Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello is the final production of San Francisco Opera’s fall season. The opera might be more commonly performed, but it makes strenuous vocal demands on the protagonist and it's difficult to find singers who have mastered the role. Fortunately, Johan Botha, a South African dramatic tenor, is more than up to the job. He brings a strikingly powerful voice and notably easy vocalism to the task. It is rare, indeed, to hear a tenor who deftly navigates Otello’s vocal difficulties.
La traviata, which opens June 13 in San Francisco Opera’s summer-season run, is a daunting opera for the soprano performing the role of Violetta Valery. Before the singing even begins, the overture has already foretold of a mixture of transport, anguish, and doom that the protagonist must actualize.
Speaking to the famed mezzo-soprano “Flicka” — the endearing sobriquet for Frederica von Stade — I’m immediately infused with the warmth of her intrinsic humanity. She belies the usual caricature of the solipsistic prima donna: the only one for whom the entire world exists.
All the requisite glamour and excitement animated this year's opening night celebration at the San Francisco Opera. A superabundance of red and pink roses packed tightly into intricate patterns decorated both the foyer and the auditorium, which itself was festooned with rose-encrusted swags draped around the dress circle. Many opening-nighters honored the occasion with beautiful evening couture and nonchalantly appraised the finery of others in the preperformance promenade.
The San Francisco Opera’s new Traviata is a dazzling affair.
