Donald Runnicles’ first performance of Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” in San Francisco, was his fifth Puccini work among 54 different operas he has conducted for the company. Originally scheduled in a different (and almost certainly less traditional) production by former General Director Pamela Rosenberg, it represented current Director David Gockley’s fifth change in the fall season [...]
Entries from November 2006
World Class “Manon Lescaut” - S. F. Opera November 19, 2006
November 26th, 2006
Tags: 2005-2008: William's Reviews
Echoes of Tristan - Thoughts on Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut”
November 23rd, 2006
Fifty years ago, when I saw my first Puccini opera, his “Turandot” was only 30 years old (To put this in the perspective of time, consider the age of three operas that did not exist in 1956. Adams’ “Nixon in China” has been around for 19 years, Britten’s “Death in Venice” for 33 and Poulenc’s [...]
Tags: 2005-2008: William's Commentaries
The Runnicles, Hockney “Tristan” in S. F. - October 22, 2006
November 17th, 2006
Conductor Donald Runnicles has had an extraordinary impact over more than a decade and a half of musical performances at the San Francisco Opera, serving with three quite different personalities holding the General Director position - Lofti Mansouri, Pamela Rosenberg, and David Gockley. The Fall, 2006 S. F. Opera season is notable for two events. The first [...]