September 2018 – Repeat Performances

September 11, 2018

Honor in the streets of Buenos Aires

San Francisco Opera opened its season with two of the most famous one-acts of verismo opera, which are often presented together: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. In a well-considered version of these two operas, production and set designer José Cura linked the two operas by placing them in the same neighborhood of Buenos Aires and interweaving the characters. Cavalleria opens the evening’s performance. As the day dawns in the colorful streets of La Boca, a...

Categories: opera

Long live Donizetti’s fiery Queen!

Don’t go to the opera for historical fact. That’s a time-tested axiom. And one San Francisco Opera’s production of Roberto Devereux not only supports but makes a virtue of. Donizetti’s 1837 opera is said to be based on a history and a tragedy, but at its heart it’s a simple Italian love triangle with exotic celebrity characters. Exotic because Queen Elizabeth I and her court were distant in both time and place from Donizetti’s operatic Naples. Director Stephen Lawless...

Categories: opera

September 6, 2018

Gala at Davies

San Francisco Symphony knows how to party! Donors to the educational arm of the San Francisco Symphony were rewarded last Wednesday, September 6 with an extravagant party at Davies Symphony Hall. Celebrated violinist Itzhak Perlman performed Bach and well-known movie themes, and the Symphony sizzled with Liszt and Gershwin. After, dance stages and bars took over the street between Davies and the Opera House. It was a night to savor! “The program isn’t that memorable,”...

Categories: music