Opera In The Park
PROGRAM
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| National Anthem | San Francisco Opera Orchestra |
| STRAUSS | |
| Radetzky March | San Francisco Opera Orchestra |
This march, composed in 1848 to celebrate a military victory won by Austrian Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, is now the traditional encore at the Vienna Philharmonic’s annual New Year’s Concert. The “trio” or central section uses an older folk melody that Strauss adapted from a waltz meter to a march meter. |
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| VERDI: Rigoletto | |
| La donna è mobile | Yongzhao Yu |
The rakish Duke of Mantua sings a cynical yet irresistible tune about how women are fickle in love. |
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| HEGGIE: Great Scott | |
| Vesuvio, il mio unico amico | Nikola Printz |
Jake Heggie’s 2015 opera Great Scott (libretto by Terrence McNally) features an opera within an opera. A famous singer returns to her hometown to save the struggling company that launched her career. She stars in the modern premiere of an opera from 1835 wryly titled Rosa Dolorosa, Figlia di Pompei. Its virtuosic aria “Vesuvius, my only friend” is Heggie’s modern nod to the bel canto style. |
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| ROSSINI: The Barber of Seville | |
| La calunnia | Peixin Chen |
The crafty Don Basilio explains how a slanderous rumor can destroy an enemy, starting as a whisper that gradually grows into a roaring explosion, leaving the hapless opponent lying crushed in the dust. |
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| PUCCINI: La Bohème | |
| Quando me’n vo’ | Brittany Renee |
Hoping to make her former boyfriend Marcello jealous and win him back, the flirty Musetta teases him, saying she loves all the admiring glances she gets from men whenever she goes out. She knows they desire her, and it makes her happy! |
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| HANDEL: Xerxes | |
| Ombra mai fu | Susan Graham |
This justly famous and moving aria, often assumed by listeners to be a sacred piece, is actually a love song to a tree. The eccentric King Xerxes pours out his affection for the beauty and cooling shade of a plane tree (sycamore). |
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| DONIZETTI: The Elixir of Love | |
| Quanto amore! | Olivia Smith and Peixin Chen |
Adina voices her surprise at the depth of Nemorino’s devotion when she learns from Dr. Dulcamara that Nemorino has enlisted in the army. He is using his signing bonus to buy Dulcamara’s “love potion” (which is just red wine), hoping to make Adina love him. Dulcamara suggests that she needs a love potion herself, but she assures him she knows how to win a man’s heart unaided. |
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| SAINT-SAËNS: Samson and Delilah | |
| Amour, viens aider ma faiblesse | J'Nai Bridges |
The temptress Delilah calls on the god of love to aid her in luring Samson into her arms so that she can use her seductive wiles to learn the secret of his strength and make him a captive of the Philistines. |
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| DONIZETTI: Lucia di Lammermoor | |
| Regnava nel silenzio . . . Quando rapito in estasi | Adela Zaharia |
Lucia recalls how “the night reigned in silence” when she saw the ghost of a murdered maiden. But her mood quickly changes as she thinks of her beloved Edgardo, who makes her feel “enraptured in ecstasy” when he speaks to her of love. |
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| VERDI: Rigoletto | |
| Cortigiani, vil razza dannata | Amartuvshin Enkhbat |
To avenge themselves for Rigoletto’s barbed insults, the courtiers have abducted the court jester’s daughter Gilda and delivered her into the duke’s lustful embrace. In fury, Rigoletto denounces the courtiers for their cruelty and demands his daughter’s release. When they show indifference to his wrath, Rigoletto stifles his anger and, with the aid of an eloquent cello obbligato, resorts to pleading. |
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| VERDI: Rigoletto | |
| Mio padre . . . Tutte le feste al tempio . . . Si, vendetta | Adela Zaharia and Amartuvshin Enkhbat |
After being abducted by the courtiers and ravaged by the duke, Gilda remorsefully tells her father Rigoletto how she fell in love with a handsome young man she met in church—the duke incognito—who wooed her claiming to be a “poor student.” Rigoletto angrily swears revenge on the duke for dishonoring his daughter, but Gilda protests that she still loves him. |
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| ESHIMA: Butterfly YY | |
| San Francisco Opera Orchestra | |
Shinji Eshima composed Butterfly YY for San Francisco Ballet Principal Ballerina Yuan Yuan Tan, with choreography by Yuri Possokhov. The score quotes Eshima’s longer work RAkU, gives a nod to a favorite moment in the Stravinsky Violin Concerto, and ends with a quote from He Zhanhao and Chen Gang’s The Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto, which was inspired by Chinese legend. |
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| HANDEL: Hercules | |
| Where shall I fly? | Nikola Printz |
Hercules’ wife Dejanira, believing her husband to be unfaithful, gifts him a cloak that she is told has the power to lead his heart back to their marital bond. Unbeknownst to her, the cloak is actually steeped in a deadly poison which burns Hercules to death. Realizing that she has been the cause of his demise, she sinks into madness. |
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| LEHÁR: The Merry Widow | |
| Lippen schweigen | Susan Graham and Rod Gilfry |
In the familiar “Merry Widow Waltz,” the wealthy widow Hanna Glawari and Count Danilo Danilovitsch finally admit their deep feelings for one another while waltzing in each other’s arms. The duet begins “Lips are silent, but violins are whispering ‘love me dearly.’” |
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| VERDI: Rigoletto | |
| Un dì, se ben rammentomi . . . Bella figlia dell’amore | Adela Zaharia, J’Nai Bridges, Yongzhao Yu, Amartuvshin Enkhbat |
The womanizing duke woos the tavern girl Maddalena, who laughs at his flattery. Overhearing this, Gilda is shocked at his faithlessness, and her father Rigoletto once again vows revenge on the duke for bringing disgrace to his daughter. |
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| GERSHWIN: Porgy and Bess | |
| Summertime | Brittany Renee |
In the opening scene of George Gershwin’s famous opera, set in Charleston’s “Catfish Row”—once the site of aristocratic mansions, but now a crowded waterfront tenement—Clara sings a languid lullaby to her baby. |
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| RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN: South Pacific | |
| Some Enchanted Evening | Rod Gilfry |
In arguably the most famous song from any of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, the expat French plantation owner, Emile de Becque, expresses his romantic feelings for Nellie Forbush, an American Navy nurse, by recalling how they first met at an officers’ dance and had an instant mutual attraction |
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| RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN: Carousel | |
| You’ll Never Walk Alone | Jamie Barton |
Nettie comforts her cousin Julie after Julie’s husband, Billy Bigelow, is killed during a failed robbery attempt. The uplifting song is reprised in the final scene during the graduation of Julie and Billy’s daughter, as Billy looks on from heaven. |
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