San Francisco Opera Streaming

War Memorial Opera House

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

SFO is getting on the streaming opera bandwagon. Here's the current schedule:

Boito, Mefistofele, on Saturday, May 9

Followed by - dates not yet announced -

• Bellini, I Capuleti e i Montecchi
• Heggie, Moby-Dick
• Donizetti, Lucrezia Borgia

The deal is that these will go up at 10 a.m. Pacific Time on Saturdays, and they will be available on the company home page until midnight the following day. (I take this to mean 11:59 PM on Sunday). They will apparently remain available past that date if you have a login.

Let me be the first to nominate a few favorite productions:

• Elektra, the amazing cast and production from 2017.
• Don Carlo, 2016, with an astonishing cast.
• Jenufa, 2016. An excellent cast with an incandescent performance by Karita Mattila and the unforgettable conducting of the late Jiri Belohlavek.
• Makropulos Case, 2009. An excellent cast with an incandescent performance by Karita Mattila.
• Dolores Claiborne, 2012
• Nixon in China, 2012
• Das Rheingold, because Stefan Margita
• Die Walküre, 2010, because at the end of Act I, those of us clustered in the reviewer seats were gaping.
• Madame Butterfly, 2007 (Racette, Jovanovich, Cao, Powell/Runnicles). One of the greatest performances I have ever seen, of anything.