Kim will be the first to say the sound doesn’t come from the conductor, it’s the product of the orchestra’s musicians as guided by the conductor. Delivery on a great promise came from Eun Sun Kim, who led a Tosca of unusual colors and accents, brought the orchestra to the front, but never - not for a moment - handicapping the singers, not even those without Michael Fabiano’s heldentenor delivery of Cavaradossi’s rafter-shaking “Vittoria!” These are not only new and heroic performances, but also both promising and delivering excellence, on par with the best of SF Opera’s glorious 99 years. It now serves again in 2021 as the harbinger of new beginnings. This is the opera which signaled the birth of the company in 1923 in the Exposition Auditorium, then inaugurated the War Memorial itself in 1932, and in 1997, reopened the house after the post-Loma Prieta quake reconstruction, with designs from that original production. On the stage: Puccini’s Tosca, in the 2018 production. SF Opera did itself proud with the organization of this difficult reopening, sufficient extra staff handling the challenging admission procedure of checking digital tickets, IDs, and Covid vaccination or negative tests.Īilyn Pérez as Tosca and Michael Fabiano as Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca | Credit: Cory Weaver/SF Opera He singled out local health professionals, 500 of whom were invited to the 3,000-seat auditorium, which was full for the evening, many wearing their pre-pandemic finest - and masks. Shilvock spoke briefly before the performance, mourning those who passed on during the pandemic, and Michael Morgan, who died yesterday praised the company, staff, and orchestra for their work in the recovery. Every note marks a new moment of truth that has just been illuminated. “We are now at that moment when music is flowing once again, and propulsive energy is returning … Let us find collective reverence for what it means to be surrounded anew by music. “This shutdown of live music has been singular in occurrence and singularly painful in impact,” SF Opera Executive Director Matthew Shilvock said in a note. The War Memorial’s ornate main lobby, which stood empty for 18 months, is filled with the opening-night crowd again.

Sf opera 2021 season