Check out the news at San Diego Opera with our new Opera Skimmer. The most current articles, interviews and reviews are all available at a glance. Click on any article to read it in its entirety.
Greer Grimsley has skirted the fast track, carving out an honorable career path on his own terms. Today, his imaginative acting and elegant musicianship have made him a favorite at U.S. regional companies and around the world. F. PAUL DRISCOLL chats with the New Orleans-born bass-baritone about his ever-evolving artistry.
Josuha Hopkins returns to Santa Fe Opera this month for a repeat of his cheeky, streetwise Papageno in Tim Albery's 2006 production of The Magic Flute, and for his first Sid in a new staging of Albert Herring.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered, not terribly long ago, that there were recordings of members of the very first production of Der Rosenkavalier from Dresden, 1911! Here's an introduction to the very first soprano to sing the marvelous role of the Marschallin, Margarethe Siems. Enjoy!
Luckily for us, Puccini's opera Turandot premiered in 1926, well after the invention of sound recording. So even though we don't have a recording of excerpts from the opera by the two principals (soprano Rosa Raisa and Miguel Fleta), we do have recordings of some of the sopranos who made history in the role.
After making her acclaimed Company debut with San Diego Opera in Romeo and Juliet, American soprano Ailyn Pérez made her way to Berlin’s Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden for her role debut as Amelia in Simon Boccanegra.
If San Diego Opera General and Artistic Director Ian Campbell looks a bit bleary-eyed, it's because he's burning the midnight oil, putting finishing touches on English-language text projections for the January 2011 season-opener, Giacomo Puccini's "Turandot."
We are three years from the worldwide bicentennial celebration of the birth of the great Italian opera composer, Giuseppe Verdi. In the countdown to the bicentennial, San Diego Opera’s 2010 Season presented two of Verdi’s great successes - an utterly smashing production of the 29 year Verdi’s first big hit, “Nabucco” (championed and conducted at its Austrian premiere by a luminous mentor – 16 years his elder – the prolific composer Gaetano Donizetti – famed for “Lucia di Lammermoor” and the comic-scream “Don Pasquale”.
In 1824, two people were born whose lives were destined to intertwine and bring them both fame. Rose Alphonsine Plessis was born into an abusive household, but she grew up to become Marie Duplessis, the most famous courtesan of her time. Alexandre Dumas, the younger, who was bullied at school because of his mixed racial background, grew up to be an esteemed playwright. Marie met him when they were twenty years old. He described her as tall and slim, with lustrous black hair and incredibly white teeth. She once quipped that it was lying that made them so white.
Dumas and Duplessis were friends for over a year and she inspired him to write his 1848 novel, La Dame aux camélias. She died at the age of twenty-three, but he had great success with the book which he soon turned into a play. It was premièred in Paris in 1852 and, eventually, it enchanted Verdi.
With its stellar production of "La Traviata" this week, San Diego Opera ends its season on a high night, actually lots of high notes, and all of them well landed by the opera's talented cast.
Performing her signature role as the consumptive courtesan Violetta (which she has sung around the world since 2005), American soprano Elizabeth Futral is thrilling in all ways ---- she glides gloriously through the role's vocal acrobatics, sings with emotion, power and beauty, and throws her whole body into acting the challenging role. San Diego Opera audiences got a brief taste of Futral as Nedda in 2008's "Pagliacci," but in "La Traviata" they get to see a real showcase for her formidable singing and acting skills.
"…if there are any tickets left and you don’t have one, get one"
A small artistic earthquake shook the Civic Theatre Saturday night, just minutes before the curtain went up on San Diego Opera’s season-concluding production of “La Traviata.” Few audience members, even those who had seen him greeting friends among the festively dressed crowd in the Civic Center Plaza a few minutes earlier, suspected that general director Ian Campbell had come onstage for anything other than his customary announcement of operas and stars for the following season. He did that, too, but only after telling the audience that Italian maestro Renato Palumbo, who should have been standing outside the door to the orchestra pit ready to make his San Diego Opera debut, would not be conducting the performance.
"What a voice!…Listening to Futral is like watching a golden liquid poured in sunlight."
"This La Traviata is top-notch in every way and well worth a visit to downtown San Diego."
It certainly wasn’t warfare at Civic Theatre Saturday evening when San Diego Opera opened Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, the company’s final offering of a successful season. But the American soprano Elizabeth Futral was clearly taking no prisoners, out-singing everyone else and capturing the dramatic heart of this beloved four-hankie melodrama, while her compatriots on stage appeared to be shell-shocked by her vocal and dramatic prowess.
It takes a lot of nerve to run an opera company, whether it’s an internationally acclaimed institution in London or Vienna, one of the large-scale companies scattered across the American landscape from San Francisco to Chicago, or one of the 10 or so major regional companies, like San Diego.
In chronological order, the International Season at the San Diego Civic Theatre consists of Puccini’s “Turandot” (Jan. 29 and Feb. 1, 4, 6), Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” (April 3, 6, 9, 12), Gounod’s “Faust” (April 23, 26, 29 and May 1) and Bizet’s “Carmen” (May 14, 17, 20, 22).
No one knows more about the series than Ian Campbell, the company’s general director and artistic director since 1983. As San Diego Opera’s boss, he’s responsible for balancing artistic ambitions and financial realities, planning the seasons, finding and hiring the talent, and collaborating with the staff and board.
Apparently the bump was unexpected. When the normal starting time arrived, the house curtain parted and San Diego Opera General and Artistic Director Ian Campbell stepped out, presumably to give a speech about subscribing to next season's operas -- Turandot, Der Rosenkavalier, Faust and Carmen. Eventually, Campbell delivered a pitch, but it was admittedly a stall as well. He announced there would be a slight delay. Backstage, resident conductor Karen Keltner was suiting up to replace debuting maestro Renato Palumbo, who'd been stricken suddenly ill. According to a San Diego Opera spokesman Monday morning, "The Maestro became very ill a few minutes before curtain and it was decided, with just a few minutes to spare, that Karen would go on. The Maestro has just confirmed that he has recovered and will be conducting the remaining performances."
Backstage at the San Diego Civic Theatre, dressing room No. 6 has a new name on the door: Maestro Renato Palumbo. And for good reason.
The 46-year-old Italian conductor is in town for his first San Diego Opera engagement. He’s leading Verdi’s “La Traviata,” one of the most popular works in the repertoire, which opens a four-performance engagement April 17 at the Civic.
On the Tuesday after Easter, I spoke by phone with British baritone Alan Opie who was enjoying the warm temperatures and blue skies of San Diego. He was in town to sing the part of the elder Germont in the San Diego Opera production of La traviata. Since he had only recently arrived, he had only been to one rehearsal.
