Looking forward to Monday night's "Behind the Curtain: Planning an Opera Season" presentation by San Francisco Opera's Director of Music Administration Kip Cranna and Associate Director of Production Jennifer Good, I was disappointed when other work (look around SFCV this week) piled up and made it impossible to attend.
I turned to my good colleague, Lisa Hirsch, and asked her what she thinks I may be missing. It took her about five minutes to outline a fantasy lecture.
These are the basics of planning an opera season:- Available funds
- Cash cows versus pie-in-the-sky productions
- Music Director's input — what does he want to conduct
- Trying for some kind of balance
- Available productions / directors / whole package of designers
- Available singers
- Available guest conductorsThen work that out over five years. I could almost make an algorithm for how often Tosca/Butterfly/La bohème will come around, leaving the other Puccini operas in the dust; similarly, take the big/easy to stage Verdi, and sprinkle lightly with everything else (La traviata, Rigoletto are the easiest to cast. Throw in some Donizetti or Bellini or verismo. Make sure the Mozart Big Four come around regularly.
Once you have those, fill in with Wagner, 20th century classics, commissions, and oddities or rarities as needed.