This lauded production presents at-home viewers with three tales, comic and dramatic, depicting the tumult, joy, and heartache of love.
Opera San José is offering Spanish and Vietnamese subtitles (in addition to English) for its latest virtual production, Love & Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy, welcoming two of San Jose's largest communities to experience this local art. This lauded production presents at-home viewers with three tales, comic and dramatic, depicting the tumult, joy, and heartache of love.
Conducted by Opera San José Music Director Joseph Marcheso and Resident Conductor Christopher James Ray, and directed by Resident Director Tara Branham, this trilogy of fully-staged works is now available to stream on demand for a limited time. Tickets (which include 30 days of on-demand viewing access) are available on a pay-what-you-can basis at $15, $25, or $40 per household. For more information or to purchase tickets, the public can visit operasj.org or call (408) 437-4450 (open Monday through Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm).
The three operas featured in this trilogy include Wolf-Ferrari's Il segreto di Susanna, a drawing room comedy of errors in the nineteenth-century Italian opera buffa tradition, in which an innocuous secret threatens a young newly-wed couple's chance at happiness. The 52-minute opera features Resident Artists soprano Vanessa Becerra and baritone Efraín Solís, conducted by Joseph Marcheso. For the first time since the pandemic, the artists were joined by members of the Opera San José orchestra, whose safe participation was made possible with the implementation of rapid, day-of COVID-19 testing, and other extensive protocols. Irony and whimsy follow in Ned Rorem's Four Dialogues, based on the poetry of Frank O'Hara, in a classic "guy-meets-girl" tale marking one couple's relationship from love's first blush to the pangs of its bitter end. This 20-minute work is performed by celebrated soprano Marnie Breckenridge and Resident Artist tenor Carlos Enrique Santelli. The achingly gorgeous harmonies of Tom Cipullo's The Husbands concludes the intimate triptych. This haunting meditation based on William Carpenter's prose poem Rain summons visions of seasons long past in a stunning rumination on widows, tenderly keeping their departed spouses forever present in their hearts. This 10-minute work featuring Resident Artists mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon and baritone Eugene Brancoveanu is conducted by Christopher James Ray.
This performance was captured in the Opera San José Heiman Digital Media Studio, where every precaution was taken for the protection of company members and crew, following health and safety protocols meeting or exceeding local and state guidelines set by Santa Clara County's valued Public Health Officers. Members of the creative team include Tara Branham (Stage Director), Steven C. Kemp (Set Designer), Alyssa Oania (Costume Coordinator), David Lee Cuthbert (Lighting Designer), ChrisTina Martin (Hair and Makeup Designer), and Rapt Productions (Video Production).
Opera San José is a professional, regional opera company that is unique in the United States. Maintaining a resident company of artists and supporting emerging talent in role debuts, Opera San José specializes in showcasing the finest young professional singers in the nation. In addition to mainstage performances, Opera San José maintains extensive educational programs in schools and in the community at large and offers preview lectures and Introduction to Opera talks for all mainstage productions.
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