Opera Warhorses

Teams of artists from Italy and the United States collaborated in creating the San Francisco Opera’s imaginative new production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”. Team Italy consisted of Conductor Nicola Luisotti, Soprano Serena Farnocchia singing Donna Elvira (her San Francisco Opera debut season), and four artists for whom this production was their American debut – Basso [...]

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As the world moves closer to the bicentennial year of the birth of opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, performances of his great 1875 “Requiem” memorializing Italian poet and patriot Alessandro Manzoni, will be part of the Verdi observances of the world’s great centers of European culture. Manzoni’s most famous work I Promessi Sposi strongly influenced the [...]

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Note from William: This post continues my series of observances of the 50 year anniversaries of the historic performances that I attended at San Francisco Opera during the general directorship of Kurt Herbert Adler. This is the first of six such observances of performances from the company’s 1961 Fall season.   Even as an entering [...]

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