San Francisco Opera today announced that Grammy-nominated American conductor Julian Wachner will make his San Francisco Opera debut conducting George Frideric Handel’s Partenope, presentedOctober 15–November 2, 2014 at the War Memorial Opera House. Mr. Wachner replaces British conductor Christian Curnyn, who has withdrawn from the production for personal reasons.
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Monday, September 22, 2014
Conductor Change, SF Opera Partenope
I am not familiar with the work of either of these conductors, so here it is from the San Francisco Opera press release:
Is it just me, or have there been an inordinate amount of "personal reasons" cast changes this season? Two in Norma, now this. Have I simply forgotten a spate of this nature from other seasons?
ReplyDeleteAlso Stoyanova's drop, for health reasons, from Ballo.
ReplyDeleteThat is a really good question and I'm not sure of the answer. The two most cancellation-ridden productions I recall in the last 15 years or so were that Janufa and that Otello Janice Watson and Elizabeth Connell both dropped out of Jenufa, Watson because she had just learned Eva in Meistersinger for us AND she had an infant, and Jenufa was an additional new role. Connell dropped because of a burglary at her home in England. The replacements were Patricia Racette (whom I loved ) and Katherine Harries, who was...uh...well, anyway.
Ben Heppner dropped out of Otello the following season and left the company scrambling for tenors. We got Vladimir Galouzine, Jon Fredric West, Richard Decker, and Antonio Barasorda instead.