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San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F. Opera's first Pride concert fills the house with color and community
Every June, the exterior columns of the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House become a symbol of LGBTQ Pride as they're illuminated in a rainbow scheme. Now, for the first time, the interior of the historic auditorium is a canvas. For the San Francisco Opera's first Pride Concert on Friday, June 27, stage artist Tal Rosner created immersive projection experiences that leapt off the stage. Rosner and San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock were both excited by the technology's possibilities. 'Its an old building, it's beautiful and intricate,' said Rosner. 'Everything I do is part of the emotional journey of the audience, but we're also really celebrating the architecture of the building in a fun way. All these different songs have different environments.' The Pride Concert was presented in partnership with San Francisco Pride (the organization that organizes the parade and Civic Center festival) and showcased music by LGBTQ composers and songwriters. The night's singers were baritone Brian Mulligan, who is gay; mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, who is bisexual; and Nikola Printz, who is trangender and nonbinary. San Francisco Opera Music Director Eun Sun Kim and Robert Mollicone conducted the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, while 'RuPaul's Drag Race' Season 16 runner-up (and classically trained opera singer) Sapphira Cristál emceed. The night included a bevy of community co-partners: The Tenderloin Museum, the National AIDS Memorial, Compton's Cafeteria Riot, the Marigold Project, the GLBT Historical Society and the Castro landmark the Twin Peaks Tavern. Among the special happenings were a pre-show discussion with S.F. Pride director Suzanne Ford, a display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and queer history art installations and exhibitions. 'When times are bad, you find out who your real friends are,' said Horn, who is also the president of the War Memorial Performing Arts Center. 'We have seen so many people who we thought were our allies disappear, the corporations, some of the nonprofit organizations, our lawyers. But the San Francisco Opera is proud to stand up.' Shilvock said there was never a question that the concert would go on. 'This is what the arts are for, to be in community, to allow us to be who we are,' said Shilvock. 'We've always been a part of Pride and in the parade since the 1980s. The Pride community has always been linked to the Opera, now let's bring the festivities in here.' The program, curated by San Francisco Opera's managing artistic director Gregory Henkle, opened with Leonard Bernstein's overture to 'Candide' conducted by Kim. The 1956 musical has some of Bernstein's best theatrical music, and as Kim approached the delicate excerpts from the song 'Glitter and Be Gay,' there were knowing titters. Explosions of color reminiscent of painter Marc Chagall filled the auditorium, while points of colored light highlighted the architecture of the opera house. Printz warmly sang San Francisco composer Jake Heggie's 'Vesuvio, il mio unico amico' from his 2015 opera 'Great Scott,' the story of an opera diva, Arden Scott, returning to her hometown. Heggie, who is gay, agreed that the LGBTQ community has long had an association with the opera world as both artists and ardent fans. 'It's highly emotional, dramatic, and a way to see something you were feeling inside expressed on the stage,' said Heggie, whose opera 'Dead Man Walking' returns to San Francisco Opera this fall with Barton in the lead. 'Historically, gay men and women could find each other at the opera house,' he said. 'Queer people didn't have a lot of places they could go and experience that.' Mulligan's fine delivery of Yeletsky's aria from Tchaikovsky's 'Pique Dame' and Barton's dark and rich 'Mon coueur s'ouvre á ta voix,' from Saint-Saëns' 'Samson and Dalila,' were treats before the rousing Bachanale from the same opera. The pop half of the program took flight with Barton and Printz' delightfully light, yet soulful, 'Closer to Fine' by the Indigo Girls. Singing the hit, re-popularized in 2023 by the ' Barbie ' movie, there was no 'opera singer doing pop music' stiffness. Among the night's best projections were the Saul Bass-meets-mass transit abstractions as the San Francisco Opera Orchestra took on Billy Strayhorn's jazz hit 'Take the 'A' Train.' Another visual highpoint was the sweeping images of San Francisco's queer history from the GLBT Historical Society Museum as Barton gave a moving take of Melissa Etheridge's 'Uprising of Love.' Mulligan's finest moments of the night were dramatically different: a tender, haunting version of Freddie Mercury's 'You Take My Breath Away' that contained layers of nuance about repressed queer desire. He let that emotion out in Jerry Herman's anthem 'I Am What I Am' in the boundary-breaking 1983 drag musical 'La Cage aux Folles.' The audience went there with him, cheering as he sang 'it's time to open up your closets.' Printz closed the night with 'I was Born his Way' (not the Lady Gaga song, Cristál joked) but the gay disco hit made famous by gospel artist Carl Bean, culminating in a dramatic burst of color overtaking the house. Following the performance, patrons were invited to a dance party in the lobby with San Francisco drag mother Juanita More spinning. The sounds of San Francisco disco queen Sylvester bumped from the speakers as operagoers bumped into each other on the dance floor. Regardless of what politics bring, plans are already underway for next year's Pride concert, Shilvock said. Surveying the crowd, San Francisco drag legend Donna Sachet remarked: 'This is proof we exist, even as the government is trying to erase us.'
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Sapphira Cristál to host San Francisco Opera Pride Concert
Calling all opera queens: San Francisco Opera is hosting its first ever Pride Concert. The celebration features the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Eun Sun Kim and Robert Mollicone, with soloists mezzo-sopranos Jamie Barton and Nikola Printz and baritone Brian Mulligan. Hosted by Sapphira Cristál, the immersive setting will utilize animations by Tal Rosner, historic images from past Pride celebrations and milestones projected onto the walls of the auditorium, plus a post-show dance party. The 80-minute musical program will include selections from queer opera composers Leonard Bernstein, Jake Heggie, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Camille Saint-Saëns; as well as gay cultural classics from the film 'A Star is Born' (1954) and Jerry Herman's Broadway hits 'Mame' and 'La Cage aux Folles.' Other queer artists to be covered include Freddie Mercury, the Indigo Girls and Melissa Etheridge. Activations and exhibitions will occur throughout the night, concluding with a dance party with DJ Juanita More.
San Francisco Chronicle
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Review: S.F. Opera's ‘La Bohème' will make you feel all the emotions
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to see it again. Giacomo Puccini's 'La Bohème,' the most-performed and quite possibly the most-loved opera in the standard repertory, has opened San Francisco Opera's summer season with a bang. Under the baton of guest conductor Ramón Tebar, with snappy work by revival director Katherine M. Carter, this production at the War Memorial Opera House comes about as close to musical and dramatic perfection as you can get. Each of the singers in the cast has real star quality — more on that in a bit. Just as importantly, they form a superb ensemble with the split-second timing of great comedians. Sure, there are big, famous arias, but the effectiveness of 'La Bohème' depends on swift movement from incident to incident. During the opening-night performance on Tuesday, June 3, Tebar's flexible, generous conducting matched that timing and gave this sophisticated score, full of complex tempo and metrical changes, cohesion and tremendous momentum. Add in the magnificent playing of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, performing despite unresolved labor negotiations, and the evening was sheer magic. The basic story is uncomplicated: Boy (the poet Rodolfo) meets girl (the seamstress Mimì). They fall in love. She dies of tuberculosis, an incurable scourge in the 19th century. (If this sounds familiar, Verdi's 'La Traviata,' also a great repertory staple, has a similar trajectory, though a vastly different emotional profile.) In tenor Pene Pati and soprano Karen Chia-ling Ho, the company has an ideal pair of leads. Pati's natural charm and beautiful, easy sound light up everything he does — he was an adorable Nemorino in 2023's ' The Elixir of Love. ' Meanwhile, Ho's shyness and fragility at her character's first entrance on Tuesday grew into real strength over the course of the opera, supported by her big, dark and beautifully controlled voice. There was real chemistry between the two, and you could believe that they'd fallen in love over a lost key only minutes after meeting. That's the baseline drama in the opera: Will Mimì live or die? Will she and Rodolfo stay together or be driven apart by illness? The story of the painter Marcello (baritone Lucas Meachem) and sometime kept woman Musetta (soprano Andrea Carroll in a sparkling and very funny company debut) runs parallel. The couples pair off, split up, come together again. Meachem and Carroll made their characters' love and affection perfectly clear, as well as the fact that the emotional cycle is likely to repeat indefinitely. This Marcello can barely bring himself to curse at Musetta wandering off with a new man at the close of Act 3, an interesting and persuasive dramatic choice emphasizing their hopeless love for each other. Carroll's Musetta might be a bit of a witch ('Strega!' as Marcello shouts), but she's as kindly toward Mimì as Meachem's warmhearted and enormously sympathetic Marcello is toward Rodolfo. Rounding out the cast of bohemians are the philosopher Colline and the musician Schaunard. Romanian bass Bogdan Talos, in his company debut, sang Colline's aria to his old coat, about to be sold to buy medicine for the dying Mimì, with poignant, heart-wrenching intimacy. Baritone Samuel Kidd, a current Adler Fellow, integrated Schaunard seamlessly into the antics, projecting enormous sorrow even as he turns his back on the fading Mimì. Bass-baritone Dale Travis was riotous as the landlord Benoit, outwitted by the bohemians when he tries to collect overdue rent, and as Alcindoro, Musetta's hapless admirer — roles Travis has played numerous times at the Opera. Members of the San Francisco Girls and Boys Choruses enlivened the Act 2 Latin Quarter scene with enthusiastic acting and accurate singing, and the Opera Chorus brought its customary excellence to many moments. David Farley's efficient production design allows easy transitions from the bohemians' garret to different places around Paris. The main dwelling, modeled on the works of painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, nonetheless seems a bit drab for a 19th century artist's studio. Regardless, Carter's direction brings a wealth of vivid interactions to crowd scenes and among the principals. Eight performances remain, divided between the opening-night singers and an enticing alternate cast for Rodolfo, Mimì, Marcello and Musetta. For a great afternoon or evening, get out your handkerchiefs and get yourself to the War Memorial Opera House.
San Francisco Chronicle
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Opera breaks out of the pit for hands-on orchestra showcase
This was no ordinary orchestra concert. Sure there was a seated audience in the usual place, in front of the performers, but on this sunny, breezy afternoon, there were patrons also behind the musicians — lounging on couches. Some stood on walkways overhead, while a cluster of three boys wandered around the performance space during the show. The concert, dubbed 'Soundcheck,' was so casual that two children even sat within the orchestra, one next to bassoonist Rufus Olivier, another next to oboist Gabriel Young. But that's how the San Francisco Opera wanted it to be –– unpretentious, relaxed, family-friendly. Music Director Eun Sun Kim had long wanted to get the San Francisco Opera Orchestra out of the pit at the War Memorial Opera House. And here they were on Saturday, May 17, at St. Joseph's Arts Society, a deconsecrated church on Howard Street, performing a free event for a crowd of 350 that welcomed everyone, from toddlers and Opera newbies to longtime patrons. 'People are aware that there's an orchestra without knowing very much about it. I want the orchestra to be seen,' Kim told the Chronicle before showtime. Indeed, the musician thought it was refreshing to perform in such a way where 'we're more out in the open and the audience is really focusing on just us,' noted Asuka Annie Yano, a member of the violin section. On the podium, with microphone in hand, Kim discussed the instruments of the orchestra, asking members of each section to play a short selection. Many in the audience recognized familiar tunes like 'Libiamo' from Verdi's ' La Traviata ' and ' The Ride of the Valkyries ' from Wagner's 'Die Walküre,' the latter a preview of what's to come as Kim plans to bring Wagner's epic 'Ring' cycle to the Opera House as part of her initiative to conduct Verdi and Wagner works each season. 'So often we only get to experience a live performance through a single vantage point. Eun Sun's invitation for the audience to move around the orchestra is an invitation to experience music-making in a dynamic, immersive relationship between artists and audience,' said Matthew Shilvock, the Opera's general director. To close out the hourlong concert, Kim thrilled the audience with Benjamin Britten's 'The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra,' conducting while simultaneously pointing to and calling out which instruments were playing. And what a way to close things out @SFOpera 🤯🎼🤩 — Mariecar Mendoza (@SFMarMendoza) May 17, 2025 Oscar Zheng traveled in from Oakland with his 7-year-old daughter Faith, who noted she particularly enjoyed the flutes. 'I like the tiny ones best,' she said, referring to the piccolo. The orchestra and attendees mingled before and after the concert, too, learning about instruments directly from the musicians. Double-bassist Shinji Eshima demonstrated his instrument to one group of entranced children, while a few feet away, Zachariah Spellman showed just how loud a tuba can be. 'It is vitally important that our young people get an education in music and this is the perfect place and a great location to do it,' said San Franciscan Chi Energy, who emphasized the value of exposing younger generations 'so used to synthesize sounds' to 'real instruments with real people playing them.' 'I thought it was a great use of the space and they were fun to see. It seemed like an educational event in a lot of ways,' said John Hunt, also of San Francisco, who plays jazz trombone professionally. 'I've never been in this space before and it was a revelation to come in here. I'm so glad I came.'
