La Belle et la Bête at Opera Parallèle

Chea Kang as Beauty, Hadleigh Adams as the Beast

Photo: Stefan Cohen

Opera Parallèle, March, 2026

A spectacular presentation of Philip Glass's amalgam of film and opera.

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
• Lily Janiak, SF Chronicle
• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle
• Charlise Tiee, Opera Tattler
• Patrick Vaz, The Reverberate Hills
• Caroline Crawford, Bay City News

Season Announcement Season

It's that time of year, and I will try post at least some analysis of orchestral seasons across the country and how they are doing repertory-wise, that is, dead white guys versus the rest of the world.

A preliminary note that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Classical Series is a disgrace: the season has works by 8 9 living composers, mostly guys, mostly white. They are Michael Abels, Mason Bates, Tan Dun, Philip Glass, Magnus Lindberg, Arvo Pärt, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Roberto Sierra, and Julia Wolfe. The rest of the season is dead white men, except for a short work by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, which I missed the other day.

Karina Canellakis and Jane Glover are the only women who are conducting. 

You can see all of the details on the handy CSO season grid. I wish every orchestra published a document like this!

Major Openings

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

I'm months overdue on a big music director update, but last week's bombshell at the Boston Symphony reminded me that four of the big-budget U.S. orchestras now have music director openings:

• Boston Symphony, where there has been drama.
• Cleveland Orchestra, where there has not been drama. The orchestra announced in January, 2024, that Franz Welser-Möst would leave at the end of the 2026-27 season. Three years' notice, similar to MTT's three at SFS.
• SFS, where there has been drama, with Esa-Pekka Salonen deciding to part ways over differences with the board.
• LA Philharmonic, where there has not been drama. Gustavo Dudamel decided to move to the NY Philharmonic in February, 2023, and commences the new position with the 2026-27 season. Well, the return of Esa-Pekka Salonen in a non-music director position could be considered dramatic and could cause some conductors to rule out the appointment, because being music director when one of the best conductors in the world – who is also one of the best composers in the world – is in the office next door could be discouraging.

San Francisco Opera 2027-28

Postcard of the War Memorial Opera House in the 1930s or 1940s

Personal collection of Lisa Hirsch

Matthew Shilvock mentioned to me when I spoke with him last month that with the announcement of the 2026-27 season and the 2028 Ring at SF Opera, we know what the 2027-28 season looks like....mostly.

Fall, 2027:

• Die Walküre, Wagner; part of the Ring bring-up
• The Galloping Cure, Missy Mazzonli; SFO co-commission and U.S. premiere
• ???
• ???

Spring/Summer, 2028:

• Siegfried, Wagner, single performance as part of the Ring bring-up
• Götterdämmerung, Wagner, single performance as part of the Ring bring-up
• Der Ring des Nibelungen, Wagner, three performances of the four operas

So, there are two open slots in the fall season. Possible composers for those slots include Verdi, Janacek, Mozart, and Rossini. With fairly recent Tosca, Bohème, and Butterfly performances, I wouldn't expect Puccini. Given the weighty topics of the Ring operas and The Galloping Cure, which is about addiction, I hope that there will be a comedy. Or maybe something heavy that the company hasn't done in a long time: Lulu or Wozzeck? Pélleas et Mélisande? William Tell? Satyagraha? 

Or maybe composers they rarely or never do: something by Auber or Meyerbeer? Birtwistle? Ades or Benjamin? Something Russian? Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor? Offenbach that isn't Tales of Hoffman? Nielsen's Maskerade? 

 

I (Sort of) Called This One

Symphony Hall, Boston

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

April, 2025

Me to a friend, January, 2026:

I will say that when Chad Smith got that job [CEO of the Boston Symphony] and Salonen decided to leave SFS, I wondered whether Smith would try to recruit Salonen for the BSO. If he did, it didn't work, but I did notice that Nelsons is now on an annually-renewable contract. Smith can cut him loose any time he has someone in mind as a replacement.

And to a different friend in July, 2024:

I have been wondering whether Boston would make a play for Salonen. They can say good-bye to Nelsons easily, and Smith presumably has a good relationship with Salonen.

Earlier today, in the NY Times (gift link):

Boston Symphony Abruptly Ends Its Music Director’s Contract

The orchestra’s leadership announced on Friday that it and the conductor Andris Nelsons “were not aligned on future vision.”

The Boston Symphony Orchestra abruptly dismissed its music director, Andris Nelsons, on Friday, in a harsh public split between one of the nation’s leading orchestras and the man who has led it for 12 years. The orchestra said that it and Nelsons were “not aligned on future vision.”

His tenure with the Boston Symphony will end in summer 2027, at the end of its Tanglewood season. The announcement — in tone and timing — was startling in a world in which such personnel shifts are typically done delicately and over the course of a few years.

“The decision to not renew his contract was made by the B.S.O.’s board of trustees because, beyond our shared desire to ensure our orchestra continues to perform at the highest levels, the B.S.O. and Andris Nelsons were not aligned on future vision,” the board and Chad Smith, the orchestra’s president and chief executive, said in a letter to patrons. A similar note was sent to members of the orchestra.

"Not aligned on a future vision," hmm, where have I heard this before? Oh, right, Esa-Pekka Salonen about the relationship between him and the SFS Board of Directors.

We won't know for a while whether Smith has someone in mind. It's not likely to be Salonen, although, hmm, Salonen was just appointed to a position at Tanglewood, as director of the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in 2026."

Okay, even Salonen can't manage positions at three orchestras at once, so probably someone else will get the BSO job. 

Related:

• The Boston Musical Intelligencer reports on the story and includes Nelsons' letter to the BSO musicians.

Livermore Valley Opera's Così fan tutte

Samuel Kidd (Guglielmo), Courtney Miller (Despina), Megan Potter (Dorabella), Meryl Dominguez (Fiordiligi), Eugene Brancoveanu (Don Alfonso, on floor), Sid Chand (Ferrando)

Photo: Barbara Mallon, courtesy of Livermore Valley Opera

A mixed-bag of a Così fan tutte at Livermore Valley Opera, with lots of laughs but somehow missing on the more serious and heartbreaking emotions in the work.

• Lisa Hirsch, Parterre Box
• Charlise Tiee, Opera Tattler

Previously, the Opera San José Così:

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV

Back in 2025....

I published some articles last year that I never wrote about on the blog. It's never too late!

• Three Opera Singers on How They Built Their Careers, SFCV, May, 2025. If you've been attending the opera in the Bay Area for any length of time, you know Alex Boyer, Chung-Wai Soong, and Leandra Ramm, even if you're not sure you do. They've all sung roles of varying sizes with local companies; Soong and Ramm are both active in pro choruses here, including working as extra chorus at SF Opera. Boyer went on a couple of times last year as Brandon Jovanovich's cover at the Met in Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick. 
• Walking with Sister Helen, Opera Now, October, 2025. I spoke with Susan Graham, Joyce Di Donato, Jamie Barton, and Patricia Racette, who've all sung Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, and with Frederica von Stade, who created Mrs. Patrick De Rocher, the mother of the condemned man. It was a great honor to speak with these magnificent singers, all of whom I've admired over a long period.
• Second Acts: Musicians Leaving the Spotlight to Find Something New, SFCV, October, 2025. An article about three classical musicians who are no longer performing, for different reasons. Nicole Cash, former associate principal horn the San Francisco Symphony, became an audiobook narrator after focal dystonia meant she couldn't continue as a horn player. Tenor David Lomelí became a consultant to opera companies around the world after digestive issues affected his singing. Elizabeth Rowe, former principal flute of the Boston Symphony and a magnificent player, became a leadership and executive coach (the circumstances are too complicated to describe briefly). 

Musicians leave classical music at different times in their careers and for a wide variety of reasons. It is a very tough and competitive business and it is difficult to get a career going in such a competitive field. If you're curious about this subject, web search will turn up podcasts, personal testimonies, and articles about individuals musicians. Elizabeth Rowe's case is unusual in that she had the kind of position you can stay in for decades (the legendary Doriot Anthony Dwyer held the BSO principal flute chair for 38 years), but various circumstances led her to a career change.