San Francisco Opera Announces Program for One-Night-Only Centennial Concert Celebration
100th Anniversary Concert
War Memorial Opera House, June 16, 2023
Musical Program Spanning the Company's First Century Features the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Conductors Eun Sun Kim, Sir Donald Runnicles, Patrick Summers and 15 Vocal Soloists
The Livestreamed Event Will Include Projected Images from 100 Years of San Francisco Opera History
Concert Tickets and Dinner Packages Available at (415) 864-3330 and sfopera.com/anniversary
100th anniversary concert program pdf Photos
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (May 8, 2023; updated June 15) — San Francisco Opera today announced the program for its 100th Anniversary Concert at the War Memorial Opera House on Friday, June 16. Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim, former Music Director Sir Donald Runnicles and former Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Summers will conduct the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus along with a host of star soloists in selections inspired by the Company’s history. The one-night-only concert spectacular is augmented by a special Dinner with the Artists fundraiser in the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater co-chaired by San Francisco Opera board members Anna Fieler, Sue Marineau and Jason Phillips.
The featured soloists are sopranos Karita Mattila, Ailyn Pérez, Patricia Racette, Nina Stemme, Heidi Stober, Adela Zaharia; mezzo-sopranos Susan Graham, Daniela Mack; tenors Lawrence Brownlee, Michael Fabiano, Brandon Jovanovich, Russell Thomas; baritones Lucas Meachem, Brian Mulligan; and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn.
Founded in 1923 and only the third American opera company to reach the centennial milestone, San Francisco Opera invites Bay Area audiences and the global music community to join in this celebration, which will be livestreamed at sfopera.com/digital/livestream beginning at 6 p.m. PT. The evening’s specially curated program traverses the musical styles, artistic traditions and thrilling moments of San Francisco Opera. Pairing many of the Company’s beloved artists with archival imagery spanning San Francisco Opera’s first 100 years and unforgettable music, this celebratory retrospective is an event not to be missed.
Befitting the Company’s early emphasis on Italian repertoire under founder Gaetano Merola and reemphasized over the ensuing decades, the Italian opera canon is represented on the program by selections from the works of Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Umberto Giordano, Gioachino Rossini and Arrigo Boito. Riveting choral scenes from Puccini’s Tosca and Boito’s Mefistofele, prepared by San Francisco Opera Chorus Director John Keene, close the program’s two halves.
The evening will feature selections from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Tannhäuser, three works that marked a dramatic acceleration for the Company on the way to opening the 1935 season with its first-ever Ring cycle. European masterpieces of the twentieth century are signified with selections from the works of Benjamin Britten, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Leoš Janáček. Excerpts from Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades) and Janáček’s Jenůfa represent the proud Slavic traditions first explored by the Company in the 1930s and later with unforgettable performances and premieres that reintroduced many powerful masterworks into the repertory of American opera.
San Francisco Opera’s status as a pioneer in staging long-overlooked baroque (and earlier) operas is highlighted with selections from Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea, which entered the Company’s repertory in 1975, an aria from Handel’s Xerses and the rarely heard mezzo-soprano aria “Amour viens rendre à mon âme” from Hector’s Berlioz’s 1859 French version of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. The operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which entered the Company’s repertory comparatively late, and the French repertoire, a staple since the first season, are denoted with music from Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
The Company’s longstanding reputation as a commissioner of new works and its relationship with composer John Adams are both observed with the inclusion of “Batter my heart” from Doctor Atomic, one of three operas by the Bay Area composer to have its world premiere on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House. A highlight from Stephen Sondheim’s Follies is presented as a tribute to the Company’s presentations of American musical theater.
DINNER WITH THE ARTISTS
The festive celebration of the 100th Anniversary Concert continues with a special Dinner with the Artists benefit. For those attending the dinner, the evening begins with a champagne toast at 5 p.m. in the lobby of the Veterans Building. Following the concert, guests join the evening’s performers for this once-in-a-century celebratory dinner amid décor inspired by the Company’s past, present and future.
The co-chairs for Dinner with the Artists are San Francisco Opera Association board members Anna Fieler, Sue Marineau and Jason Phillips. Proceeds benefit the Company’s second-century commitment to artistic excellence and innovation
OPERA HOUSE CHAMPAGNE TOAST
All concert attendees are invited to a complimentary pre-show champagne toast in the lobby of the War Memorial Opera House from 5 p.m.–6 p.m.
*For the complete press release, including cast and program, open the PDF version above.