San Francisco Opera Returns to Live Performances, Presents Online Ring Festival and Launches New Original Digital Programming This Spring
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SAN FRANCISCO OPERA RETURNS TO LIVE PERFORMANCES, PRESENTS ONLINE RING FESTIVAL AND LAUNCHES NEW ORIGINAL DIGITAL PROGRAMMING THIS SPRING New Adaptation of The Barber of Seville Starring Lucas Meachem, Daniela Mack, Laura Krumm, Alek Shrader Live at Marin Center Drive-In, April 23–May 15 The Adlers: Live at the Drive-In April 29, May 6, May 13 Wagner’s Ring Cycle Streams in March Accompanied by Live Ring Festival Virtual Events Featuring Special Guests New Original Digital Content Releases: In Song Atrium Sessions North Stage Door Podcast Lucas Meachem (photo: Simon Pauly); Roderick Cox (photo: Susie Knoll); In Song: J’Nai Bridges (photo: Taylor Ballantyne); Wagner’s Die Walküre (photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera) San Francisco, CA (February 16, 2021; updated February 18, 2021; updated April 1, 2021) — San Francisco Opera Tad and Dianne Taube General Director Matthew Shilvock announces re-envisioned Spring 2021 programming including a return to live performances with a new production of Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and 1 concerts offered in a drive-in setting at San Rafael’s Marin Center in April and May. Throughout the month of March, the Company will present a Ring Festival featuring free streams of the 2018 performances of Richard Wagner’s epic, 15-hour Ring cycle and live events including panel discussions and lectures for deeper engagement. Also this spring, San Francisco Opera launches three new programs of original digital content: • In Song, a series of video portraits featuring remarkable San Francisco Opera artists who draw us into their distinctive spheres through stories and song—from classical to bluegrass to spirituals. • Atrium Sessions, intimate, short-form video performances showcasing the diverse talents of San Francisco Opera artists, filmed and recorded in the Company’s Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater. • North Stage Door, a podcast taking listeners into the swirl of creativity, stagecraft and performance at San Francisco Opera. General Director Matthew Shilvock said: There is an incredible reawakening of the arts ahead of us. As the pandemic recedes, we need that visceral energy of live performance—artists and audiences connected in magical moments of emotive expression—more than ever. At San Francisco Opera we are committed to getting back to it safely this spring. Our spring offerings are both a return and a springboard. We are excited to share a group of experiences that we hope will connect our community with the emotional power of the human voice. I am thrilled that we will be bringing live opera to the Bay Area in late April with a newly conceived drive-in Barber of Seville with fabulous artists, the glorious San Francisco Opera Orchestra and a production that reflects the joyous return of music making to our lives. This will be complemented by three new digital offerings that, in different ways, connect us with the immediacy of song and the urgency to create. And then, in a special March edition of our popular weekend archival streams, we are offering a presentation of our acclaimed 2018 Ring cycle, accompanied by a Ring Festival to create a month-long immersion into one of the greatest artistic works ever created. 2 I have so much optimism for the future, not only the immediate return of opera but for where we go next. As we welcome Eun Sun Kim as music director, we look towards our centennial in 2022–23 and to our second century. This is an inflection point where we expand and diversify our art and our audience, reconnecting our amazing Bay Area community to the vital storytelling power of opera. Simply put, we want to be more to more people. I look forward to a future marked by experimentation and innovation. The new directions of our spring programming are just the beginning. The drive-in events mark San Francisco Opera’s first live performances since the beginning of the global pandemic, which caused the cancellation of the Company’s Summer and Fall 2020 seasons. In April 2020 the Company began offering free opera streams, virtual events, interactive lectures and other online programming as part of Opera is ON, an initiative to bring opera to Bay Area audiences and the global community. The resumption of live performance this spring is made possible by San Francisco Opera’s partnership with a team of University of California San Francisco (UCSF) doctors led by Dr. George Rutherford and other leading health professionals. Through weekly consultations over the last nine months, safety protocols have been developed in accordance with state, local and industry guidelines regarding testing, social distancing, masks and other controls to ensure a safe return to live performance. Last fall, the collaboration with UCSF enabled live recordings within the Taube Atrium Theater. The Company is now expanding those practices toward the in-person format at the Marin Center. The performances of Barber of Seville and The Adlers: Live at the Drive-In are taking place at the Marin Center thanks to the partnership of the County of Marin; Public Health Officer of Marin Dr. Matt Willis; and Director of Cultural Services in Marin Gabriella Calicchio. Located ten minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge and surrounded by the beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright architecture of the Marin County Civic Center, the venue is a welcoming environment to present live opera with safety protocols that meet the County’s strict guidelines. Marin County Public Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis said: "Public health is really about our well-being as a community, and that includes the arts. I’ve been so impressed that every 3 piece of the production has been designed around the health and safety of the audience and the artists. We're thrilled to be partnering with San Francisco Opera to bring this event to Marin. It's fitting that this happens at the Marin Center, which has played a key role in every phase of our pandemic response. Our community came here for COVID testing, and then for vaccinations and will come to support their health through the power of the arts. I see this as a signal of moving into a new chapter— finding ways to do what we value, together, while staying safe in the last months of this pandemic. The arts are a vital support for our health and well-being." Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and the Director of the Prevention and Public Health Group at UCSF Dr. George Rutherford said: “San Francisco Opera has been extremely conscientious in designing a protocol that is maximally protective of performers, patrons and staff. Our small group of UCSF physicians has worked closely with the Opera to ensure that the best evidence and tested approaches have been used. On behalf of our advisory group—Drs. Mark Almond, Peter Chin-Hong, Robert Harrison, Sânziana Roman and Clark Rosen—congratulations on bringing live arts back to the Bay Area.” THE BARBER OF SEVILLE 11 live drive-in performances at Marin Center: April 23–May 15 San Francisco Opera returns to live opera performance with a new adaptation of one of the greatest operas in the repertoire, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (Il Barbiere di Siviglia). American director Matthew Ozawa has adapted the beloved opera into a 90-minute (no intermission), backstage comedy that retains the work’s humor and vocal fireworks while linking it to the poignancy of human connection. The opera will be performed in an English translation by Marcie Stapp. Ozawa said: “After such a lengthy period of hibernation, our drive-in Barber of Seville is a chance to bring what we love back to life while reawakening our resilient creativity. Coming at a time when audiences need laughter and true catharsis, we pull back the curtain to reveal San Francisco Opera’s backstage world of dressing rooms, divas and divine escapades. Our goal is to breathe life back into live grand operatic performance and connect with joy, liberation and love.” The opera’s fast-moving action and melodic flights will take place on an adapted version of the unit set originally intended for San Francisco Opera’s new production of 4 Beethoven’s Fidelio, which was postponed due to the pandemic. Work on the set continued in the Company’s scene shop during the shutdown and the Barber creative team utilized the structure’s innate flexibility of design for the Marin Center drive-in experience. Conceived by Bay Area designer Alexander V. Nichols, the set and projection designs will take on the appearance of the War Memorial Opera House’s backstage dressing rooms. The production features new costumes designed by Jessica Jahn and lighting for the open-air production by JAX Messenger. Conductor Roderick Cox makes his Company debut leading the San Francisco Opera Orchestra musicians in a socially distanced ensemble. The opera, which will be presented without chorus given health protocols and shorn of a few characters, is anchored by a stellar cast. Baritone Lucas Meachem, a “robust and smooth-toned Figaro” (San Francisco Chronicle), is the charismatic barber whose tongue-twisting music includes the famous aria “Largo al factotum.” Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack portrays Rosina, for which the Guardian praised her “dark tone and formidable coloratura,” with Laura Krumm singing the final three performances. Alek Shrader, whom the New York Times hailed as a “virile Almaviva with matinee-idol good looks,” reprises the role of the Count which he performed opposite his wife, Mack, at the War Memorial Opera House in 2014. Rosina’s guardian, Dr. Bartolo, will be performed by bass Philip Skinner, and bass Kenneth Kellogg is the music teacher, Don Basilio. Mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook reprises her portrayal of Berta, a part she has sung in five previous productions with the Company.