This year we purchased tickets to the San Francisco Opera’s 2024-2025 season. We now live in San Jose, so it’s straightforward to get to and from San Francisco, even for a weeknight outing.

The line up this season was exceptional. We were spoilt for choice. After a bit of calendar wrangling, we settled on five of the seven performances: Un Ballo in Maschera, The Handmaid’s Tale, Beethoven 9, Carmen, and La Boheme. We did not select Tristan & Isolde or Idomeneo.

An aside: the War Memorial Opera House is the venue for the San Francisco opera and the center piece of San Francisco’s performing arts complex. Constructed in 1932, the Opera House is also dubbed one of the city’s most beautiful public building. Perhaps more noteworthy is that it was built as a monument to San Franciscans who died during World War 1.

Why did I just tell you all of that? Good question. To appreciate the extraordinary artistry of the opera—the big voices, the commanding acting, the intense drama, the booming orchestra, and often the boisterous bravo/brava at the end of an aria—one must appreciate the place that helps to facilitate such magnificence.

Un Ballo in Maschera

We first saw Un Ballo in Maschera. We arrived at the Opera House early so that we could take advantage of the pre-opera talk. The pre-talk is a treat both for those new to opera and for repeat patrons because it provides an engaging 20-minutes or so overview of the opera you are about to experience. For this show, the pre-talk was given by Kip Cranna. Kip is a staff member at the San Francisco Opera for over forty years and was Director of Music Administration for over thirty.  In Kip’s talk, we learned about the opera’s music, characters, composer and historical background. We were also able to enjoy the pre-talk for the Handmaid’s Tale. That talk was given by Christabel Nunoo, an operatic soprano.

Un Ballo in Maschera (‘A Masked Ball’) is an 1859 opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The plot concerns the assassination in 1792 of King Gustav III of Sweden who was shot, as the result of a political conspiracy, while attending a masked ball, dying of his wounds thirteen days later. As we learned in the pre-opera talk, the libretto went through many transformations due to censorship in both Rome and Naples. After all, the story of the assassination of a king wasn’t exactly an easy subject to swallow for any ruling 19th century monarch. Oddly enough, the first production of Un Ballo in Maschera was actually set in Boston during the colonial era. Dealing with so much censorship seemed to have frustrated Verdi a great deal.

The Handmaid’s Tale

The powerful adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel by the same name finally arrived to San Francisco this fall. Apparently, it was slated to preview four years ago but the COVID-19 pandemic derailed those plans. The opera, like the novel, tells the story of Offred, a resilient woman in the dystopian Republic of Gilead. Stripped of her rights, she is one of many Handmaids forced to bear children for the ruling Commanders.

I read Atwood’s book just prior to seeing the opera. I found it engrossing even though it left me with a discomforting lack of closure. I was concerned that the rich and meticulous character development from the book would be lost in the adaptation to operatic medium. I was wrong. The opera was every bit as intriguing as the novel. The acting was poignant and beautiful. The costume and set design were outstandingly complementary and helped bring the story to life.

My one disappointment was the musical composition. It was forgettable. One of the more expressive criticisms I read justly said: “the music was wallpaper when it wasn’t being cliché.” I wholeheartedly agree.

Beethoven 9

For the first time in the company’s history, the Opera House explored Beethoven’s 9th symphony. The one-night-only musical celebration was a 90-minutes long rendition of the monumental masterpiece. It was conducted by Korean-born, Eun Sun Kim. To the untrained ear, the opera orchestra did a pretty good job at delivering a good performance. However, reviews were mixed in retrospective reports. For example, one of the articles I read suggested that the Opera Orchestra’s performance was noticeably unlike a symphony orchestra’s performance. This was not a compliment. Regardless of what was said in the aftermath of the show, I thoroughly enjoyed the music and marveled at the conducting. An evening well-spent.

Carmen and La Boheme

We had a conflict and was not able to attend the performance of Carmen. I hope it comes back next season. La Boheme is next up and that is not until June 2025. I’ll update this post with reflections then.