San Francisco Opera Presents Best Arias in The Area 2024 – 2025 Season
By Lina Broydo
San Francisco Opera’s 102nd season opens its performances season on September 6 with Maestro Eun Sun Kim leading with a weekend of festivities. Opera Ball – ushers in the new season with celebrations at City Hall and the War Memorial Opera House along with the opening of a new-to-San Francisco Opera production of Giuseppe Verdi’s UN BALLO IN MASCHERA. On Sunday, September 8 Maestro Kim will lead the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and stars of the new season in the annual, with free attendance!!! Opera in the Park concert at Robin Williams Meadow in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
Season features the West Coast premiere of Poul Ruders and Paul Bentley’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Eun Sun Kim’s conducting Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” and Mozart’s “Idomeneo” with revivals of Bizet’s “Carmen” and Puccini’s “La Boheme” as well as the 200th anniversary performance of Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony.”
Information
For tickets & information call 415-864-3330 or visit sfopera.com
San Francisco Opera
War Memorial Opera House
301 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco
All photos courtesy of SF Opera
OPERA BALL: September 6, 2024: At SF City Hall & Opera House
Secure your place at San Francisco’s most glamorous night of the year, with proceeds supporting the future of opera and opera education in the Bay Area—ensuring the next 100 years of musical excellence.
It is a wonderful opportunity to show your exquisite fashionista style while listening to the brilliantly performed opera arias of Giuseppe Verdi’s UN BALLO IN MASCHERA.
THE HANDMAID’S TALE, by Poul Ruders, September 14 – October 1, 2024
Next comes the West Coast premiere of THE HANDMAID’S TALE by composer Poul Ruders and librettist Paul Bentley’s acclaimed operatic adaptation of the best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood.
Mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts heads an assemblage of riveting stage artists in this vision of a dystopic American future where women are held in child-bearing servitude. Karen Kamensek conducts the new co-production by San Francisco Opera and The Royal Danish Theatre directed by John Fulljames.
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE by Wagner, October 19 – November 5, 2024
Wagner’s path-breaking masterpiece TRISTAN UND ISOLDE returns to the War Memorial Opera House stage for the first time in nearly two decades with Eun Sun Kim at the helm. Simon O’Neill and Anja Kampe are featured in the title roles in director Paul Curran’s production from Venice’s Teatro La Fenice.
Along with her leadership of towering operas by Verdi and Wagner, Kim will lead the amassed forces of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus and four vocal soloists in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (October 26) in a special, one-night-only performance honoring the work’s 200th anniversary.
Definitely not to be missed!
CARMEN by Bizet, November 13–December 1, 2024
The Fall Season concludes with Francesca Zambello’s production of CARMEN featuring mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux as Carmen and soprano Louise Alder as Micaëla, both in their American debuts, tenor Jonathan Tetelman performing Don José for the first time and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Escamillo.
Benjamin Manis joins the Company to conduct this spectacular revival. The Company’s popular Encounter series returns on November 21 with CARMEN ENCOUNTER where attendees take in the first portion of Bizet’s opera followed by an immersion in the world of Carmen within a transformed Opera House.
LA BOHÈME by Puccini, June 3 – 21, 2025
The 2025 Summer Season opens with Puccini’s LA BOHÈME (June 3–21) in John Caird’s production with two brilliant casts including Pene Pati and Evan LeRoy Johnson as Rodolfo and Karen Chia-ling Ho and Nicole Car as Mimì with maestro Ramón Tebar on the podium.
IDOMENEO by Mozart, June 14–25, 2025
Mozart’s early masterpiece IDOMENEO (June 14–25) takes the stage in director Lindy Hume’s new-to-San Francisco Opera production inspired by the turbulent seas off the Tasmanian coast. Music Director Eun Sun Kim leads a sterling Mozartian cast of Matthew Polenzani as Idomeneo, Daniela Mack as his son,
Idamante, Elza van den Heever as Elettra and Ying Fang in her Company debut as the Trojan princess, Ilia.
