Special announcement from SF Opera - they are running their last lockdown-driven free live streaming season. That's optimism for you.
An opera every weekend in July!
And the first on offer is their brilliant production of Janáček's
Here's the link to their full information. And here's the program - dates are our time.
Given time difference the free live streams are from Sunday 3am through to Monday 5pm.
This link to the website will take you to the stream when it's available.
JANÁČEK’S JENůFA
JULY 11–12
Celebrate the break with a brilliant production of Leoš Janáček's 'grim story of infanticide and redemption', his first great success (1904). Here's an introduction to its shock value and success in Wikipedia.
SFO's production dates from 2016 and stars Malin Byström, Karita Mattila, William Burden, and Scott Quinn under the baton of Jiří Bĕlohlávek. Directed by Olivier Tambosi. The reviews for this production are ecstatic. Bachtrack summarized, 'This performance showed Janáček as a light for composers of future generations'.
Finnish soprano Karita Mattila, just one in a cast of great singers, was particularly praised. She has sung the role of the stepmother worldwide. 'But this doesn’t explain her unearthly ability to inhabit both the music and the role to such a powerful, psychologically-layered degree that one forgets there is a human being, in costume, on stage, pouring forth those glorious high notes and unspeakably beautiful, emotive vocal colors. She is so utterly believable that it seems the rather hateful self-centered Kostelnička is in fact real.'
Here's another review: 'And as a singing actor, Mattila is nonpareil. The combination of provincial rectitude and maternal tenderness that make Kostelnicka such a tricky character to embody onstage shone through with telling clarity in her performance.'
We've a focus on Janáček's operas coming up in some future term - so start here!
And here are the later SFO livestream productions - more detail as they get nearer.....
BERLIOZ’S THE TROJANS
JULY 18–19
Back to Troy for us, and a fine cast for SFO. Hector Berlioz’s monumental five-part epic The Trojans, with Bryan Hymel, Susan Graham, and Anna Caterina Antonacci under the baton of Sir Donald Runnicles in David McVicar's production.
STRAUSS’ ELEKTRA
JULY 25–26
Christine Goerke is Elektra, in a radical production.
VERDI’S LUISA MILLER
AUGUST 1- 2
Verdi’s star-crossed romance Luisa Miller, 'a tale of class, deception, and betrayal set in the Alps'. With Leah Crocetto and Michael Fabiano