Handel’s Baroque Romance Enlivened by Exciting New Star by Pamela Feinsilber It’s good to see “Orlando,” one of the most famous of Handel’s 40-plus operas, in San Francisco again, especially since the vague Arcadian setting has been cleverly reimagined and updated. The plot of this 1733 “trouser opera,” in which a woman sings the…
Jake Heggie’s Feel-Good Opera Packs a Lesson by Jeff Dunn Fine singing, a thin adaptation, tune-starved but inoffensive music, and an awkward set characterize San Francisco Opera’s third delivery from composer Jake Heggie, after successes with Dead Man Walking in 2000 and Moby-Dick in 2012. True to Frank Capra’s 1946 Christmas movie It’s a…
Puccini’s Great Opera Has a Dazzling Star, Fresh Sets & Costumes by Pamela Feinsilber Critics attend a popular opera such as “Tosca” many, many times over the years. We saw it here just four years ago, with the amazing Lianna Haroutounian in the lead and tenor Brian Jagde as her beloved, Cavaradossi. This is…
Director Jose Maria Condemi’s Chivalrous Rustics & Sad Clowns Come Alive by Pamela Feinsilber It’s not often that San Francisco audiences are offered the most popular “double bill” in opera: “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Pietro Mascagni and “Pagliacci” by Ruggero Leoncavallo. While these one-act operas are sometimes presented separately, they’ve been together since both composers…