Return of Opera at the Ballpark!

This fall, San Francisco Opera will again have a simulcast to Giants Stadium! (Not the current "naming rights" name of the San Francisco baseball stadium.)

It'll be a broadcast of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, on Saturday, September 21, 2019 at 7:30 p.m. You can sign up right now on the SFO web site.

Current casting includes Bryan Hymel, Nadine Sierra, Lucas Meachem, James Creswell, Timothy Mix, and others.

And Because I Am a Bad Person....

Noted, on the web page about Damnation de Faust, with thoughts of the production of Les Troyens that I just saw in Paris:

High-flying tenor Bryan Hymel sings the doomed and besotted Faust, opposite dazzling mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča as the forsaken Marguerite 

Duking It Out

News from the Met:

Bryan Hymel has withdrawn from upcoming performances as the Duke in Verdi’s Rigoletto, due to personal reasons. 

Francesco Demuro will sing the Duke in the March 6, 9, 15, and 20 performances; Matthew Polenzani will sing the performances on April 26, May 1, and 4; and Stephen Costello will sing the May 10 performance.

This is Hymel's third high-profile cancelation in the last few months: Les Huguenots and Les Troyen in Paris were the first two.

He's scheduled to open the San Francisco Opera season in September, and...well...I hope he's okay.