Opera

Tragedy and comedy vie for attention in Richard Strauss’ technically demanding, gorgeous score and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s fascinating play-within-a-play libretto.

The San Francisco Opera has front-loaded its season, and coming up this week is Renee Fleming's appearance in the title role of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia.

Like a well-trained infantryperson, Heart of a Soldier
triumphed in its first battle with opera’s ultimate enemy, public
indifference: Patrons greeted the premiere in the War Memorial Opera
House with a sustained standing ovation.

A true-to-the-original production of Gershwin’s masterwork is blessed by four outstanding women singer/actors, but marred by lax baton work.

The Grand Finale of the Merolini serves as a coming-out party for singers who may rise to the top of the operatic world or settle in the middle ranks.

A noted opera director reflects on collaborating with San Francisco Opera on a new work based on the 9/11 attacks.

Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s opera Four Saints in Three Acts receives a colorful, if often inscrutable, remounting at Yerba Buena Center.

And this Sunday Dolora Zajick sings for free as part of the San Francisco Opera's performance at Stern Grove. That's right: $100 a ticket to see her in the opera house, free at Stern Grove. And then there's this: even if you arrive late – heck, even if you picnic in the parking lot – you'll still hear her loud and clear.

The stage director/choreographer strives to get his singers to embody their roles, so the audience can sense that their story is alive and present onstage.

Philip Glass’ Orphée earns high marks as a 20th-century alternative to Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. It just deserves a better production than the blunt, charmless staging mounted by the Ensemble Parallèle at Herbst Theatre over the weekend.