San Francisco Opera 2024-25

War Memorial Opera House

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

[This blog post was already overdue and about 1/3 written when the Salonen announcement landed, and that's been distracting me for the last 10 days or so.]

San Francisco Opera announced its 2024-25 season on February 20, roughly a month after its typical announcement date, as in, the third week of January. The season announced is shockingly short, which makes me wonder whether the extra month was spent cutting the season from eight operas to six. To do this, you'd have to contact all of the artists involved, and very likely reschedule them or pay a cancellation fee built into the contracts.

A six-opera season feels like some kind bellwether, and not a good one, for the company. It's been at eight operas for a number of years, and that was a reduction from ten, and that was a reduction from twelve or thirteen back in the 1980s. Six operas feels like a huge reduction in ambition and scope, because it's a 25% reduction over the last many seasons. (With the archive still offline, I can't easily check when the reduction from 10 to 8 happened.) 

I find the reduction especially sad coming after the centennial season and the 101st season, where the company produced five new operas out of sixteen, drew in new audiences (particularly with Omar and Frida y Diego), and had some great concerts as well. The upcoming season does include two one-off concerts and Opera in the Park, but the two concerts absolutely don't make up for losing two operas. Beethoven's 9th will take much less rehearsal time than an opera requires and there's no staging or scenery involved, no juggle of schedules and locations and coaching and the orchestra.

I chatted with Matthew Shilvock before the season announcement and asked what was going on. I should have been more precise in my questions; what I heard about the length of the season wasn't specific to SFO's financial situation. He provided general information about music org finances; the reduction over decades in the percentage of income from ticket sales, issues in the financial model; and so on.

The reduction seems strange to me because the company is in good financial condition, as far as can be told from their 990 forms. It is true that on the most recent 990, the size of the endowment is down from its peak, but it's also considerably higher than it was before the pandemic. And from watching my own 401Ks, I would bet that the SFO endowment has gone up from the period covered by the most recent. 990, which was filed last summer. I mean, do I get better investment advice than SFO? I doubt it.

Here are some numbers from the last three 990 forms:

FY Ending July 2020 (filed 2021)

Revenue
$88,254,131
Expenses
$70,437,595
Net Income
$17,816,536
Net Assets
$269,322,430

Endowment: $244.7 million

FY Ending July 2021 (filed 2022)
Revenue
$79,158,489
Expenses
$52,174,556
Net Income
$26,983,933
Net Assets
$340,907,354

Endowment $312 million

FY Ending July 2022 (filed 2023)
Revenue
$88,376,102
Expenses
$68,630,368
Net Income
$19,745,734
Net Assets
$314,499,971

Endowment $281.2 million

This is not the picture of a company on the brink. As I noted, it's likely that the next 990 - look for it in maybe August - will show the endowment and net assets back up. But the endowment is still tens of millions up from where it had been, even in the most recent 990.

I asked about the cutback, and, as noted, Shilvock's comments did not get very specific about the company's finances. I believe that when an organization that appears to be in perfectly good financial health makes these kinds of cuts, it should show its work. That is, provide as much detail as possible about the finances and the reasoning behind the cuts. 

Shilvock did mention long-term trends in the arts in the United States. Only 16% of revenue comes from ticket sales, down from 60% in the 1960s. That means gigantic fundraising efforts are necessary (he didn't say this, but clearly it's part of what goes on, so if you're wondering why orchestras and opera companies have big development departments....). I was somewhat alarmed by his comment that "something fundamental needs to change about how the American arts work." There is no reason to expect an increase in government funding, given that one of the major parties looks on the arts with more than suspicion. And given how Arts Council England is gutting the English National Opera and other arts organizations in the UK, we need to keep that risk in mind as well. What the government gives, they can take away.

When I talk with people about arts funding, folks in the Bay Area often mention tech money, that is, all the people who have gotten rich, sometimes obscenely rich, from IPOs and running extremely successful companies. Shilvock made the point that everybody is different and has different interests. They need to be approached and brought in over a long period of time. It's a delicate process.  Said Shilvock, "We have some new relationships in this post-pandemic era. It takes time to build those relationships, up to a decade before people reach their full philanthropic potential."

SFO is starting to have some success. Of the people who are clearly big donors, which we know because they are season or production sponsors, I call to your attention Dr. and Mrs. William Coughran. Bill Coughran was an important, high-ranking VP or SVP at Google for many years. It's great to see his name associated with SFO. Will more tech folks follow? I can't say, obviously. Of the younger generation, it's common to see donations to health care research and organizations: Sergey Brin and Parkinson's; Mark Benioff and children's hospitals; Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan, SF General.

So I worry about "something fundamental needs to change about how the American arts work." Does that mean breaking unions to reduce performer pay? That would be a disastrous turn of events, a huge step backward for large opera companies and symphony orchestras. (I point here to events across Grove St., where SFS management has bungled things so badly that they made major artistic cuts and now they're losing their music director.)

All that said, Shilvock is excited about the future. He said that it's "a transitional moment for the art form, making sure that the financial model will sustain the company. It’s important to reconcile the financial model but we have to also sustain the artistic goals." He mentioned these four points:

• The company must keep producing "transporting emotional experiences" and remember "the power of the art form to create all-consuming experiences." They have to maintain the level of artistry.
• They must keep building repertory with new works and productions, connecting to the deeper arc of humanity, and connection to communities.
• They must sustain creative excellence and the caliber of the arts in SF. 
• They must keep pushing boundaries. "We can’t retreat, we must keep things moving forward.  We have initiatives like the encounters, out of the box, livestreams."

I asked that can be done to get back to eight operas. He said that the board and management are working together to figure out the future." My questions are what they’re asking themselves. He is optimistic about finding a way forward.  He also mentioned that what they're doing goes beyond  "...the work on stage, to how we frame it with the company and with the audiences. People living with a mass shooting day in and day out. Kaija [Saariaho, composer of Innocence] talked with the company about what it was like to live with it for three years while she composed the opera."

All of that said, the season is smaller and less adventurous than either of the last two seasons. It does have Tristan und Isolde, not seen here since Donald Runnicles last conducted it, in 2007; Un ballo in maschera, not seen for a decade; Idomeneo; and Poul Ruders' The Handmaid's Tale, based on Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel of the same name. The casting throughout the season is strong and attractive, enough so that I'll have to see both casts in La bohème. (Fortunately it's one of my favorite operas.) The new productions all look attractive.

Season casting is below the cut.

SFO 100

War Memorial Opera House

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

It's finally here: the San Francisco Opera centennial season announcement. It's kind of a wow! And that's even though it's a shorter season than I would like; I'm somewhat surprised that with all of the hoopla and fundraising attendant on such an occasion, the company couldn't get donors to pony up enough money for 10 operas. 

To my surprise, the announcement includes part of the 2023-24 season, and that looks like it'll be a good one as well, because it's got three new operas on it.

Here are the answers to the quiz that Matthew Shilvock set up, with as much detail as I can reasonably fit in a bullet list:

• Two new operas by Bay Area composers
• John Adams, Antony and Cleopatra, libretto put together by the composer largely from the Shakespeare play, but with additional texts from other sources. Julia Bullock and Gerard Finley as the title characters; also starring Paul Appleby, Alfred Walker, Elizabeth DeShong; directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer. This will be the opening night performance, which I have some doubts about, because having an offbeat work didn't work so well back in the Rosenberg era when one of her seasons opened with The Mother of Us All. Music Director Eun Sun Kim conducts. (Right now I'm thinking that I should try to find a commercial recording or bootleg of the Barber Antony that opened the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center.)
• Gabriela Lena Frank, El úlitmo sueño de Frida y Diego, libretto by Nilo Cruz. Co-commission; first performances are at San Diego Opera in October, 2022. Starring Daniela Mack (Frida), Alfredo Daza (Diego), Yaritza Vélez, and Jacob Ingbar star. Roberto Kalb conducts, Lorena Maza directs. SFO has made a great effort here to cast this with native Spanish speakers from the Americas! I think that this is the first main-stage work composed by a woman and the first work in Spanish to be presented by SFO. She is also Jewish, but there's Meyerbeer in the company's past, so she's definitely not the first Jewish composer to have a work in the repertory here.(Whatever happened to those rumors about Florencia en el Amazonas?) 

• Two new productions from the core repertory
• Madama Butterfly, co-production with The Tokyo Nikikai Opera Foundation, the Semperoper Dresden and The Royal Danish Opera. There is a concept, which is seeing the opera through the eyes of Dolor, Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton's son. Directed by Amon Miyamoto  and starring Karah Son and Michael Fabiano. Hyona Kim is Suzuki and Lucas Meachem is Sharpless. Eun Sun Kim conducts. There's an effort here not to engage in yellow face, which is good. There's also a statement about this opera and Asian Opera Alliance. Note the work being done at Boston Lyric Opera's Butterfly Project discussion series, which seems like the kind of thing SFO could do.
• La Traviata (finally, the 35-year-old Copley production is being replaced). Pretty Yende (Violetta), Jonathan Tetelman (Alfredo), Simone Piazzola (Germont). Shawna Lucey directs, Eun Sun Kim conducts.
• Two operas that had their US premieres here. YES, these are what I'd hoped for!
• Die Frau ohne Schatten, R. Strauss, in the David Hockney production. Conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles, of course; with Nina Stemme (Dyer's Wife), Camilla Nylund (Empress), Linda Watson (the Nurse), Johan Reuter (Barak), and David Butt Philip as the Emperor. Nothing about the casting of the Spirit Messenger, Voice of the Falcon, Guardian of the Threshold of the Temple, the brothers, or any of the other gazillion roles in this gigantic work; presumably many of them will be drawn from the ranks of the 2023 Adler fellows because this is during the summer of 2023. Roy Rallo directs. 
• Dialogs of the Carmelites, Poulenc, production by Olivier Py, from the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Heidi Stober as Blanche de la Force,  Michelle Bradley as Madame Lidoine, the new Prioress; Michaela Schuster (Madame de Croissy, the Old Prioress), Melody Moore as Mere Marie, Deanna Breiwick as Sister Constance. Ben Bliss returns as the Chevalier de la Force. Eun Sun Kim conducts. A great opera that hasn't been done here since 1982.
• Two operas in styles not heard in a number of years 
• Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky, Robert Carsen's production, which is supposed to be very beautiful. Evgenia Muraveva as Tatyana, Gordon Bintner as Onegin, Evan LeRoy Johnson (Lensky), Aigul Akhmetshina (Olga), Ferruccio Furlanetto (Prince Gremin). Vassilis Christopoulos conducts. in his American debut.
• Orpheus and Eurydice, Gluck, new SFO production. This will be the third production of this opera that I've seen in the last several years.  Matthew Ozawa directs; his Fidelio was superb, so I have high hopes. Jakub Józef Orliński as Orpheus, Christina Gansch as Eurydice, Nicole Heaston as Amor. Peter Whelan from the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Ensemble Marsyas conducts.

The above are all productions new to San Francisco Opera.

For me, the biggest surprise in the above is that there's no production for Nicola Luisotti; I've assumed that there would be one for the former music director in this important season. Oh, well, maybe in 2023-24. But I do wonder whether either Traviata or Butterfly was originally intended for him.

Additionally, there's all of this happening:

• Opening night concert and Opera Ball, September 9, 2022. Concert with Nadine Sierra, Michael Fabiano, Pene Pati, and Lucas Meachem. Eun Sun Kim conducts.
• 100th Anniversary Concert, Friday, June 16, 2023. "A historic evening of music and memories." Eun Sun Kim conducts, details to follow.
• Opera in the Park, Sunday, September 11, 2022 at 1:30 pm, Robin Williams Meadow, Golden Gate Park. Free.
• Open House, Sunday, October 23, 2022. Tours and lots of family-friendly activities and demonstrations. Free.
• Boheme Out of the Box, which will take a condensed La Boheme to SF communities.
• Exhibitions of costumes and photos from the company's history.

Coming in 2023-24: three new operas, all SFO co-commissions, which is amazing for a company with an eight-opera season:

• Mason Bates, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs
• Kaija Saariaho, Innocence
• Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels' Omar

Other items of interest:

• Statement and links from Diversity, Equity, and Community

Do I have a regret or two about this season? Sure: there's no sign of Karita Mattila or Patricia Racette, both of whom have been stalwarts of the company for many years. (Or Ruth Ann Swenson, who is retired.) Philip Skinner, one of my favorite singers, has only a small role. I'd hoped that if SFO did Frau that it would cast Christine Goerke as the Dyer's Wife; she was wonderful at the Met in 2013. But it's a short season; there are many exciting debuts, and the company is definitely looking very much to the future in its casting.

Coming Up at San Francisco Opera

War Memorial Opera House

Photo by Lisa Hirsch, 2015

Joshua Kosman chatted with San Francisco Opera music director Eun Sun Kim the other week, and she revealed some future plans for the company:

Part of the problem, she says, is that there are only eight productions each season — and she is eager to conduct everything. For the time being, though, Kim has settled on a plan to conduct one Verdi and one Wagner opera each season, as well as cultivating the contemporary repertoire.

“The reason I picked Verdi among the Italian repertoire — not Puccini, but Verdi; I love every composer — is because Verdi is something I can build my relationship with the orchestra with,” she explained.

“The same thing with Wagner. I want to go through ‘Tristan,’ through the early operas, and through ‘Parsifal,’ so that when we get to ‘The Ring’ Cycle in five or six years I can do it with my orchestra, where even if I don’t say anything, they understand what I want.”

So: currently, they're planning to continue with eight productions annually. Boo, hiss: I had hoped that one of the goals of the centennial season fundraising would be a return to nine- or ten-opera seasons. Isn't there a big donor who'd like to be associated with this?

But it's good to know that there's some Wagner in the future. In addition to the Ring, done in 2011 and 2018, here's what we've had in this century:

• Die Fliegende Holländer, 2004-05 and 2013-14
• Die Meistersinger, 2001-02 and 2015-16
• Parsifal, 1999-2000
• Lohengrin, 2012-13
• Tristan und Isolde, 2006-07
• Tannhaüser, 2007-08

That's a little thin on the ground, except in the context of the shrinking number of productions each season. Certainly the change of music directors in 2009 had something to do with this; of the above, former MD Nicola Luisotti conducted only Lohengin. Mark Elder conducted the second Meistersinger and Patrick Summers conducted the second Dutchman. Donald Runnicles conducted the rest, including the two bring-ups of the Ring.

It's interesting that there's a plan for another Ring in five or six years. I am contemplating the current ages of the available singers for certain roles in the work and betting that some of those who sang in 2018 won't be returning. I'll guess that the Zambello production will get another outing, because it's a lot cheaper to use an existing production than go through creating a new one.

As for the Verdi, if I had my druthers, we'd get I Vespri Siciliani / Les vêpres siciliennes, the only middle or late Verdi opera that I have never seen. Beyond that, maybe one of the early rarities; I would love to see a staged Il Corsaro, which does come with colonialist / Orientalist problems, it's true. Maybe a convincing Otello?

San Francisco Opera Announces Date of Season Announcement

All right, here's news about the news we've all been waiting for: San Francisco Opera will announce the 2021-22 season in two weeks, on Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at 4 p.m. Pacific Time:

THE GOLDEN CURTAIN RISES AGAIN

JOIN US IN THE HOUSE THIS FALL

In just a few short weeks, San Francisco Opera will announce its programming for this upcoming season. After well over 500 days out of our beloved opera house, we are beyond excited for the return of live opera on our own stage and Eun Sun Kim's inaugural year as music director.

We hope you will join us on June 22 for the reveal of this exciting season ahead!

You can register at this URL. Note that you will be asked to log in.

San Francisco Opera Ring Festival

Ring Festival Trailer

Courtesy of San Francisco Opera

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, San Francisco Opera is streaming its 2018 Ring production on consecutive Saturdays this month, with each opera available until late the day after the stream starts. In addition, there is a fantastic lineup of interviews, panel discussions, and lectures. You can see the full schedule on the company's calendar.  The Festival kicks off at 1 p.m. today, with Ring director Francesca Zambello, conductor Donald Runnicles, bass-baritone Greer Grimsley and San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock talking about the production; you can see Das Rheingold starting tomorrow.

The non-opera events are available live and on demand; you can see individual events for $15 or buy a Festival Pass ($99 for the general population; $69 for SFO donors at $75 or more). There are free passes for high school and college teachers and students as well. Details here.

I am generally opposed to music that starts as soon as you open a web page, but I do kinda wish I could have the Valhalla motive play when you view this post! Absent that, here's an excerpt from a 1951 Ring performance, which you can play or not. The video above is accompanied by....perhaps more generally familiar music from the Ring.

Janos Gereben: SF Opera "Family" Feels Bereft

Found on Twitter the other day

Guest post by journalist Janos Gereben on what's going on at San Francisco Opera right now with regard to the Opera Orchestra and Chorus. The $44 million reduction in budget from $72.5 million is strange, considering that the only remaining performances for the season are the concerts by Lianna Haroutounian and Irene Theorin, Der Zwerg, and The Barber of Seville. If Matthew Shilvock is truly trying to get the orchestra (and chorus? which has been shrinking in size over the last few years) to accept an 80% pay cut....that's very bad. Between income collected for the season, donations, and the endowment, it should be possible to pay the musicians more, a lot more, than 20% of their salaries. Herewith Janos:

______________________________________________________________

SF Opera "Family" Feels Bereft

by Janos Gereben

San Francisco Opera continues to deal with the impact of COVID-19 closures, and the picture is clouded by lack of information and delays in decisions. 

Now, already in the sixth month of the pandemic, SF Opera is among the few large music organizations in the world without measures taken and announced about ongoing compensation for the orchestra and chorus. 

Back in June, when the fall season was canceled, I asked SFO General  Director Matthew Shilvock about the lack of specifics in the announcement about salaries, contracts, and staff cutbacks, and his response was “All that is being discussed in conversations that begin now.” He did not offer a timeframe for when that information will become available, and there was a reasonable assumption that months later progress would be made. 

(It was also in June that SF Symphony announced season cancelation and, at the same time, reached agreement with orchestra musicians, SFS Chorus singers, and stagehands in a "shared sacrifice" program for salary reductions averaging 25%, granting full continuation of healthcare and insurance benefits.)

Instead of news of a settlement at the Opera, I received a message from a donor recently: "Mr. Shilvock appears to be playing hardball with the orchestra musicians, demanding steep and long-term salary cuts. I support both West Edge and SF Opera, and I can’t help but notice that West Edge, with meager assets, managed to pay everyone 2/3rd of their committed salaries, while SF Opera, with 1/4 BILLION in assets, is squeezing the musicians -  negotiations are ongoing but I hear Mr. Shilvock wants to pay only 20%!"

Musicians confirmed that they are still waiting to find out about a plan for compensation, one of them saying "It seems they are not negotiating in good faith. We all thought we were a family. There are no plans."

There have been flashpoints elsewhere between artists and management trying to deal with the pandemic, most notably at the Metropolitan Opera and Kennedy Center with its artistic affiliate of the National Symphony Orchestra, both initially seeking to furlough without compensation (the Center doing this immediately after receiving a $25 million emergency grant), but in short order settlements have been reached. SF Opera seems to be one of the few outliers in dealing promptly with urgent need.

The donor's reference to SF Opera assets is correct, even somewhat understated: Total assets at the end of fiscal year 2019 were $273 million, according to a previous statement by SF Opera Chief Financial Officer Michael Simpson, with total operating expenses of $78.6 million, and operating deficit of  $650,000.

(Merola Opera Program's separate finances show $31 million in total assets, according to the most recent available fiscal statement, Merola had $5.2 million in revenue, $3.3 in expenses last year.) 

After last year's drastic personnel cuts, expected to yield $6 million in savings, SF Opera had a pre-pandemic budget of $72.5 million (down from $78.6 million with expectation of the $6 million savings). But as of August, according to Shilvock at a Zoom Town Hall meeting, the operating budget has been revised to $44 million - an unprecedented change reflecting a unique situation. Significantly, there is no reference to the cost of ongoing compensation in any of these reports. 

  

It was before the pandemic that the Administration considered use of endowment funds, the last fiscal report stating:

 

"In the event that an unplanned use of cash is required, the Association has unrestricted Board designated endowment funds available in the amount of $15,660,174 at July 31, 2019. 

"During the year ended July 31, 2019, the Association transferred $6 million from long-term investment to operating cash to offset an accumulated cash deficit. "

How any of this is in play after five months of uncertainty, nobody knows in what musicians once considered a "family."

 

Whither San Francisco Opera?

War Memorial Opera House

Home of San Francisco Opera

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Sigh.

Two years ago, it looked as though San Francisco Opera was in good shape, following the tenure of David Gockley, who got the Wilsey Center built, brought various functions into the Veterans Building, dealt well with the unions, increased the endowment greatly, hauled in some huge donations, and staged a new Ring production, not to mention spectacular (and expensive) productions of Les Troyens, Don Carlo, Die Meistersinger, and Jenufa.

Today, well, there's a lot to be unhappy about. The issues must have some roots; maybe Gockley didn't work quite enough magic to sustain the accomplishments, maybe the company is way behind in figuring out how to get more subscribers and donations, maybe there's stuff going on that we don't know about (yet). But there's an awful lot of belt-tightening going on at the War Memorial Opera House.

Janos Gereben has published two articles in SFCV that you should read:

• Changes and Cutbacks at SF Opera Eliminate Some Top Positions
• Report on SFO's Annual Meeting

Do click through, but, briefly, the company laid off their Director of Communications, Jon Finck; their Director of Development (person who plans strategic fundraising, especially around large gifts), Andrew Morgan; didn't fill the publications editor vacancy created in December by the departure of Matthew Erickson; and eliminated several other positions. I believe that more layoffs are coming, as well; watch this space.

Some of these layoffs don't make a lot of sense to me. Moving Communications under Marketing is rather like having technical publications under sales: the goals of the groups are in conflict and it's best to keep them away from each other.

At the Annual Meeting, the company announced the development of a strategic plan, but the details that've come out so far are basically corporate-speak: there are now vision and mission statements. The planning process took some time, and the statements are something that could have been written in, oh, an hour? so I hope there is more substance to come.

Putting together everything in these two reports, plus things that aren't happening, here's what I see:

• No music director. I don't believe it's really "we are still at the dating stage", although I think more caution than went into hiring Luisotti is merited. I believe this is an easy way to save $450,000 to $600,000 or so a year. Yes, Luisotti made around $600,000 one year; it's right there in the 990s.
• No productions in the Wilsey Center. Again, $$$.
• Eight productions / year for the foreseeable future, again, money.
• The layoffs we've seen
• The layoffs that are probably coming
• Anticipated reduction in chorus size

And just this week, a friend received this letter from the company, over Matthew Shilvock's signature:

Thank you for your support as a subscriber to the 2019–20 Season. Knowing that you are a subscriber who attends OperaVision-supported performances in the Balcony of the Opera House, it is with great sadness that I share, while we will have OperaVision this June, we will cease this service going forward.

OperaVision is a unique service that we have offered at select performances for the last decade and that has been made possible by the in-house media suite and robotic camera system installed in 2007. The equipment is now long past its expected life cycle and is becoming inoperable. Sadly, each year, we experience increasing challenges with its stability.

The purpose of the media suite was to provide both audience enhancement in the Opera House, and to facilitate commercial projects such as DVDs, cinemacasts and PBS broadcasts. We released several successful projects over the last decade, but the marketplace for commercial opera releases is exponentially harder now than in 2007. Rebuilding the media suite would cost millions of dollars and, without the commercial possibilities that existed in 2007, it does not make sense for us to further invest our financial resources into this area at this time.

It is imperative to me and the Company that our work on stage remains at a world-class level of excellence, which is our priority as we look at how best to allocate our resources. This has been a very hard decision for me and for all of us in the Company, but it is a necessary change if we are to ensure a strong, vibrant future for opera in San Francisco.

As a subscriber with seats in the Balcony for OperaVision performances, you have pre-paid a surcharge ranging from $5–$9 which was embedded into your ticket price. Due to the cancellation of this service, you have overpaid service funds that total [a figure in the mid-two-figures]. For your convenience, we have placed this amount on account in our ticketing system. You have three available options to manage your funds:

[section about logistics deleted]

Thank you for your understanding and your continued support of San Francisco Opera. With great sightlines and unsurpassed acoustics, the Balcony will remain a thrilling place from which to experience great opera in the War Memorial Opera House.

Unpacking this a bit: Shilvock is right about the difficulty of producing and selling opera releases. Unless you've got an in-demand rarity or a truly legendary singer or something special that allows to sell a DVD, it's just hopeless. SFO had some dreams about doing Met-HD-style theater broadcasts, but this came to nothing; basically, the Met got there first, and with their enormous schedule, star singers we don't get in SF, and the variety of operas they present, they nailed the market down very well.  David Gockley admitted this had been a mistake.

Also behind this: it's not just the cost of replacing equipment, however much that might cost. It's the cost of paying the people who run the media suite, the cameras, and direct operas for OperaVision. They make a huge difference; the only opera I've seen from the balcony in the last few years was one of the four Elektra performances I took in, and I tell you, the direction was great and added a lot to the performance.

This apparent poverty is really not a good thing at any time, but it's especially bad with the company's 100th season approaching. I figured there would be something special about that season; maybe more of the top-rank stars we're seeing fewer and fewer of or not seeing at all*, maybe a commission, maybe the return of a few important operas that had their US premiere here or that haven't been performed in decades (yes, I'm thinking of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Dialogues of the Carmelites, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and more). Maybe every last penny being saved in going into the anniversary fund, but it's a mighty odd way to proceed.


* Anna Netrebko, Sonya Yoncheva, Peter Mattei, for example. The SFO regulars are Brian Mulligan, Ellie Dehn, Heidi Stober, all of whom, I like, but I'm not exactly sure of their international stature. Yeah, we're far away from Europe, but look back at the days when Leontyne Price, Leonie Rysanek, etc. were regulars. Also exemplary of this: it was widely rumored that Sonya Yoncheva would be Donna Elvira in the upcoming Ernani, but when the season was announced, it was Michelle Bradley. Was Yoncheva ever on board? Did she withdraw? Prove too expensive? We will never know.

Found in Sundry Communications from San Francisco Opera

First, the season announcement for 2019-20 will be on Tuesday, January 22, by email; no press conference this year.

Second, the Auditions page currently includes the following, in the second for chorus auditions:

Positions for all voice parts may be available in the full-time Regular Chorus, and all voice parts in the part-time Extra Chorus will be available with a special need for male voices for 2019 productions.

Hmm, special need for male voices, I wonder what that might mean.

Third, in today's "Backstage with Matthew," General Director Matthew Shilvock passes along some important news:

We were very grateful to enter into new collective bargaining agreements with a number of our labor partners this past year, including the Stage Crew (IATSE Local 16), the San Francisco Opera Orchestra (AFM Local 6), the Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild (IATSE Local 706), the Theatrical Wardrobe Union (IATSE Local 784) and the Art Directors Guild (IATSE Local 800). We are blessed to have incredibly talented people in so many different disciplines make up the Company and are very grateful for the collegial partnership of our labor unions in bringing thrilling opera to life in our theater. 

Good labor relations are important to the smooth function of any large musical organization. The union representing the chorus isn't mentioned, and I assume that means that their contract won't be up for a while.

Also from "Backstage with Matthew: "Soon after [the Ring] we immersed ourselves into the first season of programming for the new management team, which was at the same time exhilarating and nail-biting for me! " We are out of the Gockley era and into the Shilvock era.

The Opera Hour

Several years ago, David Gockley, former general manager of San Francisco Opera, succeeded in negotiating the return of opera to the airwaves of San Francisco. We had a few telecasts and some years of monthly radio broadcasts on KDFC of SFO productions, mostly from the previous season but with occasional blasts from the past.

Alas, this seems to be coming to an end. We will now get a monthly one-hour show with Matthew Shilvock and Bill Leuth, call The Opera Hour. At least for now, the opera broadcasts are "on hold," according to San Francisco Opera; according to KDFFC, The Opera Hour "replaces" the monthly broadcasts.

I missed the first installment, which was last Sunday, Maybe 8, at 8 p.m. - if you heard it, I'm curious to hear what it was like. It remains to be seen what shape, exactly, this show will take; previews of upcoming works on the season? Anna Netrebko and Renee Fleming's greatest hits? A little Caruso for fun?

I am not particularly a fan of KDFC or Bill Leuth; even since the station's acquisition, the programming is of the Mozart in the Morning / one movement of a symphony / lightweight variety, with barely a nod to new or very old music, and little vocal music. I can imagine that the Sunday evening opera broadcasts weren't getting much in the way of an audience, because the time was bad and during much of the year they were competing with the Met's Saturday morning (local time) broadcasts).

I'm sure Matthew Shilvock will be an engaging host, because he is unfailingly enthusiastic, knowledgable, and good in front of an audience. Bill Leuth, despite his music degrees, is a radio announcer who has to push KDFC's particular brand.

I'm also still waiting to hear whether the show takes requests....in which case, I'll be asking for some Birtwistle.

SF Opera press release after the cut.

SFO Music Director Opening

Nota bene: I drafted this a couple of months ago; long story why I didn't publish it then.

I read Joshua Kosman's final interview with Nicola Luisotti about a week after it was published. Most of it is unexceptional, although Luisotti's "Nobody understood what I was trying to say!" about his remarks in 2015 on the Second Viennese School struck me as...a little late, on his part.

What really caught my eye was this:

Matthew Shilvock, the San Francisco Opera’s current general director, says the search for his successor will be thorough and painstaking, perhaps taking as long as two or three years.

Oh? Nobody says that kind of thing in public except to signal the likelihood that they will stretch the process out for two to three years. There's plenty of talent out there looking for jobs - see my running list of open positions and conductors without permanent contracts, and SFO probably has a much more extensive list of available conductors.

Luisotti's departure was announced in May, 2016, eighteen months ago, and presumably there had been discussions about his decision and the timing of that announcement before that. He could have gone to Shilvock and the board six months or more before May, 2016. A search committee could, and should, have been formed right away. At the very least, Shilvock must be asking around: consulting other general directors and conductors about potential candidates. He must also have a list of conductors available to take over in an emergency, say, if someone under contract for a scheduled opera is ill or injured or has a family emergency.  Imagine a conductor who is in a serious accident and won't be able to conduct for a year or more. Recall the real-life drama of James Levine's medical problems and their impact on two major musical organizations. Someone in Shilvock's position has to plan for these things in advance.

But maybe the reason for the thorough, possibly multi-year search is financial: Luisotti made more than $600,000 in the last year for which I can dig up a 990. Or maybe the reason is that SFO has someone in mind and that person isn't available yet or discussions are under way or whatever.

Let's think for a moment about the qualifications needed to be the music director of an opera company in the US.

• Excellent to great conductor, of consistent skill and a convincing interpreter of a wide variety of repertory, that is, not a specialist who can do Wagner and Strauss, but not Verdi, or the opposite, who can do Verdi and Puccini (and their bel canto predecessors), but falls down elsewhere in the standard rep and important perimeter works 
• Broad knowledge of the repertory
• Experience beyond the podium: can work with the music librarian, chorus master, chorus; knows voices; can do orchestra-building
• Worked as a repetiteur / assistant conductor for some time
• Comfortable with the possibly-maddening fund-raising and socializing and glad-handing required of any US music director
• Familiar with, or has performed, the administrative tasks required of a music director
• Gets along with the general director of the company
• No history of abusive behavior on or off the podium

Best of all might be someone who has experience as a music director of an opera company (although the absence of this didn't keep the Met from hiring Yannick Nezhet-Seguin.) Interestingly, there are a few of this rare breed floating around the music world just now:

• Lothar Koenigs, former music director of the Welsh National Opera, who stepped in for Levine to conduct what sounded on the HD broadcast like an excellent run of Lulu in 2015
• Henrik Nànàsi, former music director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, who just happens to have conducted the fabulous Elektra in SF this season
• Philippe Augin, about whose upcoming departure from Washington National Opera you might be scratching your head
• Antonio Pappano, whose ROH contract will be up in a couple of years, although interviews make it sound as though he is not looking for another opera house gig
• Simone Young, former chief conductor of Opera Australia and former chief executive of the Hamburg State Opera

And there are plenty of other fine conductors who are currently guesting or who might be in a position to add an opera company to their responsibilities. I suspect that the great Susanna Målkki is fully booked, between the Helsinki Symphony, guest work at the LA Phil, and other guest conducting (but please, book her for something!), but how about David Robertson? (Actually, one might wonder just what went wrong with Robertson at SLSO; his departure surprised me.) What about Ludovic Morlot, who will be leaving the Seattle Symphony in another season or two? What about....Krzysztof Urbanski? (Written before I read about an age-discrimination lawsuit at the Indianapolis Symphony that involved Urbanski. Ooops. That could be disqualifying.)

Regardless of which conductor is eventually tapped, I hope that some of the immensely talented conductors out there will visit San Francisco Opera as guest conductors.

(Note: I drafted this blog post before the MTT bombshell hit. Some conductors who might be suitable for SFO might also be suitable for SFS. And MTT is a talented opera conductor who might now be able to guest conduct at SFO.)

Matthew Shilvock at the Wagner Society

Terri Stuart, left, presenting Matthew Shilvock with something 

at the March Wagner Society meeting.

Photo by Lisa Hirsch.

Matthew Shilvock, the still-new general director of San Francisco Opera, spoke to the Wagner Society of Northern California back in March, giving a talk that combined his own introduction to opera, his first encounter with the Ring (it did not end well, owing to circumstances beyond his control - a case of mono), some Wagner productions he's seen, a glimpse of the future, the cast of the upcoming Ring, and an in-depth look at the specialized project management skills that are needed for scheduling rehearsals for the Ring, or, for that matter, any opera season.

He also talked very frankly, and with numbers to back up what he said, about some aspects of ticket sales and publicity, and the effect of the Met HD broadcasts on ticket sales. (The jury is still out; nobody can fully judge the impact, in part because the Met keeps so much information confidential. I was especially interested to hear that the best guess based on public information is that the Met breaks even on the broadcasts. That was a surprise to me because of the size of the audience. The best guess takes into account the costs of the broadcasts, which I have no idea of.)

It was a great talk, erudite and charming. Also, he has a sense of humor and almost fell over when I held up a sign during the future repertory discussion with one word on it.

Photo by Matthew Shilvock

BIRTWISTLE

Here's the bullet-list version of some of what he said.

• Francesca Zambello will be coming back to direct the Ring. (I believe that at the season announcement she mentioned that there would undoubtedly be some changes of approach based on both the cast changes and what she learned from staging the production at the WNO  last year and here in 2011.)
• SFO is talking with both Donald Runnicles and Nicola Luisotti about future projects.
• Having just one director and one conductor for the summer, as for the Ring, can make it a more straightforward than usual season for the company....in some ways. Summers are still extremely intense.
• The Ring has children as the Nibelungs. The company works very hard to adhere to the strict child labor laws in California, which were enacted with Hollywood and the film industry in mind. Children must attend stage school, for example
• Strauss orchestra is bigger than the Ring orchestra; St Francois was the biggest orchestra they have had.
• The Rheingold anvils are piped in from chorus room
• The Ring needs lots of rehearsal space. Having the Wilsey Center will make it easier to rehearse the Ring, bringing the orchestra in from the Presidio.
• Production is shared with Washington National Opera, which staged the first three and then was only able to do Götterdämmerung in concert because of financial challenges following the 2008 recession; they staged the whole thing last year.
• Matthew showed us the 2011 rehearsal schedule; this utterly fascinated the project manager in me. He talked about it a lot and my notes are incomplete.
• Color coded
• Very complex
• Done in Excel
• In 2011, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung got more rehearsal time because they were being brought up in SF for the first time, Walküre and Rheingold had been staged before and needed less rehearsal time.
• Evelyn Herlitzius will be a very different Brünnhilde from Nina Stemme, who sang the role in 2011. Stemme is more classically poised, Herlitzius more elemental. 
• Sometimes they have to have two orchestra rehearsals for same opera same day; it's not ideal, but sometimes it's the only way to do what needs to be done.
• The Ring operas require an unending amount of work for singers. Wagner singers understand this and are mellow about it.
• The covers do rehearsals sometimes for the health of the singers doing Brünnhilde and Wotan. (I'm thinking, maybe Siegfried too? The eponymous opera is absolutely brutal to the tenor.)
• In 2018, they'll have a full run of dress rehearsals in order; they weren't able to do that in 2011.
• This is a big benefit to the crew.
• One week less of rehearsals in the rehearsal room, but  Walküre and Rheingold will get more  rehearsal time than in 2011.
• Baroque opera, can be more playful because expectation are different; they are not set as with core repertory.
• Moses and Aron, maybe, or works that, like Moses, are pillars of the contemporary repertory. (There was an audible gasp in the room when he mentioned Moses. I, for one, would love to see this.)
• Another Handel opera is planned.
• He mentioned the user friendliness of War Memorial Opera House, where during intermissions the audience has to choose between beverage and bathroom.
• In their renovated building, the Royal Opera has better user experience than SFO. 

Pure Speculation

One of the consequences of the changing of the guard at San Francisco Opera is the advent of a general director who is perfectly happy on social media and whose name is appearing on a monthly email newsletter to subscribers. I've now seen enough of his writing and speaking - and sense of humor - to be confident that Matthew Shilvock is writing the newsletter himself. (Note: you could almost play Shilvock Bingo with the newsletter and speeches. He likes "incredible" a lot. :) Between his tweets and these newsletters, we know something about his travels and what he is seeing out there.

For example, we know that Matthew was in Santa Fe last summer, and during the fall he saw Saariaho's L'Amour de Loin from the Met general director's box, in company with Peter Gelb, Kaija Saariaho, and Amin Maalouf, the work's librettist. More recently, he saw Evelyn Herlitzius, our upcoming Brünnhilde, in Barcelona, starring in Strauss's Elektra. (I will interject a small complaint here about the fact that every damn opera company in Europe seems to be producing Patrice Chereau's Elektra, his last opera staging, but we are not.)

One ought not draw conclusions based on Travels with Matthew, but if one were prone to overthinking things, one might speculate a bit. And this is complete speculation; I know nothing other than what is out there in public.

1. Santa Fe Opera has commissioned an opera by Mason Bates called The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. Bates is a popular guy in San Francisco, with SF Symphony commissions and a Beethoven/Bates Festival to his name, not to mention, a Grammy-nominated CD.

If I were the general director of a prominent opera company that is situated at the north end of Silicon Valley, in a city overrun with young (and not so young) nerds who work for companies such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, and, yes, Apple, and I had an interest in attracting more young, well-off audience members, well, I would be chatting with Santa Fe about doing the second bring-up of an opera about the loved and hated founder of Apple. Note: as announced, it also has a smallish cast, which, in these economic times, is always welcome.

2. L'Amour de Loin is among the most successful recent operas, owing to the shimmering beauty and intensity of its music. Coincidentally, it also has a small cast, with just three characters and what looked like a subset of the huge Met chorus. It can easily be done on a unit set with no scene changes. There have been enough different productions that SFO would have a choice of stagings and would not have to develop its own production.

This would be a great choice for SFO to put on, especially given (ahem) that I think the main stage has never seen an opera composed by a woman. (Rachel Portman's The Little Prince was done at Zellerbach in 2008.) Saariaho is one of the greatest composers of our age. If SFO doesn't do this one, let me heartily recommend Adriana Mater, which is what the company should have done in 2015 rather than the pretty awful Two Women, because it is a much more effective and affecting look at the consequences of war and rape.

Candidates

The San Francisco Opera 2015-16 season is over, with 2016-17 opening in September. It's time for the summer festival season, whether at the abandoned Oakland Wood St. Station, where West Edge Opera will hold forth, or Bayreuth, where Andris Nelsons abruptly stepped down from conducting the new production of Parsifal, which stars Klaus Florian Vogt.

But the talk never stops. A few weeks ago, music director Nicola Luisotti and SFO announced that Luisotti had decided not to renew his contract when it runs out in two years, that is, at the end of the 2017-18 season. This effectively means that his last appearance on the podium as music director will be during the fall of 2017, because the summer season in 2018 is given over wholly to the Ring, with former MD Donald Runnicles conducting.

So here's a place for you to list your favorite candidates for the job, their strengths and weaknesses, and why you'd like to see them here.

I, of course, have a few of my own favorites and will comment on other names that have come up. In no particular order:

• James Conlon, since the Met didn't pick him up to succeed James Levine. He is a terrific all-around conductor who has done some superb work in LA and at SF Symphony; he has lots of opera experience; he is passionate about a particular repertory (Entartete Musik, which he promoted with his Recovered Voices project). Currently: Music Director of the LA Opera and of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Turin, Italy.
• Semyon Bychkov. Well, who wouldn't want him? A great conductor, and he does not have a permanent post. Of course, that means he doesn't want one.
• Pablo Heras-Casado. PH-C should be the front runner for a lot of jobs right now; why the NY Phil didn't grab him, I do not know. He has the widest working repertory of any living conductor, from early music to music of our time; he is an interesting and exciting conductor; he would look good in the publicity photos. He appears to be extremely charming. (Gratuitous and unnecessary remark: he looked awfully slick at his last SFO appearance. The unruly curls were better.) Currently: Principal Conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke's, NYC and Principal Guest Conductor, Teatro Real, Madrid.
• Donald Runnicles. Love him, and he's as photogenic as Heras-Casado, but: Been there, done that. Why would he leave his current great job at the Deutsche Opera Berlin to come back here? The only thing that would surprise more than the Return of Runnicles would be the appointment of James Levine.
• Susanna Malkki. Her visits to San Francisco Symphony have been mighty impressive and have included lots of interesting repertory. She is formidable in 20th and 21st c. music, as the former MD of the mighty Ensemble Intercontemporaine. She was recently appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the LA Philharmonic, so we know she'll be spending some time in sunny California. She is chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic.
• Alan Gilbert. The outgoing music director of the NY Philharmonic is a dab hand at late 19th repertory and forward, and the upcoming season is his last in NY. He has conducted at the Met and done semi-staged opera at the NYPO. We could conceivable get a production of Nielsen's Maskerade if he were SFO MD.
• Cornelius Meister, who lead a fabulous Abduction from the Seraglio in his only SF Opera appearance some years ago. Unfortunately, he was just named music director of the Stuttgart Opera.

Okay, I'll name Heras-Casado, Malkki, and Gilbert as my actual favorites for the job.

Luisotti to Leave San Francisco

Nicola Luisotti

copyright Terrence McCarthy/San Francisco Opera

used courtesy of San Francisco Opera

Well, well: here´s a surprise in my mailbox: Music Director Nicola Luisotti will leave San Francisco Opera in two years, at the end of the 2017-18 season. When David Gockley´s retirement was announced, the press conference also announced a two-year extension of Luisotti´s contract, presumably to provide continuity for the incoming General Director, now known to be Matthew Shilvock.

So, one of his first big jobs will be to find a new Music Director for the company.  As Joshua Kosman´s Chron article says, Luisotti was appointed in part to strengthen the company´s commitment to Italian opera. The end result of this is next season, with seven Italian operas out of nine productions. I´d say it´s time to strengthen the company in other areas.  I have not been impressed by Luisotti´s ventures into Mozart, Wagner, or R. Strauss.

I also note, with interest, that as of now Luisotti has no other full-time appointment. I suggest thinking about the possible implications of this. And there´s this in the press release:

I want the Company’s General Director Designate Matthew Shilvock to be able to move freely into the future with his ideas, his artistic interests and to take San Francisco Opera into a new direction.

Best of all, I can now tout my favorite candidate for the Met job for this one: James Conlon, a terrific conductor with broad interests and great skill across an extremely wide repertory.

Ooopsie.

David Gockley to Joshua Kosman:

“This is a transition year, and I didn’t want to leave my successor with something big and ugly,” Gockley said in a phone interview. “I wanted to be sure to hand Matthew something that was attainable.” 

Well, Mr. Gockley's plans appear to have gone awry: I received a letter a couple of days ago from Matthew Shilvock, General Director Designate, offering additional subscription flexibility and more or less begging me to renew my San Francisco Opera subscription. I am about to mail a long letter politely saying no and describing my reasons.

I am hearing stories of 20 and 30 year subscribers who decided against renewing. I'm seriously curious just how big a hit SFO is taking for this terrible decision.

But that's what happens when you program a season that might have been designed to appeal to opera newcomers and Jan & Maria Manetti Shrem, major donors who donate in support of Italian opera.* People like me, who'd like to hear French, Russian, German, and English-language opera, and who think it's a very bad idea to program Madame Butterfly in alternate years, will walk away and spend our money hearing more interesting repertory.

Previously: Repertory Fatigue, on the SFO season announcement


* I wonder whether they'd support a production of La donna senz'ombra....oh, probably not, even though Puccini did attend the first Italian production of the work.

Matthew Shilvock Appointed General Director of San Francisco Opera (Belated Commentary)

Matthew Shilvock

SFO/Scott Wall

Back in September, San Francisco Opera made the announcement that everyone who cares about the company had been waiting for: Matthew Shilvock, currently Associate General Director of SFO, will become General Director when David Gockley retires at the end of the season.

During the press conference at which this announcement was made, Steven Menzies, head of the search committee, went into some detail about the selection process. The committee made a list of some 70 potential candidates, consulted with numerous experts and people in opera, and winnowed the list down to around 20 plausible candidates, then did more winnowing. They wound up with 3 to 5 finalists, if I'm remembering this correctly. (I have notes from the press conference, but they are at home and I am not. And I'm not in a good position right now to watch the video of the press conference.) The finalists were then asked to make presentations discussing repertory, future plans of other sorts, and so on. Then the final selection was made.

There's no question about Shilvock's qualifications for the post. He has a master's degree in public administration, specializing in nonprofit administration; he worked at Houston Grand Opera from 2003 to 2005 and has been with San Francisco Opera since 2005, in a series of increasingly responsible roles. Putting it another way, he has had 12 years of working with David Gockley, who has had a sterling record in managing the business, labor, and other operations at both Houston and San Francisco. And at SFO, Shilvock has been in charge of crucial areas, including labor negotiations and media.

I'm confident that Shilvock will continue Gockley's superb financial and management record. He was extremely poised during the press conference, and he has worked successfully in a couple of the most potentially volatile areas for an opera company manager. 

I am less confident about matters of repertory. It's no secret that Gockley's programming has been more conservative, with more repetitions of a few standards, than many of us would like, including David Gockley. Here's what I wrote after the December, 2012 press conference announcing the 2013-14 season:

During his introductory remarks, Gockley was explicit about this: that the need to keep the company on a decent financial footing has been paramount during the ongoing recession. His priority has been to keep quality high while sacrificing repertory. He said that he is leaving repertory holes, and he knows it, that he hopes will be filled by his white knight successor. During the chit chat after the press conference, I told him that this had pre-emptively answered my planned question about whether we'd be seeing From the House of the Dead and Die Frau ohne Schatten, because....both are very expensive to stage and risky as far as ticket sales go.

At this point, the recession is essentially over in the Bay Area, where the economy is white-hot and unemployment is under 4%. (Not that many people aren't suffering, between long-term unemployment and the difficulty of finding a place to live.) And this year, the company has put on two very expensive productions, Les Troyens and Die Meistersinger.

During the press conference, which you can view on the SFO web site,  several of us tried to pin Shilvock down on his plans. I led off, with a very specific question that I had thought out with both hands:

The Royal Opera commissioned The Minotaur from Harrison Birtwistle, and the opera was popular enough that they were able to sell out two runs. Do you have plans to present this or any other opera by Birtwistle?

Okay, nobody is going to commit to such a thing during a press conference unless the journalist has somehow managed to read the GD's mind. So I did not get anything like a yes or a no. Joshua Kosman followed up with a different repertory question. Some time later, William from the Opera Warhorses blog also asked a rep question.

What we got in response was a lot of very polite bobbing and weaving, with no specifics, though there was some mention of Rameau (Shilvock's undergraduate speciality). I also understand that he has said that we are due for a Parsifal production, which is certainly true, but I can't recall whether this was at the press conference or on another occasion. We've now seen a bit about what is planned for the Wilsey Center's 299-seat theater.

A bit later in the press conference, I asked about concert and semi-staged opera, which is the most economical way for a company to put on large-scale, but risky, works, and where San Francisco Symphony has show just how well this can be done. (For example, the rehearsal period for last year's magnificent Peter Grimes was about 10 days, versus three weeks or more for a fully-staged production.) Shilvock didn't duck this one, but said that the expectations for the company are that it puts on fully-staged opera, and it might not meet expectations to present opera in concert.

Now, I am all about repertory. As much as I'd like to see Sonya Yoncheva in La Traviata, I would prefer to see almost anyone in an opera I've never seen before, whether staged, semi-staged, or strictly in concert. I realize that this puts me in a minority, but how many more performances of Butterfly, Rigoletto, Traviata, Boheme, Tosca, etc., etc. does the world need? SFO has some responsibility to persuade its audience of the value of the entire repertory, not just the opera warhorses, as it were.

And I'm just not very happy with some of what Shilvock said in his AP interview in September:

"We want people's first experience in the opera house to be resonant and to be exciting and to be to some degree comfortable, so that they will come back," Shilvock said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "So I think we have to treat the 'Traviatas' and 'Bohemes' very sensitively." 

 Unlike their European counterparts, U.S. companies have very little government assistance, which factors into decisions on operas and directors. 

[paragraph deleted] 

"Our patrons are also our investors, and because many of our core subscribers are also our most generous philanthropists, we need to make sure that our programming jibes with their expectations, what they'd like to see onstage," Shilvock said. "That doesn't mean that we have to be conservative. Many of them have very adventurous tastes and interests, but I think it does mean that we have to be careful about what happens on our stage."

We'll have to wait a year or two for Shilvock's programming interests to come to the fore, because Gockley was asked by the board to do at least some of the programming for the next couple of seasons (and that was necessary, given how far out you have to go to sign singers, directors, etc. and start designing new productions). I'm certainly hoping that Shilvock will be the repertory white knight that Gockley was hoping for in 2012. He's inheriting a company on a sound financial footing, with an endowment that David Gockley has done a superb job of building. Let's see what he can do with that.