San Francisco Opera's Bold Summer Season Comes to an End

The San Francisco Opera’s summer season ended on a high note with the triumphant reception of The Trojans (Les Troyens), the monumental French epic scored by Hector Berlioz.

Critics were less enthused by Marco Tutino’s passionate new opera, Two Women, but the popular appeal of this commissioned work was clear on the evening Cultural Currents attended.

Based on a 1958 Alberto Moravia novel that Vittorio De Sica turned into a film masterpiece, that opera took many brave chances. Some worked, and some failed, but it is the mark of a great company to take these risks every year.

Zachary Woolfe, opera critic for the New York Times, was especially harsh in his review, noting that the work was “overblown,” and contained too many orchestral surges, which ultimately “exhausted” the audience.

That’s not what we saw. Indeed, the audience gave soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci a rousing standing ovation, with “Brava” ringing to the rafters.

At the fountain

Soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cesira. ©Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

The world premiere generated similar caustic remarks by the San Francisco Chronicle critic, Joshua Kosman, who accused Italian composer Marco Tutino of copying “Puccini playbook” with melodic formulas that pandered to opera-goers easily satisfied with familiar arias and dramatic structure.

Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times, gave a far more balanced assessment of the work, however, observing that Two Women represents SFO’s curious cultural stance.

Indeed, Swed says SFO “has staked out the position that the art form's future is in remaking its past, the way other cities restore their old towns or Disneyland hangs on to Main Street.”

Cultural Currents agrees, insisting that much of that credit is due to outgoing General Director David Gockley, who will retire in July 2016.

As reported in Bay Crossings, a crowd of 30,130 flocked to San Francisco Opera’s ninth live simulcast at AT&T Park for a free evening of Mozart’s comedy The Marriage of Figaro in July. A diverse audience of all ages ranging from opera newcomers to long-time opera aficionados came together to share a glorious night of fun, food and opera al fresco. 

The performance, which also entertained a full-house audience of 3,000 at the War Memorial Opera House three miles across town, continues Gockley’s mission to bring opera into the community and to wider audiences.