Inspiration and the Awaking of San Diego’s Opera

Although the San Diego Opera Board announced that the 2014 season would be its last, rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. The opera announces that its new season “celebrates the milestone” of its 50th anniversary” as well as a “new beginning that is full of promise.”

Further enticements for opera fans is offered by the opera’s announcement of its upcoming 50th Anniversary Celebration Concert, to be held on Saturday, April 18th, and an entirely new Mariachi opera, to be held the following Saturday evening.

First up for the 2014-2015 season, on January 24, 27, 29 and February 1, is its presentation of La Bohème; this production is by Giacomo Puccini, the famous Italian composer, and is a story of young love, possibly serving as a reminder of Puccini’s own life as young man in Milan where much of its drama served as a source of inspiration for elements of the libretto. Their passion is so intense that although it is impossible for them to be together, they find it unbearable to be apart.

Puccini has been called “the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi,” according to recent opera statistics, where much of his early work was rooted in traditional late-19th-century romantic Italian opera. La Bohème, is a four-act opera premiered in Turin in 1896, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Within a few years, it had been performed throughout many of the leading opera houses of Europe, including Britain, as well as in the United States. It was a popular success, and remains one of the most frequently performed operas ever written.

The opera’s young cast includes debut artists Alyson Cambridge as Mimì, Harold Meers as Rodolfo, Sara Gartland as Musetta, and returning after his brilliant Starbuck in Moby-Dick is Morgan Smith as the warm-hearted Marcello. All performances will be at the San Diego Civic Theatre with each running approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes with one intermission. The opera will be in Italian with projected English translations.

Don Giovanni, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be performed February 14th, 17th, 20th and 22th. The opera’s website calls this opera “pompous, lustful and masochistic.” According to its billboard, “Don Giovanni is the ultimate bad boy, but is he more? This intense opera stuns as Giovanni stalks his latest conquest, a beautiful young bride. But he cannot escape his past sins – the daughter of the nobleman who he brutally murdered and a woman he carelessly left at the altar – or the ones who try valiantly to bring him to justice.”

The very-talented Mozart composed approximately 600 works, many were recognized as “pinnacles of symphonic, chamber, operatic, and choral music. The classical composer was known to be enduringly popular, and in fact, it is believed that Beethoven composed many of his own earlier works shadowing Mozart. Joseph Haydn once wrote “posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years,” referring to Mozart.

The cast for Don Giovanni will be starring Ildebrando D’Arcangelo as Don Giovanni and Alex Esposito as Leporello in their San Diego Opera debuts They are joined by other first-time artists Myrtò Papatanasiu as Donna Elvira and Paul Appelby as Don Ottavio.

In order to further accommodate San Diego audiences, the operas will be utilizing “supertitles.” According to San Diego opera, “We want you to understand every word of the performance. That’s why we use Supertitles! Supertitles are translated lyrics or dialogue projected above the stage, in easy-to-read English, and make it easy to understand and follow the opera. In addition to translating foreign languages from their original Italian or French, we use supertitles even when the opera is sung in English.”

San Diego’s Opera will celebrate its 50th Anniversary Celebration Concert at the Jacobs Music Center- Copley Symphony Hall, at 750 B St, Downtown San Diego on Saturday, April 18, 2015 at 7:00pm and Sunday, April 19, 2015 at 2:00pm.

The opera company will present favorite arias, duets, ensembles and choruses with the San Diego Symphony. It will also be featuring Lise Lindstrom, Marianne Cornetti, Stephen Powell, Rene Barbera, Sean Panikkar, Reinhard Hagen and Scott Sikon. “Come and enjoy a tribute to our 50–year history and celebrate our new beginning,” reads their celebration invitation.