. It mostly hinges on the love of Simon
Arts & Entertainment Merola's Schwabacher Summer Concert Pictures courtesy of SF Opera/Kristen Locken; above Rene Barbera, Leah Crocetto, Ben Wager, David Pershall, Nathaniel Peake; below YoungJoo An
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera's Rheingold But! You can't predict whether this production will work, if the American angle will infuse the operatic sequence a juicy underlying story. Das Rheingold is a prequel of sorts. And insofar as opera
Arts & Entertainment Happy Birthday, Pooch! You'll want to see other, um, microphones, too, when the provocative Angela Gheorghiu, who we were so smitten with in La Rondine, comes back for more Puccini via La Boheme. It seems that
Arts & Entertainment A Tale Full of Vile Sounds, Weird Fury So foul and poor a play we haven't seen. At least, not during this San Francisco Opera season. That is, until now: behold, the vile production that is Macbeth. It's easier to count
Arts & Entertainment Pre-Appomattox Interview: Christopher Hampton, We were eager to talk to Christopher, as he is the librettist for Philip Glass's opera Appomattox, which opens next Friday at the San Francisco Opera, and is the Big Event of the
Arts & Entertainment Tristan and Isolde So it was no surprise that last night’s performance of Tristan and Isolde turned out as a magistral musical display: from the prelude to the final curtain drop, Runnicles coaxed a splendid
Arts & Entertainment The Philistine: Transformations Conrad Susa, who was in attendance and seemed quite pleased afterwards, wrote Transformations in 1975, on a commission of the Minnesota Opera, based on a libretto of Anne Sexton, itself based on her
Arts & Entertainment Philistine: Joan of Arc The ghost of former general director Pamela Rosenberg was hovering above when a man dressed in a gray business suit was the first to come on the stage. We feared for a second
Arts & Entertainment SFist Goes to the Opera: the Abduction from the Seraglio. While some of the singers sounded better than others, the leading roles impressed us. The tiny theater does not require the stronger pipes to fill a larger space, the same way we sound
Arts & Entertainment Stage Fog: Something for Everyone What do Holocaust dramas, hip hop and weddings have to do with each other? Nothing, but we've got all of them crammed into a mere weekend. and Brundibar at Berkeley Repertory Theatre Just
Arts & Entertainment SFist Goes to the Opera: Fidelio Photos by Terrence McCarthy/SF Opera. Above, from left to right, Christine Brewer, Greta Feeney and Arthur Woodley
Arts & Entertainment Stage Fog: New and Reinvented This week we bring you a crucifixion, ghetto Shakespeare and mean people in love. Because why get vanilla ice cream when you can get, say, caramel ice cream with fudge chunks and cookie
Arts & Entertainment SFist Goes to the Opera: The Italian Girl in Algiers. The San Francisco Opera opened its season last Saturday and picked up right where it left off last time we visited. , just like Cosi fan Tutti, is another joyful and energetic opera, another
