Shilvock, Matthew
Tad and Dianne Taube General Director Matthew Shilvock is San Francisco Opera’s seventh general director, having assumed the role on August 1, 2016. He is responsible for all artistic and business aspects of the organization in a company that employs up to 1,000 people a year on a budget of around $90 million.
Shilvock is passionate about telling profound stories of humanity through the total art form of opera, connecting audiences with the emotional possibilities of the repertoire, and empowering the whole Company through a supportive, creative, and fiscally responsible workplace. Now in his tenth season as general director, Shilvock has overseen an endowment campaign in support of the Company’s second century; the world premieres of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West and Antony and Cleopatra (the latter dedicated to him by the composer), Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber, and Huang Ruo’s The Monkey King; and the commission or co-commission of ten operas, including Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence which had its American premiere in San Francisco.
His priorities include replenishing San Francisco Opera’s core repertory of productions, creating a dynamic audience experience, inspiring community trust and pride in the Company, connecting the Company to the entrepreneurial and technological vitality of the Bay Area, building a cultural bridge across the Pacific Rim, and developing a stable financial model for large-scale repertory opera in the 21st century.
In 2019, he appointed conductor Eun Sun Kim as San Francisco Opera’s fourth music director. She began her music directorship in the fall of 2021, leading the Company’s reemergence from the global pandemic and into its historic 2022–23 Centennial Season. In 2024 her contract was extended through the 2030–31 Season. Kim’s Wagner and Verdi initiative includes a Ring cycle in an upcoming season.
Shilvock began with San Francisco Opera in 2005 working closely with then-General Director David Gockley with whom he also worked at Houston Grand Opera (2003–2005). Under Gockley’s mentorship, Shilvock worked in a number of roles before being appointed Associate General Director in 2010, overseeing a variety of areas including labor negotiations, board relations, music operations, the San Francisco Opera Center, rehearsal and scheduling, electronic media, and education.
Prior to taking on the general directorship, Shilvock was lead negotiator in contract negotiations with the American Federation of Musicians and the American Guild of Musical Artists; he developed new media paradigms for the capture and distribution of audio/visual projects; and he produced a number of key initiatives for Gockley, including the simulcasts to the ballpark and several major community concerts and partnerships.
Shilvock is co-chair of the San Francisco Arts Alliance, and he has previously served on the board of OPERA America and as a trustee for the AGMA Retirement Plan and Health Fund.
Matthew Shilvock was born in 1976 in Kidderminster, England. He read music at Christ Church, Oxford University, writing his thesis on Jean Baptiste Lully. He also holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with a specialization in nonprofit administration. After early work with New Chamber Opera in Oxford, England, and what is now Opera Maine, he became a 2002 Fellow with OPERA America, the national service organization for opera companies in North America, with assignments at Pittsburgh Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Janice Mayer & Associates, and Glimmerglass Opera. Shilvock resides in Marin County with his wife, Kate, and their two children.