Fall Preview: San Francisco Opera

Single tickets for San Francisco Opera's 2017 Fall Season have been on sale since the end of June, but there is still time to cherry-pick some exciting shows. Lavish revivals, new productions and a highly anticipated world premiere open and continue in repertory starting Fri., Sept. 8.

Gala opening night features Puccini's "Turandot" in the famous David Hockney production. Nothing like an icy princess cutting off suitor's heads to get the party started. The colorful designs make an attractive backdrop for the brutality, and the composer delivers one show-stopping aria after another. Appropriate for the occasion - spoiler alert - there's a happy ending!

Pageantry onstage must compete with the high-fashion parade of first-nighters, but Austrian soprano Martina Serafin, who made her SFO debut in "Der Rosenkavalier" a decade ago, will govern imperiously in the title role, and only tenor Brian Jagde, as her lone successful lover, should distract her focus. Jagde (2009 Merola Opera Program and former SFO Adler Fellow) has grown an international career from praised appearances in San Francisco. He plays the daring young prince for the entire run through early December.

There are some amazing double castings in other lead roles. Swedish soprano Nina Stemme assumes the throne in November, when rich-voiced Leah Crocetto (former Adler Fellow and Merola Opera Program alumna) also takes the part of tragic slave girl Liu from Toni Marie Palmertree (second-year Adler Fellow and 2015 Merola Opera Program break-out star).

To mark his final season as Music Director, Nicola Luisotti will open the Company's 95th season with "Turandot" and "La Traviata," in addition to conducting the annual San Francisco Opera in the Park Concert. He is followed in "Turandot" by American conductor Christopher Franklin, making his SFO debut.

Another bloody princess appears in a new production of Richard Strauss' "Elektra" by English director Keith Warner, staged for SFO by director Anja Kuhnhold in her Company debut. Soprano Christine Goerke has earned raves for previous enactments of the grueling title role, and American mezzo-soprano Michaela Martens is Klytemnestra.

Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka will sing Chrysothemis, and American bass-baritone Alfred Walker makes his SFO debut as Orest. Hungarian conductor Henrik Nanasi will direct the Orchestra in his own Company debut. "Elektra" may not be a walk in the park for listeners or performers, but it is also one of the most intense psychological experiences in opera. The music thrills, even as it screams bloody murder.

Director John Copley's time-honored staging of Verdi's "La Traviata" brings tenor Atalla Ayan, making his SFO debut as Alfredo Germont into the arms of Romanian soprano Aurelia Florian, making her American and SFO debuts as doomed party girl Violetta Valery. Also making his SFO debut, as Giorgio Germont, baritone Artur Rucinski should help fellow newbies bring fresh life to the sumptuously traditional production, first introduced in 1987. Verdi's heartbreaking music is in Maestro Luisotti's DNA, so grab a hanky and get ready for an old-fashioned cry.

Speaking of fallen women, Jules Massenet's "Manon" has got some relationship problems of her own. Red-hot tenor Michael Fabiano made his SFO debut in "Lucrezia Borgia" in 2011, and he has since won international fame. His notable returns to the War Memorial stage, especially as Rodolfo in "La Boheme" in 2014, demonstrated his star-quality mixture of looks, acting talent and brilliant voice.

It won't be difficult understanding an innocent country girl's instant attraction to Fabiano in his role debut as Chevalier des Grieux. He will be steaming up the windows with American soprano Ellie Dehn as Manon, until her character embarks on a solo career of debauchery. Champion of the French repertoire, conductor Patrick Fournillier is on the podium for director, with costume designer Vincent Boussard's new staging of the tres francais morality play. Manon may pay the piper in the end, but she has a lot of fun and sings some lovely music on her glamorous road to ruin.

The biggest opera premiere in years rounds off the season when legendary American composer John Adams joins again with lifelong collaborator librettist/director Peter Sellars for "Girls of the Golden West." They changed modern opera with "Nixon in China" in 1987, directed by Sellars with a libretto by Alice Goodman. "The Death of Klinghoffer" followed in 1991 and received a San Francisco Opera staging in 1992. Adams maintains a crossover audience without succumbing to pop-culture pressure. His musical voice has integrity, heart, harmonic richness and a gift for astute orchestration. He has never shied from controversy, but his intelligence and humor usually calm detractors.

A quick synopsis of "Girls of the Golden West" sounds a bit like PC revisionism, but a new history of the Gold Rush and the 49ers was long overdue, and Adams and Sellars are too honest for glib polemics. Using period material including "The Shirley Letters," about life at Rich Bar by "Dame Shirley"; speeches by Frederick Douglass; poetry of ethnically diverse miners; songs of the era; and the writings of Mark Twain; Sellars and Adams have crafted an operatic epic for today.

Info: sfopera.com