In celebration of the impending retirement of San Francisco Opera’s head honcho David Gockley, La Cieca proposed a quick midweek competition, with a first prize of not having dinner with San Francisco Opera’s head honcho David Gockley.
You might be surprised, though, when that title turns out to be Show Boat.
Three blocks from the opera house is a terrible time to realize there was homework.
I have an idea (soon to be angrily debunked in the comments section) that Le nozze di Figaro is rarely a source of unalloyed bliss to the chronic operagoer.
It is easy to become overly identified with opera—as a cleverer friend of mine once noted: being a sports fan is an interest, but if you like opera, everyone thinks of it as a crippling obsession.
Certain operas are better in theory than practice.
Cast changes (already) for San Francisco Opera.
The key to enjoying Bellini’s I Capuleti e Montechi is to do a hard factory reset and reformat your brain to forget all other works based on Romeo and Juliet.
The San Francisco Opera has just done the big reveal for 2015-2016 and here’s what we have in store.
Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin notes: while this performance of Janácek’s Jenufafeatures the same three principal singers from the legendary Carnegie Hall concert of 1988, the fact that it is a staged performance raises the temperature even higher.
Imagine the good fortune of attending La Bohème with someone who’s never seen it!
Kitsch is alive and well in Rossini’s La Cenerentola at the War Memorial.
The San Francisco Opera is batting a thousand where young singers are concerned this season.
Christopher Alden‘s production of Handel’s Partenope is so erudite and theatrically audacious and also such a rollicking ride, it’s hard to believe it isn’t crap.
The big news out of the Bay this week, of course, is that David Gockley, after ten years at the helm here and over forty in opera, has decided not to pull a Bloomberg/Galupe-Borszkh.
Far be it from me to join the Schadenfreudian chorus of “Bye, Bye, Berti!” you may have been hearing in certain quarters, but the first thing I am duty-bound to report about San Francisco Opera’s Norma (of which three performances remain) is that they’ve hit the jackpot, coverwise.
Big changes in San Francisco’s Norma.
Jamie Barton will make her San Francisco Opera debut as Adalgisa in Norma for five of the opera’s seven performances on September 5, 10, 14, 27 and 30. Ms. Barton replaces Daveda Karanas, who has withdrawn from the production for personal reasons.
A new DVD of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess features an enjoyable live performance from the San Francisco Opera from June of 2009.
Goddess Anna Caterina Antonacci takes the “Sophia Loren” starring role in La Ciociara, a new work premiering at San Francisco Opera in June, 2015.
La Cieca (not pictured) is delighted to hear of the success of Friday night’s vigil by Gays Without Borders for LGBT citizens of Russia at the opening night of the San Francisco Opera’s new season.
San Francisco Opera’s marketing leaves La Cieca at least momentarily speechless, so she’ll have to rely on you, cher public, to take up the slack with discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects.
Here, on what appears to have been a rather chilly evening, are Michael Fabiano and his “mom” Renée Fleming in Die Walküre Lucrezia Borgia at the San Francisco Opera.
La Cieca’s operative in San Francisco writes: “SFO’s marketing for the upcoming production of Attila has offered a rotating door of Odabellas. Sadly, as of the latest update, I’m fearing the musical chairs may have landed on the least favorable of the announced divas.”
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
