Opera Aficionado is an exciting, new suite of programs designed for patrons who are passionate about opera. Aficionado provides an opportunity to learn more, dive deeper, and get an inside look at the world of opera.
As part of Opera Aficionado, our Interactive Lectures Series gives opera-goers around the world a front-row seat to scholarly talks, allowing attendees to dialogue with fellow opera lovers, experts, and special guests. Each month will be focused on a concept or theme relevant to all of us.
“With Porgy and Bess,” said Leonard Bernstein, "you suddenly realize that Gershwin was a great, great theater composer . . . Thrilling stuff, isn’t it?” Famous for his Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin blended bluesy Tin Pan Alley tunefulness with the powerful music of operatic grandeur in his heartfelt portrait of a close-knit African-American community in Charleston’s Catfish Row. He pulls at our heartstrings with his tale of the disabled beggar Porgy and his love for the troubled but passionate Bess. The opera has been hailed by many as an American masterpiece, while others have criticized what they view as its stereotyping and cultural appropriation.
Michael Bragg, who has performed in numerous Porgy productions and is now San Francisco Opera's Music Planning Associate and Librarian, shares his insights as he joins with the Company’s Dramaturg Emeritus Kip Cranna for a contemporary assessment of this remarkable work’s status in the world of American opera.
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$10-20
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