CARMEN Comes to San Francisco Opera Next Month

San Francisco Opera’s 2024 Fall Season will conclude with the return of Georges Bizet’s Carmen from November 13–December 1 at the War Memorial Opera House. Mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux makes her American debut as the title role, heading an international cast with Jonathan Tetelman as Don José for the first time in his career, Louise Alder as Micaëla and Christian Van Horn as Escamillo. Conductor Benjamin Manis joins the Company to lead the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and Francesca Zambello directs her acclaimed production which was last presented here in 2019. Chorus Director John Keene prepares the artists of the San Francisco Opera Chorus.

Months after the 1875 world premiere of Carmen was met with hostile reviews, 36-year-old composer George Bizet died without knowing his work would become one of the most popular of all operas. The composer based his Carmen on the gritty novella by Prosper Mérimée and drew inspiration from the music of the Iberian Peninsula, including Spanish dance rhythms, hand castanets and the sound of guitar music. Bizet’s arias and ensembles in Carmen are among the art form’s most memorable, including Carmen’s seductive Habanera and Seguidilla, Don José’s impassioned Flower Song, Escamillo’s bravura Toreador Song and Micaëla’s Act III prayer for courage.

Francesca Zambello’s well-travelled vision for Carmen, a co-production between San Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera based on the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Norwegian National Opera staging, updates the opera’s setting from the 1820s to Seville at the time of Carmen’s premiere in 1875. Associate director and choreographer Annamaria Bruzzese assists Zambello with this revival which showcases the work of production designer Tanya McCallin, original lighting designer Paule Constable and revival lighting designer Justin A. Partier.

Swiss mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux scored a triumph at the 2022 Salzburg Festival, filling-in as a late substitute Amneris in Verdi’s Aida. Opera reported, “All gave very physical performances, but especially Eve-Maud Hubeaux: playing a petulant princess more than once suggested a Salome-like character in her toying with Radames, she sang with copper-toned glow and agility not always found in interpreters of this role.” Of her captivating performance, Die Süddeutsche proclaimed, “Next to her everyone else fades.” Hubeaux makes her American debut as Carmen, the free-spirited Roma woman at the heart of Bizet’s tragic work, a role she has performed with the Vienna State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Brussels’ La Monnaie.

Jonathan Tetelman’s Company debut as Alfredo in the Centennial Season new production of Verdi’s La Traviata won such popular and critical acclaim that San Francisco Classical Voice said, “Power, ardor, conviction, and glorious sheen were the mainstays of towering Jonathan Tetelman’s flawless vocalism.” The Chilean American tenor, an exclusive recording artist for Deutsche Gramophone, takes on Don José for the first time in his fast-rising career. On November 26, the soldier-turned-brigand Don José will be performed by Welsh tenor and current San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow Thomas Kinch who also appears this season as Melot in Tristan und Isolde.

Four years after her scheduled debut with San Francisco Opera (as the title role in Handel’s Partenope) was canceled by the pandemic, British soprano and Audience Prize-winner at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition Louise Alder makes her long-awaited triple-debut—American, Company and role—as Micaëla. American bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, whose many roles with San Francisco Opera include the four villains in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Oroveso in Norma, Zoroastro in Orlando, and Claggart in Billy Budd, adds the bullfighter, Escamillo, to his distinguished gallery of heroes and villains on the War Memorial Opera House stage.

The cast includes current Adler Fellows soprano Arianna Rodriguez as Frasquita, mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz as Mercédès, baritone Samuel Kidd as Moralès and bass-baritone James McCarthy as Zuniga. Tenors Christopher Oglesby and Alex Boyer complete the ensemble of vocal soloists as Dancaïre and Remendado, respectively, while Dance Corps dancer Blanche Hampton portrays Manuelita.

San Francisco Opera founder Gaetano Merola conducted Bizet’s masterpiece in his 1922 test season at the Stanford University football stadium and programmed it for the Company’s fifth official season in 1927. Carmen has been presented in 34 previous San Francisco Opera seasons, making it the fourth most-presented work in Company history behind Puccini’s La Bohème (45), Madama Butterfly (38) and Tosca (38). Many of the great Carmens of the past century—Maria Jeritza, Gladys Swarthout, Risë Stevens, Regina Resnik, Teresa Berganza, Denyce Graves and Olga Borodina—brought their interpretations to the Company’s stage, establishing a tradition for distinctive portrayals that renew the opera’s appeal for each generation.

Sung in French with English supertitles, the eight performances of Carmen are scheduled for November 13 (7:30 p.m.), 16 (7:30 p.m.), 19 (7:30 p.m.), 22 (7:30 p.m.), 24 (2 p.m.), 26 (7:30 p.m.), 29 (7:30 p.m.); December 1 (2 p.m.), 2024.

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