San Francisco Opera Cast Change: Rigoletto

Yongzhao Yu. Photo: Jeffrey Larson

Courtesy of San Francisco Opera

Tenor Giovanni Sala has withdrawn from the fall performances of Rigoletto, in which he would have sung the Duke of Mantua. Yongzhao Yu, pictured above, replaces him. 

Press release:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (June 30, 2025) — San Francisco Opera announced a casting update for the opening opera of its 2025–26 Season, which opens Friday, September 5 with seven additional performances through September 27. The role of The Duke of Mantua in Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto will be performed by Chinese tenor Yongzhao Yu, who makes his Company debut. Yu replaces Giovanni Sala who has withdrawn from the production for personal reasons. 

Praised by Opera News for his “gleaming, powerful voice” and “thrilling top notes,” Yongzhao Yu made an acclaimed debut as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto with English National Opera earlier this season. His 2024–25 Season also featured a return to the Metropolitan Opera where he appeared as Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème and the Messenger in Verdi’s Aida, the latter witnessed globally as part of The Met: Live in HD simulcast series. He has performed the Duke with Seattle Opera and, immediately after San Francisco Opera, will perform the role for his Canadian debut with Vancouver Opera. This summer he is scheduled to portray Cavaradossi in a new production of Puccini’s Tosca at the Glimmerglass Festival with soprano Michelle Bradley and bass-baritone Greer Grimsley and reprise the role with Pacific Opera Victoria.
 
San Francisco Opera’s 2025–26 Season kicks off on Friday, September 5 with the annual Opera Ball, co-presented with San Francisco Opera Guild, and Verdi’s Rigoletto under the baton of Eun Sun Kim and starring Amartuvshin Enkhbat in the title role, Adela Zaharia as Gilda and Yongzhao Yu as the Duke of Mantua. Keystones of the Company’s 103rd season are the world premiere of The Monkey King (November 14–30) by composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang, and Maestro Kim conducting a new production of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal (October 25–November 13). This fall San Francisco Opera also commemorates its legacy of commissioning and presenting new operas with a 25th-anniversary presentation of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking (September 14–28), the most widely performed new opera of the last 25 years which was introduced in 2000 at the War Memorial Opera House.