San Francisco Opera 100: Speculation

War Memorial Opera. House

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

It's been a few years since I speculated on what the 100th season of the San Francisco Opera might look like. We're rapidly approaching the date; since the company's first performances were in the 1923-24 season, the 2022-23 season will be number 100.

The current season, which would have been the 98th, will be at best incomplete; it's just barely possible that SFO will be able to perform the planned spring operas and concerts in June, by which time some number of us will have been vaccinated. But it's also possible that the company will go the conservative route and have no performances this season (or in 2021).

Will next season, that is, 2021-22, be announced as the 98th season or 99th? Who knows! I guess we will know in approximately six weeks, if the pattern of the last few years holds. I can guarantee that there won't be an in-person press event; maybe we'll get a press release only, or, now that SFO has had a lot of practice with Zoom events, maybe there will be a live online announcement.

In any event, here's what I now hope for / suspect:

• Make it a ten-opera season, not the eight operas we have had for the last few years.
• A commission: well, it seems reasonable to think that Kaija Saariaho's Innocence, which was to have premiered at Aix-en-Provence this past summer, might be on the centennial schedule.
• Something big, maybe something big that a recently-knighted former music director would be the ideal conductor for. It's now more than 30 years since SFO's last bring-up of Die Frau ohne Schatten, which is beyond a doubt in the wheelhouse of Sir Donald Runnicles. SFO also presented the US premiere of the opera.
• Something else big: it's been more than 20 years since the last Parsifal, which, ahem, Sir Donald would also be most excellent in. Or maybe this could go to new music director Eun Sun Kim.
• The greatest opera SFO has never performed: with Les Troyens out of the way, I'll nominate From the House of the Dead. General Director Matthew Shilvock has been eyeing Moses und Aron. The advantage of From the House of the Dead is that SFO has a longer tradition of performing Janacek than the Met; we've had two runs of The Makropulos Case since 2010, so I can't suggest that one.
• Another work that SFO is associated with: Dialogues of the Carmelites, whose first US performances were here in 1957, 20 years before the Met finally got to it. The New Prioress, Madame Lidoine, was sung by Leontyne Price, who was also in the cast, again as Madame Lidoine, in the 1982-83 season, the last time SFO performed the opera. I say, bring it back!
• Revival of a recent popular work: Les Troyens. Yes, it's expensive to produce, but it sold out.
• Something really weird that they'll never do again: this is the Birtwistle slot. 
• Something Baroque
• Something by Verdi. Il Corsaro? Les Vepres Siciliennes?
• Something by Rossini that they've never done before (Il viaggio a Rheims?) or William Tell
• Well, that's ten. Maybe go for twelve?

Above and beyond this, I'd love an announcement about major donations to the endowment, further commissions, and innovations sparked by what has happened to the current season.