San Francisco Opera Livestreams Summer Season Performances

San Francisco Opera announces livestreams of select performances from the 2022 Summer Season. Opera lovers around the world have the opportunity to livestream Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni, Bright Sheng and David Henry Hwang's Dream of the Red Chamber and the Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi concert, featuring Nicole Car, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Etienne Dupuis and Soloman Howard.

A new 48-hour on-demand feature is also available for Don Giovanni and Dream of the Red Chamber. Tickets are $25 and now available at sfopera.com and by phone (415) 864-3330.

DON GIOVANNI

Livestream: Sunday, June 12 at 2 pm PT

48-hour On Demand: Available 10 am PT June 13 through 10 am PT June 15

Director Michael Cavanagh's new production of Don Giovanni is the third and final chapter of San Francisco Opera's multi-year Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy, presenting all three operatic collaborations by Mozart and poet Lorenzo Da Ponte within the same American house setting at different points over a 300-year span. The international cast is headed by Etienne Dupuis as Don Giovanni, Adela Zaharia as Donna Anna and Nicole Car as Donna Elvira, all in Company debuts: Christina Gansch (Zerlina), Luca Pisaroni (Leporello), Amitai Pati (Don Ottavio), Cody Quattlebaum (Masetto) and Soloman Howard (Commendatore). Parisian conductor Bertrand de Billy makes his Company debut conducting the 1788 Vienna version of the score.

The Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy launched in 2019 with the production of The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) set in America's early postcolonial period when the American house setting and the nation itself were newly founded. The narrative arc continued in November 2021 with Così fan tutte, in which Cavanagh's "richly inventive touch" (San Francisco Chronicle) moved the action to the 1930s where the house has been converted into a country club and the characters find themselves at moral crossroads. The director and his creative team of set and projection designer Erhard Rom, costume designer Constance Hoffman and lighting designer Jane Cox conclude their vision for the trilogy with Don Giovanni, set 150 years after the previous installment in an uncertain future where the house and society are crumbling.

DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER

Livestream: Sunday, June 19 at 2 pm PT

48-hour On Demand: Available 10 am PT June 20 through 10 am PT June 22

Bright Sheng and David Henry Hwang's Dream of the Red Chamber, the musical retelling of the 18th-century novel by Cao Xueqin, one of China's literary masterworks, played to sold-out audiences during its initial run at San Francisco Opera in 2016 and has since garnered international acclaim through presentations at the 2017 Hong Kong Arts Festival and a tour of China. Six years after its world premiere, the work returns to San Francisco Opera with a new cast in the original production by director Stan Lai, with sets and costumes by Academy Award-winning production designer Tim Yip and lighting design by Gary Marder.

Of Sheng's score for Dream of the Red Chamber, the Los Angeles Times observed, "He uses brass, winds and percussion (Western and Chinese) in original and highly imaginative ways. Pitches bend in ways that sound almost acrobatically impossible. Chinese folk tunes get transformed into rapturously expressive new music, gorgeously colored." Playwright David Henry Hwang worked closely with Sheng on the work's libretto, creating a three-hour opera from a vast literary epic. Sung in English, the production features bilingual supertitles in both English and traditional Chinese.

The opera centers on the couple Bao Yu and Dai Yu, performed by South Korean tenor Konu Kim and Chinese soprano Meigui Zhang, respectively, in their Company debuts. Debuting Chinese mezzo-soprano Hongni Wu is Bao Chai, the heiress who is to marry Bao Yu, creating a love triangle that threatens the illustrious Jia family. Korean mezzo-soprano Hyona Kim and Taiwanese soprano Karen Chia-ling Ho, who both appeared in the world premiere cast, reprise their roles as Lady Wang and Princess Jia. Completing the vocal ensemble cast are mezzo-soprano Sabina Kim in her debut as Granny Jia and mezzo-soprano Guang Yang as Aunt Xue. San Francisco-born actor Francis Jue (Madame Secretary, The Good Wife) performs the non-singing role of the Monk. Singaporean maestro Darrell Ang joins the Company for the first time to conduct the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus.

EUN SUN KIM CONDUCTS VERDI

Livestream: Thursday, June 30 at 7:30 pm PT

Concluding the Company's 99th Season, Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi is a one-night-only concert honoring the work of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim closes her first season as leader of San Francisco Opera's artistic forces, conducting the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Chorus and soloists soprano Nicole Car, tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz, baritone Etienne Dupuis, bass Soloman Howard and members of San Francisco Opera's Adler Fellowship Program (soprano Mikayla Sager, tenor Edward Graves, bass Stefan Egerstrom). San Francisco Opera's Chorus Director John Keene prepares the Chorus.

The evening will spotlight extended scenes from three of the composer's masterpieces from different periods of his momentous career: Verdi's early and middle periods with selections from Luisa Miller (1849) and Il Trovatore (1853) and Verdi's late-period masterwork Don Carlo (1867), including its dramatic Auto-Da-Fé Scene and rarely performed ballet music.

TICKETS AND INFORMATION

Livestream tickets for Don Giovanni, Dream of the Red Chamber and Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi are $25 each. In addition to viewing Don Giovanni and Dream of the Red Chamber live, ticketholders can view the performances on demand, beginning at 10am PT the following Monday for 48 hours. The livestream of Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi can be viewed live only; on-demand viewing is not available for this event. All livestreams are filmed live at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.

Tickets are available via the San Francisco Opera Box Office at (415) 864-3330 and online at sfopera.com.

All casting, programs and schedules are subject to change. For complete information about San Francisco Opera's 2022 Summer Season, visit sfopera.com.

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