Video: San Francisco Opera Releases Teaser Trailer for THE HANDMAID'S TALE

Watch a teaser trailer for San Francisco Opera's The Handmaid's Tale, running September 14-October 1, 2024, in the video here. Performances run at San Francisco Opera from September 14-October 1, 2024.

In a dystopian future, women are forced into childbearing servitude by an extremist theocratic regime. Escape is nearly impossible—but Offred, a handmaid, is determined to find a way back to her child, no matter the cost.

Based on the landmark novel by Margaret Atwood, this intense operatic drama gives voice to a terrifying, fictional world. The Handmaid's Tale is composed by Poul Ruders with a libretto by Paul Bentley.

Former head of the Royal Danish Opera John Fulljames directs his staging, a co-production between San Francisco Opera and The Royal Danish Theatre, which was originally scheduled for 2020 in San Francisco but was postponed by the pandemic. Set designer Chloe Lamford, who makes her Company debut this summer with Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence, returns with set designs that situate the work in a converted high school gymnasium. Christina Cunningham designed the production’s costumes, including the red coat and white hood of the handmaids, an iconic uniform that is often worn by protesters at demonstrations when legislative and judicial actions threaten the rights of women. Fabiana Piccioli is the lighting designer, and projections are by Will Duke. Karen Kamensek, who made her house debut conducting Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah in 2014, returns to lead the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in Ruders’ spectacular score, which will be performed in English and includes haunting uses of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

Mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts, who has performed the heroines of Offenbach, Bizet, Bright Sheng and Mozart on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House, stars as the handmaid Offred who is determined to find a way out of her nightmarish servitude and back to her child. This contemporary operatic masterwork also features mezzo-soprano Lindsay Ammann in her Company debut as Serena Joy, soprano Sarah Cambidge as Aunt Lydia and bass-baritone John Relyea as the Commander.

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