Down the Rabbit Hole

San Francisco Opera is a community of makers who pioneer innovative ways to make opera while preserving the techniques of previous generations. Spanning the Decades is a collection of conversations with past and present Company members about creating opera. Additional features include dramaturg emeritus Kip Cranna’s interviews with former staff and General Directors David Gockley and Pamela Rosenberg discussing their tenures in oral histories. Finally, hear the Company’s oldest known audio memento, a 1925 piano roll by Company founder Gaetano Merola.

In 2009, Ann Farris and Richard Sparks began recording the San Francisco Opera experiences of colleagues, former staff, and visiting artists. Their team grew to include Mary Seastrand, Marianne Welmers, Stan Dufford, and Richard Balthazar who brought editing, organizing, and preservation skills to these efforts. This ongoing Memories Project brings the Company’s earliest days to life through testimony by insiders like head carpenter John Priest, conductor Willie Anthony Waters, soprano Shigemi Matsumoto, and head of props Lori Harrison, among others.