Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews: Mezzo-Soprano Alice Coote The superlative British mezzo-soprano Alice Coote will give her first solo recital in San Francisco tonight at Herbst theater, for SF Performances 30th anniversary season. The theme of the evening: English art songs.
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Susan Graham Grammy-award winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham just headlined a concert series six weeks ago with the San Francisco Symphony, which will be released on a CD as part of the SFS Mahler project. Obviously,
Arts & Entertainment SF Reviews: SF Opera's <em>The Daughter of the Regiment</em> The SF Opera production of La Fille du Regiment definitively put to rest the notion that opera is not the proper format for comedy: who needs agonizing arias when you can get a
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera's Il Trovatore 2nd Cast and L'Abduction from the Seraglio 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
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera's Il Trittico Even though it's Puccini, the SF Opera has run Il Trittico (the triptych) only twice before Wednesday night's opening. And for the first time on this stage, the same soprano, Patricia Racette, is
Arts & Entertainment Photos from Opera in the Park Sunday's annual Opera in the Park gathering was well attended by opera lovers both committed and occasional, despite the iffy weather. Whatever some may say about opera being a dying art form, people
Arts & Entertainment Fall Music Preview: Classical Edition The Fall music season has been launched in orbit with a glitzy gala at the Symphony. This week continues with classical music galore: the other heavy hitter, the SF Opera introduces his new
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera's Merola Program: L'amico Fritz. Attending the SF Opera Merola concerts is like opening a box of chocolate: the artists are mostly unknown young aspiring singers, dedicating their summer to the training program, so you never know what
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Porgy & Bess by Emily Cox People seem to either love opera or feel like they should love it. For the would be lovers of operas the inaccessibility of the genre (even when the lyrics are
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews: Soprano Anna Netrebko 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.
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Eric Owens The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess opens tonight at SF Opera. It used to be dismissed, if you will, as a musical, but has now moved up to be considered one of the best
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera's Tosca The last Tosca here was in 2004. Considering that Tosca is The Show That Build SFOpera, with 12 runs over in the first 18 years of the company, and since only twice in
Arts & Entertainment This Weekend's Vocalises 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,
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Stephanie Blythe 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
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera Forecasts End of Global Economic Crisis by 2nd Half of 2011 In a gloomy economic projection, the SF Opera seemed skeptical about the impact of the economic recovery package being discussed right now in Congress. SF Opera announced yesterday that the New Great Depression
Arts & Entertainment Boris Godunov at SF Opera Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov keeps with the un-official theme of the SF Opera's Fall season: Presidenting is hard work. Well, Godunov is not presidenting as much as Tsaring, but he comes on the
Arts & Entertainment The Merola's <i>Don Giovanni</i> 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
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera's Ariodante Oh, and all of these roles are sung by women. How appropriate. We attended a show later in the run, so here's a brief round-up of the other reviews: Unanimous agreement says that
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
misc SF Opera Passes the Popcorn Dude, why can't we all just get along. It's not like people in Chico are saturated with opera. They see eight performances from the Met. We think there's room enough for the six
Arts & Entertainment The Rake's Progress The patrons were willing to entertain an oil well and a 1950s Americana re-setting that dramatically differs from Stravinsky's original 18th Century,even though they were a tad skeptical. At first. After all,
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 Touched by an Angela: La Rondine at SF Opera. Now, Angela has some redeeming qualities: one could excuse her for her behavior; being diva in the truest operatic sense of the word, that's her job after all. Plus, she brings excitement to
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera: the Magic Flute The set, originally designed for the 92-93 season of the LA opera, and seen for the first time in SF, is build around a massive pyramid: Mozart was a Mason when he composed
Arts & Entertainment Anesthesia: Brain Numbing with Non-Sense Take tonight. There’s a cool concert at Herbst Theater, presented by Other Minds, an organization devoted to new music: Dennis Russell Davies and his partner, Maki Namekawa, playing music for two pianos
