Arts & Events

In a star-studded concert on Friday, September 9, San Francisco Opera opened its CentennialSeason with a bang. From a podium on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House, General Director Matthew Shilvock paid tribute to Gaetano Merola, who in 1922 founded San Francisco Opera with the help of a dozen Italian-American families who banded together to finance this visionary venture. Shilvock was joined on stage by mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade who also paid tribute to this company’s heritage by recalling singing in many Italian operas on this very stage. Then Matthew Shilvock introduced our current Artistic Director Eun Sun Kim and the music began with baritone Lucas Meachem singing the Prologue from Ruggero Leoncvallo’s Pagliacci. Meachem’s bravura performance was a perfect opener for this celebratory Centennial event. 

Next we heard Samoan-born tenor Pene Pati in a beautiful rendition of Che gelida manina from Puccini’s beloved La Bohème. Then came two selections from Vincenzo Bellini’s La Sonnambula beautifully sung by soprano Nadine Sierra and tenor Michael Fabiano. Following these offerings was Nessun dorma from Puccini’s Turandot stirringly sung by Michael Fabiano. Then we heard the introductory orchestral music to Act III of Richard Wagner’s Lohengren. In a concert mostly devoted to vocal excerpts from Italian operas, this brassy Wagnerian orchestral offering stuck out like a sore thumb, even though it was admirably led by conductor Eun Sun Kim. 

Great singing followed with an inspired performance by Nadine Sierra and Pene Pati of Vieni, vieni fra queste braccia from Bellini’s I Puritani. Next came Michael Fabiano and Lucas Meachem in the stirring duet E lui … desso … l’infante! … Dio, che nell’alma infondere from Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo. Then Pene Pati returned to sing Ah, mes amis from Gaetano Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment. In this notoriously difficult aria, Pene Pati delivered no less than nine consecutive high C’s, even holding the final one for what seemed an eternity! Following this we heard Nadine Sierra as Thaïs and Lucas Meachem as Athanèl in the bitterly ironic final scene from Jules Massenet’s Thaïs. Nadine Sierra beautifully rendered her character’s mystical conversion to faith in God while Lucas Meachem, her mentor in this conversion, could sing only of his physical desire for the beauiful Thaïs. Following this dramatic music came a decided anti-climax in a musical montage of orchestral allusions to many different operas put together for this Centennial celebration by Texu Kim under the silly title fffanfare!! When this gaudy but trivial montage was over, I left the Opera House thrilled by the splendid singing in this concert but regretting that such a cloying bit of musical montage such as fffanfare!! had been included. Oh well, I look forward to the future of San Francisco Opera as the company celebrates its Centennial and embarks on its next 100 years.