Opera Warhorses

During the first 30 years of history of the San Francisco Opera, Italian-born Gaetano Merola was at the opera’s helm. Although artists representing many nationalities performed during the Merola years, the list of great Italian artists who appeared at San Francisco Opera for multiple seasons - Giovanni Martinelli, Tito Schipa, Giuseppe De Luca, Claudia Muzio, [...]

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Fifty years ago this Fall, an important event in the history of opera, previously chronicled on this website, took place at the San Francisco Opera. Turkish soprano Leyla Gencer, replacing Maria Callas, whom the San Francisco Opera fired, took on the first bel canto opera role of her career, the title role in Donizetti’s “Lucia [...]

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